Language plays a crucial role in how we form knowledge and communicate information — words matter.
Here is a selection of key words that are relevant to thinking and speaking about the history of slavery, colonialism and imperialism, as well as attendant social structures like prejudice, racism and white supremacy. The explanations below derive from a variety of sources including the Anti-Racist Educator, the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights, Glasgow Life Museums, Museums Galleries Scotland, and the National Archives, as well as the writings of various critical, postcolonial and decolonial theorists, scholars and activists.
British Empire – The British Empireencompassed the colonies, dominions, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled, directly and indirectly, by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. Its origins date to the mid-1500s when the English Crown seized land in Ireland to create colonies of Protestant settlers. At its height in the early-twentieth century, the British Empire encompassed 23% of the world population and 24% of the Earth’s total land area. Largely as a result of anti-colonial resistance movements, most British colonies became independent, self-governing states between the 1940s and 1980s. The existence of the British Empire had a major, determining impact on global political, economic, social and cultural realities, the legacies of which are profound.
Colonialism – The act of a foreign power establishing settlements within a sovereign territory, often through violence and/or coercion, and imposing political control and authority over an independent state, its natural resources and its population. Variations and derivatives include settler colonialism, plantation colonialism and extractive colonialism.
Enslaved person/people – An enslaved person is an individual held involuntarily and forced under threat or incursion of violence, sometimes resulting in death, to work without pay for the profit of another. In the context of this guide, the term refers to individuals from the African continent (directly or descendants) who were captured, sold or born into chattel slavery. Under the system of chattel slavery, an enslaved person was considered property and held no individual rights and freedoms. The term enslaved person/people (as opposed to slave/slaves) emphasises the humanity of individuals who lived under slavery rather than a legal status forcefully imposed onto them.
Enslaver – An enslaver is an individual who owns an enslaved person/people. Using the word enslaver (as opposed to master or slave owner) places emphasis on the conscious act of seeing another human being as property and deliberately holding them in bondage in perpetuity in order to derive financial benefit from their labour.
Ethnicity – An aspect of an individual’s felt sense of identify that reflects cultural characteristics often, but not always, linked to a geographic region. An ethnic group is a group of people who share things like language, religion, heritage, folklore, ancestry and/or nationality. An individual’s ethnicity is multi-faceted and can reflect several connections, associations and senses of belonging.
Eurocentric – A belief and outlook that centres Europe – European history, European languages, European religious practices, and European forms of knowledge. Eurocentric thinking assumes the superiority of Europe and implicitly regards European peoples and European cultures as pre-eminent to the exclusion of all other societies, cultures and civilizations.
Imperialism – An outlook and way of understanding the world rooted in the perceived superiority of one nation, state or group over others, leading to a drive to acquire, expand and consolidate control over land, resources and people. Imperialism is the ideology that drives colonialism. An imperialist is someone who believes in and supports this doctrine.
People of colour – A term referring to anyone who is not white. It was first adopted by anti-racist and social justice activists in North America and has become more common in the UK in recent years. For some, it is more empowering than “minority ethnic” (i.e. Black and Minority Ethnic, Black Asian and Minority Ethnic), because it does not revolve around an assumed whiteness.
Race – A system of categorisation that divides people into groups based solely on physical attributes, principally skin colour. Race is a social construct – meaning it is a human invention – with no basis in scientific and/or medical evidence. Rooted in white supremacy, the concept of race has historically been used to show the supposed biological superiority of white people. An individual or group of people are racialised when they are defined by their supposed race. The process of racialisation creates false categories of difference between people and underpins all forms of racism.
Racism – Prejudice against a group of people that has been racialised. Racism manifests as discrimination on systemic/structural, institutional and interpersonal levels. The origins of racism lie with the history of European colonialism and the actions of imperial powers like the UK to dominate ethnic groups perceived as different to white Europeans on the basis of things such as skin colour, religion and cultural practices. This history of racialisation underpins contemporary racial prejudice and discrimination.
Scientific racism – The belief that the human species can be separated into biologically distinct groups (“races”) and that racial inferiority or superiority can be proven through empirical evidence. Scientific racism was a prominent doctrine in European and North American academic circles between the mid-1800s and early-1900s. Since the mid-twentieth century, scientific racism has been resoundingly rejected because it has no basis in scientific and/or medical evidence. Despite this, it continues to be used to validate white supremacist ideologies.
Slavery – A state of subjection or subordination to another person, organisation, institution or political power. This heritage trail focuses on historic slavery, including chattel slavery which was explicitly racialised and reserved for people of African heritage. Under chattel slavery, enslaved people were legally classified not as human beings, but as property belonging to another person (i.e. an enslaver). This is distinct from both indentured servitude and modern forms of enslavement. For example, indentured servants ultimately attained their freedom upon completion of a contracted period of labour, whereas enslaved people were permanently denied their freedom unless they could obtain the financial means necessary to purchase themselves or successfully escape.
From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, British institutions, companies and individuals participated in, and derived major financial benefit and social status from, the transatlantic trade in forcibly captured and trafficked enslaved African people. Within the context of the British Empire, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished the transatlantic and Indian Ocean trade in enslaved peoples, and the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery in British-occupied colonies in the Caribbean, Canada and the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa. However, many enslaved people in the Caribbean lived under the same conditions until at least 1838 through apprenticeship schemes, and slavery continued in other parts of the British Empire, such as the area controlled by the East India Company.
White supremacy – The belief or theory that people racialised as white are superior and should therefore have greater power, authority and status. This belief manifests as a social system in which the perspectives, experiences and interests of white people dominate society. White supremacy creates and sustains structural racial inequalities, systemic racial discrimination and interpersonal racism.