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

With French warships threatening invasion, France, in 1825, demanded a ransom of 150 million gold francs, later reduced to 90 million, to compensate white settlers and slave owners for lost profits in what was once France’s richest Caribbean colony. —Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, 20 June 2024

Despite getting started late into the growing season, and having no mules or agricultural equipment, the freedmen were succeeding, shocking many of their former slave owners, Saxton reported back to headquarters in Washington, DC. —Essence, 18 June 2024

Glover was on the run for years fearing recapture by his slave owner, a man named Benammi Stone Garland. —La Risa R. Lynch, Journal Sentinel, 23 May 2024

That same year, a database held by University College London found that 96 CofE clergymen had sought compensation paid to slave owners when the trade was abolished in the British empire in 1833. —The Week Uk, theweek, 28 Apr. 2024

Does this reader not realize that George Washington and many of the founding fathers were slave owners? —Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 10 Apr. 2024

Greenberg argues that Polk’s view of the conflict grew out of his experience as a slave owner. —Enrique Krauze, Foreign Affairs, 1 Nov. 2013

My colleague, Gene Demby, has written about a mostly Black school district that quietly decided to keep its name – that of a notorious slave owner. —Leah Donnella, NPR, 18 May 2024

That is, opposed to government overreach against the slave owners right to own slaves .. —For Carroll County Times, Baltimore Sun, 14 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1789, in the meaning defined above