Synonyms of enslavement

enslavement

noun

as in slavery

the state of being an enslaved person

having known the misery of enslavement first hand, Frederick Douglass went on devote his life to the cause of making others free

Synonyms & Similar Words

• slavery
• servitude
• bondage
• yoke
• servility
• thralldom
• thrall
• subjugation
• captivity
• serfdom
• peonage
• subjection
• imprisonment
• dependence
• incarceration
• enchainment

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• freedom
• liberty
• liberation
• emancipation
• independence
• manumission
• sovereignty
• autonomy
• enfranchisement
• self-government

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of enslavement

Barbados and other Caribbean nations have pushed reparatory justice beyond a historical argument about enslavement and toward a broader debate over development, debt, ownership and the continuing economic consequences of colonial extraction. — Richard Fowler, Forbes.com, 29 July 2026

Furthermore, many Europeans often deny how deeply they were involved in the mass enslavement of millions of Africans and their descendants. — Literary Hub, 27 July 2026

The National Park Service has quietly updated a Philadelphia historic site by installing controversial displays that critics say downplay the brutality of slavery and gloss over President George Washington's enslavement of people. — Phaedra Trethan, USA Today, 21 July 2026

In Whitehead’s hands, that imagining takes us through both time and place while making visceral the horrors of enslavement. — Los Angeles Times, 20 July 2026

Rock House is not only a reminder of Alexander’s achievements, a planter, blacksmith and leader of the American Revolution in Mecklenburg County, but also the enslavement of at least 17 people that occurred there. — Laura Horne, Charlotte Observer, 14 July 2026

Throughout the exhibition, the focus remains on the people who experienced the era firsthand — Union and Confederate soldiers, refugees displaced by war, and men and women who lived through both enslavement and freedom. — Brian Unger, CBS News, 12 July 2026

For the next decade, thousands of Black New Yorkers woke each morning knowing the date their legal enslavement would end, but not yet living in that freedom. — Tunisia Morrison, New York Daily News, 5 July 2026

Salem Poor Salem Poor was born into enslavement around 1747 and grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, according to the NPS. — Catherine Messier, The Providence Journal, 4 July 2026