Comment by AlotOfReading
1 day ago
The term "slave" encompasses a lot of wildly different kinds of unfree labor. The racialized system most people think of from transatlantic slavery is a very recent thing.
Nothing resembling that was widespread in precolumbian North America. The earliest similar systems I'm aware of took root in the 17th and 18th centuries, well into the early colonial period.
Research what the Iroquois did to the Huron people, what the Apache did to the Pueblos, and what the Aztecs did to everybody.
The continent what a slaughter show for thousands of years.
What I said was a much more precise statement than "there was no violence". Nothing you've mentioned is a counterexample.
The slaves of early 17th century Iroquois were not dehumanized property like colonial era natives and Africans. This is what I meant by pointing out that the term "slavery" encompasses a vast number of radically different types of unfree servitude.
The Apache example is both not similar to Atlantic slavery, and mainly from the 18th century period where I specifically said such systems existed among North American natives.
If you're trying to make a point about the racial hierarchy within the Aztecs, the term Mexica is much more precise. If you're just referring to the slave social class within the empire itself, I can't imagine why you think it's remotely similar to colonial slavery. Aztec slaves weren't property in the sense of colonial era slavery. They had to consent to sale, only their labor was actually sellable, and it wasn't hereditary, among other differences.