Acknowledgments
A veritable battalion of students assisted with this project over the years. Their research, dedication, hard work, and support have been priceless. This work is really their work. I extend my heartfelt thanks to all of them, named and unnamed, including Abdelmageid Abdelhadi, Brian Baker, Moya Bansile, Christopher Barr, Caralee Florian Bava-Grygo, Rob Brosius, Eren Burcin, Michael Carr, Sheena Daneshyar, Stephen DeLeo, Priya Doraswamy, Tanuja Dudnath, Pierre Eloi, Uche Enwereuzor, Rebecca Fink, Alanzo Hessing, Sofia Iqbal, Brian Jacek, Nadia Kahf (and her husband, Mohammad Al-Qudah, who assisted with several translations), Nazneen Khan, Moonjung Kim, Scott Ladanyi, Giselle Lupianez, Mxolisi Charles Malunga, Sabrina Mirza, Rasheed Musa, Sarah Mustafa, Shahab Nassirpour, Faris Nesheiwat, Dawn Pepin, Alexis Prieur, Basem Ramadan, Jessie Rogers, Iman Saad, Desiree Sedehi, Brandi Shaddick, Rukhsanah L.J. Singh, Joe Stefanelli, Elizabeth Trottier, and Renee Wilson. Special thanks to Renee Wilson, April Campos, and my daughter Dierdre Malika Freamon for assistance in preparing the bibliography and with last details. Thanks to my stepson, Mujahid Khan, for preparing the maps and to Helen Joy G. Balut for her assistance with the illustrations and photographs. Thanks also to Silvia Cardoso for always being ready to assist with word processing and other related technologies.
Although he was not involved in this project, I owe an inestimable debt of gratitude to the late David Brion Davis for his example of erudition, scholarship and insight in furthering the study of slavery and abolition. Relatedly, David W. Blight and the staff at the Gilder Lehrman Center for Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University, particularly Professor Blight, Dana Schaffer, Tom Thurston and Melissa McGrath, provided me with great space, superb resources, and thoughtful suggestions and support during my time as a fellow at the Center in 2007 and since then. I must also thank Paul Finkelman, Annette Gordon-Reed, and the members of the Gilder Lehrman Anti-Slavery Working Group for their excellent feedback and suggestions on draft parts of this book presented to them. Thanks also to Jane Snaider for giving me a place to lay my head.
Others whose advice and assistance have been invaluable include Abed Younis, Robert A. Diab, the late Eileen Denner, Barbara Mol, Deborah Herrera, Maja Basioli, Margaret Leland Smith, the late Ali Mazrui, Aisha al-Adawiya, Josh Trajak, the late Leo Kanowitz, the late John J. Gibbons, Ahmed Seddik, the staff at Columbia’s Butler Library, particularly Anis Mills and the other reference librarians as well as the late David Xiao and circulation assistant Dylan Rosenlieb, the staff at the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library, particularly Tara Craig, the staffs at the Seton Hall Law Library, the American University in Cairo Libraries, Yale’s Sterling Memorial and Morris Libraries, NYU’s Bobst Library, and the British Library, particularly staff working in the BL’s East India Company and India Office Records collections.
This book could not have come to fruition without the guidance of Bill Nelson and the advice and suggestions of members of the NYU Colloquium on Legal and Constitutional History, including especially Professor Nelson, Daniel Hulsebosch, Lauren Benton, Harold Forsyth, Richard Bernstein, Lloyd Bonfield, Frank Stewart, Christopher Beauchamp, Gautham Rao, John Phillip Reid, Paul Brand, and Jane Burbank. I also extend my thanks to the Colloquium Secretary, Shirley Gray, for her patience, understanding and steadfast support for all the work of the Colloquium.
Professor George P. Fletcher of Columbia Law School, my dissertation advisor, was, as always, a spirited inspiration and superb guide. Other Columbia faculty who had a hand in shaping this project include Professors Brinkley Messick, Lawrence Rosen, Andrej Rapaczynski, and Joseph Raz.
Professor Abdul Sheriff, of Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, my first real mentor on this project, was, and continues to be, a great example of what it takes to be an excellent historian. Special thanks to Hajj Omar Khamis, an archivist at the Zanzibar Archives, and Hajj Masoud Shani, translator and organizer of my interviews with ʿulamāʾ in Zanzibar, for their sterling assistance. Thanks also to the antislavery activist Ruchira Gupta for assisting me with a visit to the archives in New Delhi and for her probing questions on slavery and its relationship to religion. I am grateful to Patrick E. Hobbs, former dean at Seton Hall Law School, for his encouragement and the provision of several small grants and release time for my research and writing, and to the current dean, Kathleen M. Boozang, for her steady encouragement and support.
Kwasi Prempeh, Jean Allain, Jonathan A.C. Brown, Nathaniel Mathews, Michael P. Ambrosio, John Swanson, John B. Wefing, the late Ahmed Bulbulia, Abed Awad, Jon Romberg, Alice Ristroph, Daniel Schiff, Elizabeth Defeis, John Jacobi, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Arnold Mytelka, the late John A. Avery, Sherman A. Jackson, Richard B. Allen, Ehud Toledano, and Gwyn Campbell all provided expert feedback on various sections of this book presented at conferences, in meetings and presentations, in faculty brown-bag discussions, over coffee and long lunches, and, in Professor Jackson’s case, in fierce late-afternoon discussions in a deserted office in Cairo, Egypt. I am especially grateful to Shaban Jumbe, of Dar es Salaam, for his encouragement and logistical support and for arranging for my visit to Chole Island. My friends and loved ones, including especially Anjum Iqbal Budekhan, Irene Lavin Andrews, Professor Jack van Doren, his wife Sonia Crockett, my brothers Michael, Robert and Errick Freamon, Johnnie Dunning, Jr., Bob Dixon, George Brandon, George Conk, Simone Monasebian, Vivian van Bogaert, Deborah Jacobs, Basil Comnas, Jack Harrington, Joyce Zonana, Jeff Fogel, Lina Ashur Talal, the late Raymond A. Brown, Raymond M. Brown, Wanda Akin, Evuarere Rachel Ikea, Alan Dexter Bowman, Frank Gonzalez, George Jett, and Emilio Bermiss have all been wonderful. My daughter Dierdre Malika Freamon was always there to patiently listen, ask the right questions, and assist with the myriad of loose ends. Special thanks to the series editors Damian Alan Pargas and Jeff Fynn-Paul for encouraging submission of this work to Brill and to Gerda Danielsson Coe and Irene Jager for tirelessly shepherding the preparation of the manuscript to completion. Thanks also to my copyeditor Lee A. Young, my indexer Christine Retz, and my anonymous reviewers and the other staff at Brill for their advice and assistance. Lastly, I thank Carmelo Lubrano, Michael McBride, Helena Espirito-Santo, Kareim Crawford, Rhaquane McAllister and the other Seton Hall IT/Admin staff members for their help with technological and related issues. All errors are mine.