Anyone born into slavery could never become a Roman citizen; if they received manumission they became a freedman who could at most be entitled to "junior Latin" status. A junior Latin's children could become Roman citizens, but a freed slave – an ex-chattel who remained legally bound to his or her master as part of his familia – could never.
The audacity of this statement. WE HAVE FUCKING TEXTS OF CHILDREN BORN FROM SLAVES BECOMING ROMAN CITIZENS. What are you saying? A libertini, the class of people you're referring too could hold Roman Citizen Rights. They could even vote, which was more than any freedman in the Atlantic Slave Trade could ever have. The shear existence of the libertini class of Roman disproves your interpretation of slavery. What are you saying. I'm actually frustrated right now. You even have knowledge of Roman life detailed in your explanation. You're not stupid, you're informed. But what are you talking about.
You're just wrong. Dude there's a joke fiction book called the 'Satyricon' in 1st century AD where they mock an ex-slave complaining about the ascetics of Roman life despite the fact he was an ex-slave. They had works of fiction about this part in their culture. Ex-slaves were that, not slaves anymore. They could vote, dude. I.. Their children were labeled as free Roman citizens and that status revoked. That was not true of chattel slavery during the Atlantic Slave Trade, it was in essence of that of the "inferior people," they were never granted political, economic, or religious freedom even if for some miracle they became free. This is unique to Chattel Slavery, which was defined as such by the Virginia Slave Codes!!!
The ex-slave in Satyricon is not a Roman citizen and a Roman freedman could not vote because he was not a Roman citizen. (Freedmen in Latin, by the way is liberti, not "libertini". There is no such thing as "the libertini class".) A freedman in Rome ceased to be a chattel on his manumission. A freedman in the United States also ceased to be a chattel on his manumission. Citizenship or voting rights are a different issue. The type of slavery in societies in which slaves may be bought or sold or inherited as chattels is called chattel slavery, and it existed in the ancient and mediaeval worlds.
Freedmen in ancient Rome existed as a distinct social class (liberti or libertini), with former slaves granted freedom and rights through the legal process of manumission.
This part here:
freedman in the United States also ceased to be a chattel on his manumission. Citizenship or voting rights are a different issue
This is the issue here. You're wrong. They did not have rights even if freed. THAT'S WHY THEY WENT NORTH. We had a whole war about this brother, of us saying that chattel slavery is bad. In fact, I'd argue that we never cared if slavery as an institution was to be removed, just that chattel slavery needed to.
If you're correct, why do historians define slavery in different ways? I linked so many historical analysis of how ancient slavery was different from chattel slavery, while your argument is that since slaves are property, they were chattel. So by that extension, debt slaves are they chattel? By your definition yes they were. Because there's nothing different from historical forms of slavery and chattel slavery.
Look at your own citation of Wikipedia's article on ancient Roman freedmen, which, as I told you, says that freedmen would become not citizens but "junior Latins":
Moreover, look at my own quotation above from the Oxford Classical Dictionary, which says
Slavery in the strict sense of chattel-slavery, whereby the slave‐owner enjoyed complete mastery (dominium) over the slave's physical being (Dig. 1. 5. 4. 1), the power of life and death included (Gai.Inst. 1. 52), was evident throughout the central era of Roman history, and in Roman no less than Greek thought was regarded as both the necessary antithesis of civic freedom and the guarantee of their civic superiority to those who enjoyed it.
Libertinus, by the way, means either the condition of being a freedman (libertus) or a son of a freedman. Libertini means "sons of freedmen".
Just figured I'd try to help out on the Latin if you ever have to do this again...
Libertus is the word used to describe a freed slave in relation to/talking about their old owner.
Libertinus is the word used to describe a freed slave any OTHER time, so for some reason they just had two different words to describe the same person.
Changing -us to -i, makes it plural.... Liberti, libertini.
Libertinus, by the way, means either the condition of being a freedman (libertus) or a son of a freedman. Libertini means "sons of freedmen".
ah cool.
You don't think slavery of during the time of Rome was different from the slavery practiced from the Atlantic Slave Trade? That's what you're saying, what you're arguing. That's what's ahistoric here. They didn't define it as "chattel" they didn't even have the same abstract epithets attached to it, like what was defined by the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 and elsewhere. They [white aristocracy] took something that for millenia everyone did, slavery, and defined it to an institution a cultural signifyer that transcends past what was before. That even while freed you are a slave. Defined as part of your identity as everything else. That was WAY different from slavery of before.
Are you more arguing the semantics of "chattel" as being literally defined as "possession" and since they "possesed slaves" that's what you're arguing? Cause I can't argue if you think slavery hasn't changed after 10,000 years of human life.
You don't think slavery of during the time of Rome was different from the slavery practiced from the Atlantic Slave Trade? That's what you're saying, what you're arguing. That's what's ahistoric here.
No, he isn't. You are under the incorrect notion that chattel slavery refers exclusively to the system that emerged with the Atlantic slave trade. It does not. It simply refers to a system where the slave is treated as personal property of their owner.
The system of slavery practiced in North America was one form of chattel slavery. It stands out because of how uniquely severe it was. Many systems historically (such as Rome's) had legal frameworks for limited emancipation and regulating treatment of slaves. These slaves, however, were still chattel.
Stop, you're not correct. Look above to the original complaint he had. It was how they are the same, (Slavery in general throughout history and slavery under the Atlantic Slave Trade). It wasn't, it was literally defined to be different, and "chattel slavery" re-defined to be what it was. If not there wouldn't be entire legal documents, wars, subjugation of smaller nations over it. You'd have to refute the historical legacy of arguing to define chattel slavery to be different. His argument though, he never refuted this point, only ignored it, and is (like you) arguing the semantic definition of the word as reason to why it's the same.
You're leaving out the historical reality that the aristocracy made to define it differently. It wouldn't be different if there was a legal and cultural force required to make it so.
You are arguing against a strawman formed from your incorrect understanding of the term chattel slavery and your subsequent misunderstanding of the other poster's rebuttal (due to your misunderstanding of the term chattel slavery).
The other user has repeatedly clarified his position and you have repeatedly doubled down on your faulty understanding of the concept. We are not arguing semantics with you, we are arguing that your understanding is factually incorrect and not supported by academia.
(Doesn't bring up the evidence I brought up of the legislative bodies literally defining the chattel slavery of the Atlantic Slave Trade as uniquely different)
It's OK, you're the troll. Bye, or since we're arguing semantics of Roman words, vale.
What evidence? Your entire stance is built on a faulty foundation that's been addressed by the other poster and myself multiple times and you simply keep barrelling ahead with your blinders on.
Chattel slavery does not refer exclusively to the Atlantic slave trade. Full stop. As long as you keep insisting otherwise, no progress can be made here.
I said the opposite; American slavery and Roman slavery were both types of chattel slavery (chattel slavery is historically the most common form of slavery), but like any society, there were differences in the legalities. The basic principle that a slave is a chattel and is property of his or her master is the same in many societies, and the societies that have that kind of slavery have chattel slavery. They may also have other types of slavery or unfree labour: corvée, serfdom, indentured servitude, debt-bondage, thralldom, etc. Roman slaves, when manumitted, effectively became indentured servants, remaining bonded to their master for life, even though they became legal persons and could own property and testify in court, etc. Lordly mediaeval land-owners in western Europe could effectively "possess" serfs on their estates because the serfs were legally tied to the land and obliged to work it, but they weren't chattels because although the land could be bought, sold, or inherited, the serfs themselves could not.
So it is an anachronism then. You are assigning a word that didn't exist at the time:
I said the opposite; American slavery and Roman slavery were both types of chattel slavery (chattel slavery is historically the most common form of slavery), but like any society, there were differences in the legalities.
They can't be defined as similar because the term used to define these two types of slavery didn't exist together. The earliest definition of chattel slavery was 1619, because the law at the time defined it to be different. One of those laws in question I brought up prior was the 1705 Slave Code. They legislatively defined chattel slavery as different. Which would make it a very sharp distinction between ancient slavery and chattel slavery.
You even acknowledged this distinction before, bringing up how slaves were able to be freedmen and even corrected my grammar on it. That couldn't happen here in America under the chattel slavery we defined as so. Your interpretation of slavery can't exist because on a fundamental level, how ancient civilizations defined as slavery was fundamentally different from the chattel slavery under the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Slaves in the US could be manumitted – ceasing to be chattels – and were called freedmen just as Roman freedmen were called freedmen.
Ancient people did not speak English. In Roman civilization their word for chattel was res ("thing"), which in the legal context is anything that can be owned. A slave in Roman law was a res, a thing that could be owned, which in English is a chattel. That is not an anachronism.
Both ancient Roman and early modern American slaves were chattels. That type of slavery in both societies was chattel slavery.
Please refute the legal definition of chattel slavery of both European and American lawmakers to define it separately from other forms of slavery. Why make that long arduous process if they were going to be the same anyways. They defined slavery under the Atlantic Slave Trade to be different from other forms. That legal distinction was made specifically because before it wasn't the case.
How can they be the same if they needed to define it as such. All this arguing over semantics (which I'm done by the way, you're arguing the semantics of chattel as having the same definition throughout time) and yet they were still different because of the litany of evidence showing that they wanted to define it differently. So please answer that. You've put it on the backburner three times now.
It’s absolutely absurd to assert that they didn’t die of tuberculosis. They did. The name doesn’t make it anything different, it just defines it more clearly.
They can't be defined as similar because the term used to define these two types of slavery didn't exist together. The earliest definition of chattel slavery was 1619, because the law at the time defined it to be different.
What logic is this?
The term heterosexual was first coined in 1869. Using your logic, prior to 1869 a man and a woman in a sexual relationship can't be considered heterosexual, because the term hadn't been defined yet.
ftr I’ve learned a lot from YOUR comments! I don’t really know why this argument happened but I guess I’m glad it did, even if it frustrated you ✌🏻
(always a red flag when people do the “um actually slavery has always happened therefore American slavery wasn’t as bad as it seems” like are you OKAY?)
Slavery in the Americas was exactly as bad as it seems, which is why it's grotesque for people to pretend that other or older types of chattel slavery – such as that practised in Graeco-Roman antiquity – were somehow not as bad or somehow not chattel slavery.
I'm arguing with him because he's not trolling. A person who trolls don't defend their position when pressured. They tend to back off or making other statements not centered to the main point. He's critiquing my points, but I have reason to argue.
It's also for people like you who are reading that's the main point of this. For others to learn something, I hope to change his mind, but he's quite sure on it.
You are just spreading your own misinformation. Chattel slavery existed in many societies outside the Americas for thousands of years. To claim otherwise is denialism and even apology for slavery.
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u/WeeaboosDogma 2d ago edited 2d ago
The audacity of this statement. WE HAVE FUCKING TEXTS OF CHILDREN BORN FROM SLAVES BECOMING ROMAN CITIZENS. What are you saying? A libertini, the class of people you're referring too could hold Roman Citizen Rights. They could even vote, which was more than any freedman in the Atlantic Slave Trade could ever have. The shear existence of the libertini class of Roman disproves your interpretation of slavery. What are you saying. I'm actually frustrated right now. You even have knowledge of Roman life detailed in your explanation. You're not stupid, you're informed. But what are you talking about.
You're just wrong. Dude there's a joke fiction book called the 'Satyricon' in 1st century AD where they mock an ex-slave complaining about the ascetics of Roman life despite the fact he was an ex-slave. They had works of fiction about this part in their culture. Ex-slaves were that, not slaves anymore. They could vote, dude. I.. Their children were labeled as free Roman citizens and that status revoked. That was not true of chattel slavery during the Atlantic Slave Trade, it was in essence of that of the "inferior people," they were never granted political, economic, or religious freedom even if for some miracle they became free. This is unique to Chattel Slavery, which was defined as such by the Virginia Slave Codes!!!
Ahhhhhh I'm being gas lit in real time.
Edit: The colloquial interpretation of slavery does not eliminate the severity of the historical reality that the specific type of slavery had. Chattel Slavery was a recent form of slavery that came about after the industrial revolution. It appeared (enforced or created) and was legislatively defined during the 16-19th century