This article seeks to reinforce arguments that a genuinely global history of slavery is possible only if we examine the nature and dynamics of chattel and bonded status in parts of the world that have been largely ignored in slavery studies. Although scholars have begun to reassess the dynamics of slavery in early-modern Asia, a comprehensive study of slaving practices in China remains to be written. A careful examination of the provisions on 'slaves' (nubi) included in the Great Ming Code (1397) provides an opportunity to better understand slave status in Ming (1368-1644) China. Despite their limits, the norms and concepts subsumed in the legislation can tell us a great deal about the relative nature of social status and changes in slave status through time. This article seeks to explain how and why slaves were conceptualized as such in the late imperial period. It distinguishes between two categories of social interaction (that which slaves had with society and that which they had with their master's family) and dissects the analogy between slaves and children in these interactions. It argues that the features that historians usually regard as distinctive of nubi slavery cannot be properly understood without adequate contextualization.