[James R. Burns]

Welcome to the \’History of Slavery and Unfreedom\’

So far as I am aware, this is the first and only Humanities Commons group dedicated to the study of slavery.*

The past decade has seen a large number of publications that address slavery in a range of historical societies (e.g., The Cambridge World History; The Palgrave Handbook; On Human Bondage; Slave Systems: Ancient and Modern).

This group is in the spirit of these histories. It is designed to help scholars of slavery and unfreedom in different times and places — from the ancient world to the twentieth century — learn from each other.

From my own perspective as an early medievalist, I see historians of slavery in the early Middle Ages frequently draw upon the insights of ancient and early modern scholars, not least when trying to compensate for limitations in our source material. I therefore know how valuable sharing research and scholarship on slavery can be.

I hope this group can build into a thriving community of scholars, so please share it and invite people you think might be interested to join. We welcome historians at all stages of their career, including students.

The inclusion of \’unfreedom\’ in the title is intended to accommodate academics studying types of unfree labour where they may feel \’slavery\’ isn\’t quite the right label.

Thank you for joining.

(*If anyone is aware of an existing group, please let me know.)

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