During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, vibrant port cities became home to thousands of Africans in transit. Free and enslaved blacks alike crafted the necessary materials to support transoceanic commerce and labored as stevedores, carters, sex workers, and boarding-house keepers. Even though Africans continued to be exchanged as chattel, urban frontiers allowed a number of enslaved blacks to negotiate the right to hire out their own time, often greatly enhancing their autonomy within the Atlantic commercial system. In The Black Urban Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade, eleven original essays by leading scholars from the United States, Europe, and Latin America chronicle the black experience in Atlantic ports, providing a rich and diverse portrait of the ways in which Africans experienced urban life during the era of plantation slavery. Describing life in Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Africa, this volume illuminates the historical identity, agency, and autonomy of the African experience as well as the crucial role Atlantic cities played in the formation of diasporic cultures. By shifting focus away from plantations, this volume poses new questions about the nature of slavery in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, illustrating early modern urban spaces as multiethnic sites of social connectivity, cultural incubation, and political negotiation. Contributors: Trevor Burnard, Mariza de Carvalho Soares, Matt D. Childs, Kevin Dawson, Roquinaldo Ferreira, David Geggus, Jane Landers, Robin Law, David Northrup, Joao Jose Reis, James H. Sweet, Nicole von Germeten.

Russian rural history has long been based on a 'Peasant Myth', originating with nineteenth-century Romantics and still accepted by many historians today. In this book, Tracy Dennison shows how Russian society looked from below, and finds nothing like the collective, redistributive and market-averse behaviour often attributed to Russian peasants. On the contrary, the Russian rural population was as integrated into regional and even national markets as many of its west European counterparts. Serfdom was a loose garment that enabled different landlords to shape economic institutions, especially property rights, in widely diverse ways. Highly coercive and backward regimes on some landlords' estates existed side-by-side with surprisingly liberal approximations to a rule of law. This book paints a vivid and colourful picture of the everyday reality of rural Russia before the 1861 abolition of serfdom.

The region between the river Senegal and Sierra Leone saw the first trans-Atlantic slave trade in the sixteenth century. Drawing on many new sources, Toby Green challenges current quantitative approaches to the history of the slave trade. New data on slave origins can show how and why Western African societies responded to Atlantic pressures. Green argues that answering these questions requires a cultural framework and uses the idea of creolization - the formation of mixed cultural communities in the era of plantation societies - to argue that preceding social patterns in both Africa and Europe were crucial. Major impacts of the sixteenth-century slave trade included political fragmentation, changes in identity and the re-organization of ritual and social patterns. The book shows which peoples were enslaved, why they were vulnerable and the consequences in Africa and beyond.

This book explores how modern Egyptians understand the Mamluks and reveals the ways in which that historical memory is utilized for political and ideological purposes. It specifically examines the representations of the Mamluks from two historical periods: the Mamluk Sultanate era (1250-1517) and the Mamluks under the Ottoman era (1517-1811) focusing mostly on the years 1760-1811. Although the Mamluks have had a great impact on the Egyptian collective memory and modern thought, the subject to date has hardly been researched seriously, with most analyses given to stereotypical negative representations of the Mamluks in historical works. However, many Egyptian historians and intellectuals presented the Mamluk era positively, and even symbolized the Sultans as national icons. This book sheds light on the heretofore-neglected positive dimensions of the multifaceted representations of the Mamluks and addresses the ways in which modern Egyptians utilize that collective memory.

This book examines the political economy of the master-slave relationship viewed through the lens of consumption and market exchange. What did it mean when human chattel bought commodities, 'stole' property, or gave and received gifts? Forgotten exchanges, this study argues, measured the deepest questions of worth and value, shaping an enduring struggle for power between slaves and masters. The slaves' internal economy focused intense paternalist negotiation on a ground where categories of exchange - provision, gift, contraband, and commodity - were in constant flux. At once binding and alienating, these ties endured constant moral stresses and material manipulation by masters and slaves alike, galvanizing conflict and engendering complex new social relations on and off the plantation.

Drawing on both new and neglected evidence, this book reconstructs Old John Brown's aborted 'war' to free the 3.8 million slaves in the American South before the Civil War. It critiques misleading sources that either exalt Brown's 'heroism' and noble purpose or condemn his 'monomania' and 'lawlessness'. McGlone explains the sources of his obsession with slavery and his notorious crime at Pottawatomie Creek in 'Bleeding Kansas' as well as how the Harpers Ferry raid figured into Brown's larger vision and why he was captured in the federal armory there. John Brown's War against Slavery chronicles how this American apostle of violence on behalf of the 'downtrodden', this abolitionist 'fanatic' and 'terroriser', ultimately rescued his cause by going to the gallows with resolution and outward calm. By embracing martyrdom, John Brown helped to spread panic in the South and persuaded northern sympathizers that failure can be noble and political violence 'righteous'.

A wealthy planter in the West Indies, Bryan Edwards (1743-1800) lived in Jamaica during the peak of its sugar wealth. Upon his return to England in 1792, he wrote several books on the West Indies, including a multi-volume history of the British colonies. The present work, first published in 1796, relates to the recent conflict between the British and Jamaicans descended from runaway slaves, known as Maroons. Living mostly in isolated mountain communities, the Maroons had been granted certain rights under a 1739 treaty. However, by 1795, with a new governor ruling the island, tensions re-emerged and resulted in another war. Prefaced by Edwards' extended discussion of the Maroons and the origins of the conflict, this collection of documents and letters represents a valuable source in the study of Jamaican history and that of British colonialism in the Caribbean.

The first slave reached the Cape in 1653, a year after the first white settler party under Jan van Riebeeck. Slavery was to remain an institution here until the end of the Dutch period in 1795, and well beyond, for it was not until 1834, under British administration, that Cape slaves were finally emancipated. In Early slavery at the Cape of Good Hope Karel Schoeman describes the transplanting of slavery from the Dutch colonies in the East and the first sixty years of its development under local conditions, basing his account mainly on contemporary sources and providing as much information on individual slaves and their lives as these allow. Attention is likewise given to the gradual manumission of slaves and the slow development of a 'free black' community at the Cape towards the close of the seventeenth century.

Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics challenges the way historians interpret the causes of the American Civil War. Using Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas's famed rivalry as a prism, Robert E. May shows that when Lincoln and fellow Republicans opposed slavery in the West, they did so partly from evidence that slaveholders, with Douglas's assistance, planned to follow up successes in Kansas by bringing Cuba, Mexico, and Central America into the Union as slave states. A skeptic about 'Manifest Destiny', Lincoln opposed the war with Mexico, condemned Americans invading Latin America, and warned that Douglas's 'popular sovereignty' doctrine would unleash US slaveholders throughout Latin America. This book internationalizes America's showdown over slavery, shedding new light on the Lincoln-Douglas rivalry and Lincoln's Civil War scheme to resettle freed slaves in the tropics.

Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics challenges the way historians interpret the causes of the American Civil War. Using Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas's famed rivalry as a prism, Robert E. May shows that when Lincoln and fellow Republicans opposed slavery in the West, they did so partly from evidence that slaveholders, with Douglas's assistance, planned to follow up successes in Kansas by bringing Cuba, Mexico, and Central America into the Union as slave states. A skeptic about 'Manifest Destiny', Lincoln opposed the war with Mexico, condemned Americans invading Latin America, and warned that Douglas's 'popular sovereignty' doctrine would unleash US slaveholders throughout Latin America. This book internationalizes America's showdown over slavery, shedding new light on the Lincoln-Douglas rivalry and Lincoln's Civil War scheme to resettle freed slaves in the tropics.

Slave Portraiture in the Atlantic World is the first book to focus on the individualized portrayal of enslaved people from the time of Europe's full engagement with plantation slavery in the late sixteenth century to its final official abolition in Brazil in 1888. While this period saw the emergence of portraiture as a major field of representation in Western art, slave and portraiture as categories appear to be mutually exclusive. On the one hand, the logic of chattel slavery sought to render the slave's body as an instrument for production, as the site of a non-subject. Portraiture, on the contrary, privileged the face as the primary visual matrix for the representation of a distinct individuality. The essays in this volume address this apparent paradox of slave portraits from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives. They probe the historical conditions that made the creation of such rare and enigmatic objects possible and explore their implications for a more complex understanding of power relations under slavery."

In the years preceding the American Civil War, religion was at the heart of the debate over slavery. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) had rejected the strict Calvinism of his background to become the leading Unitarian spokesman and preacher, and in later life he began to address the subject of slavery. Published in 1836, this work was Channing's most substantial contribution to the debate, revealing the real difficulties men such as Channing had in questioning a practice with which they had grown up. He vacillates between contempt for the institution and empathy for the slaveholders, writing, 'I do not intend to pass sentence on the character of the slave-holder.' He sees black slaves as humans, but not of equal status with white people. The final chapter is particularly prescient: 'There is a great dread ... that the union of the States may be dissolved by the conflict about slavery.'

When colonial slavery was abolished in 1833 the British government paid GBP20 million to slave-owners as compensation: the enslaved received nothing. Drawing on the records of the Commissioners of Slave Compensation, which represent a complete census of slave-ownership, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the extent and importance of absentee slave-ownership and its impact on British society. Moving away from the historiographical tradition of isolated case studies, it reveals the extent of slave-ownership among metropolitan elites, and identifies concentrations of both rentier and mercantile slave-holders, tracing their influence in local and national politics, in business and in institutions such as the Church. In analysing this permeation of British society by slave-owners and their success in securing compensation from the state, the book challenges conventional narratives of abolitionist Britain and provides a fresh perspective of British society and politics on the eve of the Victorian era.

For the past forty years, prominent pro-life activists, judges and politicians have invoked the history and legacy of American slavery to elucidate aspects of contemporary abortion politics. As is often the case, many of these popular analogies have been imprecise, underdeveloped and historically simplistic. In Slavery, Abortion, and the Politics of Constitutional Meaning, Justin Buckley Dyer provides the first book-length scholarly treatment of the parallels between slavery and abortion in American constitutional development. In this fascinating and wide-ranging study, Dyer demonstrates that slavery and abortion really are historically, philosophically and legally intertwined in America. The nexus, however, is subtler and more nuanced than is often suggested, and the parallels involve deep principles of constitutionalism.

Sugar cane plantations had operated across almost every island in the West Indies since the seventeenth century. Run by British planters, they relied on slavery as their main source of labour. A surgeon and Anglican minister, James Ramsay (1733 89) witnessed at first hand the exploitation of African slaves in Britain's West Indian colonies. Working there for over twenty years, as both a Christian missionary and a practising surgeon, he became keenly involved in the campaign to improve the welfare of slaves. This extended essay, first published in 1784, was an early and highly influential contribution to the anti-slavery movement, generating both enlightened acclaim and deep opposition. Analysing the relationships between slaves and their masters, discussing the role of slaves in society, and proposing various measures to improve their lives, this work remains a relevant text in Caribbean and colonial history.

This 1786 publication is a translation of a prizewinning Latin essay written by Thomas Clarkson (1760 1846) at Cambridge the previous year. Clarkson's deep research into the Atlantic slave trade instilled in him a sense of duty, inspiring him to devote his life to abolitionism. The publication of the essay introduced Clarkson to like-minded campaigners, notably William Wilberforce (1759 1833) and Granville Sharpe (1735 1813), with whom he helped to establish in 1787 the pioneering Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Thoughts on the African Slave Trade (1788) by the sailor, slave trader and Anglican clergyman John Newton (1725 1807) is also reissued in this volume. Published thirty-four years after Newton's retirement from the slave trade, this pamphlet apologises for his 'too late' conversion to the abolitionist movement and describes the horrific conditions aboard slave ships during the Middle Passage.

The author and campaigner Granville Sharp (1735 1813) was born in Durham to a religious family. In 1765, a chance encounter with a slave, Jonathan Strong, sparked the serious interest in abolitionism that in due course saw him become a founding member of the London committee of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Due in part to his efforts and writings, the anti-slavery movement in Britain gained public attention and became a more focused and organised campaign. This tract, originally published in 1776, is one of several anti-slavery works that Sharp produced in that year. A rigorous defence of liberty and of 'the honour of holy Scriptures', it is a riposte to the idea that slavery is sanctioned by God, citing the biblical doctrines of 'Thou shalt not oppress a stranger' and 'Love thy neighbour as thyself'. Also included are several appendices of material relating to the abolitionist cause.

In the late eighteenth century, slave labour in Britain's colonies was seen as central to world trade, and the practice was supported by prominent members of society, including the king. Ottobah Cugoano, an emancipated slave living in England, had joined the Sons of Africa, a group whose members wrote to the royal family, aristocrats and leading politicians to condemn slavery and campaign for its abolition. This work, first published in 1787 and sent to George III, was a daring attack on colonial conquest and enslavement, arguing that slaves had a moral duty to rebel against their oppressors. Widely read upon publication, it went through at least three printings that year and was translated into French, with a shorter version published in 1791. This reissue of the original work makes available an important document in the history of colonialism and slavery in the British Empire.

Nigerian-born Olaudah Equiano (c.1745 97), also known as Gustavus Vassa, was sold into slavery as a child and endured the horrors of the transatlantic slave ships. He later worked on board Royal Navy vessels, receiving an education and converting to Christianity. Buying his freedom in 1766, he embarked on several voyages before settling in London, where he became involved in the causes of anti-slavery and the welfare of former slaves. Published in 1789, this successful two-volume autobiography boosted the abolitionist cause, providing a first-hand account of the experience of Africans on both sides of the Atlantic. An important document in the history of slavery and immigration, it remains a classic work of black writing. Volume 1 begins with Equiano's background and kidnapping, and the Atlantic crossing. He recounts his adventures in the Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War, and subsequent experiences of merchant trading in the Americas.

Nigerian-born Olaudah Equiano (c.1745 97), also known as Gustavus Vassa, was sold into slavery as a child and endured the horrors of the transatlantic slave ships. He later worked on board Royal Navy vessels, receiving an education and converting to Christianity. Buying his freedom in 1766, he embarked on several voyages before settling in London, where he became involved in the causes of anti-slavery and the welfare of former slaves. Published in 1789, this successful two-volume autobiography boosted the abolitionist cause, providing a first-hand account of the experience of Africans on both sides of the Atlantic. An important document in the history of slavery and immigration, it remains a classic work of black writing. Volume 2 recounts how Equiano achieved his freedom, his conversion to Christianity, his experience of shipwreck in the West Indies, and his life in England.

The shocking first-hand account of one man's remarkable fight for freedom; now an award-winning motion picture. 'Why had I not died in my young years - before God had given me children to love and live for? What unhappiness and suffering and sorrow it would have prevented. I sighed for liberty; but the bondsman's chain was round me, and could not be shaken off.' 1841: Solomon Northup is a successful violinist when he is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Taken from his family in New York State - with no hope of ever seeing them again - and forced to work on the cotton plantations in the Deep South, he spends the next twelve years in captivity until his eventual escape in 1853. First published in 1853, this extraordinary true story proved to be a powerful voice in the debate over slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. It is a true-life testament of one man's courage and conviction in the face of unfathomable injustice and brutality: its influence on the course of American history cannot be overstated.

Prince Sanders (1775 1839) was an African-American teacher and advocate of black American emigration to Africa and Haiti. When Sanders was on a speaking tour of England he met abolitionist William Wilberforce, who encouraged him to go to Haiti and meet King Henri Christophe (1767 1820). Haiti during this time was divided, and Christophe ruled over the northern region. Sanders travelled to the island and was quickly hired as Christophe's adviser. In 1816 Sanders published this translation of documents, which include Christophe's land reforms, his establishment of a monarchy in Haiti, and some of his correspondence. This publication was part of an attempt by Christophe and Sanders to show white Europeans that former slaves could successfully run their own country without international interference. Although Haiti was reunited in 1820, after Christophe's death, these documents illustrate his efforts to protect the country during its fragile early years of independence.

The Oxford Handbook of Slavery in the Americas offers penetrating, original, and authoritative essays on the history and historiography of the institution of slavery in the New World. With essays on colonial and antebellum America, Brazil, the Caribbean, the Indies, and South America, the Handbook has impressive geographic and temporal coverage. It also includes a generous range of thematic essays on comparative slavery, the economics of slavery, historical methodology in the field, slavery and the law, for instance. While obviously indebted to the foundational works of the 1960s and 1970s, current writing on the history of slavery and forms of unfree labor in the Americas has taken decidedly original, new, often ingenious turns. A younger generation of scholars has shown a healthy respect for that tradition while posing new, often interdisciplinary, and theoretically informed questions, considering, for example, the nature and definition of slave resistance in the Americas, evolving meanings of gender and race under slavery, the complicated nature of class formation in unfree societies, the elaboration of proslavery and antislavery ideologies, the origins and subsequent elaboration of race-based slavery, and mechanisms of emancipation. Written by an international team including some of the field's most eminent historians and the most innovative younger scholars working today, The Oxford Handbook of Slavery in the Americas seeks to explain the enduring importance of the earlier historiography, identify current trends and developments, and offer suggestive but informed commentary on future developments in the field for a global scholarly audience.

The Christmas Rebellion (1831-2) saw the uprising of 60,000 Jamaican slaves, many of them followers of one Baptist preacher. Initially intended only as a peaceful strike, it escalated as estates were burned down and plantation owners killed. This 1832 pamphlet details the violence and persecution directed against nonconformists and missionaries, who were regarded as having been sympathetic towards the revolt. The materials were published by William Knibb, a Baptist minister, who in 1832 was summoned to appear before parliamentary committees investigating the state of the Caribbean colonies. His evidence and the rebellion itself are regarded as having quickened the pace of emancipation in Jamaica. The documents are reissued here with an 1837 narrative by James Williams, a youth who became an apprentice under the system that replaced slavery. He describes how conditions for former slaves were little improved, with many instances of harsh treatment and unjust imprisonment.

Before the Civil War, most Southern white people were as strongly committed to freedom for their kind as to slavery for African Americans. This study views that tragic reality through the lens of eight authors - representatives of a South that seemed, to them, destined for greatness but was, we know, on the brink of destruction. Exceptionally able and ambitious, these men and women won repute among the educated middle classes in the Southwest, South and the nation, even amid sectional tensions. Although they sometimes described liberty in the abstract, more often these authors discussed its practical significance: what it meant for people to make life's important choices freely and to be responsible for the results. They publicly insisted that freedom caused progress, but hidden doubts clouded this optimistic vision. Ultimately, their association with the oppression of slavery dimmed their hopes for human improvement, and fear distorted their responses to the sectional crisis.