Bound by Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of a Northern Gentry

During the first generations of European settlement in North America, a number of interconnected Northeastern families carved out private empires. In Bound by Bondage, Nicole Saffold Maskiell argues that slavery was vital to the rise of this aristocracy, and those dynastic families built prestige through mastery, creating manorial estates and expansive trading networks from the Northeast to the South, the Caribbean, and beyond. Members of this elite class, including mayors, governors, and p...