Description
The everyday lives of enslaved people were filled with the backbreaking tasks that their enslavers forced them to complete. But in spare moments, they found time in which to earn money and obtain goods for themselves. Enslaved people led vibrant economic lives, cultivating produce and raising livestock to trade and sell. They exchanged goods with nonslaveholding whites and even sold products to their enslavers. Did these pursuits represent a modicum of freedom in the interstices of slavery, or did they further shackle enslaved people by other means?
Justene Hill Edwards illuminates the inner workings of the slaves' economy and the strategies that enslaved people used to participate in the market. Focusing on South Carolina from the colonial period to the Civil War, she examines how the capitalist development of slavery influenced the economic lives of enslaved people. Hill Edwards demonstrates that as enslavers embraced increasingly capitalist principles, enslaved people slowly lost their economic autonomy. As slaveholders became more profit-oriented in the nineteenth century, they also sought to control enslaved people's economic behavior and capture the gains. Despite enslaved people's aptitude for enterprise, their market activities came to be one more part of the violent and exploitative regime that shaped their lives. Drawing on wide-ranging archival research to expand our understanding of racial capitalism, Unfree Markets shows the limits of the connection between economic activity and freedom.
About the Author
Justene Hill Edwards is an assistant professor in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia.
Reviews
Centering enslaved men, women, and children as actors on the grand stage of South Carolina's economy, Hill Edwards demonstrates that the entrepreneurial enterprises of the enslaved did not undermine the institution of bondage but instead reinforced it. Beautifully written and researched, Unfree Markets is a welcome addition to the history of African Americans and capitalism. -- Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author of Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
A rich study of an important and understudied topic. Unfree Markets illuminates the many ways enslaved people participated in the expanding markets of early America. Justene Hill Edwards brings new insights to our understanding of how markets changed enslaved people's day-to-day economic lives, never losing sight of the profound ways that these same markets continued to undermine their freedom. -- Caitlin Rosenthal, author of Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management
Unfree Markets deserves distinctions and superlatives for treating enslaved people as economic agents rather than participants in a slave economy segregated from larger processes of commercial life and capitalist development. Edwards brilliantly and convincingly argues that enslavers protected enslaved people's moneymaking ventures because they realized that the slaves' economy helped to safeguard their investments in slavery. -- Calvin Schermerhorn, author of Unrequited Toil: A History of United States Slavery
Unfree Markets is a clearly written, persuasive study that will appeal to anyone interested in slavery, early
capitalism, and the antebellum South. -- Frank J. Byrne, SUNY Oswego * EH.net *
Book Information
ISBN 9780231191135
Author Justene Hill Edwards
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
Justene Hill Edwards illuminates the inner workings of the slaves' economy and the strategies that enslaved people used to participate in the market. Focusing on South Carolina from the colonial period to the Civil War, she examines how the capitalist development of slavery influenced the economic lives of enslaved people. Hill Edwards demonstrates that as enslavers embraced increasingly capitalist principles, enslaved people slowly lost their economic autonomy. As slaveholders became more profit-oriented in the nineteenth century, they also sought to control enslaved people's economic behavior and capture the gains. Despite enslaved people's aptitude for enterprise, their market activities came to be one more part of the violent and exploitative regime that shaped their lives. Drawing on wide-ranging archival research to expand our understanding of racial capitalism, Unfree Markets shows the limits of the connection between economic activity and freedom.
About the Author
Justene Hill Edwards is an assistant professor in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia.
Reviews
Centering enslaved men, women, and children as actors on the grand stage of South Carolina's economy, Hill Edwards demonstrates that the entrepreneurial enterprises of the enslaved did not undermine the institution of bondage but instead reinforced it. Beautifully written and researched, Unfree Markets is a welcome addition to the history of African Americans and capitalism. -- Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author of Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
A rich study of an important and understudied topic. Unfree Markets illuminates the many ways enslaved people participated in the expanding markets of early America. Justene Hill Edwards brings new insights to our understanding of how markets changed enslaved people's day-to-day economic lives, never losing sight of the profound ways that these same markets continued to undermine their freedom. -- Caitlin Rosenthal, author of Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management
Unfree Markets deserves distinctions and superlatives for treating enslaved people as economic agents rather than participants in a slave economy segregated from larger processes of commercial life and capitalist development. Edwards brilliantly and convincingly argues that enslavers protected enslaved people's moneymaking ventures because they realized that the slaves' economy helped to safeguard their investments in slavery. -- Calvin Schermerhorn, author of Unrequited Toil: A History of United States Slavery
Unfree Markets is a clearly written, persuasive study that will appeal to anyone interested in slavery, early
capitalism, and the antebellum South. -- Frank J. Byrne, SUNY Oswego * EH.net *
Book Information
ISBN 9780231191135
Author Justene Hill Edwards
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
