The first fruits of freedom -- Into the new century -- Great war, great migration -- Race and labor in depression and war -- Race and labor in the postwar world -- Affirmative action and labor action -- Back to the future

Material life in west and West Central Africa, 1650-1800 : an introduction -- Seeds of change : African agricultural workers in the Anglo-American colonies -- Cultivating knowledge : African tobacco and cotton workers in the Americas -- In an ocean of blue : West African indigo workers in the...

The export boom in Barbados -- Land and labor during the export boom -- Who financed the sugar boom? -- The growth of the Barbadian sugar industry over the seventeenth century -- Origins of the Barbadian plantation complex -- The expansion of Barbados -- Epilogue: rethinking the sugar revolution.

"By 1860, the value of the slave population in the United States exceeded $3 billion--triple that of investments nationwide in factories, railroads, and banks combined, and worth more even than the South's lucrative farmland. The slave was not only a commodity to be traded but also a kind of...