> Nor was a tenant farmer in the Middle Ages when required to provide corvée.
Many historians now concede that there is little to no meaningful difference between various forms of feudal servitude and slavery.
Slaves in the later Roman Empire also had certain rights, including the right to buy their own freedom in many cases. That doesn’t mean they weren’t slaves.
I will have to disagree with these historians. There is a fundamental difference between having legal personhood and being chattel. To be bound is not the same thing as to be owned.
Many, if not most, historical institutions that are universally recognized as slavery didn’t permit slave owners to dispose of their slaves like arbitrary property they owned. If that’s the definition of slavery, it’s an unusually restrictive one.