Description
Book SynopsisA thought-provoking history of slaveholders'' fear of the people they enslaved and its consequences
From the Stono Rebellion in 1739 to the Haitian Revolution of 1791 to Nat Turner''s Rebellion in 1831, slave insurrections have been understood as emblematic rejections of enslavement, the most powerful and, perhaps, the only way for slaves to successfully challenge the brutal system they endured. In The World That Fear Made, Jason T. Sharples orients the mirror to those in power who were preoccupied with their exposure to insurrection. Because enslavers in British North America and the Caribbean methodically terrorized slaves and anticipated just vengeance, colonial officials consolidated their regime around the dread of rebellion. As Sharples shows through a comprehensive data set, colonial officials launched investigations into dubious rumors of planned revolts twice as often as actual slave uprisings occurred. In most of these cases, magistrates believed they ha
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Masterful...Sharples’s study assesses the intellectual, socioeconomic, and geopolitical causes of and preconditions for insurrection panics and factors dictating their scope, including the instrumentality of toxic print media...To say that this book makes extremely significant contributions to scholarship understates the case. * Early American Literature *
Thought-provoking, original, and engaging, The World That Fear Made is sweeping in its chronological scope and rich with details and stories that convey the lived experience of his subjects at key moments of crisis. It is a sophisticated and valuable corrective to the literature on slave rebellions. * Justin Roberts, Dalhousie University *
Table of Contents
Introduction. The Cup of Wrath Is Almost Full
Chapter 1. Making Sense of Strangers: The Invention of Anglo-American Slave Conspiracy
Chapter 2. Studying the Horizon: The Stories and Circumstances That Conjured Demons
Chapter 3. Seeking Truth Through Terror: Coercion and Survival Inside the Courtroom and the Jail
Chapter 4. The Risk of Relations: Community-Seeking and the Politics of Association
Chapter 5. The Accountants, the Opportunists, and the Rebels: Taking Chances in the Era of the Seven Years' War
Chapter 6. Governing in a World of Fear: Political Mobilization in the American Revolutionary Era
Epilogue. The Transforming Fires of the Haitian Revolution
Appendix
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
