Speculating Freedom and Accounting for Reproduction

This presentation reveals how abolitionists and slave-owners alike exploited black women’s reproductive labor to finance freedom. Taking a closer look at the oft-neglected history of post-emancipation intercolonial British Caribbean labor migration, this talk provides a careful reading of instances of kidnappings of newly freed children from Barbados to neighboring colonies between 1834 - 1880. Rather than liberatory, this talk demonstrates how the abolition of slavery intensified the commodification of women’s and girls’ labors. It recounts how competing understandings of black women’s reproduction shaped early political economic theory and the expansion of global capitalism in slavery’s aftermath. Throughout, it centers the stories of mothers’ individual and collective pursuits to reunite with their children.