Bonds of Empire presents an account of slave law that is entirely new: one in which English law imbued plantation slavery with its staying power even as it insulated slave owners from contemplating the moral implications of owning human beings. Emphasizing practice rather than proscription, the book follows South Carolina colonists as they used English law to maximize the value of the people they treated as property. Doing so reveals that most daily legal practices surrounding slave ownership were derived from English law: colonists categorized enslaved people as property using English legal terms, they bought and sold them with printed English legal forms, and they followed English legal procedures as they litigated over enslaved people in court. Bonds of Empire ultimately shows that plantation slavery and the laws that governed it were not beyond the pale of English imperial legal history; they were yet another invidious manifestation of English law's protean potential.
Les mer
List of Tables; Acknowledgements; A Note on Text; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Chattel; 2. Bonds; 3. In Rem; 4. Equity; 5. Res Publica; Conclusion; Index.
'Employing an original perspective and approach, Wilson provocatively uses her law degree to read new understandings into how slavery transformed African-descended people into forms of property - sometimes chattel, sometimes real estate, sometimes salvage. Importantly, Wilson's legal history centers the humanity of the enslaved by considering lived experiences, including how captives challenged the variegated methods of their subjection.' Kevin Dawson, University of California, Merced
Les mer
Bonds of Empire reveals how English law facilitated the expansion of slavery in British America.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781108817899
Publisert
2024-04-04
Utgiver
Vendor
Cambridge University Press
Vekt
474 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
17 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
288

Forfatter

Om bidragsyterne

Lee B. Wilson is Assistant Professor of History at Clemson University. A historian of colonial British America and the early modern Atlantic world, her research interests include the legal history of early American slave societies, colonial property law, and legal discourse.