chattel slavery
People as property
Chattel slavery is the most absolute form of slavery, in which enslaved people are legally classified as personal property—chattel—that can be bought, sold, inherited, or traded like livestock or furniture.
The enslaved person has no legal personhood and belongs entirely to the owner, as do any children born to them.
This system characterized slavery in the Americas, particularly in the United States before abolition.
The term distinguishes this property-based bondage from other forms of forced labor such as debt bondage or serfdom.
- bondageInvoluntary subjugation to another
- forced laborCompelled toil, no consent
- servitudeCompulsory labor under masters
- Middle PassageTransatlantic slave trade crossing
- sold down the riverTreacherously abandoned for gain
commodification · bill of sale · plantation · field hands · Dred Scott decision · master · antebellum South · breeding farms · Harriet Tubman · trafficking · cotton · escape · freedom papers · chains · branding · fugitive · shackles · whip
- slaverybondage, thrall, Middle Passage, slaveholders, manumission
- Antebellum Southplantation, cotton kingdom, overseer, big house, plantation owner
- Atlantic tradetriangle trade, trade winds, Atlantic crossings, transatlantic routes, shipping routes
- exploitationexploit, predatory, sex trafficking, take advantage, human trafficking
- historical lawattainder, Justinian Code, Roman law, curtesy, Napoleonic Code
- labor systemsbonded labor, child labor, compulsory labor, contract labor, convict labor
chattel slaveryfreedom
Absence of constraint
liberty · emancipation · manumission · self-ownership · legal personhood
chattel slaverywage labor
Work exchanged for payment
self-employment · indentured servitude · serfdom · debt bondage · peonage
chattel slaveryhuman rights
Inalienable personal freedoms
human dignity · inalienable rights · bodily autonomy · self-possession · citizenship
capital, slave, cattle, slavery, slaves, enslave, enslaved, enslavement, chattel