And you missed my point that you can still appeal to authorities.
As I said in another comment... you have the option to call in the Feds. I'm talking about people in situations where they have NO option to call in ANYONE. And not only them. Anyone who wanted to help them... maybe just because they witnessed it and they wanted to put an end to it... that would-be good Samaritan has no recourse either.
No Feds. Central governments could be weak, corrupt or both back then. (They still can come to think of it.)
No police. Many places HAD nonexistent police forces. Things have changed in some parts of Africa... but I don't know about everywhere.
No nothing. And it might not only be Africa. This may happen in parts of Asia or the MidEast region as well. I only WITNESSED it in Africa. There are a lot of people living some horrible lives out there. And they don't have police, or Feds or journalists to write about them.
> "Southern slave codes did make willful killing of a slave illegal in most cases.[8] For example, in 1791 the North Carolina legislature made the willful killing of a slave murder, unless done in resisting or under moderate correction.[8] Historian Lawrence M. Friedman wrote: "Ten Southern codes made it a crime to mistreat a slave. ... Under the Louisiana Civil Code of 1825 (art. 192), if a master was “convicted of cruel treatment,” the judge could order the sale of the mistreated slave, presumably to a better master."[9]"
In theory (and depending on the year and state), slaves in America could also appeal to authorities.
Whether or not such appeals would have been effective are another matter (although it should be noted that these laws were in fact OCCASIONALLY enforced, putting this slightly outside the realm of the purely theoretical (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment_of_slaves_in_the_Uni...), but you seem to be discussing whether or not such appeals are theoretically allowed.
With that in mind, the shitty logic of this statement should be pretty clear to see:
> "That's when I learned... if you can call the police or get the authorities to intervene... then it's not slavery."
> For example, in 1791 the North Carolina legislature made the willful killing of a slave murder, unless done in resisting or under moderate correction.
My God, but those last three words are creepy. I mean, of course the whole enterprise of slavery is beyond creepy, so much so that it's almost too big to take in; but the idea of 'moderate correction' in the first place, and the shrugging acknowledgement that it might lead to killing, is just 'human-scale' enough for me to experience a truly visceral reaction to it. Ugh.
I agree that the situation you describe is slavery. But I think your definition of slavery is far too narrow. By your argument, a country in which slavery has been banned and law enforcement agents are enforcing this ban, by definition has no slavery.
Victims do not always have the option of appealing to authorities, even in countries like the United States. Victims can be threatened or restrained. And, like any other abusive relationship, that may not even occur to the victim as an option.
Slavery is defined as the treatment on human beings as property, in that people are bought and sold. Whether or not the country condones this practice is irrelevant.
The option of calling the Feds isn't that helpful to an immigrant worker with very little English whose last encounter with law enforcement was being returned to their farm in a squad car with accompanying warnings though. When most people's concerns about immigrants begins and ends with the question of "but they're not going to overstay their visa or take jobs away from local people are they?" and there aren't many people around anyway it's not like they're inundated with options. Journalists don't pop by every day.
