Fugitive slave laws
In the United States, up to the 1860s, slaves and indentured servants were treated as personal property. They were subject to the property laws of the individual states. At first, most of the laws concerned indentured servants. But the laws began to differentiate between indentured servants and slaves around the middle of the 17th century. They also began to differentiate between races. People of African descent began to be held as slaves for life.