Slaves absolutely were treated “that” badly and maybe even worse. Urban educated slaves were treated relatively well, sometimes. However rural slaves were treated brutally. To say nothing of slaves sent to mines which was a literal death sentence.
Comment on Yeah, turns out a lot of people belived that slavery was bad 500 years ago too
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 1 week ago
IIRC slavery itself wasn’t even really the issue. AFAIK the bible is generally in favor of slavery, or at least servants-practically-treated-like-slaves depending on the translation. It’s more about how incredibly badly he treated his slaves. You might think that’s just how slaves are treated, based on 19th century chattel slavery in the USA, but in antiquity and earlier in the mediterranean (which includes the levant), slaves weren’t generally treated that badly. Not saying that it was all fun and games, but there were somewhat stricter rules on what treatment was socially acceptable compared to colonies in the Americas.
njm1314@lemmy.world 1 week ago
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 week ago ah but the bible has rules about making sure your slaves don’t wear mixed fabrics so like… i mean that’s it really. i don’t have anywhere to go from that.
shawn1122@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
It’s widely agreed upon that slavery prior to the transatlantic trade typically came with more rights and pathways to freedom and this is generally true globally. Many civilizations have stories of freed slaves becoming rulers or high tanking political officials.
The transatlantic trade sought to create a permanent underclass of slaves based on a global race based caste system based on how European powers perceived the world at the time. Essentially, if you had melanin, you were potentially a part of the slave / nonperson class.