Urban Slavery in the Age of Abolition: Volume 28, Part 1

Contributions to this volume examine slavery in an urban context during the century before emancipation in the Atlantic world.

Karwan Fatah-Black (Edited by)

9781108825757, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 July 2020

248 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.1 cm, 0.33 kg

When the full abolition of slavery appeared on the political agenda in the Atlantic world the institutional arrangements that underpinned the peculiar institution changed dramatically. Although many have studied these transformations, their urban dimension has remained underappreciated. The contributions to this volume offer an in-depth look at cities in the British and French Caribbean, the United States, West-Central Africa, Brazil, and South Africa. Rather than treating urban slavery as a more benign counterpoint to the brutal plantation complex, the articles explore how cities were part and parcel of slave societies and demonstrate how methods of control as well as routes to emancipation changed in the century before emancipation. Urban slavery has greatly impacted urban landscapes and its legacy as well as practices of remembrance and memorialization can be found in many former slave societies.

Introduction: urban slavery in the age of abolition Karwan Fatah-Black
1. Comparative perspectives on the urban black Atlantic on the eve of abolition Wim Klooster
2. Slaves and slavery in Kingston, 1770–1815 Trevor Burnard
3. The expansion of slavery in Benguela during the nineteenth century Mariana P. Candido
4. Freedom of movement, access to the urban centres, and abolition of slavery in the French Caribbean Marion Pluskota
5. Families, manumission, and freed people in urban Minas Gerais in the era of Atlantic abolitionism Mariana L. R. Dantas and Douglas C. Libby
6. Disappearing from abolitionism's heartland: the legacy of slavery and emancipation in Boston Jared Ross Hardesty
7. Runaway slaves in antebellum Baltimore: an urban form of marronage? Viola Franziska Müller
8. Remembering slavery in urban Cape Town: emancipation or continuity? Samuel North
Afterword: ghosts of slavery Ana Lucia Araujo.

Subject Areas: Slavery & abolition of slavery [HBTS], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History [HB]