1. The gift of life after slavery: close-kin ownership, slavery and manumission in Suriname 1765-1795.
- Author
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de Koning, Camilla
- Subjects
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KINSHIP , *SLAVERY , *SLAVE trade , *GIFT giving , *EXTENUATING circumstances , *DATABASES - Abstract
Close-kin ownership, to own one's kin, has been researched from the perspective of emancipatory strategies or economic exploitation, hereby overlooking the complexity of kinship bonds in slave societies. This paper addresses the complexities of slavery and kinship and analyses close-kin ownership from the perspective of kinship. In the process of manumission, relationships of obligation were created that continued in life after slavery. When former-owner and enslaved were kin, a layering of obligations took place that extended beyond the widely accepted dichotomy of viewing close-kin ownership as either an emancipatory strategy or economic exploitation. To analyse these concepts and relationships 44 examples of close-kin ownership were selected from a database of 392 manumission petitions from Suriname. In these 44 examples, kin owned enslaved kin. From this sample, five cases of presumed close-kin slavery were identified, kin not only owned enslaved kin, the enslaved were treated as any other slaves and kinship was no extenuating circumstance. By analysing these cases, we have found that close-kin ownership and slavery were interconnected practices that should be studied in unison to grasp the tension between emancipatory strategies and economic gain. Furthermore, the variety in circumstances shows that additional research is needed to continue the creation of a broader framework of kinship and slavery, so that this can be applied to slave societies around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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