Bonds of Empire
The English Origins of Slave Law in South Carolina and British Plantation America, 1660–1783

Bonds of Empire reveals how English law facilitated the expansion of slavery in British America.

Lee B. Wilson (Author)

9781108495257, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 July 2021

288 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.59 kg

'… Bonds of Empire represents a significant contribution to slavery studies and the history of the British Atlantic. Wilson convincingly demonstrates the centrality of English common law in governing colonial slavery and makes an effective argument that scholars of the legal history of slavery must study legal practice, as well as legislation, to fully understand the institution.' Frances Bell, H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Slavery & abolition of slavery [HBTS], History of the Americas [HBJK]