Latin American slave women bought freedom through market trading while enslaved men could not

Evidence

Slave women could be manumitted largely via the self-effort of buying their own freedom, once a bit older and less desirable sexually and as productive workers. The proceeds for self-purchase – for that’s effectively what it was – were produced from minor trading, manufacturing, and selling wares at market. Men were less likely to be freed, or to be allowed to self-manumit (and in any case less likely to have the means), for their physical labor was more likely to linger longer and to become more experienced with accumulated knowledge and skills. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1083

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts with US slavery where self-purchase was far rarer; echoes the gendered economics of manumission also visible in the Roman freedman system.