The Relation of Herndon and Gibbon's Exploration of the Amazon to North American Slavery, 1850-1855

1939 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Whitfield J. Bell
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
American Slavery

Diverse Good Causes

1995 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-370
Author(s):  
Whitman Stephen
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
European History ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Atlantic Region ◽  
American Slavery ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
British America ◽  
Explanatory Factors ◽  
History Of

In many slave societies manumission coexisted with perpetual bondage, often featured by self-purchase by slave artisans, a practice that some societies monitored through recognition of the slave's legal personality as a contracting party. Manumission played a comparatively minor role in shaping North American slavery, with debatable exceptions in the mid-Atlantic region; historians of slavery there have portrayed manumitters as individuals of conscience and/or economic maximizers seeking profitable exits from a locally declining labor institution. This contrast was first noted by Frank Tannenbaum, who characterized slavery in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking America as milder than in British America, and targeted differences in religion and in the European history of slavery of each society as key explanatory factors.

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