Slavery is the practice of people owning other people. Slaves have their freedom taken away and are forced to labour without payment. From the fifteenth century, most people who were enslaved were African or of African descent. Although slavery was abolished, many people continue to suffer from oppression due to their race, and an estimated 40.3 million people are still victims of modern slavery around the world.
Slavery was practised throughout the American colonies in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Enslaved people were forced to toil without payment and in dreadful conditions. Their lives were stolen, their children were taken away and they lived in fear and without hope.
The images below depict scenes associated with slavery in America, before its abolition in 1865. A
