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Book Reviews Allen does not emphasize, though it is implicit in his analysis, the vulnerability of African-born and African-descended peoples in the early colonies. English servants, albeit mostly illiterate, knew that freedom was their normal state and that there was some protection in English common law. Criticism of the brutal and callous treatment of indentured servants rebounded from England and the continent. Africans had no international support, except among a small element of Christians who had little power. Nor could they escape their bondage and disappear, as did many enslaved Indians who were living on their own lands. Their efforts at resisting lifelong hereditary bondage were not likely to be broadly effective. Thus it was easy for colonists to impose hereditary bondage on Africans, even though this was illegal under British law, and to argue that since Africans were originally heathens, normal civil and social rights did not apply to them. They soon realized that they could do so with impunity. The Invention of the White Race is an important work for its meticulously researched materials and its insights into colonial history. Its themes and perspectives should be made available to all scholars. Like Edmund Morgan's American Slavery,
Journal of World History – University of Hawai'I Press
Published: Feb 24, 2005
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