Slavery gains historical meaning only when read as labor, not as bondage.

Evidence

Now let us pay close attention to what Du Bois was saying: slavery was the specific historical institution through which the Black worker had been introduced into the modern world system. However, it was not as slaves that one could come to an understanding of the significance that these Black men, women, and children had for American development. It was as labor. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 930

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Marx’s labor theory and to Du Bois’s own historiography tradition.