was it possible for a white person to become a slave before 1865?

Question

was it possible for a white person to become a slave before 1865 by signing a treaty in which he binds himself to be a slave.

Answer 1

Women were often sold by their husbands and or family into perpetual servitude. The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) by Thomas Hardy illustrates this practice.

Answer 2

Of course it was possible for a white person to be a slave, before and after 1865. Endentured servants were not slaves. These were people who could not afford to come over to what was the new land, but would work to earn it. A slave is someone who was forced to work and would get nothing in return.

Answer 3

Up until Europeans brought Africans to America, race had nothing to do with slavery. All of us, black, white or purple have an ancestor who was a slave. Endentured servents are not the same thing as being a slave. People would agree to work for another person for a set period of time, a contract would be written on a piece of paper that was perferated or "endented" (hence the name), the servent kept one piece and the owner kept the other until the term of service was fulfilled at which time the owner gave the servant the other half and he or she was free to go. At least an endentured servant had a realistic expectation of freedom. Slaves did not.

Answer 4

Yes. It's called indentured servitude. A person would pay for someone to come to America, and that person would work for a term of several years as the other person's unpaid servant.

Also there are people in the world at this moment who are serving as slaves. Many women in particular end up in the sex trade against their will.

To say that only blacks were ever slaves is just ignorant.

Answer 5

I don't think it was as big of practice here but as it was in Europe. It is one of the reasons besides religious freedom that the colonist crossed over. The sad part is that the children of debtors could be pressed into servitude to pay off the father's debts and were often given up to satisfy the indebtness. Which is the indentured servitude referred to by someone else.

Of course there is the centuries old practice of enslaving a conquored people that took place all the way back to the 1st century.

Answer 6

the indentured servitude that preceded slavery was a lot like slavery, except they were free after x number of years. and because they were white it was too easy for them to run away and live as free men.

it was still possible but i doubt it happened very much if at all once black people were imported as the slave class. a black can be bought and will always be recognized as a slave. why would anyone take a chance on a white slave that would have infinitely greater luck running away?

Answer 7

Indentured servitude in which a person signed a contract to work for seven years in exchange for passage to the New World. They were treated as slaves except for the fact that after 7 years their time was up and they were free to go.

Answer 8

Yes.
A indentured servant basically commits to work without pay for a specified period of time, in exchange for transit to the new world.

White slavery was not uncommon. In fact, slave traders seldom cared what their slaves looked like; Before the african slave trade got it's huge proportions, slavers where just as happy fooling europeans with promises of cheap passage to the new world, and sell them as slaves upon arrival.
In the Mediterranean, prisoners of war where commonly used as slaves.

Answer 9

During the French and Indian Wars, when the British and their colonial allies drove the French out of most of North America, several thousand French Acadians, later known as Cajuns, were deported from their homes in Nova Scotia and shipped down to the American colonies. Once there, they were placed on the auction block and sold as slaves. While it is true that not all Acadians suffered this fate as many of them fled from Nova Scotia once the English came, we now know that perhaps a quarter to a third of all the Acadians that lived in Nova Scotia were enslaved by the English.

Answer 10

Of course, check out pirates, shanghaied men in the Barbary Coast of San Francisco

(this was even on a Rudolph Valentino flick where he was shanghaied--drugged at a public pub then kidnapped and put in a ship, enslaved to work--the movie is called Moran of the Lady Letty from 1922)

http://www.quietspace.com/portfolio/white_slaves/index_2.html

Around late 1800's "Shanghaied"was coined.
http://www.discovertown.com/pages/18511906.html

White Slaves

The White nations also engaged in a large amount of White slave traffic amongst themselves: from Egyptian times right through to Rome and even early America, White slaves were an accepted part of society.

http://www.white-history.com/hwr52.htm

Answer 11

Yes, The Roman Republic and Empire thrived on slavery and most of them were in fact white.
During the Industrial Revolution, a type of slavery that existed was known as indentured servitude.