Beyond Slavery

Explorations of Race, Labor, and Citizenship in Postemancipation Societies

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by Frederick Cooper, Thomas C. Holt and Rebecca J. Scot

University of North Carolina Press

Due/Published August 2000, 224 pages, paper

ISBN 0807848549

In this collaborative work, three historians explore one of the most significant areas of inquiry in modern historiography--the transition from slavery to freedom and what this transition meant for former slaves, former slaveowners, and the societies in which they lived. Holt focuses on emancipation in Jamaica and the contested meaning of citizenship in defining and redefining the concept of freedom; Scott investigates the struggles and cross-racial alliances that evolved in southern Louisiana and Cuba after the end of slavery; and Cooper examines the intersection of emancipation and imperialism in French West Africa. In their introduction, the authors address issues of citizenship, labor, and race, in the post-emancipation period and they point the way toward a fuller understanding of the meanings of freedom.