Description

Book Synopsis
Fragile Empire reinterprets the rise of slavery in the early English tropics through an innovative geographic framework. It examines slavery at English sites in tropical zones across the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and argues that a variety of factors ? epidemiology, slave majorities, European rivalries, and the power of indigenous polities ? made the seventeenth-century English tropical empire particularly fragile, creating a model of empire in the tropics that was distinct from other English colonizations. English people across the tropics were outnumbered by their slaves. English slavery was forged in the tropics and it was increasingly marked by its permanence, inflexibility, and brutality. Early English societies were not the inevitable precursor to British imperial dominance, instead they were wrought with internal vulnerabilities and external threats from European and non-European competitors. Based on thorough archival research, Justin Roberts'' important new study redefines our understanding of slavery and bound labor from a global perspective.

Fragile Empire

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    A Hardback by Justin Roberts

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      Book details

      Publisher Cambridge University Press
      Published 12/31/2024
      ISBN-13 9781108473187
      978-1108473187
      ISBN-10 1108473180
      Also in:
      History General and world history

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Fragile Empire reinterprets the rise of slavery in the early English tropics through an innovative geographic framework. It examines slavery at English sites in tropical zones across the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and argues that a variety of factors ? epidemiology, slave majorities, European rivalries, and the power of indigenous polities ? made the seventeenth-century English tropical empire particularly fragile, creating a model of empire in the tropics that was distinct from other English colonizations. English people across the tropics were outnumbered by their slaves. English slavery was forged in the tropics and it was increasingly marked by its permanence, inflexibility, and brutality. Early English societies were not the inevitable precursor to British imperial dominance, instead they were wrought with internal vulnerabilities and external threats from European and non-European competitors. Based on thorough archival research, Justin Roberts'' important new study redefines our understanding of slavery and bound labor from a global perspective.

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