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Colonization and Its Discontents: Emancipation, Emigration, and Antislavery in Antebellum Pennsylvania

Beverly C. Tomek

Pennsylvania contained the largest concentration of early America's abolitionist leaders and organizations, making it a necessary and illustrative stage from which to understand how national ... More

Pennsylvania contained the largest concentration of early America's abolitionist leaders and organizations, making it a necessary and illustrative stage from which to understand how national conversations about the place of free blacks in early America originated and evolved, and, importantly, the role that colonization—supporting the emigration of free and emancipated blacks to Africa—played in national and international antislavery movements. This book demonstrates that, in Philadelphia at least, the American Colonization Society (ACS) often worked closely with other antislavery groups to further the goals of the abolitionist movement. It brings a much-needed examination of the complexity of the colonization movement by describing in depth the difference between those who supported colonization for political and social reasons and those who supported it for religious and humanitarian reasons. The book puts the black perspective on emigration into the broader picture instead of treating black nationalism as an isolated phenomenon and examines its role in influencing the black abolitionist agenda.Less

Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850

Richard J. Ross

Lauren Benton (ed.)

This book advances our understanding of law and empire in the early modern world. It exposes new dimensions of legal pluralism in the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Ottoman empires. ... More

This book advances our understanding of law and empire in the early modern world. It exposes new dimensions of legal pluralism in the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Ottoman empires. In-depth analyses probe such topics as the shifting legal privileges of corporations, the intertwining of religious and legal thought, and the effects of clashing legal authorities on sovereignty and subjecthood. Case studies show how a variety of individuals engage with the law and shape the contours of imperial rule. The book reaches from Peru to New Zealand to Europe to capture the varieties and continuities of legal pluralism and to probe the analytic power of the concept of legal pluralism in the comparative study of empires. For legal scholars, social scientists, and historians, the book maps new approaches to the study of empires and the global history of law.Less

Making the Empire Work: Labor and United States Imperialism

Daniel E. Bender and Jana K. Lipman (eds)

Millions of laborers, from the Philippines to the Caribbean, performed the work of the U.S. empire. Forging a global economy connecting the tropics to the industrial center, workers harvested sugar, ... More

Millions of laborers, from the Philippines to the Caribbean, performed the work of the U.S. empire. Forging a global economy connecting the tropics to the industrial center, workers harvested sugar, cleaned hotel rooms, provided sexual favors, and filled military ranks. Placing working men and women at the center of the long history of the U.S. empire, this book offers new stories of empire that intersect with the “grand narratives” of diplomatic affairs at the national and international levels. Missile defense, Cold War showdowns, development politics, military combat, tourism, and banana economics share something in common-they all have labor histories. This book challenges historians to consider the labor that formed, worked, confronted, and rendered the U.S. empire visible. The U.S. empire is a project of global labor mobilization, coercive management, military presence, and forced cultural encounter. The chapters recognize the United States as a global imperial player whose systems of labor mobilization and migration stretched from Central America to West Africa to the United States itself. Workers are also the key actors in this book. Their stories are multi-vocal, as workers sometimes defied the U.S. empire's rhetoric of civilization, peace, and stability and at other times navigated its networks or benefited from its profits. Their experiences reveal the gulf between the American “denial of empire” and the lived practice of management, resource exploitation, and military exigency. When historians place labor and working people at the center, empire appears as a central dynamic of U.S. history.Less