Jared Ross Hardesty. Unfreedom

In popular and, frequently, academic history, emancipation and freedom are depicted as a finish line, a bright and clear line of transcendence and victory. Recent scholarship has begun to emphasize the many levels of dependence and “unfreedom” that most people had, beyond just slaves and indentured servants. Reminding us that early modern American society was a world of hierarchy, these historians break down the exceptionality of American freedom to see the structures of dependence that held most Americans, especially before the American Revolution. Jared Ross Hardesty places the history of eighteenth-century African slaves in Boston within the context of this unfree world. Drawing upon the recent interest in New England slavery, Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in Eighteenth-Century Boston strengthens our understanding of the social structure of northern, and more specifically New England, societies that included enslavement of Africans as a foundation of their order. Because unfreedom was endemic for all in society, Hardesty argues that slaves did not seek freedom when they protested and negotiated with their owners, but sought greater autonomy, stronger protections for their families, and a place in society.

Context (archaeology) · Economic history · Emancipation · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Victory · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies