Slavery and Freedom in Black Thought in the Early Spanish Atlantic

Weaving together thousands of archival fragments, this study explores a shared Black Atlantic world where the meanings of slavery and freedom were fiercely contested and claimed. It recreates the worlds of extraordinary individuals and communities in the long sixteenth century, whilst mapping the development of early modern Black thought about slavery and freedom. From a free Black mother's embarkation license to cross the Atlantic Ocean, to an enslaved Sevillian woman's epistles to her freed husband in New Spain, to an enslaved man's negotiations with prospective buyers on the auction block in Mexico City, to a Black man's petition to reclaim his liberty after his illegitimate enslavement, Chloe L. Ireton explores how Africans and their descendants reckoned with laws and theological discourses that legitimized the enslavement of Black people and the varied meanings of freedom across legal jurisdictions. Their intellectual labor reimagined the epistemic worlds of slavery and freedom in the early modern Atlantic.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Proving Freedom: Documenting Alhorría; 2. Imagining Freedom: Black Atlantic Communities in Sevilla; 3. Purchasing Freedom: Economics of Liberty in New Spain; 4. Defining Freedom: Infrastructures of Black Political knowledge between Sevilla & Mexico City; 5. Reclaiming Freedom: The Illegitimacy of Slavery in Black Thought; 6. Practicing Freedom: Documenting Capital; Coda: Felipa de la Cruz's World & Letters.

About the author

Chloe L. Ireton is Lecturer in the History of Iberia and the Iberian World 1500–1800 in the Department of History at University College London, and a current British Academy Wolfson Fellow. This is her first book.

Product details

• Authors: Chloe L Ireton, Chloe L. Ireton, Chloe L. (University College London) Ireton
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.12.2024
• EAN: 9781009533492
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0953349-2
• No. of pages: 340
• Series: Afro-Latin America
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Mexico, History of Ideas, Spain, HISTORY / Latin America / General, African History, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, History of the Americas, Slavery & abolition of slavery, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599, c 1500 to c 1600, Black & Asian Studies, Slavery and abolition of slavery, Relating to people of the African diasporas / heritage