Anti-swearing law

[James E. Clapp]

James Smith wrote:
>
> Bond-servants
> were not slaves, but were bound or indentured, for
> example as a result of debt, or had voluntarily bound
> themselves to a master for life. They were not chattel
> that could be bought and sold.

Sorry, but I'm afraid I have to amplify my previous answer.  I pointed
out that Hebrew slaves could be bought.  A fortiori, the same is true of
those lower down on the slave social scale, whom the King James Bible
refers to as bond-servants:

Leviticus 25:44-46: "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou
shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them
shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the
strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their
families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they
shall be your possession.  And ye shall take them as an inheritance for
your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be
your bondmen for ever..."

James E. Clapp