chattel slavery

[ chat-l sley-vuh-reesleyv-ree ]

noun

1. the enslaving and owning of human beings and their offspring as property, able to be bought, sold, and forced to work without wages, as distinguished from other systems of forced, unpaid, or low-wage labor also considered to be slavery.

Word History and Origins

Origin of chattel slavery¹

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

To suggest that a Black person is lazy is a very old white racist stereotype that has its origins in white on Black chattel slavery and the American apartheid system that deemed Black people as incapable of full citizenship, “natural” slaves, childlike and members of a subordinate and inferior group that was unfit for freedom.

From Salon

It says the heads of government would play “an active role in bringing about such inclusive conversations addressing these harms” and that they agreed “to prioritise and facilitate further and additional research on the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and chattel slavery that encourages and supports the conversations and informs a way forward”.

From BBC

To my eyes, these denials are willful attempts to avoid the ugliness of racial authoritarianism and fascism here in the U.S., as seen with Jim Crow apartheid, chattel slavery, the American Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, racial pogroms, the genocide against Indigenous peoples and so on.

From Salon

A day after Trump publicly announced his position, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a near-total abortion ban, enforcing territorial legislation passed in 1864 — a time women couldn’t vote and chattel slavery was perfectly legal in America.

From Los Angeles Times

It has been 159 years since the 13th Amendment was ratified, ending chattel slavery.

From Seattle Times