chattel slaves
Human beings commodified
Chattel slaves were human beings legally classified as personal property—chattels—who could be bought, sold, inherited, or mortgaged like livestock or furniture.
The term emphasizes the complete legal reduction of people to objects: The Virginia planter counted his chattel slaves among his estate's assets.
This was the dominant form of slavery in the Americas, where enslaved Africans and their descendants had no legal personhood and their children were born into bondage.
- bondageInvoluntary subjugation to another
- human bondageForced servitude of people
- plantationLarge-scale farming operation
- auctionCompetitive public sale
- shacklesMetal bonds for prisoners
overseer · whip · freedom · abolition · chains · breaking chains · cotton · cotton fields · cash crop · master · servitude · property · escape · auction block · bill of sale · Middle Passage · emancipation · forced labor
- slaverybondage, thrall, Middle Passage, slaveholders, slaveholder
chattel slavesindentured servants
Workers contracted for years
apprentices · serfs · peons · hired hands · tenant farmers
chattel slavesslaveholders
Owners of enslaved people
masters · slave owners · enslavers · planters · freeholders
chattel, chattels, slave, slaves, slaved, slaving, slavery, slavish, slavishly