chattel slavery

[chat-l sley-vuh-ree, sleyv-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

The roughly 400-year-old specimen of spreading and enveloping branches was just a sapling at chattel slavery’s 1619 arrival in North America.

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For the vast majority of its history, America has literally been white by law due to white on Black chattel slavery, Jim and Jane Crow, genocide and land theft against First Nations peoples, pogroms, ethnic cleansing and other massive violence targeting Black Americans and other non-whites, and many other acts of institutional, systemic and interpersonal racism and racial animus.

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“The story of our country is such that people who look like me and people who do not look like me could be descendants of American chattel slavery,” said Bryan, who is Black, during a July debate over the bill.

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A recent episode of CNN’s “NewsNight with Abby Phillip” peaked in a screech-fest of far-right talking points as Michaels confidently dispensed misinformation downplaying the lasting impact of chattel slavery in America.

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But again, these chapters codify the Black American experience as one defined by pain and primarily linked to chattel slavery.

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