Reckoning with Slavery

In Reckoning with Slavery, Jennifer L. Morgan explores the experiences of enslaved African women in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, shedding light on their roles within early modern trade, race, and commodification in the Black Atlantic. The book examines how these women were treated as commodities throughout the Middle Passage and were central to the interconnected systems of reproductive labor, kinship, and racial hierarchy. Morgan demonstrates the parallel development of Western ideas of value and race, revealing how racial capitalism both denied and relied on kinship among enslaved women.