Slavery

Scope Note

Presence or absence of a servile class of chattel slaves; number of slaves and proportion in the population; activities of slaves; methods of control; treatment; stigmata; rights and privileges of slaves (e.g., to hold property, to marry, to contract debts); rights, privileges, and powers of masters (e.g., to kill, to sell, to hire out); enslavement (e.g., of war captives, for debt, for crime); slave trade; permanency of servile status (e.g., hereditary, for life); redemption (e.g., manumission, adoption, purchase of freedom, escape, asylum); intermarriage between slaves and freemen; status of children of mixed marriages; emancipation; origins of slavery; etc.