Precarious freedom : manumission in eighteenth-century Colombo

dc.contributor.authorEkama, Kateen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2023-01-19T09:41:30Z
dc.date.available2023-01-19T09:41:30Z
dc.date.issued2020-09-04
dc.descriptionCITATION: Ekama, K. 2020. Precarious freedom : manumission in Eighteenth-Century Colombo. Journal of Social History, 54(1):88–108, doi:10.1093/jsh/shaa008.en_ZA
dc.descriptionThe original publication is available at https://academic.oup.comen_ZA
dc.description.abstractIn the historiography of slave-owning societies, manumission has been a contentious topic. Based on the assumption that manumission rates and the level of cruelty in a slave-owning society were closely related, historians have used research on manumission to rank slave societies based on a scale from “mild” to “harsh.” More recent research on manumission has eschewed this problematic approach, instead probing gradations of freedom. This article aims to contribute to our understanding of manumission and slavery by questioning how the formal, legal process of manumission altered the lived experience of individuals. Examining legal sources that shed light on the complexities of manumission in eighteenth-century Colombo, it considers the social strategies employed to achieve and defend free status. The records show that manumission did not sever the master-slave relationship: obligations and relations of debt continued to bind the formerly enslaved to former slave-owning families. Studying court records involving individuals responding to the possibilities and limitations of manumission, this study shows that freed status was precarious and, like bondage, was not an unalterable state.en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorshipEncompass Programme at Leiden Universityen_ZA
dc.description.urihttps://academic.oup.com/jsh/article/54/1/88/5901227
dc.description.versionPublisher's versionen_ZA
dc.format.extent21 pages : illustrationsen_ZA
dc.identifier.citationEkama, K. 2020. Precarious freedom : manumission in Eighteenth-Century Colombo. Journal of Social History, 54(1):88–108, doi:10.1093/jsh/shaa008.en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn1527-1897 (online)
dc.identifier.orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-3912-808X
dc.identifier.otherdoi:10.1093/jsh/shaa008
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/126253
dc.language.isoen_ZAen_ZA
dc.publisherOxford University Pressen_ZA
dc.rights.holderAuthor retains copyrighten_ZA
dc.subjectSlavery -- Colombo -- 18th centuryen_ZA
dc.subjectSlaves -- Emancipation -- Historyen_ZA
dc.subjectSlavery -- Sri Lanka -- Colombo -- History -- 18th centuryen_ZA
dc.subjectFreed persons -- History -- 18th centuryen_ZA
dc.titlePrecarious freedom : manumission in eighteenth-century Colomboen_ZA
dc.typeArticleen_ZA
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