Commanding a vast historiography of slavery and emancipation, Aline Helg
reveals as never before how significant numbers of enslaved Africans
across the entire Western Hemisphere managed to free themselves hundreds
of years before the formation of white-run abolitionist movements. Her
sweeping view of resistance and struggle covers more than three
centuries, from early colonization to the American and Haitian
revolutions, Spanish American independence, and abolition in the British
Caribbean. Helg not only underscores the agency of those who managed to
become "free people of color" before abolitionism took hold but also
assesses in detail the specific strategies they created and utilized.
While recognizing the powerful forces supporting slavery, Helg
articulates four primary liberation strategies: flight and marronage;
manumission by legal document; military service, for men, in exchange
for promised emancipation; and revolt--along with a willingness to
exploit any weakness in the domination system. Helg looks at such
actions at both individual and community levels and in the context of
national and international political movements. Bringing together the
broad currents of liberal abolitionism with an original analysis of
forms of manumission and marronage, Slave No More deepens our
understanding of how enslaved men, women, and even children contributed
to the slow demise of slavery.
