Freedom Bound
Law, Labor, and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America, 1580–1865

Freedom Bound is about the origins of modern America. It is a history of colonizing, work and civic identity.

Christopher Tomlins (Author)

9780521137775, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 31 August 2010

636 pages, 1 b/w illus. 23 tables
22.6 x 15 x 4.1 cm, 0.84 kg

“ Freedom Bound … is long and complex.  But it is worth the effort.  The work is suffused with an extraordinary and subtle sensibility; and there are even flashes of downright poetry.  This is an important book.  Awesome, in fact.  And also enriching: a real contribution.”  Lawrence M. Friedman, Law and Politics Book Review

Freedom Bound is about the origins of modern America - a history of colonizing, work and civic identity from the beginnings of English presence on the mainland until the Civil War. It is a history of migrants and migrations, of colonizers and colonized, of households and servitude and slavery, and of the freedom all craved and some found. Above all it is a history of the law that framed the entire process. Freedom Bound tells how colonies were planted in occupied territories, how they were populated with migrants - free and unfree - to do the work of colonizing and how the newcomers secured possession. It tells of the new civic lives that seemed possible in new commonwealths and of the constraints that kept many from enjoying them. It follows the story long past the end of the eighteenth century until the American Civil War, when - just for a moment - it seemed that freedom might finally be unbound.

Prologue. Beginning: 'as much freedome in reason as may be'
Part I. Manning, Planting, Keeping: 1. Manning: 'setteynge many on worke'
2. Planting: 'directed and conducted thither'
3. Keeping (i): discourses of intrusion
4. Keeping (ii): English desires, designs
Part II. Poly-Olbion, or the Inside Narrative: 5. Packing: new inhabitants
6. Unpacking: received wisdoms
7. Changing: localities, legalities
Part III. 'What, Then, Is the American, This New Man?': 8. Modernizing: polity, economy, patriarchy
9. Enslaving: facies hippocratica
10. Ending: 'strange order of things!'.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], History of the Americas [HBJK]