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The American slave coast : a history of the slave-breeding industry / Ned and Constance Sublette.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: Chicago : Lawrence Hill Books, [2016]Edition: First editionDescription: xiv, 754 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781613748206 (hardback)
  • 1613748205 (hardback)
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction -- The capitalized womb -- The Chesapeake and the Lowcountry -- Silent profit -- The star-spangled slave trade -- The slaveocracy -- The revolution.
Summary: "A wide-ranging, powerful, alternative vision of the history of the United States and how the slave-breeding industry shaped it. The American Slave Coast tells the horrific story of how the slavery business in the United States made the reproductive labor of "breeding women" essential to the expansion of the nation. The book shows how slaves' children, and their children's children, were human savings accounts that were the basis of money and credit. This was so deeply embedded in the economy of the slave states that it could only be decommissioned by Emancipation, achieved through the bloodiest war in the history of the United States. The American Slave Coast is an alternative history of the United States that presents the slavery business, as well as familiar historical figures and events, in a revealing new light"-- Provided by publisher.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 331.1173 S941 Available 33111008338127
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

American Book Award Winner 2016



The American Slave Coast offers a provocative vision of US history from earliest colonial times through emancipation that presents even the most familiar events and figures in a revealing new light.



Authors Ned and Constance Sublette tell the brutal story of how the slavery industry made the reproductive labor of the people it referred to as "breeding women" essential to the young country's expansion. Captive African Americans in the slave nation were not only laborers, but merchandise and collateral all at once. In a land without silver, gold, or trustworthy paper money, their children and their children's children into perpetuity were used as human savings accounts that functioned as the basis of money and credit in a market premised on the continual expansion of slavery. Slaveowners collected interest in the form of newborns, who had a cash value at birth and whose mothers had no legal right to say no to forced mating.



This gripping narrative is driven by the power struggle between the elites of Virginia, the slave-raising "mother of slavery," and South Carolina, the massive importer of Africans--a conflict that was central to American politics from the making of the Constitution through the debacle of the Confederacy.



Virginia slaveowners won a major victory when Thomas Jefferson's 1808 prohibition of the African slave trade protected the domestic slave markets for slave-breeding. The interstate slave trade exploded in Mississippi during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, drove the US expansion into Texas, and powered attempts to take over Cuba and other parts of Latin America, until a disaffected South Carolina spearheaded the drive to secession and war, forcing the Virginians to secede or lose their slave-breeding industry.



Filled with surprising facts, fascinating incidents, and startling portraits of the people who made, endured, and resisted the slave-breeding industry, The American Slave Coast culminates in the revolutionary Emancipation Proclamation, which at last decommissioned the capitalized womb and armed the African Americans to fight for their freedom.

"A wide-ranging, powerful, alternative vision of the history of the United States and how the slave-breeding industry shaped it. The American Slave Coast tells the horrific story of how the slavery business in the United States made the reproductive labor of "breeding women" essential to the expansion of the nation. The book shows how slaves' children, and their children's children, were human savings accounts that were the basis of money and credit. This was so deeply embedded in the economy of the slave states that it could only be decommissioned by Emancipation, achieved through the bloodiest war in the history of the United States. The American Slave Coast is an alternative history of the United States that presents the slavery business, as well as familiar historical figures and events, in a revealing new light"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 699-732) and index.

Introduction -- The capitalized womb -- The Chesapeake and the Lowcountry -- Silent profit -- The star-spangled slave trade -- The slaveocracy -- The revolution.

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