So we should adopt China, a slave country, as a a model. Of course, their slavery is forgiveable because they only have it for our benefit. Because our corporations need Chinese slavery.
In your view, America is evil through and through and always has been. The Puritans invented slavery according to you.
What an idiot! You really give liberals a bad name.
------------------------------------
Your blaming Puritans for slavery caused me to do a little research, I think the following is correct:
John Aronsson
, Lawyer
Answered August 12, 2019
The Puritans who governed the New England colonies recognized two kinds of slavery, English common law slavery and bond slavery.
Under the common law, the term slave described a person’s civil status and the only lawful slaves were those who voluntarily sold themselves into slavery or were persons captured in a just war.
It is interesting to note that English common law slavery appears to have been identical to the slavery practiced by the Algonquins. So, just as the English made slaves of their Algonquin captives so the Algonquins made slaves of their English captives.
Common law slaves could not own property and they could be rented out or sold. But they retained basic civil rights; they could petition the magistrates or the town meeting for redress of grievances, owners could not intentionally injure or mistreat their slaves and if they did, the magistrates or courts could order the slave be freed and damages paid. They enjoyed essentially the same rights as an indentured servant. A child born to a slave woman inherited its civil status from its father. The child was born a slave only if its father was a slave. If the father was unknown, the child was usually presumed to be free. In Virginia in 1661 a chid of an African slave sued for his freedom on these grounds and was freed by an English jury .
Bond or chattel slavery, a form of slavery where the slave had no civil rights, was forbidden in the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641. In 1646, a Dutch ship landed six African slaves in Boston. The magistrates seized them and returned them to Guinea with a note of apology saying that the Bay Colony would not countenance “manstealing.” To discourage all kinds of slavery, the General Court required slave owners post a bond for each slave in the amount of £50.
It does appear that in practice, bond slaves in New England enjoyed the same rights as common law slaves and indentured servants. The cases of Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett) and Quock Walker, which ended all slavery in Massachusetts in 1781, were pleaded on common law grounds and decided with reference to the new Massachusetts constitution which proclaimed that all men are born free and equal.
However, other Puritan merchant adventures, and the were a lot of them, in Bermuda, Barbados and Caribbean sugar plantations readily adopted the colonial bond slavery laws allowed by the Board of Trade after 1662.
|
