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

When West Africans, primarily Yoruba people, were enslaved and forced to Cuba during the transatlantic enslavement trade, they carried their cosmologies with them.

From Los Angeles Times

“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.”

From Los Angeles Times

“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.”

From Los Angeles Times

Now, the story leaves off, still focused on the woman who escaped the bonnet and cloak and not about the trappings of her enslavement.

From Los Angeles Times

Historical analogies provide strategic inspiration: just as abolitionists once argued persuasively that human slavery was a moral abomination, modern activists might convincingly frame AI "enslavement" as ethically unacceptable and strategically dangerous for humanity’s future.

From Salon

Related Words

• servitude 
• slavery