New from the University of Georgia Press:
Tyrannicide: Forging an American Law of Slavery in Revolutionary South Carolina and Massachusetts, by
Emily Blanck (Rowan University). The Press explains:
Tyrannicide uses a captivating
narrative to unpack the experiences of slavery and slave law in South
Carolina and Massachusetts during the Revolutionary Era. In 1779, during
the midst of the American Revolution, thirtyfour South Carolina slaves
escaped aboard a British privateer and survived several naval battles
until the Massachusetts brig Tyrannicide led them to
Massachusetts. Over the next four years, the slaves became the center of
a legal dispute between the two states. The case affected slave law and
highlighted the profound differences between how the “terrible
institution” was practiced in the North and the South, in ways that
would foreground issues eventually leading to the Civil War.
Emily Blanck uses the Tyrannicide affair and the slaves
involved as a lens through which to view contrasting slaveholding
cultures and ideas of African American democracy. Blanck’s examination
of the debate analyzes crucial questions: How could the colonies unify
when they viewed one of America’s foundational institutions in
fundamentally different ways? How would fugitive slaves be handled
legally and ethically? Blanck shows how the legal and political battles
that resulted from the affair reveal much about revolutionary ideals and
states’ rights at a time when notions of the New Republic—and
philosophies about the unity of American states—were being created.
A review:
"Sixty years before the Amistad case forced a
nation to confront the vast gulf between its pretensions to liberty and
the harsh reality of human bondage, a now-forgotten affair strained the
tenuous bonds that held the young republic together. When the brig Tyrannicide
captured thirty-four Carolina slaves who had escaped to a British
privateer, the ensuing case raised troubling issues of what freedom
meant in the postcolonial world. Emily Blanck deftly combines high drama
with exhaustive research in this rich and important study."
—Douglas R. Egerton
More information is available
here.
