Eighteen Defining Slavery—its Special Features and Social Role

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary gives the following primary entry for ‘slave’: ‘Person who is the legal property of another or others and is bound to absolute obedience.’ The same source defines slavery as ‘condition of the slave…exhausting labour, drudgery’. ¹ The reference to legal property, and the equation of slavery with hard labour reflect the specific modern sense of the slave condition, a sense fixed to a considerable extent by New World slavery in the wake of European conquest and colonisation, but with some echoes from the ancient world, where slaves were also legal property and forced labourers.