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Bestseller
BestsellerE-book
Author Clark-Pujara, Christy.

Title Dark work : the business of slavery in Rhode Island / Christy Clark-Pujara.

Publication Info. New York : New York University Press, [2016]

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (150 pages).
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Series Early American Places
Early American places.
Contents The business of slavery and the making of race -- Living and laboring under slavery -- Emancipation in black and white -- The legacies of enslavement -- Building a free community -- Building a free state and nation.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-200) and index.
Summary "Historians have written expansively about the slave economy and its vital role in early American economic life. Like their northern neighbors, Rhode Islanders bought and sold slaves and supplies that sustained plantations throughout the Americas; however, nowhere else was this business so important. During the colonial period trade with West Indian planters provided Rhode Islanders with molasses, the key ingredient for their number one export: rum. More than 60 percent of all the slave ships that left North America left from Rhode Island. During the antebellum period Rhode Islanders were the leading producers of "negro cloth," a coarse wool-cotton material made especially for enslaved blacks in the American South. Clark-Pujara draws on the documents of the state, the business, organizational, and personal records of their enslavers, and the few first-hand accounts left by enslaved and free black Rhode Islanders to reconstruct their lived experiences. The business of slavery encouraged slaveholding, slowed emancipation and led to circumscribed black freedom. Enslaved and free black people pushed back against their bondage and the restrictions placed on their freedom. It is convenient, especially for northerners, to think of slavery as southern institution. The erasure or marginalization of the northern black experience and the centrality of the business of slavery to the northern economy allows for a dangerous fiction--that North has no history of racism to overcome. But we cannot afford such a delusion if we are to truly reconcile with our past." --publisher description.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Slavery -- Rhode Island -- History.
Slavery.
Rhode Island.
History.
Slave trade -- Rhode Island -- History.
Slave trade.
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation -- Rhode Island -- History.
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation.
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation -- British colonies.
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation -- French colonies.
Enslaved persons -- Rhode Island -- Social conditions.
Enslaved persons.
Social conditions.
Free African Americans -- Rhode Island -- History.
Free African Americans.
Rhode Island -- Race relations -- History.
Race relations.
Genre/Form Electronic books.
History.
Other Form: Print version: Clark-Pujara, Christy. Dark Work : The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island. New York : NYU Press, ©2016 9781479870424 (OCoLC)926743484
ISBN 9781479822898 (electronic book)
1479822892 (electronic book)
9781479870424
1479870420