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The Forgotten History of Britains White Slaves in America
New York University Press
March 2008
On Sale: April 29, 2008
320 pages
ISBN: 0814742963
EAN: 9780814742969
Paperback
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Non-Fiction History
White Cargo is the forgotten story of the thousands
of Britons who lived and died in bondage in BritainÂ’s
American colonies. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, more than 300,000 white people were shipped to
America as slaves. Urchins were swept up from LondonÂ’s
streets to labor in the tobacco fields, where life
expectancy was no more than two years. Brothels were raided
to provide “breeders” for Virginia. Hopeful migrants were
duped into signing as indentured servants, unaware they
would become personal property who could be bought, sold,
and even gambled away. Transported convicts were paraded for
sale like livestock. Drawing on letters crying for
help, diaries, and court and government archives, Don Jordan
and Michael Walsh demonstrate that the brutalities usually
associated with black slavery alone were perpetrated on
whites throughout British rule. The trade ended with
American independence, but the British still tried to sell
convicts in their former colonies, which prompted one of the
most audacious plots in Anglo-American history. This
is a saga of exploration and cruelty spanning 170 years that
has been submerged under the overwhelming memory of black
slavery. White Cargo brings the brutal, uncomfortable
story to the surface.
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