The making of New World slavery: from the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800

Civil slavery and the colonial state

Shifting identity and racial slavery

From the Baroque to the Creole

pt. 1. The selection of New World slavery. I. The Old World background to New World slavery: Rome and the Christian embrace of slavery ; Christian resurgence and the challenge of Islam ; Feudal expansion and ideologies of persecution ; Slavery in Iberia's Christian kingdoms ; Slavery and the Slavs ; The eclipse of serfdom and the rise of agrarian capitalism ; The Bible, slavery and the nations of man ; The Mediterranean, the Atlantic and black bondage ; Africans and the Islamic slave trade ; Conclusion

II. The first phase: Portugal and Africa: Exploring the African coast ; The beginnings of a slave trade ; The Atlantic islands ; African slaves in the peninsula ; Imperial Portugal, Africa, and Atlantic civilization

III. Slavery and Spanish America. False start in the Caribbean ; Silver and revenue: exploitation without enslavement ; Slaveholding in a Baroque empire ; Projects and arguments

IV. The rise of Brazilian sugar: La France Antarctique ; The takeoff of the sugar economy ; The transatlantic slave trade and Africa ; Arguments over slavery ; Slavery and the looming battle for the Americas

V. The Dutch war for Brazil and Africa: The West India Company ; The Dutch in Brazil and Africa ; The Luso-Brazilian recoil ; Sources of Dutch weakness ; The new role of the Dutch

VI. The making of English colonial slavery: The first colonies ; Barbados and the rise of sugar ; The role of captains and new merchants ; Tobacco and sugar ; Plantation labour, slavery and fear of strange women ; Civil war: empire and bondage ; The restoration and the codification of colonial slavery ; Bacon's Rebellion and Virginian slavery ; The new slavery and the Caribbean plantation ; The Glorious Revolution and the colonies

VII. The construction of the French colonial system: An experiment in mercantilism ; The testimony of Du Tertre ; The code noir ; Royal ambitions and the spirit of colonial autonomy ; Dynastic calculation, Baroque spectacle and colonial development

VIII. Racial slavery and the rise of the plantation: Planters, merchants, captains ; Plantation labour: from indenture to slavery ; The supply of slaves and the turn to slavery ; The new plantation ; The plantation regime and the question of security ; Alternatives to slavery?

pt. 2. Slavery and accumulation. IX. Colonial slavery and the eighteenth-century boom: Europe and the Atlantic ; The slave trade in the eighteenth century ; The pattern of trade and shipping

X. The sugar islands: Economics and demography in the British Caribbean ; The French West Indies ; Anglo-French patterns of colonial trade ; The brilliance of French Creole society

XI. Slavery on the mainland: North America and the reproduction of slavery ; Slavery in Brazil's golden age ; Slavery in Spanish America ; The lesser producers and the logic of the plantation trade

XII. New world slavery, primitive accumulation and British industrialization: Markets in Africa and the New World ; Profits and investment ; Sectors of investment and new financial instruments ; Raw materials ; Plantation products and the new world of consumption ; War, colonies and industrialization ; The Anglo-French wars of 1793-1815: a test ; Epilogue.