Through first-hand accounts and loads of illustrations, this slim (and large-print) volume documents the growth of slavery, beginning with the Danes' first efforts at colonization in the early 17th century, to the establishment of a full-blown slave economy, and through the abolition movement in the 19th century. The text is minor, the illustrations great. For a general audience. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Runaway Virgins: Danish West Indian Slave Ads 1770-1848 uses more than 250 slavery related newspaper ads to help shine light on what life must have been like for the enslaved people of the U.S. Virgin Islands (former Danish West Indies). More than 300 specific individuals are identified and subjects related to runaway slaves are highlighted (i.e. punishment, laws, free men/women, country of origin, children, pardons, etc.)

500 black and white images that depict the people, places and events that transformed the Danish West Indies into the U.S. Virgin Islands. The United States purchased the islands of the Danish West Indies from Denmark in 1917 and renamed the islands the Virgin Islands of the United States of America. This book uses 500 black and white images to help show what life was like in the islands before and after becoming an American territory.

In Language Contact in the Danish West Indies: Giving Jack His Jacket, Robin Sabino draws on fieldwork with a last speaker and research from a range of disciplines laying bare the crucial roles of community and resistance in creole genesis.

This brief history of Gods and the relationships to their religions begins in prehistoric times and continues through present day. The Bloody Hands of God begins with the many gods of the ancient world and continues with the Gods of the Eastern world, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It concludes with the author’s personal theory of the harm that the influence of religious beliefs has had on the modern world. The book reflects the author’s personal understanding of God and the universe, and how these have influenced him throughout his life.

While previous research on household archaeology in the colonial Caribbean has drawn heavily on artifact analysis, this volume provides the first in-depth examination of the architecture of slave housing during this period. It examines the considerations that went into constructing and inhabiting living spaces for the enslaved and reveals the diversity of people and practices in these settings. Contributors present case studies using written descriptions, period illustrations, and standing architecture, in addition to archaeological evidence to illustrate the wide variety of built environments for enslaved populations in places including Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the islands of the Lesser Antilles. They investigate how the enslaved defined their social positions and identities through house, yard, and garden space; they explore what daily life was like for slaves on military compounds; they compare the spatial arrangements of slave villages on plantations based on type of labor; and they show how the style of traditional laborer houses became a form of vernacular architecture still in use today. This volume expands our understanding of the wide range of enslaved experiences across British, French, Dutch, and Danish colonies. Contributors: Elizabeth C. Clay | James A. Delle | Todd M. Ahlman | Marco Meniketti | Kenneth Kelly | Hayden Bassett | James A. Delle | Kristen R. Fellows | Allan D. Meyers | Elizabeth C. Clay | Alicia Odewale | Meredith D. Hardy | Zachary J. M. Beier | Mark W. Hauser A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This bibliography of 20th century literature focuses on slavery and slave-trading from ancient times through the 19th century. It contains over 10,000 entries, with the principal sections organizing works by the political/geographical frameworks of the enslavers.

“[A] well-written exploration of the cultural and legal meanings of slave suicide in British North America . . . far-reaching, compelling, and relevant.” —Choice 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 an array of sources, including ships’ logs, surgeons’ journals, judicial and legislative records, newspaper accounts, abolitionist propaganda and slave narratives to 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.

This volume is an account of the development and destruction of slavery in St Thomas, St John and St Croix, the Caribbean islands which today comprise the US Virgin Islands. The book sees slavery as fundamental to the entire fabric of colonial society, and pays particular attention to the social and political life of the whites and freedmen in interaction with the slaves.