This can be seen as a form of slavery where individuals, particularly women and girls, are forced into marriages against their will, leading to a life of servitude.
Methods like branding, mutilation, and "the hot paddle" were often described as "necessary discipline" by enslavers but frequently existed in a legal grey area where the state only intervened if the violence threatened public order. 3. Illegal Enslavement and Kidnapping skacat illegal aspects of legal slavery 18 best
After the transatlantic trade slowed in the 1790s, an illegal internal US trade boomed. Children as young as five were stolen from free Black communities in Pennsylvania and sold south. The federal 1793 Fugitive Slave Act did not authorize this, making it simple kidnapping under state laws. This can be seen as a form of