The precariousness of freedom : slave resistance as experience, process, and representation /
"The book considers blacks in the historical transatlantic world not merely as enslaved or free; rather, it seeks to examine the precarious and dangerous experience of resistance as escape, dress, mutiny, rebellion, and the mindset, strategies, and practicalities of the process of seeking liber...
| Other Authors: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Concord, ON :
Captus Press,
[2024]
|
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "The book considers blacks in the historical transatlantic world not merely as enslaved or free; rather, it seeks to examine the precarious and dangerous experience of resistance as escape, dress, mutiny, rebellion, and the mindset, strategies, and practicalities of the process of seeking liberation. Fundamentally, it questions the nature and definition of freedom in a transatlantic world where race-based, chattel slavery was normalized across multiple European empires that shared territorial borders. It brings focus to the lives, experiences, and representation of enslaved people seeking to liberate themselves or to resist the pervasive web of slave owner power. The book deliberately examines enslaved freedom-seekers because it is their valiant actions that forced the hands of the slave-owning classes to commit to print all manner of identifying details that disprove the pervasive white belief in slavery as a "civilizing mission". With nine chapters and an introduction, the book is divided into three sections: EXPERIENCE, PROCESS, and REPRESENTATION. The nine chapters explore slave resistance across three centuries (seventeenth to nineteenth) and four empires (British, Dutch, French, and Spanish), offering innovative comparative research that juxtaposes unexpected regions and issues to provoke significant new questions and analyses of issues, events, artwork, and cultural objects. Including the study of various enslaved populations and their free allies, the chapters incorporate the exploration of children, adults, women, men, groups, and individuals, African-born people, and black Creoles. Together, the contributors have defined resistance not merely as outward activities and actions like a rebellion or mutiny and acts of running or sailing away from an enslaver but also as other visible and invisible choices, personal and political practices, and engagements like the choice of clothing, hairstyle, and adornment. But resistance also existed in the internal worlds and psychology of the enslaved, in their expressions of positivity, love, anger, aggression, and sadness, which whites strove to document in fugitive slave advertisements and manuscripts in yet another bid to identify, control, and immobilize the enslaved. The contributors have analyzed enslaved resistance through the laws and legislation of colonial courts, within the print culture of fugitive slave advertisements, and as the cultures of slave dress and theatrical performance in Jamaica and the American North."-- |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | xiv, 257 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm Issued also in electronic format. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references. |
| ISBN: | 9781553224419 1553224418 |