The Women of Rendezvous

“[Shaw’s] prose draws readers in. The women, their children and the culture come alive with skillful descriptions using a vivid storytelling style. . . . This work is not a strictly genealogical account of a planter family and its slaves and servants. However, for those interested in the history of early British settlement in Barbados, domestic arrangements of the wealthy planter class, and interactions of the races in England and the West Indies, this book will satisfy.”—National Genealogical Society Quarterly

“This story is fascinating. Shaw’s focus on the domestic environment on the [plantation] of a rich and influential male presents a very engaging rendition of what life was like for white and black women of different origins and statuses who were cast together by fate under the control of a 17th Century slave owner. . . . This book would serve as an excellent text for history classes as well as classes in the sociology of the family, political science, anthropology and more.”—Ethnic and Racial Studies

“Shaw demonstrates that not only was Barbados England’s first ‘slave society’ in America, but that England, too, was a ‘slave society’ during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. . . . [C]onvincing and revealing. . . . Shaw’s work is perfect for scholars as well as a wider audience of students who would learn much about the archival research process. . . . Shaw’s monograph is thoughtful and well-researched.”—Women’s History Review

“Shaw has produced a methodological tour de force. . . . The result is both one family’s unique story and a perceptive social history of the early modern Anglo-Atlantic world.”—American Historical Review

“Through an elegantly written microhistory of five women and their children, The Women of Rendezvous underscores the centrality of Black and white women’s bodies in producing and reproducing empire. . . . Shaw’s attention to race, class, status, and maternal inheritance on both sides of the Atlantic through the experiences of the women of Rendezvous will make this book essential reading for scholars interested in the histories of slavery, race, family, and empire.”—Slavery and Abolition

“[The Women of Rendezvous] contributes significantly to the historiography of the British Empire and colonization by bringing a new perspective to history and highlights the role of women in the growth and sustenance of the imperial system.”—North Carolina Historical Review

“A model of historical research and writing…this is a truly transatlantic study…[and] a beautifully written book.”—New West Indian Guide

“An astoundingly detailed intimate history of slavery, servitude, kinship, and legacy originating on one late seventeenth-century Barbados plantation. Shaw’s remarkable gift as a historian in this book is her relentless labor in uncovering the transatlantic, gendered, racial, and sexual experiences and lived possibilities of enslaved and servant women from a British colonial archive that does not center Black women’s perspectives. With meticulous care and rigor, Shaw exhaustively follows every trace of their records to show how these otherwise historically invisible women challenged imperial, racial, and patriarchal power and demanded their due. With The Women of Rendezvous, Jenny Shaw leads the field of gender and slavery into new methodological territory.”—Marisa J. Fuentes, author of Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive

“This book is gorgeously written from the very first sentence. Through her impeccable scholarship and creative skill, Shaw turns scattered references to enslaved and free women into a coherent story of early modern women’s efforts toward family and freedom.”—Sharon Block, author of Colonial Complexions: Race and Bodies in Eighteenth-Century America

“Lucid and beautifully textured, this microhistory of a single family illuminates the ways that slavery shaped empire, in colonies and in the metropolis. The book achieves both rich granular coverage and an impressively transatlantic perspective. I am full of admiration for Shaw’s elegant, impressive, and timely project.”—Sarah M. S. Pearsall, author of Atlantic Families: Lives and Letters in the Later Eighteenth Century