This new Reader draws on a range of documentary sources to show the origins, history, and realities of slavery and the slave trade. Exploring the economic, cultural, and political role of slavery, the volume shows the similarities as well as the differences in different times and places. While focusing primarily on the Americas, the volume extends to a consideration of slavery in other societies in the classical world, Africa, Asia, and the contemporary world. With over 150 selections, varying from one paragraph to several pages in length, the volume ranges widely, from international slave trade regulations and the individual records of slaveowners, to legislative debate concerning the emancipation of slaves. The volume aims to show the diversity of human experiences of slavery, and explains the causes of both the ending as well as the origins of slavery. Covering many aspects of slavery, the volume considers the ways in which slavery has been justified and attacked, the operations of slave societies, and the experiences of those living in them. Selections are drawn from a wide variety of sources, such as biblical and philosophical discussions, the writings of slaves, slaveowners, abolitionists, economists, lawyers, and historians. In addition, the volume includes selections from many leading historians and economists studying slavery and emancipation.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [470]-472) and index.
Introduction
Meaning
The Bible
Politics, Aristotle
Ethics, Aristotle
De Officis, Cicero
Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
Spirit of the Laws, Baron de Montesquieu
The Six Books of a Commonweale, Jean Bodin
A Philosophical Dictionary, Francois Voltaire
Encyclopedie, Denis Diderot
Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson
Science of Right, Immanuel Kant
Letter to Domingo del Monte, 25 June 1835, Juan Francisco Manzano
Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche
Lord and Peasant in Russia, Jerome Blum
The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823, David Brion Davis
Roll, Jordan, Roll, Eugene D. Genovese
Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, Sir Moses I. Finley
Slavery in Russia 1405-1725, Richard Hellie
From Slavery to Feudalism in South-Western Europe, Pierre Bonnassie
The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia, Paul Freedom
Slavery in Early Medieval England, David A. E. Pelteret
Slavery in Africa, Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff
Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, John Thornton
The Origins and Methods of Enslavement
The Bible
The City of God, St. Augustine
Praeloquia 935-937 AD, Bishop Ratherius of Verona
Life of Johnson, James Boswell
Slavery as an Industrial System, H.J. Nieboer
White over Black, Winthrop D. Jordan
American Slavery, American Freedom, Edmund S. Morgan
Slavery in Russia, Richard Hellie
Slavery and Social Death, Orlando Patterson
Race and Color in Islam, Bernard Lewis
Slavery, Race, Ideology, Fields
Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, John Thornton
Europeans and the Rise and Fall of Slavery, David Eltis
Slave Laws
The Bible
Digest of Justinian
Muscovite Society, Richard Hellie
The Reign of Sovereign, Richard Hellie
Code Noir 1685
Commentaries on the Laws of England, William Blackstone
Southern Slavery and the Law 1619-1860, Thomas D. Morris
Danish Slave Code 1733
Codigo Negro 1789
Cuban Slave Law 1842
Somersett Decision 1772
Barbados Laws: Excerpts from 1661
Rio Branco Law 1871
Abolitionism: The Brazilian Antislavery Struggle, Joaquim Nabuco
An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery (1858), T.R. Cobb
Massachusetts Code 1641
Virginia Code 1705
The Babylonian Laws
The Koran
The Slave Trade
Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America, Elizabeth Donnan
The Journal of a Slave Trader 1750-4, John Newton
Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787), Ottobah Cugoano
Parliamentary Papers
Nouveau Voyage, Jean Baptist Labat
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Olaudah Equiano
The African Slave Trade and its Remedy, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton
Cuba-Chinese 1812 Contract, Hamoa
The Merchant of Prato, Marchesa Iris Origo
The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, Philip D. Curtin
Woolf and Sereer of Senegambia, Martin Klein
The Middle Passage, Herbert S. Klein
(Forthcoming on total slave trade), David Eltis
Transactions in People: The Chinese Market in Slaves, Servants, and Heirs, James L. Watson
Abolition of the Slave Trade from Senegambia, Philip D. Curtin
Odious Commerce: Britain, Spain, and the abolition of the Cuban Slave Trade, David Murray
Transformations in Slavery, Paul E. Lovejoy
Bali: Slavery and the Slave Trade, Alfons van der Kraan
Traders, Planters, and Slaves, David W. Galenston
Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, David Eltis
Economic Aspects of the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Slave Trade, Herbert S. Klein
Slavery and Society in Medieval Scandinavia, Ruth Mazo Karras
Labour in the South Pacific, Clive Moore, Jaqueline Leckie and Doug Munro
Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society, Stuart Schwartz
Without Consent or Contract, Robert William Fogel
Coolies and Mandarins, Ch'ing-Hwang Yen
The Anthropology of Slavery, Claude Meillassoux
Flourishing Business ('The Economist' 21.09.1996)
Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain, Olivia Remie Constable
Slavery in the Islamic Middle East, Michel Le Gall
The Experience of Slavery
Life of St Balthid
History of Mary Prince, Mary Prince
Plantation Manual of James Hammond, James Henry Hammond
Appeal, David Walker
My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglass
Cotton Plantation Book: Duties of Overseers, Thomas Affleck
Night-Time Meetings, Debien
Description, Mederic Louis Elie Moreau de Saint Mery
The Black Jacobins, C.L.R. James
The Masters and the Slaves, Gilberto Freyre
The Birth of African-American Culture, Sidney W. Mintz and Richard S. Prince
Another Dimension to the Black Diaspora, Kenneth F. Kiple
Plantation Slaves
Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro 1808-1850, Mary Karasch
Women in China
Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, B.W. Higman
Roll, Jordan, Roll, Eugene D. Genovese
Without Consent or Contract, Robert W. Fogel
Unfree Labour, Peter Kolchin
Within the Plantation Household, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Tobacco and Slaves, Allan Kulikoff
Slave Counterpoint, Philp D. Morgan
St. Vincent Interview
Resistance
Laws, Plato
Politics, Aristotle
Annals, Tacitus
Lives of Noble Grecians and Romas, Plutarch
History of Al-Tabari, Jarir al-Tabari
The Church and Black Slaves in Santo Domingo
Historia General y natural de las Indias, Gonzalo Fernandez de Ovieto
Children of God's Fire, Robert Conrad
The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia
Curacao (London Magazine 1750)
In Miserable Slavery, Douglas Hall
Narrative of a Five Years expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, John Gabriel Stedman
Great Lives Observed: Toussaint L'Ouverture, George F. Tyson
HAHR, Stuart Schwartz
Monituer dela Louisiane
Hambelton Letter, Samuel Hambleton
British Parliamentary Papers: Correspondence relating to Slavery and the Abolition of the Slave Trade 1823-4
The Trial of Denmark Vesey, John Oliver Killens
Cuban Resistance
Confession of Nat Turner
Death Struggles of Slavery, Henry Bleby
American Negro Slave Revolts, Herbert Aptheker
Journal of World History, Sidney W. Mintz
Roll, Jordan, Roll, Eugene D. Genovese
From Rebellion to Revolution, Eugene D. Genovese
Islam and Slave Rebellion in Bahia, Brazil, Joao Jose Reis and P.F. de Moreas Faria
Testing the Chains, Michael Craton
Bondsmen and Rebels, David Barry Gaspar
My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglass
Cooper Union Talk 1860, Araham Lincoln
Slave Resistance and Social History, Robert L. Paquette
Feast and Riot on the Swahili Coast, Jonathan Glassman
A Turbulent Time, David Geggus
Richardson Correspondence 1848
Domination and the Arts of Resistance, James Scott
Economics and Demography
Oeconomicus, Xenophon
Oeconomica, Aristotle
Instructions to the Jesuits, Francois Chevalier
A View of the Art of Colonization, Edward Gibbon Wakefield
Lectures on Colonization and Colonies, Herman Merivale
Slave Populations, B.W. Higman
Without Consent or Contract, Robert W. Fogel
Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society, Stuart Schwartz
Slave Trader Newsletter
Slave Trade Advertisement 1861
Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
Economic Sophisms, Frederic Bastiat
The Negro Question, J.S. Mill
Principles of Political Economy, J.S. Mill
An Inquiry into the Priciples of Political Oeconomy, James Stuart
Capital, Karl Marx
The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, Max Weber
Capitalism and Slavery, Eric Williams
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney
The Sugarmill, Manuel Moreno Fraginals
The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis, Evsey D. Domar
Slavery and African Life, Patrick Manning
Slavery in the Islamic Middle East, Michel Le Gall
Abolition and Emancipation
Ancient and Modern Ideology, Sir Moses I. Finley
Capitalism and Anti-Slavery, Seymour Drescher
On Social Reform, Alexis de Toqueville and Beaumont
Hansard 1843
Hansard 1846
The Nigger Question, Thomas Carlyle
The Diary of Edmund Ruffin, Edmund Ruffin
Mississippi Legislature 1850
Black Abolitionist Papers vol. V
Army Life in a Black Regiment, Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Emancipation Proclamation 1863
Thirteenth Amendment
Defining the Boundaries of Freedom in the World of Cane, Rebecca J. Scott
The Liberator 1831
Paris Ethnological Society Debate 1847
Resolution of 1784
General Assembly Virginia 1785
Extract from 'The Economist' (1997)