You mean like the poster who referred to them as "chattel"?
Now there's a nice dark age term you just don't hear much any more....well, not since slavery was abolished, anyway.
[thank God]
Twits make me sigh.
Every year a few players become "free agents". So what are those who are not free?
The words may become archaic, but the actuality they represent -- the forms of property and contract -- are constants.
And slavery (as opposed to indenture) still is found. Outlawed in the US, sure. Still -- it's found here in illegal immigrant slave rings and it is still legal and widespread in Africa.