THE BONDS OF FREEDOM, liberated slaves and the end of the slave trade

319pp., illus., maps, hardback, d.w., Yale University Press, New Haven, 2025

ISBN: 9780300263206

An authoritative account of people rescued from slave ships by maritime patrols, “liberated,” then forced into bonded labour between 1807 and 1880.

“The Bonds of Freedom sets a new standard in understanding the long history of ‘Afro-diasporic justice,’ demonstrating the ingenious ways that liberated Africans asserted their freedom through formal state law, fugitivity, insurrection, and their own organizational political logics. James H. Sweet, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“Jake Subryan Richards has written the definitive legal history of ‘liberated Africans.’ Superbly researched and packed with humanity, The Bonds of Freedom makes us rethink the tortured transition from slavery to freedom in the Atlantic world.” John Harris, author of The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the Middle Passage

Jake Subryan Richards is Assistant Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He lives in the UK.