Feb 17, 2022
Chattel slavery has been around for thousands of years. So has slavery for life. Before the invention of race, people were kidnapped and sold, just as they were afterward. What changed was that tribal markers associated with slaves--like being Slavs--changed to racial markers. The average person knew that having the markers did not necessarily mean you were a slave. In 1860, for example, about 10% of black people in the US were free.