Title of Project
Perpetuation, Subjugation or Colonial Prosperity: The Laws of Slavery and Elite White Power within Colonial Virginia, New Netherlands, and New York
Division
Humanities
Course or Program
History 190X History of the Atlantic World 1492-1824
Description / Abstract
This essay focuses on seventeenth and early eighteenth century slave laws in colonial Virginia, New Netherlands, and New York. Overall the slave laws of the period encompassed discussions of miscegenation and the construction of race, violence, punishment and insurrection, and to an extent, manumission. In examining such law, the differing preoccupations of the governing bodies in controlling labor, race, justice, and freedom, become apparent.
