slavemasters
Plantation labor exploiters
Slavemasters are people who own and control enslaved people.
The term emphasizes the power dynamic and brutality of the institution: The slavemasters worked their captives from dawn to dusk.
It appears in historical accounts of slavery and in metaphorical use for anyone exercising tyrannical control over others: corporate slavemasters, digital slavemasters.
Large-scale farming operation
- antebellumBefore a war's start
- colonialismDomination through foreign settlement
- auctionCompetitive public sale
- manaclesWrist shackles for prisoners
shackles · chains · emancipation · abolitionist · fugitive · confederacy · cotton · tobacco
Savage, merciless behavior
- whipStrikes or aerates
- tortureDeliberate infliction of suffering
- abuseCruel or violent treatment
- sadismPleasure from inflicting pain
beatings · punishment · inhumanity · barbarity · mercilessness · heartlessness · callousness · viciousness
One who monitors work
- ownerHolder of title
- dominanceSuperior influence over others
- controlAuthority to direct
- commandAuthoritative instruction given
power · subjugation · enforcement · discipline · hierarchy · obedience · submission · surveillance
Lasting psychological wound
- reparationsCompensation for historical wrongs
- systemicAffecting an entire structure
- institutionalOf formal establishments
- descendantsThose who come after
generational · reconciliation · memory · testimony · narratives · survivors · heritage · commemoration
plantation
Large-scale farming operation
- antebellumBefore a war's start
- colonialismDomination through foreign settlement
- auctionCompetitive public sale
manacles · shackles · chains · emancipation · abolitionist · fugitive · confederacy · cotton · tobacco · sugar
brutality
Savage, merciless behavior
sadism · beatings · punishment · inhumanity · barbarity · mercilessness · heartlessness · callousness · viciousness · savagery
overseer
One who monitors work
command · power · subjugation · enforcement · discipline · hierarchy · obedience · submission · surveillance · ownership
trauma
Lasting psychological wound
- reparationsCompensation for historical wrongs
- systemicAffecting an entire structure
- institutionalOf formal establishments
descendants · generational · reconciliation · memory · testimony · narratives · survivors · heritage · commemoration · injustice
slavemastersslaves
Persons owned by others
bondsmen · bondswomen · chattel · bondspeople · captives
slavemastersabolitionists
Those opposing human bondage
emancipators · liberators · freedom fighters · Harriet Tubman · Frederick Douglass
slavemastersliberators
Those who free captives
emancipators · freemen · freedmen · redeemers