The original draft of the Declaration of Independence condemned British kings for supporting slavery in their empire. England鈥檚 two seventeenth-century revolutions were in part a reaction to the crown鈥檚 proslavery policies, with politicians such as John Locke arguing that all people were born equal and that government should be based on consent. But while these principles would underpin the American Revolution, the treaty that ended that war protected the legal foundations of the plantation system in the new republic. The King鈥檚 Slaves untangles this thorny history, arguing that American slavery was borne from authoritarian rule.
In this incisive and thought-provoking book, Holly Brewer challenges the notion that slavery arose naturally in the colonies through the interests of merchants and planters, showing how behind them lay a British crown that believed in absolute power over subjects and granted similar powers to proprietors and masters. British kings used their authority over navies and armies, judges and royal governors to create an elaborate plantation system that produced more crops for export and greater wealth from tariffs. Royal propaganda supported claims that some peoples had no rights while edicts and proclamations circumvented the legislative process. Brewer describes how African and Indigenous peoples resisted the king鈥檚 slavery, as did some colonists, English politicians, and reformers. Yet slavery persisted, becoming enshrined after independence as a dehumanizing legal foundation of American capitalism.
A bold work of scholarship by a historian at the height of her powers, The King鈥檚 Slaves shares new perspectives on America鈥檚 founding, exposing empire鈥檚 pervasive role in spreading and justifying slavery in the new world.
Holly Brewer is the Burke Chair of American Cultural and Intellectual History and associate professor of history at the University of Maryland. She is the author of By Birth or Consent: Children, Law, and the Anglo-American Revolution in Authority.
“Once in a generation, if we are lucky, a book comes along that remaps the history of Atlantic slavery. The King’s Slaves is such a book. Drawing on an impressive array of new findings, Brewer reveals how the English empire of slavery was created, directed, and maintained by the crown.”—Lauren Benton, author of They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence
“In this brilliant book, Holly Brewer convincingly challenges decades of scholarship about the origins of enslavement in the English colonies in North America and the Caribbean. She demonstrates that Thomas Jefferson was correct when, in his initial draft of the Declaration of Independence, he blamed the British crown for establishing and perpetuating slavery in British America. The King’s Slaves is a remarkable achievement.”—Mary Beth Norton, author of 1774: The Long Year of Revolution
“The King’s Slaves is a major contribution to historical scholarship that intervenes eloquently in the great contemporary debate over the past and future of the American republic’s experiment in self-government. Refreshingly original and persuasive, The King’s Slaves revolutionizes the way we think about slavery and freedom in the national narrative.”—Peter S. Onuf, coauthor of Thomas Jefferson Survives: American Independence in His Time and Ours
“A stunning accomplishment. Most legal historians date the legal endorsement of American slavery to the Constitution. Brewer demonstrates why we must look back earlier to the crown’s interests in the financing difficulties of empire. Her masterful narrative carries the reader through financing schemes, bankruptcies, imperial grants, and political upsets, always keeping the eye on how they affected sovereignty and power in the legitimation of slavery.”—Lea VanderVelde, author of Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery’s Frontier
“The King’s Slaves is a stunning achievement, offering a through and persuasive reinterpretation of early American slavery. Emphasizing the royalist authoritarian character of human bondage in the British colonies, the book shatters conventional thinking about the most fundamental issues in our history. Abraham Lincoln repeatedly likened proslavery presumptions to the divine right of kings. Holly Brewer demonstrates, among many other things, the historical profundity of Lincoln’s judgement.”—Sean Wilentz, author of No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding
