Fragile empire : slavery in the early English tropics, 1645-1720 / Justin Roberts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Roberts, Justin, 1975- author.

Series:

Slaveries since emancipation

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--Tropics--History--17th century.

Slavery.

Slavery--Tropics--History--18th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvii 350 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, England : Cambridge University Press, [2025]

Summary:

Fragile Empire reinterprets the rise of slavery in the early English tropics through an innovative geographic framework. It examines slavery at English sites in tropical zones across the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and argues that a variety of factors - epidemiology, slave majorities, European rivalries, and the power of indigenous polities - made the seventeenth-century English tropical empire particularly fragile, creating a model of empire in the tropics that was distinct from other English colonizations. English people across the tropics were outnumbered by their slaves. English slavery was forged in the tropics and it was increasingly marked by its permanence, inflexibility, and brutality. Early English societies were not the inevitable precursor to British imperial dominance, instead they were wrought with internal vulnerabilities and external threats from European and non-European competitors. Based on thorough archival research, Justin Roberts' important new study redefines our understanding of slavery and bound labor from a global perspective

Contents:

Slave empire

Captives

Bondage

Fevers

Metrics of mastery

Fragile empire

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 19 Dec 2024).

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781108603546

1108603548

9781316999776

1316999777

9781108622288

1108622283