Slavery, Law and Religion in the Early Modern Period

This book examines enslavement, slavery and the global slave trade through the lens of law and religion in the period c. 1500–1800, revealing the discursive and practical contexts in which relations of slavery appeared across different settings around the globe. The volume adds to current research trends in the historical disciplines by incorporating underexamined geographical areas, by drawing on conceptual work on the meaning of slavery and by supporting interdisciplinary scholarship. Approaches from cultural, intellectual, religious and legal history feature in this volume and enter into conversation. Moreover, the individual chapters move across time and space, inviting the reader to consider the spectrum of slaveries in the early modern world. One key theme throughout the volume lies in taking up the perspectives of law and religion to analyse how local cultural settings as well as semantic appropriations shaped relations of slavery.