Fictions of Consent: Slavery, Servitude, and Free Service in Early Modern England

Although early modern England claimed to have "too pure an Air for Slaves to breathe in," slavery was a quintessentially English phenomenon, writes Urvashi Chakravarty. She argues that England laid the conceptual groundwork for racialized slavery as it interrogated the classical inheritances and contemporary contexts for bondage.

Although early modern England claimed to have "too pure an Air for Slaves to breathe in," slavery was a quintessentially English phenomenon, writes Urvashi Chakravarty. She argues that England laid the conceptual groundwork for racialized slavery as it interrogated the classical inheritances and contemporary contexts for bondage.