enslavement

American  

[en-sleyv-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

He stresses that the entire architecture of chattel enslavement was curated by Western slave-owning powers, who simply utilised local actors to help carry out their plans.

From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026

“This one lived for itself, developing an economic mechanism based on human enslavement, which allowed it to become self-sustaining.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 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

The country successfully pushed for a UN resolution in March, which recognised the enslavement of Africans as the "gravest crime against humanity".

From BBC ● May 27, 2026

Individual black men and women protested their enslavement in every way imaginable—running away, stealing, killing themselves rather than living in bondage.

From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson

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

From Washington Post ● Jan. 29, 2020

Many of those who listened were refugees from the old world, having fled its oppressions and enslavements.

From Jimmie Higgins by Upton Sinclair

No wonder they kept hunting fifteen years for the man responsible for the Loki enslavements.

From Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper

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

Do not admire languid limbs and pouting lips and the signs of haughtiness and vanity, your own enslavements.

From They Call Me Carpenter by Upton Sinclair

Related Words

• servitude
• slavery