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"In a compelling new take on the legacies of slavery, Sascha Auerbach explores the origins of the 'global labor market' in the wake of abolition. He recounts the experiences of those shipped across oceans on false pretences and forced to labor under appalling conditions, arguing that their struggles were ultimately key to the system's destruction"--
List of contents
List of Maps and Tables, Acknowledgements, Introduction: Paper Chains for Iron Chains; 1. 'Not Fit for the Enjoyment of Freedo': Amelioration and the Origins of the Overseer-State, 1812-1834; 2. 'To Go and Look for Law': Early Responses to the Overseer-State, 1823-1836; 3. 'A Most Imperfect Act of Abolition': Apprenticeship and Early Indenture in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, 1834-1842; 4. 'A System Entirely Favourable to the Poorer Class of Natives': Health, Moral Reform, and Coercion in the Indenture System, 1840-1864; 5. Man, In His Natural State ... Must Either be Led by Conviction, or by Force': Magistrates, Workers' Agency, and State Violence, 1840-1873; 6. 'They Must Know Their Master, and He Must Know Them': Labor Governance and Sovereignty on the Imperial Frontier in Southeast Asia, 1867-1890; 7. 'They Have Made the Government Arbitrary Enough': The Decline of the Overseer-State, 1870-1904; Conclusion: The Persistent Legacies of the Overseer-State; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Sascha Auerbach is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Nottingham and a former Fullbright Scholar and Leverhulme Trust Fellow. He is the author of Armed with Sword and Scales (2022) and Race, Law and 'The Chinese Puzzle' in Imperial Britain (2009).
