Enslavement and Resistance Glossary

The movement to end slavery, encompassing moral suasion, political action, direct assistance for fugitives, and support for armed resistance. Led by both Black and white activists including Douglass, Tubman, Garrison, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The period in American history before the Civil War, typically referring to 1820-1861. Characterized by the expansion of slavery, the rise of the abolitionist movement, and deepening sectional conflict.

The legal classification of enslaved people as personal property (chattel) that could be bought, sold, inherited, and mortgaged. In the U.S., it was racially defined and hereditary through the mother.

A group of enslaved people chained together and forced to march, typically during the domestic slave trade. Coffles of enslaved people being marched from the Upper South to the Deep South were common sights on antebellum roads.

A machine invented by Eli Whitney in 1793 that mechanized the separation of cotton fibers from seeds. It made cotton enormously profitable and dramatically increased the demand for enslaved labor.

An enslaved person appointed by the slaveholder to supervise and discipline other enslaved workers. Drivers occupied a complex and often painful position between the slaveholder and the enslaved community.

Federal laws (1793 and 1850) requiring the return of escaped enslaved people to their slaveholders. The 1850 act was particularly controversial because it required Northern citizens to assist in captures and denied accused fugitives jury trials.

The practice of slaveholders renting enslaved people's labor to other employers, common in urban areas and industrial settings. Some enslaved people were allowed to keep a portion of their wages, though the system remained fundamentally coercive.

Historians' term for the secret religious life of enslaved communities, conducted in hidden spaces beyond slaveholder surveillance. These gatherings blended African and Christian traditions and were important sites of community formation and resistance.

A white man employed by a slaveholder to supervise enslaved laborers, enforce work discipline, and administer punishment on a plantation. Overseers were often from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and were infamous for their cruelty.

The practice of temporarily running away from a plantation, typically for short periods, as a form of resistance. Enslaved people might flee to nearby woods or swamps to avoid punishment, visit family on other plantations, or negotiate better conditions.

Autobiographical accounts written by formerly enslaved people describing their experiences under slavery and their paths to freedom. Frederick Douglass's Narrative (1845) and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) are landmark examples.