No, at the very least they’re called “work camps”. The defining feature is the camp where the slaves / prisoners live. Most dairy farms don’t have masses of people living in squalor and institutionalized rape and enslavement of the resulting children.
That’s what chattel slavery was. These Americans were literally given life sentences to hard labor without committing any crime. If today we discovered and arrested some freako who had enslaved and raped women, and then enslaved their own resulting children, we would call that person a monster.
That was common in American society for 200 years.
Okay what would you call a volkswagen plant that used slave labor? Or a defense contractor that used slave labor, or a pharmaceutical plant that used slave labor and tortured humans for “mefical research”? Is a plantation “special” because they grew plants?
No. It’s “special” because people want to quickly gloss over the massive concentration camps that drove the agricultural south and other states.
Sure, it’s a plantation, and a volkswagen plant, and a military contractor facility. Sure. Nothing to see.
That article also suggests saying “enslaver” instead of “slave owner” which has a similar ambiguity since I’d guess there were people involved in enslaving other than slave owners. I kind of see why you might want to say slave labor camp instead of plantation though in certain contexts; the word “plantation” definitely implies slavery, but it isn’t explicit in the word itself, so if the slavery part is what you want to convey as significant, or it isn’t very significant to what you’re saying exactly what goods were being produced, it seems like not the best word, even leaving aside sensitivity issues.
I’m all for making it super obvious slaves were involved, but “slave labor camp” is so generic. And “camp”? That simply an incorrect term in this context. A plantation was an estate that grew a crop and used slave labor. It wasn’t a “camp”. Call it a “slave plantation” maybe. Don’t use a term that’s less correct.
Even just the term “plantation” is fucked up: they’re slave labor camps.
With what on them? What grows out of the ground using sunlight and water? Is it… is it plants?
Pretty sure a dairy farm that used slave labor is still called a dairy farm.
No, at the very least they’re called “work camps”. The defining feature is the camp where the slaves / prisoners live. Most dairy farms don’t have masses of people living in squalor and institutionalized rape and enslavement of the resulting children.
That’s what chattel slavery was. These Americans were literally given life sentences to hard labor without committing any crime. If today we discovered and arrested some freako who had enslaved and raped women, and then enslaved their own resulting children, we would call that person a monster.
That was common in American society for 200 years.
Fun fact: the 13th amendment makes slavery illegal except when it’s legal! What a country!
Okay what would you call a volkswagen plant that used slave labor? Or a defense contractor that used slave labor, or a pharmaceutical plant that used slave labor and tortured humans for “mefical research”? Is a plantation “special” because they grew plants?
No. It’s “special” because people want to quickly gloss over the massive concentration camps that drove the agricultural south and other states.
Sure, it’s a plantation, and a volkswagen plant, and a military contractor facility. Sure. Nothing to see.
That article also suggests saying “enslaver” instead of “slave owner” which has a similar ambiguity since I’d guess there were people involved in enslaving other than slave owners. I kind of see why you might want to say slave labor camp instead of plantation though in certain contexts; the word “plantation” definitely implies slavery, but it isn’t explicit in the word itself, so if the slavery part is what you want to convey as significant, or it isn’t very significant to what you’re saying exactly what goods were being produced, it seems like not the best word, even leaving aside sensitivity issues.
I’m all for making it super obvious slaves were involved, but “slave labor camp” is so generic. And “camp”? That simply an incorrect term in this context. A plantation was an estate that grew a crop and used slave labor. It wasn’t a “camp”. Call it a “slave plantation” maybe. Don’t use a term that’s less correct.