enslavers

Enslavers are persons or organizations that hold others in bondage and exercise ownership over them. Enslavers are agents of slavery, a system in which people are forced to work and deprived of personal liberty and legal rights. The category encompasses a wide range of actors, including individual owners of enslaved people, traders who bought and sold captives, and state or political authorities that sanctioned or profited from slavery. Across history and regions—ancient Greece and Rome; medieval and early modern Africa, the Islamic world, and Europe; and the Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades—enslavers operated through capture, purchase, inheritance, or warfare, often supported by laws and customs that defined enslaved status as lifelong or hereditary.

Common sites of enslavement included farms and plantations, mines, households, and urban workshops. Enslavers typically extracted forced labor under coercive conditions, frequently supplemented by violence, surveillance, and the threat of sale or punishment. Economically, slavery tied labor costs, productivity, and status to the control of enslaved people.

Abolition movements and legal reforms in the 18th to 20th centuries gradually dismantled traditional chattel slavery in many places, though forms of forced labor persist. Modern international law prohibits slavery and human trafficking, yet contemporary forms of enslavement—such as debt bondage, forced labor, and procurement of forced labor—continue in some regions, prompting ongoing enforcement and advocacy efforts. Historically, enslavers left a lasting legacy on social structures, economies, and cultures worldwide.