Forty years ago; after publication of his pathbreaking book Sugar and Slaves; Richard Dunn began an intensive investigation of two thousand slaves living on two plantations; one in North America and one in the Caribbean. Digging deeply into the archives; he has reconstructed the individual lives and collective experiences of three generations of slaves on the Mesopotamia sugar estate in Jamaica and the Mount Airy plantation in tidewater Virginia; to understand the starkly different forms slavery could take. Dunn’s stunning achievement is a rich and compelling history of bondage in two very different Atlantic world settings.From the mid-eighteenth century to emancipation in 1834; life in Mesopotamia was shaped and stunted by deadly work regimens; rampant disease; and dependence on the slave trade for new laborers. At Mount Airy; where the population continually expanded until emancipation in 1865; the “surplus†slaves were sold or moved to distant work sites; and families were routinely broken up. Over two hundred of these Virginia slaves were sent eight hundred miles to the Cotton South.In the genealogies that Dunn has painstakingly assembled; we can trace a Mesopotamia fieldhand through every stage of her bondage; and contrast her harsh treatment with the fortunes of her rebellious mulatto son and clever quadroon granddaughter. We track a Mount Airy craftworker through a stormy life of interracial sex; escape; and family breakup. The details of individuals’ lives enable us to grasp the full experience of both slave communities as they labored and loved; and ultimately became free.
#3736461 in Books 1976-01-01 1976-01-31Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.56 x 1.82 x 6.28l; 2.76 #File Name: 0674526635776 pages
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