[SeeSharp]

We KNOW it directly freed slaves. Even if it’s just the ones you admit existed, namely the ones who rounded up for corvée labor.

Do you want to think about that and try again?

[Tublecane]

“Do you want to think about that and try again?”

No. Because you have to admit that even if they were more or less enslaved by the U.S. government, per your description, they weren’t bonded to their former masters and weren’t kept in a new state of perpetual bondage, and hence were freed.