Why read The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York?

Book cover of The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York

Book description

Original and deeply researched, this book provides a new interpretation of Dutch American slavery which challenges many of the traditional assumptions about slavery in New York. With an emphasis on demography and economics, Michael J. Douma shows that slavery in eighteenth-century New York was mostly rural, heavily Dutch, and generally…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jeroen Dewulf

Author

A key sentence in this book is “Historians must try to separate possible historical events from likely historical events.” It reflects the Douma’s desire to base his answers to important questions regarding the role of the Dutch in the history of New York slavery not on suppositions or remarks by individuals, but on quantitative research of historical demography, statistical analysis, and econometrics research. He does so brilliantly in each of the book’s six chapters, dealing with the size of Dutch New York slavery; the importance of wheat production; the price of slaves; the number of runaways; the emancipation of slaves;…

From Jeroen's 3 favorite reads in 2024.