enslavement

American  

[en-slayv-muhnt] / ɛnˈsleɪv mənt /

noun

• enslavements
  plural

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.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• enslavements
  plural

Etymology

Origin of enslavement

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

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

enslavement enslavements

Olivia Grange, the country's culture minister, said the petition would ask the King to refer three questions to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council over the legality of the enslavement of Africans in Jamaica.

From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026

But it was extremely hypocritical of the U.S. to condemn the Barbary states for enslaving a few hundred Americans given, you know, the extensive enslavement of hundreds of thousands of Africans on American soil.

From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026

His “We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite”—a potent suite with lyrics about black history, from enslavement through emancipation—arrived during the civil-rights movement.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026

However, by the 18th century the center of enslavement had shifted farther north, toward the sugar plantations of the Caribbean, and the numbers dropped in Mexico.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 4, 2026

The notion of white supremacy rationalized the enslavement of Africans, even as whites endeavored to form a new nation based on the ideals of equality, liberty, and justice for all.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

Plagues, earthquakes, wars, enslavements, revolts and volcanic eruptions have played outsize roles in its dramatic history.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 29, 2020

Interminable alterations of peace and war, enslavements and emancipations—Why?

From Manhood of Humanity. by Alfred Korzybski

But I know the souls of men and women; when I meet greed, and pride, and cruelty, the enslavements of the flesh, they cannot lie to me.

From They Call Me Carpenter by Upton Sinclair

And that is the only liberty,—a transfer of allegiance, a higher attachment, which sets free from the lower enslavements of life.

From Mornings in the College Chapel Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion by Francis Greenwood Peabody

Marriages, divorces, inheritances, enslavements, disputes, etc., are all considered in this account, obtained by the Franciscan Juan de Plasencia from the natives.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 16 of 55 1609 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by James Alexander Robertson

Related Words

• servitude
• slavery