Old Age and American Slavery

Rezensionen / Stimmen

'This book offers compelling evidence that the rhetoric and realities of old age decline shaped enslaved people's self-understandings, relations with each other, and resistance to slavery as well as conflicts among enslavers. David Doddington demonstrates that no understanding of slavery can be complete without attention to old age.' Corinne Field, author of Equal Adulthood: Gender, Race, Age, and the Fight for Citizenship in Antebellum America 'Most previous research on slavery and age has focused on enslaved children. By moving the elderly to the forefront, Doddington further advances age as a worthwhile category of analysis, with fresh insights into the differences that the passing years made in the lives of the enslaved.' Jeff Forret, author of Williams' Gang: A Notorious Slave Trader and his Cargo of Black Convicts 'In this masterful and timely study, David Doddington explores the perceptions and effects of physical aging on the institution of slavery in the antebellum South. Old Age and American Slavery alters our understandings of the life cycles of the enslaved as well as the exploitative power relationships that undergirded bondage.' Damian Alan Pargas, author of Freedom Seekers: Fugitive Slaves in North America, 1800-1860 'This engaging and vast range of historiography exposes fresh layers of the complex, conditional, and contested interactions that differentiated the lived experiences of enslavers vs. the enslaved. An essential read for all students of the history of enslavement in the United States.' Thomas J. Davis, Library Journal