England's Internal Colonies: Class, Capital, and the Literature of Early Modern English Colonialism (review)
a legal and penal category, and it was the experience of a large group of English captives in the Mediterranean. The model of plantation slavery ultimately overwhelmed these older concepts of slavery, helped in part by the developing racial consciousness that stressed the differences between the English and both Indians and Africans. Guasco’s treatment of apprenticeship and indenture as forms of forced labor exaggerates the coercive element of these relationships, but it is useful to remember that many people in early modern England had experiences — temporary and age-related, perhaps — of being unfree laborers. It is, like the other articles in this section, a reminder that the English did not just change things in the New World, but were themselves changed by their experience. The overall coherence of this collection is one of its greatest strengths: good essays have greater resonance in conversation with their fellows. The stimulating essays in this collection demonstrate the usefulness of reaching out, not just in spatial and temporal terms, but also in disciplinary ones. By placing Jamestown in a wider frame, we have a better understanding of Jamestown and of the North Atlantic world in the early seventeenth century. SUSAN DWYER AMUSSEN Union Institute and University