UC Davis

This dissertation centers the experiences of incarcerated peoples within the political debates about slavery and abolition that took place during the first half of the nineteenth century. While much of the work on slavery and emancipation disregards the growing numbers of unfree people in antebellum jails and prisons, I argue that nineteenth century incarceration evolved not as an extension of slavery, but in conjunction with it. The dissertation focuses on New York City, where the number of carceral institutions expanded dramatically just as lawmakers secured the passage of anti-slavery legislation. Municipal officials incarcerated tens of thousands of people within jails, workhouses, and penitentiaries, exposing them to forced penal labor, the spread of disease, and sale to the American South, as New York State completed its process of gradual emancipation. Few historical works account for the relationship between abolition and incarceration prior to the Civil War and I introduce a new perspective that incorporates legal processes of gradual emancipation into U.S. carceral history. The exclusion of Black people from notions of republican citizenship resulted in broad political support for the growth of New York’s carceral state. Concern for public order pervaded the anti-slavery efforts of white lawmakers and left New York City’s working poor population vulnerable to abuse and mistreatment within the city’s carceral spaces.