slave owner

noun

variants or less commonly slaveowner

ˈslāv-ˌō-nər 

plural slave owners also slaveowners

: someone who holds one or more people involuntarily and under threat of violence within a system of chattel slavery : slaveholder

As the fugitive slave and later abolitionist James W. C. Pennington noted, every change in the financial, social, and personal affairs of a slave owner and his or her children could have traumatic consequences for enslaved people.

—Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

… as the debate about reparations for slavery intensifies, it is important to remember that slaveowners, far more than enslaved people, were always the primary beneficiaries of public largess.

—Tera W. Hunter

Examples of slave owner in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Most descendants of slave owners will attempt to justify the actions of their ancestors. —Gary Franks, Boston Herald, 21 June 2024

Since the state had few slave owners, most of that sum had to be raised from taxes on land and buildings. —Joseph Thorndike, Forbes, 9 Dec. 2024

Several scholars and students think that slave owners freed their slaves out of pure generosity, embracing the idea that enslaved people were part of the family of slaveholders, and that the color line didn’t exist in countries such as Brazil. —Ana Lucia Araujo / Made By History, TIME, 4 Nov. 2024

The Amhara generally revere him as a national hero, but many Oromo, Somalis, and Tigrayans see him as an imperialist slave owner and land grabber. —Nic Cheeseman, Foreign Affairs, 5 Nov. 2021

Word History

First Known Use

1789, in the meaning defined above