"Suicide," writes Terri Snyder, "is central to the history of slavery in early America," and slave suicide is itself central to the history of suicide. Snyder digs deep into horrifying contemporary accounts, exploring when and why captured Africans chose suicide, how their captors chose to respond, and the roles of class and status in early American suicides more generally. Over the course of the slavery era, Snyder finds, American society developed a new ambivalence about suicide. The harsh treatment of suicides lessened ...
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"Suicide," writes Terri Snyder, "is central to the history of slavery in early America," and slave suicide is itself central to the history of suicide. Snyder digs deep into horrifying contemporary accounts, exploring when and why captured Africans chose suicide, how their captors chose to respond, and the roles of class and status in early American suicides more generally. Over the course of the slavery era, Snyder finds, American society developed a new ambivalence about suicide. The harsh treatment of suicides lessened in the white population--bodies were no longer desecrated, forfeiture was not enforced--while on plantations the question of whether dead slaves were primarily property or people heightened awareness of slavery's contradictions and cruelties. Snyder shows how slave suicide pressured slave society to change not only its attitudes toward slaves but its approach toward suicide in all its forms.
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