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2 - Violence, Slavery and Race in Early English and French America

from Part I - Empire, Race and Ethnicity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2020

Robert Antony
Affiliation:
Guangzhou University
Stuart Carroll
Affiliation:
University of York
Caroline Dodds Pennock
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Summary

Violence was intrinsic to chattel slavery in the New World, and within slave societies in particular. This chapter analyses the level and forms taken by physical violence, especially corporal punishments meted out to enslaved men and women of African descent in early English and French North American and the Caribbean colonies. Violence was a daily reality within every economic unit relying on slave labour, although the intensity of it varied in time and space. The main reason why slaveholders used physical violence was to constrain their enslaved labourers to work and to accept their conditions. Violence against slaves involved masters as well as non-slaveholders and the public authorities. The pervasive and extreme character of violence in slave societies fuelled a debate on the need to regulate it. All social actors acknowledged its prevalence while describing contrasted regimes of violence and ascribing different meanings to the various forms taken by chastisements. Descriptions of violence create two opposite impressions: violence against slaves remained arbitrary, but at the same time it tended to become normalised. The slave system also sparked violent reactions from enslaved men and women.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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