Caribbean Seminar Series - Worthy of Freedom: Indenture and Free Labor in the Era of Emancipation

THIS IS AN ONLINE EVENT

Abstract: In this talk, Jonathan Connolly will discuss Worthy of Freedom, a history of Indian indentured labour in British Guiana, Trinidad, and Mauritius after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Weaving together arguments concerning political culture, law, and economic conflict and change, the book examines the making of post-slavery indenture in relation to the wider project of emancipation. It shows how debates surrounding indenture intertwined with shifting, contested notions of emancipation; how and why the law of indenture and category of free labour changed over time; and how indenture restructured the political economy of emancipation in a material sense.

Biography: Jonathan Connolly is an assistant professor of history at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is the author of Worthy of Freedom: Indenture and Free Labor in the Era of Emancipation (University of Chicago Press, 2024). A scholar of emancipation, labor, and migration in the British Empire, Connolly has also published in Past & Present, Slavery & Abolition, the Law and History Review, and Comparative Studies in Society and History.