enslaved

[en-sleyvd]

adjective

1. made a slave; held in slavery or bondage.

   Enslaved people were seen not as people at all but as commodities to be bought, sold, and exploited.

Other Word Forms

• unenslaved adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of enslaved¹

First recorded in 1660–70; enslave ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

When the English looked to Africa, they now “wanted to know by what means persons were enslaved there and whether this was done in a manner that one could come to accept.”

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“This was one way of shifting enslaved labor from agriculture to industry, a necessity for the confederacy during the Civil War,” says Lichtenstein.

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Troves of enslaved people from many African countries, including Ghana, were brought to the United States through this pier —confused, sick, and probably gripped with terror.

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This brings me to Mary McLeod Bethune, a Colored woman born shortly after the end of slavery whose parents had been not only enslaved but also denied a formal education.

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Up to this point, the vast majority of enslaved people taken to the Americas had been captured in West Africa.

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Related Words

• accountable 
• apt 
• conditional 
• dependent 
• exposed 
• inferior 
• liable 
• likely 
• prone 
• secondary 
• sensitive 
• susceptible 
• vulnerable