Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American SlavesIra Berlin traces the history of African-American slavery in the United States from its beginnings in the seventeenth century to its fiery 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 dynamic vision, 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, told by a master historian, provides a rich understanding of the experience of African-American slaves, an experience that continues to mobilize American thought and passions today. |
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African descent African slaves African-American American Antebellum Atlantic creoles Baton Rouge became black northerners black society bondage Born to Run Chapel Hill Charles Town charter Chesapeake Christianity church cotton countryside cultural decade East Florida economy eighteenth century emancipation enslaved estates European expanded Florida former slaves free black population free blacks free colored freed freedpeople frontier fugitives Georgia grew hired History independence Kulikoff lives Louisiana lowcountry lower Mississippi Valley Lower South mainland North America manumission Maryland master and slave migration Morgan Negro newly arrived nineteenth century Orleans owners plantation revolution plantation slaves planter class planters ports production regime region revolutionary rice runaways Saint Domingue seaboard Second Middle Passage slave population slave society slave trade slaveholders slaveowners slavery slavery's social societies with slaves South Carolina southern interior Spanish Florida Stono Rebellion sugar tion tobacco took transformed Upper South urban Virginia vols West women York