Enslaved Person

Guidance

Enslaved person is the preferred term for an individual. Enslaved persons and enslaved people are preferred terms to refer to groups of people. Enslaved can be used as a modifier instead of slave before a person’s name, role, or profession, or the modifier slave can be removed and not replaced in that instance, especially if the description elsewhere provides context related to enslaved people or slavery (mentioned elsewhere in notes or indexed as a subject).

Do not remove all uses of slave; the term should be retained when used as a modifier related to economic systems. Restrict its use to existing terms and bodies of records and evaluate on a case-by-case basis for future records. This approach will be reevaluated as policies and practices at peer institutions develop.

For the subject authority file, the new preferred term is enslaved persons and slaves is the non-preferred term.

Examples:

Example:
Title - Certificate of the Enslaved on the Syrena
Other Title - Certificate of the Slaves on the Syrena
General Note - “Certificate of the Slaves on the Syrena” was the original title of this item.
Scope and Content Note - This certificate was signed by citizens of St. Augustine. It pertains to enslaved people aboard the Spanish ship Syrena.
General Note - This archival description was reviewed and revised as part of the NARA reparative description initiative on [mm/dd/yyyy]. Original archival records have not been altered.

 

Example:
Title -  The Carolina (Sloop Lucy) v. Enslaved Person Sergant Sampson
Other Title - The Carolina (Sloop Lucy) v. Slave Sampson
General Note -  “The Carolina (Sloop Lucy) v. Slave Sampson” was the original title of this item.
Scope and Content Note - In this case, an enslaved person named Sergant Sampson was taken aboard the privately armed schooner Carolina from the British sloop Lucy.
General Note - This archival description was reviewed and revised as part of the NARA reparative description initiative on [mm/dd/yyyy]. Original archival records have not been altered.

 

Example:
Title - Enslaved Person Narrative Files, ca. 1975 - ca. 1980
Other Title - Slave Narrative Files, ca. 1975 - ca. 1980
General Note -  “Slave Narrative Files, ca. 1975 - ca. 1980” was the original title of this series.
Scope and Content Note - This series consists of electronic transcriptions of a sample of interviews of former enslaved people conducted by the Works Progress Administration in the late 1930's. The original interviews are in the publication "Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves."
General Note - This archival description was reviewed and revised as part of the NARA reparative description initiative on [mm/dd/yyyy]. Original archival records have not been altered

 

Example:
Title - Enslaved Person Manifests, 1817 - 1861
Other Title - Slave Manifests, 1817 - 1861
General Note - “Slave Manifests, 1817 - 1861” was the original title of this series.
Scope and Content Note - This series includes records of people who were transported by ships “for the purpose of being sold or disposed of as enslaved people.” The manifests are generally printed forms that were submitted by the master of the vessel to the collector of customs and include an oath by the master of the vessel that the persons listed were not “imported” in violation of the Acts of Congress of March 2, 1807 or January 1, 1808. Each form also includes an authorization by the collector of customs to proceed. The information given for each ship includes the name, tonnage, rig, name of the master, and port of destination. The information about each person generally includes name (usually just a single name), sex, age, height, and the owner's or shipper's name and place of residence. Each manifest indicates the “class” of each person with notations about race.
General Note - This archival description was reviewed and revised as part of the NARA reparative description initiative on [mm/dd/yyyy]. Original archival records have not been altered

 

Example:
Title - Fugitive Enslaved Person Case Papers, 1850 - 1860
Other Title - Fugitive Slave Case Papers, 1850 - 1860
General Note - “Fugitive Slave Case Papers, 1850 - 1860” was the original title of this series.
Scope and Content Note - This series consists of filings for the return of African American enslaved people under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The case files include petitions, affidavits, copies of wills, testimonies, and other papers in support of the petitioner's claim to the ownership of a particular fugitive enslaved people.
General Note - This archival description was reviewed and revised as part of the NARA reparative description initiative on [mm/dd/yyyy]. Original archival records have not been altered

Where does this apply?

This applies to changes in descriptions and authority records, especially the subject authority file. See the Appendix: Reparative Description Preferred Terms for guiding principles and general guidance.

Rationale:

Use of the preferred term addresses slave's harm in the context of Western chattel enslavement of Africans and their descendants.

Over the last decade, many archivists and peer institutions in the academic, library, archives, and museum communities have transitioned from the use of "slave" to "enslaved person" when discussing slavery in the United States. "Slave" normalizes and reifies the condition of slavery as a state of being, rather than an active process of dehumanization and bondage imposed on a person or people. Nell Irvin Painter, noted author and scholar on race, says of the term "slave" that it "seals [enslaved Africans and their descendants] within the permanent identity of enslavement."

In contrast, "enslaved person" and its variants emphasize the condition in which kidnapped Africans and their descendants were kept while reinstating their personhood, and often their gender, age, or profession.

Resources:

• "Why should we use the term “enslaved people” instead of “slaves”?," Choices Program, Brown University, 5 Feb. 2020. Accessed 17 Feb. 2022.
• Painter, Nell Irvin. "How we think about the term 'enslaved' matters," The Guardian, 14 Aug. 2019. Accessed 17 Feb. 2022.
• Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia, “Anti-Racist Description Resources,” October 2019.
• Glossary, National Park Service, Language of Slavery
• Harpers Ferry Center, National Park Service, HFC Editorial Style Guide
• Telfair Museums, "Why we use "enslaved"