This book engages the way Christian, Jewish, Muslim and secular-progressivist actors used Mosaic and Islamic law and ethics in relation to slavery in American, West African and transatlantic history from 1440 to 1830. It focuses on how various groups marshalled these religious-legal traditions to respond to questions of enslavement, amelioration, emancipation and abolition in the face of ever-transforming social, religious-cultural, legal and political contexts over several centuries. The study offers a vital corrective to secularized histories of slavery by showing that sacred law was not peripheral but ever-central to the making—and unmaking—of American slavery, with legacies that reverberate through Reconstruction, segregation and modern civil rights debates.

This book engages the way Christian, Jewish, Muslim and secular-progressivist actors used Mosaic and Islamic law and ethics in relation to slavery in American, West African and transatlantic history from 1440 to 1830. It focuses on how various groups marshalled these religious-legal traditions to respond to questions of enslavement, amelioration, emancipation and abolition in the face of ever-transforming social, religious-cultural, legal and political contexts over several centuries. The study offers a vital corrective to secularized histories of slavery by showing that sacred law was not peripheral but ever-central to the making—and unmaking—of American slavery, with legacies that reverberate through Reconstruction, segregation and modern civil rights debates.