Do we have a category for enslaved people in England?

Question

And if not, should we? 

Thomas Kent was  brought from Africa as an enslaved person to Cumberland, England in last quarter of the 18th Century. and  kept as a  slave at Calder Abbey, the home of a Mr Senhouse ,a member of a well known, slave holding  family with plantations in Barbados.

 (  Note after a judgement in the 1770s  a slave became free in law as soon as he or she  arrived in  England but the judgement did not stop some  wealthy families continuing this  practice  until the 1820s. http://revealinghistories.org.uk/what-evidence-is-there-of-a-black-presence-in-britain-and-north-west-england/articles/the-status-of-slaves-in-britain.html  See also  adverts for runaway slaves as late as 1780  data base )

 The family he worked for definitely considered  that he was a slave, the daughter reported this in a later  court case about his wife's parish of settlement.   He was released 'for good conduct'  after about seven or eight years working  at the house 

(I'm going to write his son John's  bio tomorrow.He was one of the first proper policemen in Carlisle. I would love some help in connecting him to the tree. He does have known descendants living in the UK and he had son who went to Australia.)

edited in hope that someone will spot this. I'm thinking that it might be necessary to create a hierarchy. I can't see anything for trader's and plantation owners either. 

Comments

Weren't there instances of enslaved children being "on display" as "possessions" of the wealthy in Elizabethan England?  I seem to recall seeing images of such children being used as footstools in England (but that may have been later than Elizabeth's time). My recollection of what I read decades ago was that such were regarded as a status symbol (denoting wealth), and that when the children grew too old to be "pretty" they were discarded.

If I am correct in my recollections, it went back much earlier than the late 1700s.

Either way, there should be a category for these people.

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I think Sir Walter Raleigh's wife is supposed to be one of the earliest to have an enslaved African as a household servant. (all three of the trio Hawkins, Drake and Raleigh were involved in slave trading)

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I found some links that may be helpful, or at least should be interesting reading. (Including the fact that slavery wasn't legal in England, but it wasn't actually illegal, either, until 1807.)

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200205-how-britain-is-facing-up-to-its-secret-slavery-history

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/12/british-history-slavery-buried-scale-revealed

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/slavery-and-british-country-house/slavery-british-country-house-web/

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18903391#:~:text=And%20let%27s%20be%20clear%20%2D%20they,of%20London%20were%20mostly%20free.

https://www.historyextra.com/period/elizabethan/were-there-slaves-elizabethan-england-queen-elizabeth-slavery/

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/draft-proclamation-on-the-expulsion-of-negroes-and-blackamoors-1601