Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of extreme hardship to either themselves or members of their families.
Clergy on forced labour, by Ivan Vladimirov (Soviet Russia, 1919)
Convict labourers in Australia in the early 19th century
Illustration of Native woman panning for gold
Jewish forced labourers during the Holocaust in Mogilev, Russia, July 1941.
Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavement is the placement of a person into slavery, and the person is called a slave or an enslaved person.
Gordon, a slave from Louisiana, in 1863. The scars are the result of a whipping by his overseer.
Flogging a slave fastened to the ground, illustration in an 1853 anti-slavery pamphlet
A poster for a slave auction in Georgia, U.S., 1860
Portrait of an older woman in New Orleans with her enslaved servant girl in the mid-19th century
