Home / Glossary / Slavery
Slavery
person-first-languageevolving-usage
At a glance
Source-by-source
“When referring to a person who was enslaved, we should say "enslaved person" rather than "slave." … Referring to someone as a "slave" diminishes their humanity and fails to place the agency for their enslavement where it belongs: with the people who enslaved them.”
Sierra Club's central rule is person-first: say "enslaved person" rather than "slave," because the noun form reduces a person to a condition and erases the agency of those who enslaved them. Its companion list extends the principle — "enslavers" over "slaveholders," "fugitives from slavery" over "runaway slaves," "born into slavery" over "born a slave."
“slave / person who is/was enslaved … For more information on person-first and identity-first language, please refer to the APA bias-free language guidelines for writing about disability.”
APA places "slave" in its table of dehumanizing terms paired with the preferred person-first form, "person who is/was enslaved" — alongside parallel pairs like "prisoner"/"person who is incarcerated." The guidance treats the noun as a label to revise rather than a word to ban outright, and points to its broader person-first guidelines.
“The first black African slaves in the American colonies arrived in the early 1600s. … As injustices of slavery grew, resistance efforts formed, including the Underground Railroad. … In 1865, the 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery in the country.”
The Diversity Style Guide's slavery entry is a historical overview — arrival of enslaved Africans in the early 1600s, the Middle Passage, abolition by the 13th Amendment — rather than a person-first style rule. Its descriptive prose pre-dates the "enslaved person" convention that Sierra Club and APA codify, so it documents the history while the other guides set the usage standard.
Synthesis
The shared move is person-first: “enslaved person,” not “slave.” Sierra Club states it most directly — “when referring to a person who was enslaved, we should say ‘enslaved person’ rather than ‘slave,’” because the noun “diminishes their humanity and fails to place the agency” where it belongs, on the enslaver and the system. APA carries the same pairing in its person-first table (“slave” → “person who is/was enslaved”). The Diversity Style Guide supplies the historical reference entry rather than a usage rule.
The point is both grammatical and moral: “slave” names a person by a condition imposed on them, collapsing identity into the institution, while “enslaved person” keeps the person primary and marks enslavement as something done to them. This parallels the person-first logic the commons applies to incarcerated people and to disability. The historical noun still appears in direct quotation and proper names, but the default for the commons’ audiences is the person-first construction. It also restores the missing actor: people were enslaved by someone.
Audience notes
- Journalists and editors. Default to “enslaved person/people”; reserve “slave” for direct quotation or fixed historical names. Name the enslaver rather than leaning on passive constructions that erase agency.
- Advocates and internal comms. The phrasing is part of the argument — “enslaved person” resists the framing that treated bondage as a status someone was rather than a crime done to them.
Related terms