In the law of persons, then, the first division is into free men and slaves.

1 Freedom, from which men are called free, is a man's natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law:

2 slavery is an institution of the law of nations, against nature subjecting one man to the dominion of another.

3 The name 'slave' is derived from the practice of generals to order the preservation and sale of captives, instead of killing them; hence they are also called mancipia, because they are taken from the enemy by the strong hand.

4 Slaves are either born so, their mothers being slaves themselves; or they become so, and this either by the law of nations, that is to say by capture in war, or by the civil law, as when a free man, over twenty years of age, collusively allows himself to be sold in order that he may share the purchase money.

5 The condition of all slaves is one and the same: in the conditions of free men there are many distinctions; to begin with, they are either free born, or made free.