Making a Slave State

“Slavery and enslaved people rightfully sit at the heart of this story.”—Journal of Southern History

“Will be valuable reading for scholars of southern history, slavery, race, and criminal justice, as well as American political development.” — William and Mary Quarterly

“Quintana (Wellesley College) reorients scholars' understanding of state formation by locating the labors and lives of slaves as fundamental to the state’s creation. It was enslaved Carolinians who created the roads and especially the canals that bound the residents of South Carolina to the emerging state government.”—CHOICE

“An outstanding book which challenges mainstream conventions about the roles of slaves in state building, in this case South Carolina, from its inception as a colony to its development as a slave state. . . . A must read.”—Civil War Book Review

“Supported by meticulous research from plantation records, state petitions, legislative and state agency records, political commentaries, slave narratives, runaway advertisements, maps, and property surveys, Quintana critically examines the relationship between slavery and the rise of the liberal state through the lens of spatial and social dynamics in early South Carolina.”—North Carolina Historical Review

“Ryan Quintana has made an original and welcome contribution to two very active fields, one the history of slavery and capitalism, the other the history of the state in early America. . . . Quintana brings a genuinely fresh perspective, one that allows him to relate slavery to state formation in a new way.”—American Nineteenth Century History

“This is not just a history of space or of South Carolina. It is also a history of resistance. As such, it is also part of another new historiography, well suited to teach our present and to bring messages to what is our foreseeable future.”—Journal of American History

“Insightful and well-researched. . . . This is a good book, well worth reading, assigning, and discussing.”—Journal of the Early Republic

“An important contribution to an ongoing scholarly and public discussion of the attribution of responsibility for the creation of the American state and public spaces. . . . Recommended to anyone interested in the more nuanced stories of enslaved peoples in the American South as well as students of American democracy.”—Reviews in American History

“More than other books I’ve seen, Quintana’s Making a Slave State makes the social history of enslaved people central to the processes of state building and the political economy of capitalism. Indeed, the book’s great value is its recognition of enslaved people as crucial historical actors whose everyday lives created the infrastructures of the state.” — Seth Rockman, Brown University