enslavement

[en-sleyv-muhnt]

noun

1. the act of taking or holding someone as a slave.

   Until his death, Bartolomé de las Casas worked to prevent the enslavement of the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean.

2. the state or condition of being held in slavery.

   During their enslavement, African Americans were prevented from learning to read or write.

Word History and Origins

Origin of enslavement¹

enslave ( def. ) + -ment ( def. )

Example Sentences

This Winthropism, for the next two centuries, would be used as justification for “Western conquest of Native Americans, enslavement of Africans, and colonization of everyone else.”

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The militants attracted hundreds of foreign fighters and became known for public beheadings and the enslavement of women.

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“Colonizers needed a way to justify enslavement, genocide and forced conversion. So they painted African and Indigenous religions as evil.”

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“But if your ancestors were enslaved in this country, then there’s a direct lineage-based tie to harms that were inflicted during enslavement and in the after lives thereafter.”

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“There was only depression, and a hopeless enslavement to an inhuman, uncaring foreign bureaucracy.... No American who has gone to the KGB has not come to regret it.”

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Related Words

• servitude 
• slavery