wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (09/18/85)
Can someone point me to a reference that would answer this, or post the actual info? (The books I've seen that touch on this subject do not go into enough nit-picking detail to answer the query.) Re slavery in pre-Civil War America, and in various British colonies or former colonies, when slavery was legal: Was there some legal specification that defined who could be a slave, and the process of becoming a slave? Was there a specification that "slaves" could only be members of certain races, or that people of certain races could *not* be slaves? Or did the legal status of "slave" have no legal tie to race? (Of course, as a practical matter, most slaves were either captured African black people or their descendants, but was there any legal requirement to that effect? Could a white become a slave? Or an American Indian? Or an oriental? etc...) What relation, if any, is there between the institution of slavery and that of indentured servants? Did they have absolutely nothing to do with each other, being completely independent legal concepts? A pointer to a source of factual detail will be welcomed. Regards, Will Martin UUCP/USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA
wendt@bocklin.UUCP (09/19/85)
I'm also interested in this morbid topic. When were the children of slaves the property of the owner? Suppose the mother is free and the father a slave. Or vice versa. Or the parents are both slaves but the property of two different slaveholders. Alan Wendt arizona!wendt He's in the van, He's in the can, He's in your hair, He's everywhere. Jerry: name a spaceship after Grace Hopper!
dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) (09/25/85)
I believe that the general principle for slaves was as for livestock:
the default is that the owner of the mother ownes the children.
--
+1 617-492-8860 Donald E. Eastlake, III
ARPA: dee@CCA-UNIX usenet: {decvax,linus}!cca!deecharli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips) (09/26/85)
>I'm also interested in this morbid topic. When were the >children of slaves the property of the owner? Suppose the mother >is free and the father a slave. Or vice versa. Or the parents >are both slaves but the property of two different slaveholders. > >Alan Wendt I believe that in Catholic countries, the children took the status of their father. That is, if a female slave had children by the male slave-owner, the children were the free (albeit bastard) children of the slave-owner. In Protestant countries, the children took the status of their mother: the children of slave women were slaves, regardless of the father. I will admit this is based on a shakey recollection of some class-work I did long, long ago, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. charli
dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) (09/29/85)
I believe that the owner of the mother is the owner of any offspring, at least
in the default, as with livestock. Thus if the mother is free, so are the
children. Presumably if both parents are slaves of different owners, this
could be alterened by contract.
--
+1 617-492-8860 Donald E. Eastlake, III
ARPA: dee@CCA-UNIX usenet: {decvax,linus}!cca!dee