1. a person who owns slaves
Usage: historical

Examples

• Many slaveholders in the antebellum South owned large plantations.
• The wealthy slaveholder refused to free his workers despite growing pressure.
• Historical records show that some slaveholders treated their slaves with extreme cruelty.
• The slaveholder’s estate was worked by dozens of enslaved people.
• After the Civil War, former slaveholders had to adapt to a new economic system.
• The diary revealed the daily thoughts of a 19th-century slaveholder.