[thaumasiotes]

> "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?

[Hizonner]

> 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.

[metalliqaz]

enslaved to whom?

[wavefunction]

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

[thaumasiotes]

> 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.