Well, officially you were not allowed to enslave people! So you were either born into slavery (a child of a slave) or you were officially free. But some things were so unclear (and most people didn't care to clarify them) that there were numerous possibilities.
If you bought a slave - that person (it had to be black) was your slave. The person selling it to you didn't have to prove that he himself did not inslave the person. So if I was to hunt people and selling them as slaves - you'd bought slaves from me (even if I hadn't the right to inslave them in the first place) and they'd be legaly your slaves. This usually happened in Africa and slaves were brought over the sea.
Indians were a different category. They simply had no rights.
A slave on the other hand was a property of the master and it fell in the same category as tools owned by men. An owner could decide to protect his tool. So if the master was very respectable, the society would probably treat his slaves better then poor free white men (because the master could hurt people for hurting his property). This was not a rule though.
Indians hadn't even had such protection. They were not considered to be American citizents until the 60s. So if you mistreated an Indian there was nothing that could really be used against you (they weren't even at the mercy of somebody else). But Indians were free. So if they didn't come in contact with the wrong kind of white people (which was usuall the kind that was after new land and profit) they could live quite well (untill the army would chase them futher away).
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