It was because he lived on his land that the serf was bound to the lord. In Russia the traditional relationship between lord and serf was based on land.
This contrasted with the system in the USA where the negro slaves were chattels that is, they were regarded in law as the disposable property of their masters. The serfdom that had operated in Russia since the middle of the seventeenth century was technically not slavery. This is not as hypocritical as it might first appear. Tsar Alexander II (1855-81) shared with his father, Nicholas I, a conviction that American slavery was inhumane. Four years later, slavery in the USA was similarly declared unlawful by presidential order.
In 1861 serfdom, the system which tied the Russian peasants irrevocably to their landlords, was abolished at the Tsar’s imperial command.
