Why was American slavery so much worse than other forms of slavery throughout history?
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Sorry - to clarify, I'm not asking about features of american slavery that were worse, I'm asking about the original causes - why was it that everybody ended up deciding to be worse, where people didn't seem to make those decisions in other places in history?
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Was it? That's not snark, I'm just not sure that we know it was. Also, "throughout history" is a lot of time. Also not snark.
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I think it was worse? A lot of ancient slaves still had some amount of legal rights or easier routes to freedom.
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I don't really consider any form of non consensual (or consensual in the form of a contract you can't leave early) ownership of another human to be "worse" than any other form. This includes indentured servitude.
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wat? There's absolutely a spectrum here; I'm sure you'd rather be an indentured servant in Ireland than a slave in the deep American south in 1730.
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It seems almost most (all?) cultures (including, ironically, African) had slave-trades. Have you reviewed them? How are you measuring better or worse?
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Not all of them, but i've ambiently picked up on slaveowning norms from reading around history, and most seem a bit better - avenues for slaves to get freed, slave marriages recognized, families not broken up, sometimes protections against cruel beatings, etc.
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Why do you think it was worse than other forms of slavery throughout history?
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The shipping of slaves across the Atlantic was horrible. Also, entire families were enslaved and separated from each other. Plus people were born into chattel slavery.
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I recently listened to this audiobook which is a study on the matter...
youtu.be/J92gQDZ4dL8
...you might find it interesting.