In this book, Alan Watson argues that the slave laws of North and
South America-the written codes defining the relationship of
masters to slaves-reflect not so much the culture and society of
the various colonies but the legal traditions of England, Europe,
and ancient Rome. A pathbreaking study concerned as much with the
nature of comparative law as the specific subject of the law of
slavery, Slave Law in the Americas posits an essential distance in
the Western legal tradition between the tenets of law and the
values of the society they govern. Laws, Watson shows, often are
made not by governments or rulers but by jurists as in ancient
Rome, law professors as in medieval and continental Europe, and
judges as in common law England. Bodies of law, often created
without reference to particular social and political ideals, are
also often transferred whole cloth from one society to another.
Tracing the effects of the reception of Roman law throughout Europe
(excluding England) and the Americas, Watson reveals the enormous
impact of this legal tradition on subsequent lawmakers operating
under utterly dissimilar social and political conditions in the New
World. Slave law in the colonies, Watson demonstrates, had much to
do with the mother country's relations to Roman law. Spain,
Portugal, France, and the United Dutch Provinces, all within the
Roman legal tradition, imposed on their colonies slave laws that
were private and nonracist in character, laws that interfered
little in master-slave relations and provided for the relative ease
of manumission and the grant of citizenship to freed slaves.
England, however, did not ascribe to Roman law and colonists
created rather than received slave law. Public and racist, slave
law in the English colonies uniquely reflected local concerns,
involving every citizen in the protection and perpetuation of
slavery, strictly regulating education, manumission, and
citizenship status. "Comparative legal history," Watson writes, "is
in its infancy." Presenting the laws of slavery in ancient Rome and
in the slaveholding colonies of America, Watson demonstrates how
comparative law can elucidate the relationship of law, legal rules,
and institutions to the society in which they operate.
Investigating not the dynamics of slavery but of slave law, he
reveals the working of a legal culture and its peculiar history.
General
Imprint: |
University of Georgia Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
October 2012 |
First published: |
October 2012 |
Authors: |
Alan Watson
|
Dimensions: |
216 x 140 x 11mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
200 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8203-4117-0 |
Categories: |
Books >
Law >
Jurisprudence & general issues >
Legal history
|
LSN: |
0-8203-4117-7 |
Barcode: |
9780820341170 |
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