UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Abolition without Deliverance: The Law of Connecticut Slavery 1784-1848

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.2307/797518

Authors

David Menschel

Reported year

2001

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.773026+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:04:47.773026+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Documentary abstract — original language

According to American public memory, slavery in the United States was peculiar to the South.Unless explicitly reminded of the North's history of slavery, most Americans associate the North with abolitionists rather than slaveholders.Alongside this public memory is the work of professional historians that recognizes that slavery existed in the North during the colonial era but asserts that it was abolished during the late eighteenth century.According to such scholarship, as the Revolutionary War brought ideas of natural rights to the forefront of the American consciousness and as economic realities made Northern slavery increasingly unprofitable, states north of Maryland eliminated slavery through a series of legal measures.Some scholars who advance this narrative portray the abolition measures adopted by most Northern states as immediate and comprehensive, as though these measures effectuated the near-instantaneous eradication of slavery in each state that adopted them.'In fact, though the number of slaves in the North declined after the Revolutionary War, slavery continued to exist there well into the nineteenth century?Between 1777 and 1804, all of the states north of Maryland did take steps that would eventually doom slavery within their borders.But only in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire were slaves emancipated relatively swiftly, and even in these states abolition measures 1. See, e.g., LORENZO JOHNSTON GREENE, THE NEGRO IN COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND 76-77 (Atheneum 1968) (1942) (reporting that "[b]y 1790 all of the New England states had abolished both slavery and the slave trade").2.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W1870516280

DOI

10.2307/797518

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.2307/797518
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W1870516280

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

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