Poor workers enrolled in European states with an obligation to work in the Americas for 3-7 years in return for their prepaid passage across the Atlantic.
African chiefs and kings maintained large households of retainers, such as administrators, soldiers, domestics, craftspeople, and farmers; many among these were slaves, acquired through raids and wars but also as a form of punishment for infractions of royal, chiefly, or clan law.
The process by which slaves are legally given freedom.
Economic system in which European ships would exchange goods for slaves in West Africa and slaves would then be brought to America and exchanged for goods that would be carried back to the home port.
Political theory according to which the wealth derived from the mining of silver and gold and the production of agricultural commodities should be restricted to each country's market, with as little as possible expended on imports from another country.
Dispersal of African peoples throughout the world, particularly the Americas, as part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
A bias toward present-day attitudes, especially in the interpretation of history.
Individuals or ships granted permission to attack enemy shipping and to keep a percentage of the prize money the captured ships brought at auction; in practice, privateers were often indistinguishable from pirates.
Literally, an item of movable personal property; chattel slavery is the reduction of the status of the slave to an item of personal property of the owner, to dispose of as he or she sees fit.
Economic system in which slave labor was used to grow cash crops such as sugarcane, tobacco, and cotton on large estates.
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