Slaves and Englishmen : : Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World / / Michael Guasco.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Pennsylvania Press Complete Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Guasco, Michael,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2014]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: The Early Modern Americas
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (328 p.) :; 8 illus.

Technically speaking, slavery was not legal in the English-speaking world before the mid-seventeenth century. But long before race-based slavery was entrenched in law and practice, English men and women were well aware of the various forms of human bondage practiced in other nations and, in less systematic ways, their own country. They understood the legal and philosophic rationale of slavery in different cultural contexts and, for good reason, worried about the possibility of their own enslavement by foreign Catholic or Muslim powers. While opinions about the benefits and ethics of the institution varied widely, the language, imagery, and knowledge of slavery were a great deal more widespread in early modern England than we tend to assume.In wide-ranging detail, Slaves and Englishmen demonstrates how slavery shaped the ways the English interacted with people and places throughout the Atlantic world. By examining the myriad forms and meanings of human bondage in an international context, Michael Guasco illustrates the significance of slavery in the early modern world before the rise of the plantation system or the emergence of modern racism. As this revealing history shows, the implications of slavery were closely connected to the question of what it meant to be English in the Atlantic world.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction. The Problem of Slavery in Pre- Plantation America -- Chapter 1. The Nature of a Slave: Human Bondage in Early Modern England -- Chapter 2. Slaves the World Over: Early English Encounters with Slavery -- Chapter 3. Imaginary Allies: Englishmen and Africans in Spain's Atlantic World -- Chapter 4. Englishmen Enslaved: The Specter of Slavery in the Mediterranean and Beyond -- Chapter 5. "As Cheap as Th ose Negroes"?: Transplanting Slavery in Anglo- America -- Chapter 6. Slavery before "Slavery" in Pre- Plantation America -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments