This volume is concerned with examining the histories of freed slaves in a variety of slave societies in the ancient and modern world, ranging from ancient Rome to the southern states of the US, the Caribbean, and Brazil to Africa in the aftermath of emancipation in the twentieth century. The aim of this work is to present a comparative forum for the study of freedpeople. By identifying what is separate and what is universal about freedpeople it hopes to add to a better understanding of the role and impact of manumission and emancipation in different slave societies.

Contributors include: Valentina Arena, Steeve Buckridge, Mariana Dantas, Marc Kleijwegt, Martin Klein, Rita Reynolds, Chandima Wickramasinghe, Swithin Wilmot, and Nigel Worden.