[crich70]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Yep, I'm aware of that. But slavery was universal in the ancient world, even in the pre-Columbian times. There's no getting around that fact. Can you make a movie about ancient Rome without the slaves? Perhaps only Disney could. And I'm pretty sure many, if not the most, of those Roman slaves were white.

And even in medieval times. In Europe some part of the population was tied to the land as serfs and the local lord of the Manor had complete control over them. On the other hand if a serf could run away and stay uncaught for a "year and a day" he was considered to be free at that point.

Spoiler:

As far as ancient times goes one whole book of the Bible "Philemon" is written to a slave owner. Both the owner (Philemon) and the slave (Onesimus) had become Christians and Paul wrote the letter on the behalf of Onesimus who had run away from his owner. I can't imagine the usual punishment for a runaway slave was pleasant back then. I put this part in a spoiler so as to avoid people thinking I'm trying to bring religion into the topic.