Slavery Freedom And The Law Of The Atlantic World Chapter Summary

In Slavery, Freedom, and the Law of the Atlantic World, Sue Peabody and Keila Grinberg give readers a unique perspective into the slavery laws written in the Atlantic World. While reading, we learn the dynamics of slavery and freedom to be very complex. Today, we imagine these two concepts to be distinctly different. One is “an absolute evil” and the other is “a self-evident good . . . We rarely stop to wonder what slavery and freedom mean in concrete terms” (Peabody and Grinberg, 1). From the perspective of those who lived in the French, British, Spanish and Portuguese empires, this dilemma was part of their daily routines. In the book, it says that “for the people who lived in the Atlantic World between 1700 and 1900 – the millions

Just like France, Britain had no slavery-related laws at the time. But, “by the mid-seventeenth century, when African and Amerindian slaves were increasingly numerous in the English colonies, the colonists began to create local laws regarding slavery through their assemblies” (Peabody and Grinberg, 10-11). One independence movement had tremendous effects on slavery in the British Empire – The American Revolution. By the dawn of the American Revolution, the idea that slavery was fundamentally and morally wrong was wide-spread throughout the Americas, as well as northern Europe. The general feeling was that slavery would have to be abolished. As it pertains to the American Revolution, which began in 1776, it was an independence movement that affected slaves fight for freedom. At the start of the American Revolution, the U.S. Continental Congress had declared that “no slave shall be imported to any of the thirteen colonies” (Peabody and Grinberg, 78). This particular law went unenforced because it was so early in the abolitionist movement. Similarly, the final draft of the U.S. Constitution in 1785 either made compromises between abolitionists and pro-slavery positions, or upheld slavery (Peabody and Grinberg, 78). This was a document that supposedly created “freedom for every man,” but did not treat slaves with the same fairness. It was not until 1895 that the thirteenth amendment abolished

In fact, over one million African slaves were brought to Spanish colonies in the Americas (Peabody and Grinberg, 15). In the Spanish colony of Cuba, conditions for slaves were some of the worst. A legal document of 1842 that regarded regulations for Cuban slaves consisted of forty-eight articles. This Cuban legislation implemented longer working hours for slaves, and eliminated slaveowners’ obligation to feed slaves’ children (Peabody and Grinberg, 124). This provoked a war for independence in Cuba. Spain was conflicted because if they abolished slavery they would lose support of loyalist plantation owners and see a significant drop in sugar cane production. Conversely, they saw a growing abolitionist movement, and wanted to draw those favorable to emancipation away from independence movements, so they supported some anti-slavery laws (Peabody and Grinberg, 19). Just like any government, Spain had an agenda. In this case, legislation written during Spanish independence movements favored slaves. This was in large part due to Spain’s direct opposition to losing their Atlantic colonies. Ultimately, the Patronato law of 1880 sparked the end of slavery in Cuba and Spanish America