Uncle Tom’s Cabin vocabulary

And all the time, hatred of his ostensible "uncle" was steadily growing in his heart; for he said to himself, "He is white; and I am his chattel, his property, his goods, and he can sell me, just as he could his dog."

Mark Twain. The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)

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bundle me off to Missouri like I was some piece of chattel,

Gillian Flynn. Gone Girl, p.238 (2012)

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Modern laypersons and law students confronting the words “three fifths” for the first time often suffer from a similar confusion, recoiling at the idea of valuing slaves at less than 100 percent. This initial reaction misses the point. The clause did not aim to apportion how much a slave was a person as opposed to a chattel. Had this been the question, the anti-slavery answer in the 1780s would have been to value slaves fully: five-fifths.

Akhil Reed Amar. America's Constitution: A Biography (2005)

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This same gentleman, having heard of the fame of George’s invention, took a ride over to the factory, to see what this intelligent chattel had been about. He was received with great enthusiasm by the employer, who congratulated him on possessing so valuable a slave.

Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin

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Both of his proper swink, and his chattel

In a tabard he rode upon a mare.

Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems . 

Charles Dickens. David Copperfield (1850)