Fragile Empire
Slavery in the Early English Tropics, 1645–1720

Reinterprets the origins of slavery in the British empire by linking its development in the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

Justin Roberts (Author)

9781108473187, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 January 2025

370 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.8 cm, 0.683 kg

'Recommended.' S. L. Smith, CHOICE

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.

List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Note on Spelling and Dates
Note on Language
Introduction
1. Slave Empire: English Expansion in the Tropics
2. Captives: Vulnerable Populations in the English Tropics
3. Bondage: Defining and Creating English Slavery
4. Fevers: Disease, Race, and Slavery
5. Metrics of Mastery: Race, Migration, and Political Arithmetic
6. Fragile Empire: Insurrection and Invasion in the English Tropics
Appendix A
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]