Freedom Roots: Histories from the Caribbean

In their ambitious text Laurent Dubois and Richard Lee Turits cover the histories of slavery, freedom, and coercion across the Caribbean islands over six centuries. In doing so they complicate the story of slavery and emancipation in the region. The most unique aspect of the work is the lens through which the authors examine freedom and power. They place land at the center of the narrative, arguing that the key to autonomy was access to and control over land. In sum, the book highlights the contested nature of Caribbean land and space. While one automatically associates plantations with the Caribbean, the authors show that there were many alternative imaginations of and uses for land over the centuries. Dubois and Turits argue that the confrontations between “plantation” and “counter-plantation,” or between slavery and freedom, were key to the formation and development of Caribbean nations. By focusing on the different possibilities for...