This chapter shows how nascent racially motivated imperialism led to the othering of the enslaved, both within the US as a tool of social control of labour, to justify immigration restrictions on so-called ‘coolies’, and also in order to position the nation alongside European powers in the colonial struggles for parts of the Middle East and Africa. The edges of the definition of slavery was fought over by those arguing that forced labour was the only valid way of eliciting productive labour from uncivilized natives.