[See -ISM.] The system of holding human beings as chattels.
1837. James Cooper, in Adams Sentinel, 29 May, 4/5. It has also made the chattelism of the slave, about which the gentleman has talked so long, more complete.
1865. Wendell Phillips, in Liberator (Boston U.S.), 10 Feb., 1/3. To grind the negro without restoring chattelism.
1879. Tourgee, Fool’s Err., xl. 295. The … spirit of the nominally defunct system of Chattelism was still alive.
