historical slavery
Antebellum human ownership
Historical slavery refers to the institution of slavery as it existed in past societies, distinguished from modern forms of human trafficking or forced labor.
The term appears in discussions of specific slave systems—American chattel slavery, Roman slavery, the Atlantic slave trade—and in debates about their lasting effects: The museum's exhibit on historical slavery draws thousands of visitors annually.
Often invoked in conversations about reparations, memorials, and how to teach difficult history.
- plantationLarge-scale farming operation
- chainsLinked metal restraints
- shacklesMetal bonds for prisoners
- bondageInvoluntary subjugation to another
- auctionCompetitive public sale
overseer · cotton · whip · whipping post · Jim Crow · chattel · human cargo · Middle Passage · servitude · Harriet Tubman · abolitionist · fugitive · rebellion · subjugation · oppression · cotton fields · field hands · Frederick Douglass
historical slaveryfreedom
Absence of constraint
liberty · emancipation · manumission · self-determination · self-ownership
historical slaverywage labor
Work exchanged for payment
self-employment · free enterprise · serfdom · voluntary work · salaried work
history, historic, historian, historically, historicity, histories, slave, slaves, slaver