Gendering Property, Racing Capital

This chapter takes one of the central subjects of economic and social history—the development of capitalism—and reinterprets classical debates through the lens of ‘race’ and gender. Drawing on impressive new research on British slave ownership in the Caribbean (the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership project at UCL), it argues that gender and ‘race’ not only structured the organization of property and power in slave society but were also historically dynamic axes of change. Each played a part in both cementing and dissolving the system of slavery with its particular forms of wealth creation. This significantly recalibrates traditional accounts of the relationship between slavery, capitalism, and emancipation and places culture at the heart of historical change.