Serfdom vs. Slavery

Until recently, few historians were interested in analyzing the similarities and differences between serfdom in Russia and slavery in the United States. Even Alexis de Tocqueville, who recognized the significant comparability of the two nations, never compared their systems of servitude, despite his interest in United States slavery. Moreover, the almost simultaneous are illuminating, especially with regard to the different kinds of rebellion exhibited by slaves and serfs.

Kolchin points out that nobles owning serfs in Russia constituted only a tiny proportion of the population, while in the southern United States, about a quarter of all White people were members of slave-owning families. And although in the southern United States only 2 percent of slaves worked on plantations where more while most southern planters lived on their land and interacted with slaves on a regular basis.

These differences in demographics partly explain differences in the kinds of resistance that slaves and serfs practiced in their respective countries. Both serfs and slaves engaged in a wide variety of rebellious activity, from silent sabotage, much of which has escaped the historical record, to organized armed rebellions, which were more common workers on each estate was smaller in the United States than was the case in Russia.