The Demands of Justice

“The Demands of Justice, by delving into the lives of enslaved women who were accused of capital crimes, poses important questions about the nature of justice and clemency in antebellum Virginia. Anyone who is interested in the history of slavery, race, and gender in the Americas, legal history, or southern history should read this book.”—Evan C. Rothera, The Civil War Monitor

“Nunley analyzes numerous legal cases of enslaved women and girls, giving them voice and showing how enslaved people strove to attain justice in an unjust society . . . . Recommended.”—CHOICE

“By resurrecting enslaved women from the pages of accounts of violent cases, Nunley invites readers to understand their appearances in legal records as a rejoinder to the myriad structures that strove to define them and their choices.”—Journal of American History

“Nunley has once again published a daring account of early American history that challenges and militates against the limits of the archive of slavery. . . . Demands of Justice is a shining testament to the capacity of Black feminist methodology to compellingly re-narrate early American history despite formidable archival challenges.”—New England Journal of History

“Nunley’s book will be valuable to legal historians, historians of slavery and gender, and those interested in southern history more broadly. It will also be instructive for graduate students learning how to wrest stories from an unwilling archive and for undergraduates who may be confronting the twisted logics and contradictions of slavery for the first time.”—Journal of the Civil War Era

“Rather than focusing on legal institutions or white actors, Nunley centers the experience of enslaved women themselves and examines the themes of justice, punishment, and mercy.”—H-Nationalism

“This brave, important study poses haunting questions about the legal system during slavery. Through detail that is both rich and harrowing, Tamika Nunley uses the capital cases of enslaved Black women and girls to show how their alleged crimes challenged immoral laws and exposed the fictitious nature of justice in America. It will profoundly shape future histories of race, gender, and carceral regimes.” —Kali Gross, author of Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso and co-author of A Black Women’s History of the United States

“Tamika Nunley has uncovered dozens of heartbreaking cases that bring to light the struggles of enslaved women to resist slavery even as they fought (sometimes quite literally) to protect themselves, their kin, and their communities. Enslaved women’s acts of resistance take center stage. Each of the stories Nunley tells stuns and horrifies in its own particular way.”—Rebecca Anne Goetz, New York University