Legal fictions once classified slaves as real estate and corporations as persons.

Evidence

What is the nonlegal mind to make of a social institution that treats corporations as “persons,” which at times classified slaves as real estate, and that allowed a plaintiff to solemnly affirm, in his pleadings, that the city of Paris was located in England, or that London (admittedly it rains a lot) was located on the high seas? And that moreover, in each of these cases, the defendant was not allowed to contradict these absurdities? One of these, the corporate fiction, is still alive (and useful); the others served their purpose and then died out. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 95

Categorization

• XREF: The slaves-as-real-estate fiction ties directly to course threads on property-as-power and colonial/racial law. — connects to: A legal fiction becomes law once property ownership rests upon it — Supreme Court of the United States (Marshall Court, 1823), Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh,…, 253; Slave indexes cataloged enslaved people as inheritable estate property. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots: My Fight with Harvard…, 356; Enslaved people were legally treated as disposable inventory property — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots: My Fight with Harvard…, 372 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Slave indexes cataloged enslaved people as inheritable estate property. #exemplifies (0.90) — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 356
• Colonial legal codes defined enslaved Africans as chattel things rather than persons #exemplifies (0.90) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 650
• Enslaved people were legally treated as disposable inventory property #exemplifies (0.88) — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 372
• American slavery constructed an elaborate legal apparatus to dehumanize the enslaved #expands (0.85) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 89
• The slave condition dissolves personhood into property, making a life a thing possessed. #exemplifies (0.80) — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 65
• Subjectivist property-rights theory made slavery morally defensible. #expands (0.75) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 629