The Demands of Justice
Enslaved Women, Capital Crime, and Clemency in Early Virginia
By Tamika Y. Nunley
258 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 9 halftones, notes, bibl., index
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Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-7312-7
Published: April 2023 -
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-7311-0
Published: April 2023 -
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-7313-4
Published: March 2023 -
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-6250-1
Published: March 2023
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Demonstrating how crimes, convictions, and clemency functioned within a slave society that upheld the property interests of white Virginians, Nunley reveals the frequency with which owners preferred to keep the accused in bondage, which allowed them, behind the veil of paternalism, to continue to benefit from Black women's labor. This so-called clemency also sought to rob Black women of the power they exercised when they committed capital crimes. The testimonies that Nunley has collected and analyzed offer compelling glimpses of the self-identities forged by Black women as they attempted to resist enslavement and the limits of justice available to them in the antebellum courtroom.
About the Author
Tamika Y. Nunley is associate professor of history at Cornell University.
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Reviews
"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
"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