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May I suggest, in these difficult and contentious days, that everyone think twice about what they post from whom? It doesn't help us if people disseminate questionable, or false, information, and it isn't good even to drive traffic to ill-advised links.
In this particular case, the books are from two university presses, so I imagine their legit. It's not news that there were white slaves, but by the 19th century in America, I think they were basically black.
The history forum might be better for weighing in on this.
"Hopeful migrants were duped into signing as indentured servants, unaware they would become personal property who could be bought, sold, and even gambled away".
All indentured servants had "service periods" where they were considered property for 7-10 years (more if they committed some crime or tried to runaway or if a white servant woman had a child by a "negro" or "Indian" -they'd be punished with an increased amount of time to serve).
That does not negate the fact that there was a difference between an indentured servant and a slave.
A large amount of us Americans who have very deep roots in this nation (from the 1600s-1700s) are descended of indentured servants. All of them were treated as property of the person who they were serving and many experienced horrible situations/circumstances.
In some case, one was worse off being an indentured servant or poor white or poor free person. Your owner or employer didn't have much invested and could easily replace you if you died or became ill from poor conditions.
It was worse to be a slave in regards to the bold. You had no way to ever obtaining freedom and slaves were actually easier to replace than a servant or poor white person - that is the reason why the labor system evolved from "servitude" to "chattel slavery." Slavery was cheaper and you were guaranteed a consistent laborer.
Sounds like a justification slavery to me. Are there any credible cases of a specific Black person owning White slaves, in the sense those Whites were life-long servants?
On the bold - no. There are no known cases of a black person owning any white person for life. The only time I've ever come across any white person being held as an indentured servant for what could be considered a lifetime - they were held by another white person. And the white servant was a white woman who had married a black man and had children. Anytime she had a new child, she was punished with an increase in her service term of 7-10 years. Her children were "bound out" for 21-30 years. Due to having 5 children, her term made her a servant for life to her white master. One may find a case or may have found one I don't know about, but I've never seen it at all. I have seen cases of blacks owning other blacks as slaves though.
On justification for slavery - there were many who attempted to justify it. However, what I wrote about the black owners of slaves not being able to free their family members they owned is definitely true. FPOC did not have access to courts like whites did. There were laws that prevented them from being citizens just because they were "of color." Owners who wanted to free slaves also had to pay taxes and fees and prove they could provide the freed slave with financial support. A majority of FPOC were poor and didn't have the means to pay those taxes/fees to the government in territories/states that did allow manumission or because they were poor they did not qualify to free their slaves as they couldn't prove they could provide support.
May I suggest, in these difficult and contentious days, that everyone think twice about what they post from whom? It doesn't help us if people disseminate questionable, or false, information, and it isn't good even to drive traffic to ill-advised links.
In this particular case, the books are from two university presses, so I imagine their legit. It's not news that there were white slaves, but by the 19th century in America, I think they were basically black.
The history forum might be better for weighing in on this.
The books are legit but usually when people write blogs about the first one in particular, they misconstrue what the book is about and usually the person posting a reference to this book (like the OP and probably the author of the blog) have not read the book.
One the 2nd one in the link, I actually have that book in my personal library and know it is "legit." I used it as a source for a paper on my in laws who were black slave traders in SC.
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