Book Your Summer Shop Summer Reading
The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America
The history of slavery in early America is a history of suicide. On ships crossing the Atlantic, enslaved men and women refused to eat or leaped into the ocean. They strangled or hanged themselves. They tore open their own throats. In America, they jumped into rivers or out of windows, or even ran into burning buildings. Faced with the reality of enslavement, countless Africans chose death instead.

In The Power to Die, Terri L. Snyder excavates the history of slave suicide, returning it to its central place in early American history. How did people—traders, plantation owners, and, most importantly, enslaved men and women themselves—view and understand these deaths, and how did they affect understandings of the institution of slavery then and now? Snyder draws on ships’ logs, surgeons' journals, judicial and legislative records, newspaper accounts, abolitionist propaganda and slave narratives, and many other sources to build a grim picture of slavery’s toll and detail the ways in which suicide exposed the contradictions of slavery, serving as a powerful indictment that resonated throughout the Anglo-Atlantic world and continues to speak to historians today.
"1120667723"
The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America
The history of slavery in early America is a history of suicide. On ships crossing the Atlantic, enslaved men and women refused to eat or leaped into the ocean. They strangled or hanged themselves. They tore open their own throats. In America, they jumped into rivers or out of windows, or even ran into burning buildings. Faced with the reality of enslavement, countless Africans chose death instead.

In The Power to Die, Terri L. Snyder excavates the history of slave suicide, returning it to its central place in early American history. How did people—traders, plantation owners, and, most importantly, enslaved men and women themselves—view and understand these deaths, and how did they affect understandings of the institution of slavery then and now? Snyder draws on ships’ logs, surgeons' journals, judicial and legislative records, newspaper accounts, abolitionist propaganda and slave narratives, and many other sources to build a grim picture of slavery’s toll and detail the ways in which suicide exposed the contradictions of slavery, serving as a powerful indictment that resonated throughout the Anglo-Atlantic world and continues to speak to historians today.
48.0 In Stock
The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America

The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America

by Terri L. Snyder
The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America
Add to Wishlist
The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America

The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America

by Terri L. Snyder

Overview

The history of slavery in early America is a history of suicide. On ships crossing the Atlantic, enslaved men and women refused to eat or leaped into the ocean. They strangled or hanged themselves. They tore open their own throats. In America, they jumped into rivers or out of windows, or even ran into burning buildings. Faced with the reality of enslavement, countless Africans chose death instead.

In The Power to Die, Terri L. Snyder excavates the history of slave suicide, returning it to its central place in early American history. How did people—traders, plantation owners, and, most importantly, enslaved men and women themselves—view and understand these deaths, and how did they affect understandings of the institution of slavery then and now? Snyder draws on ships’ logs, surgeons' journals, judicial and legislative records, newspaper accounts, abolitionist propaganda and slave narratives, and many other sources to build a grim picture of slavery’s toll and detail the ways in which suicide exposed the contradictions of slavery, serving as a powerful indictment that resonated throughout the Anglo-Atlantic world and continues to speak to historians today.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226280561
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 08/28/2015
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 256
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Terri L. Snyder is professor of American studies at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of Brabbling Women: Disorderly Speech and the Law in Early Virginia. She lives in Pasadena.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Prologue / Anna’s Leap

Introduction / The Problem of Suicide in North American Slavery

One / Suicide and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Two / Suicide and Seasoning in British American Plantations

Three / Slave Suicide in the Context of Colonial North America

Four / The Power to Die or the Power of the State? The Legalities of Suicide in Slavery

Five / The Paradoxes of Suicide and Slavery in Print

Six / The Meaning of Suicide in Antislavery Politics 

Epilogue / Suicide, Slavery, and Memory in American Culture

Studying Slave Suicide: An Essay on Sources

Abbreviations
Notes
Select Bibliography of Primary Sources
Index
From the B&N Reads Blog
Page 1 of

Related Subjects

History
World History
General & Miscellaneous World History
World History - General & Miscellaneous
History
World History
General & Miscellaneous World History
World History - General & Miscellaneous

Customer Reviews