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Comment by cmrdporcupine | Hacker News Reader

Roman slaves at least had a path to freedom. Or a good portion of them did. Many (not majority) became citizens eventually (or their children did) and many in fact became quite prosperous. Their slavery wasn't based on racial status, but on class, and slavery wasn't considered genetically predetermined, but a product of status and conquest. "Graduation" out of slavery was actually possible.

American slavery being built on "race" and white supremacy offered no such path. Even "mixed race" descendants suffered. Even after slavery was abolished, former slaves were (and often are) still treated abhorrently.

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I recall a single incident from Roman history where Crassus crucified 6,000 slaves on the Appian Way. Things like this make me think you can't easily quantify which slavery was the worst. Perhaps it was easier, in some contexts in Rome, to earn freedom, but perhaps you were more likely to be crucified too.

> "Graduation" out of slavery was actually possible.

This is also true of American slaves.

> Their slavery wasn't based on racial status, but on class, and slavery wasn't considered genetically predetermined, but a product of status and conquest.

So is this. You think the child of a free black was enslaved?

> This is also true of American slaves.

Bullshit. By the 19th century (which is the century everybody talks about) it was almost legally impossible to free a slave in the American south (things like, say, a $200 tax in Florida... which was more money than most people saw in a year).

Even when possible it was essentially never done.

> So is this. You think the child of a free black was enslaved?

In many of the US slave states, if you were a free black person, regardless of who your parents were, you had to either leave the state within a fixed time, or you would be enslaved. So, yes.

enslaved to whom?

Caught by "slave catchers"/kidnappers and sold at slave auctions.

> By the 19th century (which is the century everybody talks about) it was almost legally impossible to free a slave in the American south (things like, say, a $200 tax in Florida... which was more money than most people saw in a year).

Believe it or not, most slaves were owned by fairly wealthy people.

Slavery has always meant a kind of subjugationa and social death but slavery in continental North America was probably among the best ever in terms of material living conditions. Most slaves in agricultural societies were always agricultural, and were worked to death, like in the Caribbean. That's how plantation agriculture worked, from Roman latifundia onward. Black slaves in wht's now the US had enormous natural increase in their population, which is if not historically unprecedented, damn close. They were also taller and better nourished than all but the upper echeloons of European society. Obviously people prefer to be free but there are multiple axes of comparison and American and Roman slavery each look "better" on different axes.

In Sparta slaves were hunted as a rite of passage

Rome lasted for 2,100 years. I'm not sure you can generalize the quality of life of a free person, let alone a slave.

> Roman slaves at least had a path to freedom

You need to be specific. Are we comparing Connecticut in 1784 AD to Gaul in 50 BC? Or Connecticut in 1783 AD to Gaul in 59 BC? Because the two comparisons are very different.

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