Say “enslaved people,” not “slaves”; “liberated people” or “fugitives from slavery,”  Do not say “former slaves” or “runaway slaves,” etc.  which implies that slavery is a natural state rather than something oppressors do to other people. There’s no single correct way to speak about the history of enslavement or the people who struggled against it. It does depend on contexts, including, for example, the fact that the history of enslavement in the Americas is much bigger than the history of the United States. Indeed, the terms many historians use are changing rapidly, and historians are still debating how they should change.  read more...