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Critical Issue
The Origins of American Slavery: Freedom and Bondage in the English Colonies
The Hill and Wang Critical Issues concise, affordable works on pivotal topics in American history, society, and politics. The Origins of American Slavery is a short analysis that shows the complex rationale behind the English establishment of American slavery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This new assessment of a pivotal time in the formation of what was to become the United States offers thought-provoking insights into the English influence on the development of the "peculiar institution."
144 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1997
4 people are currently reading
127 people want to read
About the author
Betty Wood
51 books4 followersA specialist in slavery and gender in the early Atlantic world, Betty Wood earned a BA in geography at Keele University in 1967, an MA in social and economic history at the University of London in 1968, and a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1973. Wood taught at Girton College, Cambridge from 1971 until her retirement in 2013, where she served as Director of Studies in History from 1974 until 1984.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 16, 2017
Betty Wood’s concise The Origins of American Slavery: Freedom and Bondage in the English Colonies examines the early roots of American slavery by tracing how and why the English adopted slave practices, why the English chose West Africans in particular for enslavement, how the ambiguous legal standing of a slave became one of undisputable human property, and how the English justified enslavement. Though Wood does not have a direct or clear thesis, she does state that she will show the English chose to enslave West Africans for economic and racial considerations. According to Wood, historians believe that either one cause or the other influenced English enslavement of West Africans, racial or economic, but according to Wood both were central elements (7-8).
In Wood’s introduction, she mentions nothing about religion, though religion, in fact, features heavily throughout the book, both as justification for slavery and to distinguish the various English groups who sought to rationalize the practice of slavery such as the Puritans. Slavery is typically discussed within the context of the ideology of racism since, as Wood states, the link between race and enslavement was undeniable by the 18th century. Yet, according to Wood, there are other complex systems of belief to take into account when studying the history of slavery. First and foremost, and one that historians often fail to analyze, was the English concept of enslavement and how that reconciled with beliefs about freedom. In order to practice slavery, the English had to find ways over the dual hurdles of equality and freedom. Wood stresses the absence of slavery from English common law, and that the English had to devise an unprecedented legal standard using systems practiced by the Spanish and Portuguese as the foundation. Wood is correct in stating that the hierarchy of English society and politics was transplanted to the New World, but Wood misses something important and vital about English concepts of equality, which were not all encompassing for every Englishman. Wood writes that all English could “lay claim to the liberties, privileges, and rights of Englishmen (12-13).” However, equality in English society did not exist, though freedom for all certainly did with various levels of servitude, and all men did not possess the same liberties. In the 1430s, Henry VI established the forty shilling property requirement for voting, which would be maintained until the Reform Act of 1832 lowered property requirements. It would not be until 1928 that England would remove any and all property restrictions. Hence, even in England, the English had set legal restrictions on social rank and a sense of the worth of people who were afforded legal rights accordingly. It was not, therefore, as difficult or as much of the reach that Wood suggests for the English to create newer and more restricted categories of social hierarchy and fit them into established hierarchical practices along with ethnocentrism. There was, in fact, a system in place that would support slavery by virtue of delineating the social ranking and legal powers of different men, though the model of actual enslavement was taken from elsewhere. Wood’s thoughts are sometimes scattered and sometimes too extensive for such a small book.
In chapter 3, Wood discusses early that there was a shift between indentured labor and slave labor. It is not until pages later that Wood finally delineates the numerous reasons for this shift. For a more cohesive understanding of the movement away from relying on European indentured servants to slaves, it would make more sense for Wood to include these two portions together so as not to scatter the reader by jumping between subjects. Similarly, Wood devotes a lot of space in her brief monograph toward English feelings about mainland natives. The reason Wood includes such a topic is because she is trying to make a point about why the English used West Africans instead of the ready supply of natives at hand (29, 48 & 55). However, in a book only 117 pages, devoting 10 entire pages to English feelings toward natives is excessive when instead Wood could use her pages to further flesh out shifting ideologies, practices, and economic conditions. While it is important to understand why the English chose West Africans, feelings toward the natives can be understood in greater brevity. This is especially the case when, in some sections of the book, details are lacking where they would be useful. Wood uses the example of one escaped group of white and black laborers to show that even as of the 1680s there was a distinct difference in the treatment of whites and blacks doing the same jobs. According to Wood, the fact that the black slave was dealt a different and indeed harsher punishment indicates that all black workers were considered inferior (83). While this estimation is without a doubt correct, Wood could have fleshed out her evidence more. For instance, Wood stated that the workers had different owners. Different owners may naturally have had different styles of punishment. Wood would have proven her point better to give an example of a black and white worker of the same owner. Further, more examples would have strengthened the correlation between race and punishment. Wood would also benefit from the inclusion of citations and tables. There is no indication whatsoever what sources Wood uses to gather the numbers she gives of the slaves and English in various colonies, which feature in her claims about the growing importance and reliance on slave labor by a small portion of settlers becoming very wealthy. In fact, the book lacks any citation at all; it is impossible to know where Wood got any of her historical data. The fact that she does not provide a guide for fact verification casts doubt on her historical information, and by association, the inferences that she makes.
All that Wood provides is a guide of suggested readings, lacking a proper bibliography. A conclusion would have also helped sum up her thoughts and questions, especially since she does not state a clear thesis in her introduction. Using tables for quantitative data such as population is also a useful tool for readers, and explains with better understanding what often gets confused in words. None of this is to suggest, however, that Origins of American Slavery is without any merit or historical use. Wood traces the development of English involvement in slavery and the slave trade in a clear and succinct way, and she also poses questions that readers do not typically encounter in general histories such as English law and the development of slave codes; religious justifications for enslavement; and how the virulent racism that people typically associate with slavery was not the sole cause of slavery, but rather the result of it, and necessary to remove any lingering moral question over the practice of human enslavement. The link between how America changed from small suffering colonies of starving Englishmen to one with a powerful pre-Civil War Southern economy driven by slaves is often missing. Wood places a link in early American transformation, also hinting toward later history through her examples of the small numbers of Englishmen dominating the economic scene through the products of slave labor, which would characterize the later Southern plantation economy. People recite that Africans were enslaved in America, but without asking the question of why they were the ones enslaved and how this came about. While Wood by no means provides a complete and thoroughly documented set of answers to her questions, she engages readers in what could be the beginning of an historical discussion that could be taken further with more research.
In Wood’s introduction, she mentions nothing about religion, though religion, in fact, features heavily throughout the book, both as justification for slavery and to distinguish the various English groups who sought to rationalize the practice of slavery such as the Puritans. Slavery is typically discussed within the context of the ideology of racism since, as Wood states, the link between race and enslavement was undeniable by the 18th century. Yet, according to Wood, there are other complex systems of belief to take into account when studying the history of slavery. First and foremost, and one that historians often fail to analyze, was the English concept of enslavement and how that reconciled with beliefs about freedom. In order to practice slavery, the English had to find ways over the dual hurdles of equality and freedom. Wood stresses the absence of slavery from English common law, and that the English had to devise an unprecedented legal standard using systems practiced by the Spanish and Portuguese as the foundation. Wood is correct in stating that the hierarchy of English society and politics was transplanted to the New World, but Wood misses something important and vital about English concepts of equality, which were not all encompassing for every Englishman. Wood writes that all English could “lay claim to the liberties, privileges, and rights of Englishmen (12-13).” However, equality in English society did not exist, though freedom for all certainly did with various levels of servitude, and all men did not possess the same liberties. In the 1430s, Henry VI established the forty shilling property requirement for voting, which would be maintained until the Reform Act of 1832 lowered property requirements. It would not be until 1928 that England would remove any and all property restrictions. Hence, even in England, the English had set legal restrictions on social rank and a sense of the worth of people who were afforded legal rights accordingly. It was not, therefore, as difficult or as much of the reach that Wood suggests for the English to create newer and more restricted categories of social hierarchy and fit them into established hierarchical practices along with ethnocentrism. There was, in fact, a system in place that would support slavery by virtue of delineating the social ranking and legal powers of different men, though the model of actual enslavement was taken from elsewhere. Wood’s thoughts are sometimes scattered and sometimes too extensive for such a small book.
In chapter 3, Wood discusses early that there was a shift between indentured labor and slave labor. It is not until pages later that Wood finally delineates the numerous reasons for this shift. For a more cohesive understanding of the movement away from relying on European indentured servants to slaves, it would make more sense for Wood to include these two portions together so as not to scatter the reader by jumping between subjects. Similarly, Wood devotes a lot of space in her brief monograph toward English feelings about mainland natives. The reason Wood includes such a topic is because she is trying to make a point about why the English used West Africans instead of the ready supply of natives at hand (29, 48 & 55). However, in a book only 117 pages, devoting 10 entire pages to English feelings toward natives is excessive when instead Wood could use her pages to further flesh out shifting ideologies, practices, and economic conditions. While it is important to understand why the English chose West Africans, feelings toward the natives can be understood in greater brevity. This is especially the case when, in some sections of the book, details are lacking where they would be useful. Wood uses the example of one escaped group of white and black laborers to show that even as of the 1680s there was a distinct difference in the treatment of whites and blacks doing the same jobs. According to Wood, the fact that the black slave was dealt a different and indeed harsher punishment indicates that all black workers were considered inferior (83). While this estimation is without a doubt correct, Wood could have fleshed out her evidence more. For instance, Wood stated that the workers had different owners. Different owners may naturally have had different styles of punishment. Wood would have proven her point better to give an example of a black and white worker of the same owner. Further, more examples would have strengthened the correlation between race and punishment. Wood would also benefit from the inclusion of citations and tables. There is no indication whatsoever what sources Wood uses to gather the numbers she gives of the slaves and English in various colonies, which feature in her claims about the growing importance and reliance on slave labor by a small portion of settlers becoming very wealthy. In fact, the book lacks any citation at all; it is impossible to know where Wood got any of her historical data. The fact that she does not provide a guide for fact verification casts doubt on her historical information, and by association, the inferences that she makes.
All that Wood provides is a guide of suggested readings, lacking a proper bibliography. A conclusion would have also helped sum up her thoughts and questions, especially since she does not state a clear thesis in her introduction. Using tables for quantitative data such as population is also a useful tool for readers, and explains with better understanding what often gets confused in words. None of this is to suggest, however, that Origins of American Slavery is without any merit or historical use. Wood traces the development of English involvement in slavery and the slave trade in a clear and succinct way, and she also poses questions that readers do not typically encounter in general histories such as English law and the development of slave codes; religious justifications for enslavement; and how the virulent racism that people typically associate with slavery was not the sole cause of slavery, but rather the result of it, and necessary to remove any lingering moral question over the practice of human enslavement. The link between how America changed from small suffering colonies of starving Englishmen to one with a powerful pre-Civil War Southern economy driven by slaves is often missing. Wood places a link in early American transformation, also hinting toward later history through her examples of the small numbers of Englishmen dominating the economic scene through the products of slave labor, which would characterize the later Southern plantation economy. People recite that Africans were enslaved in America, but without asking the question of why they were the ones enslaved and how this came about. While Wood by no means provides a complete and thoroughly documented set of answers to her questions, she engages readers in what could be the beginning of an historical discussion that could be taken further with more research.
July 28, 2016
Not everyone may read a lot and write a lot about slavery [1], but for those of us who do, and especially for those of us who are from British North America, where the post-colonial legacy of slavery is, to put it very politely and mildly, problematic, this book deals with a very thoughtful and contentious question: how was it that British North America, both on the mainland colonies of the future United States and in the Caribbean, did the system of plantation slavery develop in the first place, especially since Britain had abolished serfdom centuries before? There are some people who argue that the English were inherently racist, and had a negative and sloping hierarchical view of the world that made it easy to deny fundamental rights and the recognition of humanity to West Africans, and there are others who argue that the decision was made for reasons of economics and that little thought or reflection beyond that went into it. The author, although in ways that are a bit preachy and irritating, argues successfully and thoughtfully in this brief (roughly 130 page) book that the answer is both.
The structure of this book is illustrative of the author's nuanced intent to discuss a somewhat complicated matter of how it was that over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries that the status of slave became connected particularly with West Africans in the English colonies of North America. The book contains five chapters, divided thematically. The author begins by examining the concept of freedom and bondage in English thought, demonstrating a certain hierarchy that privileges English to neighboring peoples, Protestants to Catholics, and Christians as a whole to heathens, and where the ambivalence of feelings about indigenous peoples in North America could be contrasted with much more negative feelings about West Africans in the first two chapters. The last three chapters of the book contrast the history of the establishment of slavery in the Caribbean and South Carolina, the Chesapeake Colonies, and among the Puritans and Quakers in the middle Atlantic and northern colonies. To simplify what is a somewhat complicated point, none of the colonies started with slavery in mind, but the combination of rising tensions for land and the problems of availability of labor, combined with the inability to keep large amounts of native inhabitants, who the early colonists were dependent on food and wanted to get along with, and believed could be converted to Christianity, and often believed were among the lost tribes of Israel, led colonists to enslave West Africans for both greed and out of a lack of regard for their humanity. It should be noted that while northern colonies did not have many compunctions about enslaving West Africans, that they at least tended to view their slaves as people, who did not lose their rights or status as human beings through being enslaved, in stark contrast to those colonies from Maryland and south as well as in the Caribbean.
Although this book has a persuasive thesis and is quite interesting in terms of its material, there is quite a bit about this book that is unfortunately very irritating and is symbolic of what is deeply wrong about a great deal of contemporary historical scholarship. Problems that exist in longer works are probably more irritating in a work like this one simply because it is so short that the repetition of the author's thesis, a deeply misguided one, that the English view of Protestantism as superior to Catholicism, and Christianity as superior to heathen beliefs, was simply a matter of prejudice. The author's contention that encouragement to others to become Christian is a matter of coercion, and may even be considered as an equal problem to the physical coercion that comes through beating and the problems of the loss of rights and dignity is immensely offensive. People who have a disdain for true religion should keep their opinions out of their histories--this book would have been far better, and certainly far more enjoyable, and certainly far more accurate as well as enlightening had the author not been so biased against Christianity. Fortunately for the author, her attention to sources makes this book worthwhile despite her clearly misguided religious worldview.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
The structure of this book is illustrative of the author's nuanced intent to discuss a somewhat complicated matter of how it was that over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries that the status of slave became connected particularly with West Africans in the English colonies of North America. The book contains five chapters, divided thematically. The author begins by examining the concept of freedom and bondage in English thought, demonstrating a certain hierarchy that privileges English to neighboring peoples, Protestants to Catholics, and Christians as a whole to heathens, and where the ambivalence of feelings about indigenous peoples in North America could be contrasted with much more negative feelings about West Africans in the first two chapters. The last three chapters of the book contrast the history of the establishment of slavery in the Caribbean and South Carolina, the Chesapeake Colonies, and among the Puritans and Quakers in the middle Atlantic and northern colonies. To simplify what is a somewhat complicated point, none of the colonies started with slavery in mind, but the combination of rising tensions for land and the problems of availability of labor, combined with the inability to keep large amounts of native inhabitants, who the early colonists were dependent on food and wanted to get along with, and believed could be converted to Christianity, and often believed were among the lost tribes of Israel, led colonists to enslave West Africans for both greed and out of a lack of regard for their humanity. It should be noted that while northern colonies did not have many compunctions about enslaving West Africans, that they at least tended to view their slaves as people, who did not lose their rights or status as human beings through being enslaved, in stark contrast to those colonies from Maryland and south as well as in the Caribbean.
Although this book has a persuasive thesis and is quite interesting in terms of its material, there is quite a bit about this book that is unfortunately very irritating and is symbolic of what is deeply wrong about a great deal of contemporary historical scholarship. Problems that exist in longer works are probably more irritating in a work like this one simply because it is so short that the repetition of the author's thesis, a deeply misguided one, that the English view of Protestantism as superior to Catholicism, and Christianity as superior to heathen beliefs, was simply a matter of prejudice. The author's contention that encouragement to others to become Christian is a matter of coercion, and may even be considered as an equal problem to the physical coercion that comes through beating and the problems of the loss of rights and dignity is immensely offensive. People who have a disdain for true religion should keep their opinions out of their histories--this book would have been far better, and certainly far more enjoyable, and certainly far more accurate as well as enlightening had the author not been so biased against Christianity. Fortunately for the author, her attention to sources makes this book worthwhile despite her clearly misguided religious worldview.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...
April 7, 2011
Short book in which Wood argues that economic necessity coupled with a developing racism gave American/English a strong desire and ability to take African slaves. Native Americans didn't get taken because they were strong military, economic, and religious partners with the English. In essence, the opportunity came, primarily as the result if cash crops (sugar in the Caribbean and tobacco in the Chesapeake) and the Dutch importation of cheap slave labor--and American capitalist pragmatists seized the opportunity.
January 2, 2016
I personally found the book really boring but I guess it could've been a lot worse
Read
October 28, 2020Things are not good in America right now when it comes to people of differring skin colors, particularly blacks and whites. We are being divided and part of that is revisionist history. From this book, I have gleaned a few very interesting themes.
1. We have to define "America". There is a new version of history going around that says slavery existed in America for 400 years. The problem is that there are two Americas - there is North America, the continent, and there is the United States of America, the country. People from West Africa have been here on the North American continent, since 1619, but the USA has only existed since 1776. Also, it appears to be incorrect, from the data in this book, that West Africans were enslaved in North America starting in 1619.
2. The English didn't invent slavery, nor the slavery of Africans. People seem to be trying to make the colonists and the English out as the most evil people ever because they enslaved others. In this book you will find out that the English adopted slavery for their labor needs from the example of the Dutch, Spanish, and others. Slavery existed throughout the history of humanity.
3. Slavery, and Christian defense of it, is wrong. Maybe it was all purely pragmatic and econimical but that doens't make it right. Slavery exists, racism exists, because of the brokenness of our world. It will always exist in our broken world. But where it does exist, people should work to eradicat it. (By the way, people are still enslaved all around the world today, currently). Christian groups who used the Bible to justify slavery were wrong. They were interpreting the Bible wrongly. Christians are human who can and do make mistakes and get things wrong, even in their own religion.
So, were there Africans in North America in 1619? Sure. Were they slaves? It doesn't appear to be like that. Was America the country founded as a nation of slavery? Technically, because that was the system of the colonies who broke with England. Did people want to change it and make a way to eradicate slavery? Yes. You can't just change something that big and entrenched overnight. It takes time. Was and is slavery wrong? ABSOLUTELY!!!!
Changing history doesn't fix things. Blaming one group for something that's always existed helps no one. The English don't get to pass blame, they shouldn't have done what they did in their colonies. We have to acknowledge the past, recognize that what happened was wrong, and then learn from those mistakes to not do it again. Rewriting the past won't help, ignoring the past won't help, and living in the past certainly won't help. At some point, we have to start moving forward.
1. We have to define "America". There is a new version of history going around that says slavery existed in America for 400 years. The problem is that there are two Americas - there is North America, the continent, and there is the United States of America, the country. People from West Africa have been here on the North American continent, since 1619, but the USA has only existed since 1776. Also, it appears to be incorrect, from the data in this book, that West Africans were enslaved in North America starting in 1619.
2. The English didn't invent slavery, nor the slavery of Africans. People seem to be trying to make the colonists and the English out as the most evil people ever because they enslaved others. In this book you will find out that the English adopted slavery for their labor needs from the example of the Dutch, Spanish, and others. Slavery existed throughout the history of humanity.
3. Slavery, and Christian defense of it, is wrong. Maybe it was all purely pragmatic and econimical but that doens't make it right. Slavery exists, racism exists, because of the brokenness of our world. It will always exist in our broken world. But where it does exist, people should work to eradicat it. (By the way, people are still enslaved all around the world today, currently). Christian groups who used the Bible to justify slavery were wrong. They were interpreting the Bible wrongly. Christians are human who can and do make mistakes and get things wrong, even in their own religion.
So, were there Africans in North America in 1619? Sure. Were they slaves? It doesn't appear to be like that. Was America the country founded as a nation of slavery? Technically, because that was the system of the colonies who broke with England. Did people want to change it and make a way to eradicate slavery? Yes. You can't just change something that big and entrenched overnight. It takes time. Was and is slavery wrong? ABSOLUTELY!!!!
Changing history doesn't fix things. Blaming one group for something that's always existed helps no one. The English don't get to pass blame, they shouldn't have done what they did in their colonies. We have to acknowledge the past, recognize that what happened was wrong, and then learn from those mistakes to not do it again. Rewriting the past won't help, ignoring the past won't help, and living in the past certainly won't help. At some point, we have to start moving forward.
September 17, 2020
Just completely bad grammar overall. I am going to go through this book and cross out the extraneous parts just to make it more readable.
Also, "scientific observation of West Africans by English" - shut up with that. I've seen nothing more than "justification" for slavery in this book. Hard to believe this book was written in the 1990's.
Also, "scientific observation of West Africans by English" - shut up with that. I've seen nothing more than "justification" for slavery in this book. Hard to believe this book was written in the 1990's.
Read
October 24, 2025For school
November 9, 2012
The Origins of American Slavery by Betty Wood as how it could be seen to have happened. She starts off by saying " in this, interpretation, the English acted in a pragmatic, economically rational manner." As other historians before her had argued that salvery was based fundementally on race and others claimed more for economics. Indeed as history has moved on from the publishing this book in 1997 the suggestion merely for race is not as apparent as it was for there had been slavery in humanity long before the Slave Trade and it was for reasons of conquest rather than because of skin colour. However, there was a large part to play of political and economical conditions and not only for endentured slaves, who were according to Betty Wood willing volunteers. Some may have been in the cases of Oliver Cromwell, it was better to seek a new life in another land than to be imprisoned in the land of one's birth as in the instances of many Irish. But knowing that there were many risks in leaving home, family and friends it was most likely to be with the greatest reluctance many truly felt when having to undertake a monumentous journey to a land that was to be largely hostile. You also could not expect every endentured servant was to be well versed in the requirements of servants, as I doubt it was mostly servants that decided on new lodgings with new masters and mistresses in strange lands! Further what was terribly unfortunate in this account was that she gave the impression it was quite a mystery how the indigenous peoples perished in Caribbean islands and elsewhere! As it must have been recorded in history books of her time when the aboriginal people died in the Americas by diseases brought by the Europeans by contamination of blankets and such like that the people in these other islands would fare the same! I also have serious doubts that the early plantationers were reluctant to give their slaves religion because as Christians they would therefore seek freedom from enslavement this was the cause. For what changed their minds later and would not the same reasoning then be valid? To themselves and other people they sought the Bible for justification for enslaving people, who were incidentally not actually human beings but inferior subhumans and then at the same time were complete human beings for them to concern themselves that their slaves might need religion? Quakers the first business despots in the chocolate making regime also had these fluctuating tendancies apparently in their slave holding years managed it by eventually granting their slaves religious service, most likely not education, and kept them as chattles. The book over all is brief and from my point of view not very well researched, but this may be because the history books available to the author were dated. With this in mind I won't be going over her books for further reading as I would usually. In the mentioning of the black people of Massachusetts in the 1660s there abouts they were able to have rights and be able to have trials and juries, they may have done, but to the uneducated in this matter it was not said if the jury was made up of legitmate peers and how fair were these trials as surely the white person-if it came up-was likely to bargain for the sentance ruled to be in his favour? Justice of the time there and in England women were not used as witnesses for or against in court cases, even in extreme circumstances as women were not actually recognised as human beings lawfully until the 20th century, at least in Canada.
June 4, 2014
Lucid, concise account of how slavery emerged in the 17th-century Americas, and of the relationship between slavery and race. It includes great coverage of the Caribbean sugar islands alongside the Chesapeake and New England. Wood's analysis is largely an economically deterministic one; for her, ideology influenced only the Puritans' practice of slavery to any significant degree, while the rest were driven by pragmatic concerns and (proto-capitalist) greed. She makes a persuasive case but I tend to give beliefs and ideas more credit than that in shaping decisions and behavior. I felt the lack of a conclusion to tie everything together.
February 27, 2008
I learned a lot more about Slavery, especially in the Carribean area. This book helped me to understand more fully the atrocities and implications of forced labor.
September 3, 2008
It's no Harry Potter, but it's short and entirely readable.
December 20, 2013
This is a clearly written, concise overview of the beginnings of slavery in America along with the author's reasonable explanations of the causes.
Read
October 31, 2025Read for HIST 8065: History of Georgia
May 3, 2017
Short book about the origination of slavery in America. Read in preparation of a field school I am taking. Easy read and fairly interesting.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews