It’s true that there were a significant number of white (European) indentured servants/slaves in the Americas during the first centuries of colonization:
From Barbados to Virginia, colonists long preferred English or Irish indentured servants as their main source of field labor; during most of the seventeenth century they showed few scruples about reducing their less fortunate countrymen to a status little different from chattel slaves – a degradation that was being carried out in a more extreme and far more extensive way with respect to the peasantry in contemporary Russia. The prevalence and suffering of white slaves, serfs and indentured servants in the early modern period suggests that there was nothing inevitable about limiting plantation slavery to people of African origin.
However, by the 1900s white slavery really only persisted in the form of sexual trafficking of women, which ultimately led to the passing of the Mann Act in 1910. It’s also likely that the idea of an organized slave trade at this time was hyperbolic:
While prostitution was widespread, contemporary studies by local vice commissions indicate that it was “overwhelmingly locally organized without any large business structure, and willingly engaged in by the prostitutes.”
To claim that her father was a “slave” in the 1930s is a serious misappropriation of the term.
We should have never gotten rid of the draft and we should have increased the odds of the rich and the leaders if this country being drafted to the front line positions. It would be a great way to make sure we don’t take part in useless wars.
I’d agree with this as long as it was a draft for general federal service, not necessarily military. We could draft into the park service, NOAA, NIST, the forestry service, BLM, heck I bet we could even figure out how to use draftees in DoE. I don’t see any problem with a few years of required federal service for all citizens, and there are lots of options.
It’s true that there were a significant number of white (European) indentured servants/slaves in the Americas during the first centuries of colonization:
reference
Wikipedia article
However, by the 1900s white slavery really only persisted in the form of sexual trafficking of women, which ultimately led to the passing of the Mann Act in 1910. It’s also likely that the idea of an organized slave trade at this time was hyperbolic:
To claim that her father was a “slave” in the 1930s is a serious misappropriation of the term.
I’ll argue to anyone that every Vietnam and Korean War draftee was a slave, or at least as much a slave as serfdom was.
As bad as chattel slavery, no, but forced into dangerous labor for the profit of an uncaring oligarchy by threats of violence, yes.
We should have never gotten rid of the draft and we should have increased the odds of the rich and the leaders if this country being drafted to the front line positions. It would be a great way to make sure we don’t take part in useless wars.
Rich people don’t get drafted
‘I ain’t no senators son…i ain’t no fortunate one’
I’d agree with this as long as it was a draft for general federal service, not necessarily military. We could draft into the park service, NOAA, NIST, the forestry service, BLM, heck I bet we could even figure out how to use draftees in DoE. I don’t see any problem with a few years of required federal service for all citizens, and there are lots of options.
If it were me I’d rather be forced to do field labor than be forced to fight a war.
Vietnam was pretty fucking bad.
Sid Meier’s Colonization taught me this!