You can't compare medieval times with 19th century...there's a few things that happened in between like renaissance, industrial revolution and some other (and I like to believe that generally as a race, humans evolved in those 6-7 hundred years)...that pretty much changed the perspective of many things including chivalry...basically you couldn't burn a village and then make a chapel in it's place and still be called chivalrous...but you're a white paladin so you prolly know all about chivalry and stuff.

Also peasants were mostly bound by land they worked on (not by their masters chains).

But back on topic, I understand that union's motives weren't completely benign and righteous...but guess what, in such cases they rarely are...did england and france declare war on third reich because they liked the polish people and their dancing? Many times it's a choice between bad and worse. And getting rid of slavery is the best thing that could happen in that conflict...rich cotton moguls getting less money, and hillbilly redneck boyos having less negros to beat up really shouldn't be high on anyone's priority list (I'm over simplifying but that really is the gist of it $)

P.S.

One other thing...I'm really trying hard to ignore your sig...reeeeeally hard...and it's just not working.

The thing is...I've met a lot of skin heads (when you're a football fan, it's bound to happen)...and before you jump at me I'm not calling you a skin head (maybe you aren't even bald, or don't wear dr. martens (I do wear them, marvelous boots))...every single one of them I had the chance to talk to or observe...was either a twit/twat/dimwit/nitwit and/or had some serious issues with himself (well, mostly fat and short dudes). Most of them had problems with foreign people taking their jobs, or lowering down the price of labor (even though I'm pretty sure they themselves weren't really looking that hard for a job)...very few had problems with 'mixing'. I just don't get it...Halle Berry, Jessica Alba...freaking Blake Griffin!?

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If the sea were made of Whiskey and I was a duck
I'd swim to the bottom and never come up

"But back on topic, I understand that union's motives weren't completely benign and righteous...but guess what, in such cases they rarely are...did england and france declare war on third reich because they liked the polish people and their dancing? Many times it's a choice between bad and worse. And getting rid of slavery is the best thing that could happen in that conflict...rich cotton moguls getting less money, and hillbilly redneck boyos having less negros to beat up really shouldn't be high on anyone's priority list (I'm over simplifying but that really is the gist of it $)"

Yep. That's the bottom line!
The result of the American Civil was a substantial bit of progress in the centuries-long struggle for the humane treatment of weaker people by more powerful people.
That can't be bad.

Alright fine. I'll explain it.
I'm against mixing because it removes the diversity of humanity if done to extremes. Having everything mix together leaves only one at the end. This is bad for humanity to a degree in social constructs but horrendously in the genetic factor. Having multiple "races" gives a higher chance for humanity to survive various disasters such as disease. When one disease affects one it has a higher chance of not affecting the others. Where if there is only one "race" then the disease will ravage it as a whole and carries the potential of wiping out humanity.
Also, you mind as well call the entirety of the world outside western culture racist for being against mixing. As most do not condone it in any way, shape or form.

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No, it's not like that. It's more like asking people to look at the political side of it and not the conflict.
If anything, the worst thing that happened in the United States was the systematic annihilation of the native populace.

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You do realise that you can be black and have a large amount of european white genes and vice versa, so you saying you are against mixing because you want diversety is complete bull. Also "mixed race" children often are less sick and also progress faster than other children, see theres less chance of any type of inbreeding if you have a baby with someone from another "race"

Just cause you say that you`re not racist doesnt mean you arent. Also calling the rest of the world racist, I doubt you have that much experince with rest of earths cultures, and no tv and movies dont count.

Honestly, I don't believe in chivalry as anything other than some romantic notion made to glorify the past. Serfdom is different from slavery though. The serfs were not considered property and were allowed to own property themselves. The conditions were not as bad as slavery, contrary to popular belief, which is why serfdom is considered a transitional period between slavery and freedom.

Humorous statement at serfs not being slaves. As almost every source that I can see says otherwise. Serfs were the property of the landowner. They were traded between landowners.
A serf can become a serf through many means but once one is a serf all future children of said serfs are to be serfs unless released.
Serfs had multiple classes or levels. One of them indeed being slavery in its entirety, the others slowly branching off with more rights the higher the go. None had freedom though. They were all bound to their landowner. Many were meant to provide crops as taxes to the landowners and other various duties to appease the landowner. Many of which were repair work and in times of war, to be a soldier for the landowner.
Serfs could own property? To a degree yes; however, a landowner could seize said property at any time if they wished to so it is debatable as to whether or not that could be considered owning property. The lowest classes of serfdom were not allowed to own property.
Higher class serfs were able to accumulate some wealth over an extended period of time in rare situations. In the most of extreme situations they could even purchase their freedom from their landowner. This was not possible in the lower classes of serfdom.
As to serfdom as a whole it also happened to vary from region to region. Some were treated better than others and some were treated worse than the garbage rotting on the side of the road. The same can be said about full slavery in all the areas it occurred. How full slaves were treated differently and with different "rights" depending on where it was occurring.

In the end, Serfdom is a form of slavery.

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The serf is given land and is tied to it, so no, the landowners need to provide legal justification to dispossess a serf. If the landowner wants to trade serfs, they have to give up the land as well, though this is mostly for Russian serfs.

The serfs were allowed more dignities than slaves, being able to marry who they choose within the estate, legal protection from murder/rape, etc. They also don't have to worry about their family being broken up since they were not property to be sold at a whim.

Paying taxes is to be expected in any society so I don't see any problem there. Conscription exists even today, so that's not a big deal either. Most of the time military service was considered tribute for serfs anyways. Most landowners considered their serfs vassals of a lower class, not a lower animal. That's not to say the conditions weren't bad, just better than being slaves.

As I said it varied from region to region. And the lowest class of serf literally were slaves. It slowly progressed up from there. At least half of them had it quite bad but in many areas the landowners treated them very well. The same can be said of slavery. They were treated very well in some areas and very bad in others. Serfdom just had many more people in it.

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Slaves were the minority in Europe (~10% of the peasant population) as opposed to the majority in the South. Most serfs were cottars and villeins who were given cottages and land respectively. Even if they had it bad, they were still treated as human beings instead of cattle to be freely sold and traded.

Only 33% of the southern population were slaves. And since the vast majority of people were serfs it is practically 10% of the population that were slaves in serf areas. Considering that serfdom lasted significantly longer than US slavery more people were serfs than were US slaves in the south.

On another standpoint, it is relatively well forgotten and almost never mentioned that many Union generals owned slaves. In fact, those that did did not release them until December of 1865 when the 13th amendment was passed. Funny enough, General Lee freed his slaves in 1862 while the Confederacy was still winning the majority of the battles.

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Since this topic has been thoroughly derailed, I'll gladly throw in my tiny bit of knowledge on slavery. Did you know that slavery in the roman Empire was an standard practice? Also, said slaves were freed after seven years of service, and once freed, assuming they were able to pony up the cash they could then own slaves themselves. What we did in the South was seriously cruel shit. We more than outmatched the Romans in barbarism towards slaves.

That's enough fun facts from me. Continue with your silliness, everyone.

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Sarcasm just doesn't work over the internet.

Only 33%? That's one in three people. The 10% means that at any given time, only a small number of peasants were slaves. It doesn't matter that serfdom lasted longer than American slavery; slavery itself was not common practice nor was it based solely on race. Besides, slavery and serfdom have already been abolished in Europe before the American Civil War. America was just slow to catch up to the rest of the Western world.

Slavery in the Americas(at least amongst settlers, not sure if natives did it, I haven't heard about them doing so but I suppose it may have happened at one point or another) did not come about until 1619 but almost no one was capable of affording it. Slavery would not gain widespread use for another 50 or so years at which time the entire country was involved aside from a handful of religious settlements in the North. Slavery lasted 230 years or so and was only in relatively widespread use for 180 years. The numbers were only at the 30% or so mark for around 100 years. Serfdom lasted 800 years. And then you can get into Sumerian slavery, Egyptian slavery, Roman slavery(which was relatively mild as stated a little while ago) and various other forms of slavery. America was one of the last modern nations to remove slavery.

Also, slavery was race specific? No, it was dominated by a single race for the most part but that was because of the ease of obtaining and relatively lower cost. English people were used as Indentured Servants much in the way that Romans were early on and Chinese as well as other Asians were used as slaves throughout the country. They were not as widespread because, well lets face it, they were hard to get to the Americas. The use of Englishmen as Indentured Servants did not last much past the start of widespread slavery in the mid to late 1600's due partly to cost and otherwise due to the fact that Englishmen no longer signed up or signed up in significantly less numbers. The English also did not force their people into it though some were tricked into it with false promises. African slaves on the other hand were forced into it by their own countries for a large part(and slightly by a few foreign nations) and therefore cost less.

In the end, the Americas could have cared less what race they were. I forgot to mention it but the natives were enslaved as well but they died off in mass numbers due to disease and therefore are not too relatively known as being enslaved for a short while.

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There's a big difference between why people became indentured servants and why Africans were systematically enslaved. What does slavery in ancient times have to do with anything if we're talking about serfdom in Europe and slavery in America? In any case, I don't understand why you keep bringing up how long so and so lasted, because fact is, slavery was not as prevalent in medieval Europe as in the Americas and serfdom was more desirable than slavery even if it is picking the lesser of two evils.