Generations of captivity : a history of African-American slaves / Ira Berlin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Berlin, Ira, 1941-2018.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--United States--History.

Slavery.

Enslaved persons.

History.

United States.

Enslaved persons--United States--History.

Black or African American--history.

Medical Subjects:

Black or African American--history.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

374 pages : maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.

Summary:

In this book Ira Berlin traces the history of African-American slavery in the United States from its beginnings in the seventeenth century to its demise nearly three hundred years later. Most Americans, black and white, have a singular vision of slavery, one fixed in the mid-nineteenth century when most American slaves grew cotton, resided in the deep South, and subscribed to Christianity. Here, however, Berlin offers a major reinterpretation in which slaves and their owners continually renegotiated the terms of captivity. Slavery was thus made and remade by successive generations of Africans and African Americans who lived through settlement and adaptation, plantation life, economic transformations, revolution, forced migration, war, and ultimately, emancipation. Berlin's understanding of the processes that continually transformed the lives of slaves makes Generations of captivity essential reading for anyone interested in the evolution of antebellum America. Connecting the "Charter Generation" to the development of Atlantic society in the seventeenth century, the "Plantation Generation" to the reconstruction of colonial society in the eighteenth century, the "Revolutionary Generation" to the Age of Revolutions, and the "Migration Generation" to American expansionism in the nineteenth century, Berlin integrates the history of slavery into the larger story of American life. He demonstrates how enslaved black people, by adapting to changing circumstances, prepared for the moment when they could seize liberty and declare themselves the "Freedom Generation." This epic story provides a rich understanding of the experience of African-American slaves, an experience that continues to mobilize American thought and passions today.

Contents:

Prologue : slavery and freedom

Charter generations

Plantation generations

Revolutionary generations

Migration generations

Epilogue : freedom generations.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards - Nonfiction, Winner, 2004

Other Format:

Online version: Berlin, Ira, 1941- Generations of captivity.

ISBN:

0674010612

9780674010611

0674016246

9780674016248

OCLC:

50598040

Publisher Number:

9780674010611

99805662283