Liberating the Family?: Gender and British Slave Emancipation in the Rural Western Cape, S. Africa, 1823-1853 by Pamela Scully

"Liberating the Family?" is a pioneering attempt to unite recent understanding of race and gender as historical and cultural constructs with extensive archival research. In so doing, Scully has produced a sensitive and intelligent study which bridges social and intellectual history and suggests new ways of understanding key categories of colonial history.

The ending of slavery in the Cape Colony marked the beginning of an era of exceptional struggle over culture and consciousness. Far from simply abolishing bonded labor, slave emancipation reshaped the relations between men and women, and the individual and society.