This volume is the first comprehensive history of the evolving relationship between American slavery and the law from colonial times to the Civil War.

Thomas D. Morris [1938-] taught in the Department of History, Portland State University and is the author of Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860.

Central to the development of the American legal system, writes Professor Finkelman in Slavery & the Law, is the institution of slavery.

This volume is the first comprehensive history of the evolving relationship between American slavery and the law from colonial times to the Civil War.