Slavery, enslaved persons and abolition of slavery Books

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Book SynopsisWestern slavery goes back 10,000 years to Mesopotamia, today’s Iraq, where a male slave was worth an orchard of date palms. Female slaves were called on for sexual services, gaining freedom only when their masters died. This book traces slavery from classical times to the present. It shows how the enforced movement of more than 12 million Africans on to the Atlantic slave ships, and the scattering of more 11 million survivors across the colonies of the Americas between the late 16th and early 19th centuries, transformed the face of the Americas. Though they were not its pioneers, it was the British who came to dominate Atlantic slavery, helping to consolidate the country’s status as a world power before it became the first major country to abolish slavery. James Walvin explores the moral and economic issues slavery raises, examines how it worked and describes the lives of individual slaves, their resilience in the face of a brutal institution, and the depths to which white owners and their overseers could on occasion sink in their treatment of them.

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Book SynopsisBreaking the Maafa Chain chronicles two sisters' struggle for true freedom in the mid-nineteenth century, when transporting slaves from Africa to America was an illegal but lucrative businessNineteenth century-Two sisters, Fatmata and Salimatu, are captured and sold separately into slavery. Forced to change their names to Faith and Sarah, they end up in two different countries with opposite slavery laws. Faith ends up in America, where slavery is still legal and slaves don't have any rights. Sarah ends up in a Victorian England and as the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Can the two sisters reclaim their freedom and identity in a world that is trying to break them down and mold them to its coloniser's will?Based on the true story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Breaking the Maafa Chain will take the readers on a journey of loss, survival, hope, identity and tradition.Trade ReviewPart fact, part fiction, Breaking the Maafa Chain is an important book, beautifully told. Domingo's premise is a bold and uncompromising one - taking what is known, the story of Salimatu, the 'black princess', Sarah Forbes Bonetta, and weaving through it the story of her fictionalised sister, Fatmata, Faith. Domingo makes an eloquent point: that although the sisters suffered different fates, both were unfree: Fatmata enslaved in North America and Salimatu gifted to Queen Victoria, and utterly at her whim.It is a story that has resonance today, where Meghan Markle was expected to shape herself to a white institution, to belong. * Guinevere Glasfurd *The story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, extraordinary even in extraordinary times, known to some in Sierra Leone , though virtually unknown elsewhere. Now Anni Domingo has brought her vividly to life in this richly imagined and compellingly told tale. Breaking the Maafa Chain is a gift to readers everywhere. * Aminatta Forna *Anni Domingo's Breaking the Maafa Chain is so rich in detail and dialogue, it is simply seductive. She captures so well, a little girl, Salimatu, who recalls the security of her family life, who is transported to a bewildering future in England to become Sarah, where she has to stand strong and survive. Not only will this book be read for the sheer enjoyment of a beautifully written novel, but for the learning gained. It is a historical novel that cannot be ignored. * Kadija Sesay, Literary Activist, author of Irki *Anni Domingo brings great sensitivity to her fictionalised account of the remarkable young life of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, the 'African Princess', who became a god-daughter to Queen Victoria. The internal struggles of Salimatu (Sarah) are movingly explored as she struggles to remain true to her identity as an African after being taken from her homeland and brought to England as a gift from "the King of the Blacks to the Queen of the Whites." A comparable story is told of Salimatu's sister Fatmata (Faith) who is transported to the United States before emancipation. Carefully constructed with a keen eye for historical accuracy, Domingo reveals a compassionate and affectionate Queen Victoria who is devoted to her African god-daughter. This is also an epic story of two sisters who are separated towards the end of the transatlantic slave trade, but never forget each other. * Stephen Bourne, author of War to Windrush and Evelyn Dove *

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Book SynopsisBreaking the Maafa Chain chronicles two sisters' struggle for true freedom in the mid-nineteenth century, when transporting slaves from Africa to America was an illegal but lucrative businessNineteenth century—Two sisters, Fatmata and Salimatu, are captured and sold separately into slavery. Forced to change their names to Faith and Sarah, they end up in two different countries with opposite slavery laws. Faith ends up in America, where slavery is still legal and slaves don't have any rights. Sarah ends up in a Victorian England and as the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Can the two sisters reclaim their freedom and identity in a world that is trying to break them down and mold them to its coloniser's will?Based on the true story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Breaking the Maafa Chain will take the readers on a journey of loss, survival, hope, identity and tradition.Trade ReviewPart fact, part fiction, Breaking the Maafa Chain is an important book, beautifully told. Domingo's premise is a bold and uncompromising one - taking what is known, the story of Salimatu, the 'black princess', Sarah Forbes Bonetta, and weaving through it the story of her fictionalised sister, Fatmata, Faith. Domingo makes an eloquent point: that although the sisters suffered different fates, both were unfree: Fatmata enslaved in North America and Salimatu gifted to Queen Victoria, and utterly at her whim.It is a story that has resonance today, where Meghan Markle was expected to shape herself to a white institution, to belong. * Guinevere Glasfurd *Part fact, part fiction, Breaking the Maafa Chain is an important book, beautifully told. Domingo's premise is a bold and uncompromising one - taking what is known, the story of Salimatu, the 'black princess', Sarah Forbes Bonetta, and weaving through it the story of her fictionalised sister, Fatmata, Faith. Domingo makes an eloquent point: that although the sisters suffered different fates, both were unfree: Fatmata enslaved in North America and Salimatu gifted to Queen Victoria, and utterly at her whim.It is a story that has resonance today, where Meghan Markle was expected to shape herself to a white institution, to belong. * Guinevere Glasfurd *The story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, extraordinary even in extraordinary times, known to some in Sierra Leone , though virtually unknown elsewhere. Now Anni Domingo has brought her vividly to life in this richly imagined and compellingly told tale. Breaking the Maafa Chain is a gift to readers everywhere. * Aminatta Forna *Anni Domingo's Breaking the Maafa Chain is so rich in detail and dialogue, it is simply seductive. She captures so well, a little girl, Salimatu, who recalls the security of her family life, who is transported to a bewildering future in England to become Sarah, where she has to stand strong and survive. Not only will this book be read for the sheer enjoyment of a beautifully written novel, but for the learning gained. It is a historical novel that cannot be ignored. * Kadija Sesay, Literary Activist, author of Irki *Anni Domingo brings great sensitivity to her fictionalised account of the remarkable young life of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, the 'African Princess', who became a god-daughter to Queen Victoria. The internal struggles of Salimatu (Sarah) are movingly explored as she struggles to remain true to her identity as an African after being taken from her homeland and brought to England as a gift from "the King of the Blacks to the Queen of the Whites." A comparable story is told of Salimatu's sister Fatmata (Faith) who is transported to the United States before emancipation. Carefully constructed with a keen eye for historical accuracy, Domingo reveals a compassionate and affectionate Queen Victoria who is devoted to her African god-daughter. This is also an epic story of two sisters who are separated towards the end of the transatlantic slave trade, but never forget each other. * Stephen Bourne, author of War to Windrush and Evelyn Dove *

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Book SynopsisA timely and original look at the role of the eyewitness account in the representation of slavery in British and European art Gathering together over 160 paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints, this book offers an unprecedented examination of the shifting iconography of slavery in British and European art between 1760 and 1840. In addition to considering how the work of artists such as Agostino Brunias, James Hakewill, and Augustus Earle responded to abolitionist politics, Sarah Thomas examines the importance of the eyewitness account in endowing visual representations of transatlantic slavery with veracity. “Being there,” indeed, became significant not only because of the empirical opportunities to document slave life it afforded but also because the imagery of the eyewitness was more credible than sketches and paintings created by the “armchair traveler” at home. Full of original insights that cast a new light on these highly charged images, this volume reconsiders how slavery was depicted within a historical context in which truth was a deeply contested subject.Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British ArtTrade Review“Thomas delivered an excellent volume in which she comprehensibly shows the great impact that visual culture had on the era of abolition and how contested images of eyewitness artists were used for the propaganda purposes of the pro- and anti-slavery movements.”—Annika Vosseler, Connections“Engaging and provocative . . . Deals mainly with British publications during the heyday of illustrated book publishing, persuasively arguing that these artworks were deeply influenced by the politics surrounding their production.”—Richard Price, New West Indian Guide“[A] lavishly illustrated and finely produced book . . . Thomas brings together several bodies of scholarship on the visual culture of slavery, travel, and imperial landscape.”—Esther Chadwick, Art History “A powerful look at the varied contexts in which artists found themselves in the Americas as witnesses to societies that depended on enslaved labour . . . The book’s resonance with our contemporary reality is impossible to miss.”—Allison Young, Slavery & Abolition“[A] beautifully effective book. Large-size, perfect color reproductions of paintings and prints on a remarkably readable and viewable heavy-stock paper make it possible to survey the art of slavery for our own determinations.”—John E. Crowley, Journal of British Studies

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1688, Oroonoko, or, The Royal Slave is a short, politically charged novella by the Restoration playwright – and spy – Aphra Behn, and is arguably one of the founding texts of the novel form. Purporting to chart the life of an African prince, Oroonoko, who is tricked into slavery and taken to South America, the narrative follows the Prince through his trials of love, loss and rebellion. Vying for the title of the first English novel – and certainly the first to be read as an indictment of the treatment of Africans – Oroonoko has all the hallmarks of Behn’s stage works, which are widely considered to be amongst the most important of the Restoration period.Trade Review'All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.' (Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own)Table of ContentsTo the Right Honourable the Lord Maitland, Oroonoko, Note on the Text, Notes, Extra Material: A Brief Introduction to Aphra Behn, More Information about Aphra Behn, A Note on Oroonoko

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Book SynopsisIn 1773, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral became the first book of poetry by an African-American author to be published. At the tender age of seven, Phillis had been brought to Massachusetts as a slave and sold to the well-to-do Wheatley family. There, she threw herself into education, and soon she was devouring the classics and writing verse with whatever she had to hand – odes in chalk on the walls of the house. Once her talent became known, there was uproar, and in 1772 she was interrogated by a panel of ‘the most respectable characters in Boston’ and forced to defend the ownership of her own words, since many believed that it was an impossible that she, an African-American slave, could write poetry of such high quality. As related in the 1834 memoir by an outspoken proponent of antislavery, B.B. Thatcher, also included in this volume, the road to publication was not straight, and while it became clear that such a volume could not be published in America at the time, Phillis was recommended to a London publisher, who brought out the book – albeit with an attestation as to her authorship, as well as a ‘letter from her master’ and a short preface asking the reader’s indulgence. This edition includes the attestation, the ‘letter from her master’ and notes from the original publishers as an appendix, so that the twenty-first-century reader can discover Phillis Wheatley as she should have been read – as a poet, not property.Trade Review'An attractive selection.' (John’s Autumn Picks 2020, London Review Bookshop) 'Elegant lines… the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your great poetical talents.' (George Washington) 'Quite too interesting to be passed over by the historian in utter silence.' (B.B. Thatcher)Table of ContentsTo the Public; Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral: 'To Maecenas', 'On Virtue', 'To the University of Cambridge in New England', 'To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty', 'On Being Brought from Africa to America', 'On the Death of the Rev. Dr Sewell', 'On the Death of the Rev. Mr George Whitefield', 'On the Death of a Young Lady of Five Years of Age', 'On the Death of a Young Gentleman', 'To a Lady on the Death of Her Husband', 'Goliath of Gath', 'Thoughts on the Works of Providence', 'To a Lady on the Death of Three Relations', 'To a Clergyman on the Death of His Lady', 'A Hymn to the Morning', 'A Hymn to the Evening', 'Isaiah LXIII 1–8', 'On Recollection', 'On Imagination', 'A Funeral Poem on the Death of C.E.', 'To Captain H——d of the 65th Regiment', 'To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth', 'Ode to Neptune', 'To a Lady on Her Coming to North America', 'To a Lady on Her Remarkable Preservation in a Hurricane in North Carolina', 'To a Lady and Her Children on the Death of Her Son and Their Brother', 'To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady’s Brother and Sister, and a Child', 'On the Death of Dr Samuel Marshall', 'To a Gentleman on His Voyage to Great Britain', 'To the Rev. Dr Thomas Amory', 'On the Death of J.C., an Infant', 'A Hymn to Humanity', 'To the Honourable T.H., Esq., on the Death of His Daughter', 'Niobe in Distress for Her Children Slain by Apollo', 'To S.M., a Young African Painter', 'To His Honour the Lieutenant Governor, on the Death of His Lady', 'A Farewell to America', 'A Rebus, by I.B.', 'An Answer to the Rebus; A Memoir of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave; Note on the Text; Notes; Index of First Lines; Appendix: Preface from the First Edition of the Poems, Notice to the Public from the First Edition of the Poems, Notice to the Public from the First Edition of the Memoir

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Book SynopsisBars Fight, a ballad telling the tale of an ambush by Native Americans on two families in 1746 in a Massachusetts meadow, is the oldest known work by an African-American author. Passed on orally until it was recorded in Josiah Gilbert Holland’s History of Western Massachusetts in 1855, the ballad is a landmark in the history of literature that should be on every book lover’s shelves.Trade Review'As the reader takes a cover page in each hand and fans out the pages of the concertina, she feels a whole history unfurl within her hands. Although small in size, Bars Fight is mighty in significance.' (Indie Insider) '[This] publication of Lucy Terry Prince’s Bars Fight is a stellar example of bringing a truly madly deeply neglected text back to life. Bravo!' (Neglected Books)

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Book SynopsisEighteenth-century poetry was dominated by men of education and wealth, and bookcases sagged under the weight of volumes by Swift, Johnson and Pope. When Stephen Duck’s The Thresher’s Labour was published in 1730, however, it was a sensation – highlighting the plight of the working class in verse was hereto simply unthought of. Duck’s poem came to the attention of Mary Collier, a washerwoman working in Hampshire, who was astounded to read Duck’s dismissal of women as work-shy layabouts who indulged in ‘noisy prattle’, and she penned a stinging riposte, The Woman’s Labour, which reframed Duck’s relation of harvest-time toil from a woman’s perspective. This edition of The Woman’s Labour seeks to give a wider view of the conversation, and includes The Thresher’s Labour, ‘The Three Wise Sentences’ (which Collier included in the first publication of her reply), ‘An Epistolary Answer to an Exciseman Who Doubted Her Being the Author’ and the elegy she wrote for Stephen Duck after he died.Trade Review'Collier’s writing… represents an instance of resistance to oppression both gendered and class-based.' (Donna Landry, The Muses of Resistance)Table of Contents'The Woman’s Labour' by Mary Collier: 'Advertisement', 'The Woman’s Labour', 'The Three Wise Sentences Taken from The First Book of Esdras'; 'The Thresher’s Labour' by Stephen Duck; 'An Elegy Upon Stephen Duck' by Mary Collier; 'An Epistolary Answer to an Exciseman Who Doubted Her Being the Author' by Mary Collier; Notes; Note on the Text

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Book SynopsisOne of the earliest known published works written by an African author, The Interesting Narrative was a groundbreaking memoir that helped pave the way for the abolition of slavery. In it, Equiano describes his early life in Africa, his abduction and his gruelling journey across the world on a slave ship. Published in London once Equiano had secured his freedom, the runaway success of the book led to his financial independence, and he toured England, Scotland and Ireland lecturing on the horrors described in the book, and he dedicated his life to advocating for the abolition of slavery. Forgotten until the 1960s, The Interesting Narrative has again shot to fame, and is now considered the most detailed account of a slave's life, exposing the trials of the long road to freedom.Trade Review'The appetite for Equiano and his memoir shows no signs of abating.' (The Times)

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Book SynopsisPart of the Hero Classics series?Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.?Douglass cultivated himself to such an extent that the listeners of his lectures doubted if his narratives were true. His autobiography is both a compelling tale of a slave and a contribution to the public discourse on slavery. His language is poetic and precise honed in its simplicity as if something artificially put together but immensely natural at the same time. Opening this book is opening the door into Douglass''s consciousness and tracking his inner journey of finding himself in the world: a story of his childhood and youth ? a long and laborious path to freedom. Douglass talks about the explicit punishments and tortures that slaves were exposed to. Despite the suffering, he emphasizes the power of self-education and continuous resistance that pushes one to fight their predicament. The publication of this book was such an unprecedented event that the author had to leave the US for Europe for about two years. The fact that Douglass''s experience and meditations were issued in print gave him a wider audience, not restricting dissemination of his beliefs to those who could physically come to his public speeches.The Hero Classics series: Meditations The Prophet A Room of One?s Own Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl The Art of War The Life of Charlotte Bronte The Republic The Prince Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

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Book SynopsisPackaged in handsome, affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential literary works. It features literary phenomena with influence and themes so great that, after their publication, they changed literature forever. From the musings of literary geniuses like Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the striking personal narrative of Solomon Northup in Twelve Years a Slave, this new series is a comprehensive collection of our history through the words of the exceptional few.One of the only surviving female slave narratives from the twentieth century, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an autobiographical account written by Harriet Jacobs. The narrative documents the extreme adversity she overcame before she eventually achieved her freedom. Born into slavery, young Harriet was taken into the care of her mother’s mistress, who treated her relatively well. However, a few years later, the mistress passed away and her cruel, abusive relatives inherited Harriet.Under the pseudonym “Linda Brent,” Jacobs recounts within the book the horrific injustices she encountered: sexual abuse, extreme cruelty, exploitation, being denied motherhood when her children are sold to another slave owner. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet’s agonizing descriptions are indicative of what many other enslaved African American women suffered through during this tragic time in American history.Published in 1861, just on the brink of the Civil War, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a harrowing literary work bringing to light the courage, empowerment, and perseverance a young slave found in her desperate search for freedom.

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Book SynopsisThe basis of the 2013 Academy Award–winning film 12 Years a Slave, this is the autobiography of Solomon Northup—an African American man born free in New York state who is tricked, kidnapped, taken to Washington, DC, and sold into slavery.Solomon experiences the true horrors of the slave trade—intense cruelty, beatings, sickness, negligence, barbarism, starvation. Throughout the book’s melancholic prose, Northup recounts these horrific experiences in excruciating and agonizing detail. In one of the book’s passages, he states: “My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than the burning agonies of hell!” For the next twelve years, Northup kept his identity hidden only to himself and remained imprisoned in this state of bondage.Originally published eight years before the Civil War and similar in many ways to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, this groundbreaking work gave Americans from the north razor-sharp, firsthand insight into the tragedies that were occurring in the South. Still today, Northup’s story is widely studied and reprinted, giving its readers a glimpse into a painful part of our country’s past.Packaged in handsome, affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential literary works. It features literary phenomena with influence and themes so great that, after their publication, they changed literature forever. From the musings of literary geniuses like Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the striking personal narrative of Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, this new series is a comprehensive collection of our history through the words of the exceptional few.

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Book SynopsisThe Black Butterfly focuses on the slavery writings of three of Brazil's literary giants—Machado de Assis, Castro Alves, and Euclides da Cunha. These authors wrote in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Brazil moved into and then through the 1888 abolition of slavery. Assis was Brazil's most experimental novelist; Alves was a Romantic poet with passionate liberationist politics, popularly known as "the poet of the slaves"; and da Cunha is known for the masterpiece Os Sertões (The Backlands), a work of genius that remains strangely neglected in the scholarship of transatlantic slavery.Wood finds that all three writers responded to the memory of slavery in ways that departed from their counterparts in Europe and North America, where emancipation has typically been depicted as a moment of closure. He ends by setting up a wider literary context for his core authors by introducing a comparative study of their great literary abolitionist predecessors Luís Gonzaga Pinto da Gama and Joaquim Nabuco. The Black Butterfly is a revolutionary text that insists Brazilian culture has always refused a clean break between slavery and its aftermath. Brazilian slavery thus emerges as a living legacy subject to continual renegotiation and reinvention.Trade Review“A groundbreaking interpretation of Brazilian literature in the context of transatlantic slavery and studies of race.”- Aquiles Alencar Brayner, the British Library

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Book SynopsisIn the United States, race and police were founded along with a capitalist economy dependent on the enslavement of workers of African descent. Race and Police builds a critical theory of American policing by analyzing a heterodox history of policing, drawn from the historiography of slavery and slave patrols. Beginning by tracing the historical origins of the police mandate in British colonial America, the book shows that the peculiar institution of racialized chattel slavery originated along with a novel, binary conception of race. On one side, for the first time Europeans from various nationalities were united in a single racial category. Inclusion in this category was necessary for citizenship. On the other, Blacks were branded as slaves, cast as social enemies, and assumed to be threats to the social order. The state determined not only that it would administer slavery, but that it would regulate slaves, authorizing the use of violence by agents of the state and white citizens to secure the social order. In doing so, slavery, citizenship, and police mutually informed one another, and together they produced racial capitalism, a working class defined and separated by the color line, and a racial social order. Race and Police corrects the Eurocentrism in the orthodox history of American police and in predominating critical theories of police. That orthodoxy rests on an origin story that begins with Sir Robert Peel and the London Metropolitan Police Service. Predating the Met by more than a century, America’s first police, often called slave patrols, did more than maintain order—it fabricated a racial order. Prior to their creation, all white citizens were conscripted to police all Blacks. Their participation in the coercive control of Blacks gave definition to their whiteness. Targeted as threats to the security of the economy and white society, being policed defined Blacks who, for the first time, were treated as a single racial group. The boundaries of whiteness were first established on the basis of who was required to regulate slaves, given a specific mandate to prevent Black insurrection, a mandate that remains core to the police role to this day.Trade Review“Brucato’s focus on the political construction of race in and through police does more than simply correct or reorder the narratives on race and policing, but fundamentally defines them. Race and Police makes clear contributions that are long overdue in the field.”— Mike King, author of When Riot Cops Are Not Enough: The Policing and Repression of Occupy Oakland (Rutgers Univ “Every abolitionist should read this book. Prison requires police, just as slavery required patrols. Prison seems inevitable, as did slavery. History, however, reveals no inevitable institutions, not even the Peculiar Institution. As Brucato meticulously demonstrates, the slave patrols were modern police. Why read him? Because abolition of slavery requires abolition of the police and the prison, just as much as it required abolition of the slave patrols. More importantly, the abolition of slavery is proof that policing and imprisonment aren't inevitable.”— Anthony Paul Farley, James Campbell Matthews Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at Albany Law SchoolTable of ContentsPreface Introduction Part I: Critical Theory of Race and Police 1. The Peculiar Institution of Police 2. The Peculiar Institution of Race Part II: The Police Law of Slavery 3. The Genesis of Race in Colonial Virginia 4. The First Black Slave Society 5. Acquiring a Slave Society Part III: Black Insurrection and White Counterinsurgency in Colonial America 6. A “Patroll” to Suppress Domestic Dangers 7. Policing the Chesapeake 8. Enemies of their Own Households Conclusion: Peculiar Institutions Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisIn the United States, race and police were founded along with a capitalist economy dependent on the enslavement of workers of African descent. Race and Police builds a critical theory of American policing by analyzing a heterodox history of policing, drawn from the historiography of slavery and slave patrols. Beginning by tracing the historical origins of the police mandate in British colonial America, the book shows that the peculiar institution of racialized chattel slavery originated along with a novel, binary conception of race. On one side, for the first time Europeans from various nationalities were united in a single racial category. Inclusion in this category was necessary for citizenship. On the other, Blacks were branded as slaves, cast as social enemies, and assumed to be threats to the social order. The state determined not only that it would administer slavery, but that it would regulate slaves, authorizing the use of violence by agents of the state and white citizens to secure the social order. In doing so, slavery, citizenship, and police mutually informed one another, and together they produced racial capitalism, a working class defined and separated by the color line, and a racial social order. Race and Police corrects the Eurocentrism in the orthodox history of American police and in predominating critical theories of police. That orthodoxy rests on an origin story that begins with Sir Robert Peel and the London Metropolitan Police Service. Predating the Met by more than a century, America’s first police, often called slave patrols, did more than maintain order—it fabricated a racial order. Prior to their creation, all white citizens were conscripted to police all Blacks. Their participation in the coercive control of Blacks gave definition to their whiteness. Targeted as threats to the security of the economy and white society, being policed defined Blacks who, for the first time, were treated as a single racial group. The boundaries of whiteness were first established on the basis of who was required to regulate slaves, given a specific mandate to prevent Black insurrection, a mandate that remains core to the police role to this day.Trade Review“Brucato’s focus on the political construction of race in and through police does more than simply correct or reorder the narratives on race and policing, but fundamentally defines them. Race and Police makes clear contributions that are long overdue in the field.”— Mike King, author of When Riot Cops Are Not Enough: The Policing and Repression of Occupy Oakland (Rutgers Univ “Every abolitionist should read this book. Prison requires police, just as slavery required patrols. Prison seems inevitable, as did slavery. History, however, reveals no inevitable institutions, not even the Peculiar Institution. As Brucato meticulously demonstrates, the slave patrols were modern police. Why read him? Because abolition of slavery requires abolition of the police and the prison, just as much as it required abolition of the slave patrols. More importantly, the abolition of slavery is proof that policing and imprisonment aren't inevitable.”— Anthony Paul Farley, James Campbell Matthews Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at Albany Law SchoolTable of ContentsPreface Introduction Part I: Critical Theory of Race and Police 1. The Peculiar Institution of Police 2. The Peculiar Institution of Race Part II: The Police Law of Slavery 3. The Genesis of Race in Colonial Virginia 4. The First Black Slave Society 5. Acquiring a Slave Society Part III: Black Insurrection and White Counterinsurgency in Colonial America 6. A “Patroll” to Suppress Domestic Dangers 7. Policing the Chesapeake 8. Enemies of their Own Households Conclusion: Peculiar Institutions Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisIn the bestselling tradition of The Notorious RBG comes a lively, informative, and illustrated tribute to one of the most exceptional women in American history—Harriet Tubman—a heroine whose fearlessness and activism still resonate today.Harriet Tubman is best known as one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad. As a leading abolitionist, her bravery and selflessness has inspired generations in the continuing struggle for civil rights. Now, National Book Award nominee Erica Armstrong Dunbar presents a fresh take on this American icon blending traditional biography, illustrations, photos, and engaging sidebars that illuminate the life of Tubman as never before. Not only did Tubman help liberate hundreds of slaves, she was the first woman to lead an armed expedition during the Civil War, worked as a spy for the Union Army, was a fierce suffragist, and was an advocate for the aged. She Came to Slay reveals the many complexities and varied accomplishments of one of our nation’s true heroes and offers an accessible and modern interpretation of Tubman’s life that is both informative and engaging. Filled with rare outtakes of commentary, an expansive timeline of Tubman’s life, photos (both new and those in public domain), commissioned illustrations, and sections including “Harriet By the Numbers” (number of times she went back down south, approximately how many people she rescued, the bounty on her head) and “Harriet’s Homies” (those who supported her over the years), She Came to Slay is a stunning and powerful mix of pop culture and scholarship and proves that Harriet Tubman is well deserving of her permanent place in our nation’s history.Trade Review“This book is fascinating . . . hyper accessible . . . Harriett Tubman is one of those people [that I thought] like I know her, I’m a black person, I know Harriet Tubman, and it turns out, I did not know her. And I’m so so so glad that I read this because I think that, you know that feeling is so familiar; I know that name, it exists for me on multiple levels of understanding, having someone really interpret the primary sources and give you a new understanding of actually what this person’s life means and what it means in the context of today was such a powerful read for me...It is a page-turner and there’s so much life into that it’s so different from your typical stereotypical history book.”—Aminatou Sow, Call Your Girlfriend

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Book SynopsisSlavery is attested throughout ancient Greek history and all over the Greek world. Unsurprisingly, then, scholarship on Greek slavery has proliferated in the past twenty-five or so years, making a holistic synthesis of such work especially desirable. This book offers a state-of-the-art guide to research on this subject, surveying recent scholarly trends and controversies and suggesting future directions for research. Topics include regional variation in slave systems; the economics of slavery; the treatment of enslaved people; sex and gender; agency, resistance, and revolt; manumission; and representations, metaphors, and legacies of Greek slavery. Readers, including those interested in slavery of other time periods, will find this book an essential resource in learning about key issues in Greek slavery studies or in pursuing their own research.

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Book SynopsisThe historical study shows that between the end of the 18th and the middle of the 19th century, German activists increasingly networked with abolitionists in the Atlantic region and introduced their own anti-slavery-critical statements into the overarching discourse. The investigation of German opponents of slavery expands and changes not only the view of the abolition movement as a cross-border historical phenomenon, but also the German area as part of the so-called Atlantic hinterland.

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Book SynopsisThe edited volume aims to re-contextualize revolts in early modern Central and Southern Europe (Hungary, Croatia, Czech Lands, Austria, Germany, Italy) by adopting the interdisciplinary and comparative methods of social and cultural history. Instead of structural explanations like the model of state-building versus popular resistance, it wishes to put back the peasants themselves to the historical narratives of revolts. Peasants appear in the book as active agents fighting or bargaining for freedom, which was a practical issue for them. Nonetheless, the language of lord-peasant negotiation was that of religion, just as official punishments used Christian symbols. The approach of revolts as the events of collective violence also highlights the experiences and memories of participants. How did individuals and groups use remembering and forgetting as a means of forging an identity for themselves? Instead of the narratives of the powerful that became the normative stories of history, the perspective of the rebels uncovers the everyday faces of revolts more forcibly. Finally, contributors examine how later narrators used the rebels for their own purposes, in other words the subsequent representation of the revolts and their leaders in image, literature and historiography comes to the fore. The volume aims to overcome disciplinary boundaries by bringing together historians and scholars of related disciplines including the history of literature, the visual arts and anthropology. The central contention of the volume - the cultural imprint of peasant revolts - is fully addressed, thereby filling a conspicuous gap in the currently available literature.

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Book SynopsisHelmut Meiers study of pro- and anti-slavery texts from 1784-1825 focuses on understanding the distinct image of Africans in the British debate on the slave trade and slavery as such. Starting from the premise that, at the threshold from the early to the late modern period, the distinct image of Africans as slaves was instrumental in universalising a Eurocentric concept of capitalist wage labor both at the colonial centres and margins, Meier argues that, by portraying African slaves as suffering wretches, especially anti-slavery texts created colonial Others in an indistinct zone between inclusion and exclusion from humanity. The discourse on slavery thus constructs African slaves as mimetic Others which could subsequently become the objects of a discourse of colonial reform and betterment.

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Book SynopsisSlaves and Slave Agency in the Ottoman Empire offers a new contribution to slavery studies relating to the Ottoman Empire. Given the fact that the classical binary of slavery and freedom derives from the transatlantic experience, this volume presents an alternative approach, by examining the strongly asymmetric relationships of dependency documented in the Ottoman Empire. A closer look at the Ottoman social order discloses manifold and ambiguous conditions involving enslavement practices, rather than a single universal pattern. The authors of this volume examine various forms of enslavement and dependency with a particular focus on agency, i.e., the room for maneuver, which the enslaved could secure for themselves, or else the available options for action in situations of extreme individual or group dependencies. Case studies reveal a very wide spectrum of agency, especially with regard to domestic slaves. The authors discuss a multitude of questions, including the uses of legal documents. Others explore the particular situations of eunuchs, galley slaves, slave traders, enslaved populations, manumitted slaves at the palace and in ordinary households, war captives returned home, and domestic servants after the abolition of slavery. This volume presents a clearer and more nuanced picture of the practices of slavery and asymmetric dependency that evolved across the duration of the Ottoman Empire.

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Book SynopsisSlavery touched many aspects of Mamluk society. This volume focuses on the role of slaves within the family, from birth to purchase, liberation, and death. It investigates domestic slavery in Syrian and Egyptian society from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. Jan Hagedorn focuses on the agency of slaves in the context of master-slave relationships within households and in wider society. He argues that the ability of slaves to shape the world around them was underpinned by a constant process of negotiation within the master-slave relationship and that intermediaries such as the court system channelled the agency of slaves. The principal sources for this study are purchase contracts, listening certificates, marriage contracts, and estate inventories in combination with scribal, market inspection, and slave purchase manuals as well as chronicles.

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