This thesis clarifies recent debates on the problems of territorialized freedom in
the Atlantic world by examining several extradition cases involving runaway slaves in
Canada, where southern slaveholders attempted to retrieve their lost property by
relabeling fugitive slaves as fugitive criminals. In order to combat these efforts and
receive the full protections of British subjecthood, self-emancipated people realized that
they needed to prove themselves worthy of this status. To achieve this, black refugees
formulated their own language of subjecthood predicated upon economic productivity,
social respectability, and political loyalty. By actively working to incorporate themselves
into the British Empire, Afro-Canadians redefined subjecthood from a status largely seen
as a passively received birthright to a deliberate choice. Therefore, this thesis
demonstrates that ways in which formerly enslaved people laid out their own terms for imperial inclusion and defined the contours of black social and legal belonging in a
partially free Atlantic world. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_38022 |
| Contributors | Halty, Nina (author), Engle, Stephen D. (Thesis advisor), Florida Atlantic University (Degree grantor), Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of History |
| Publisher | Florida Atlantic University |
| Source Sets | Florida Atlantic University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 283 p., application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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