Heerman observes, “virtually no free people in Illinois fought for slavery’s abolition” (p. 59). The author frequently supports these macro-level examinations of slavery and emancipation in Illinois with microhistorical vignettes – plucked from obscure archival sources – that offer humanizing glimpses into the daily lives of so-called “French Negroes” in Illinois. The final three chapters explore the trajectory of slavery and abolition in Illinois during the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1807, the Territorial Assembly sanctioned indentured servitude as a legal mechanism to retain slaves under a different title. In the decades after achieving statehood in 1818, local lawmakers perpetuated this ostensibly proslavery mandate to thwart the rising tide of abolitionism that accompanied an explosion in the Illinois population from just 12,000 in 1810 to 1.7 million in 1860. But bound African Americans found smart ways to challenge the state’s servitude contract laws – including haggling with masters and legal action – that institutionalized slaves in southern states could rarely (if ever) employ. In Illinois, local laws and politics “left the state suspended between slave and free” (p. 84). The flowering of the antislavery movement in Illinois began in a rather unconventional way during the 1830s, when one of the earliest agitations for emancipation arose within a small community of free blacks who worked to liberate the French Negroes living in their midst. Heerman explains that bound African Americans pursued freedom suits through strategic alliances with free inhabitants, and once liberated they “adeptly used the law to protect their freedom” (p. 133). In 1841, in a remarkable case involving Abraham Lincoln as a lawyer and Stephen A. Douglas as a judge, the Illinois state supreme court invalidated the right to hold slaves and in so doing “made freedom the normative condition for black people in Illinois” (p. 136). A political realignment followed in the 1850s, when the new Republican Party gained a strong foothold in Illinois and the state became an abolitionist “powerhouse in the nation at large” (p. 138). Even so, resistance to emancipation and racial equality remained deeply entrenched, and Illinois did not repeal its slave codes until February 1865, during the same legislative session that it ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. Arguing against an institutional approach to understanding slaveries in North America, Heerman’s well-researched book should appeal to all scholars of slavery and emancipation. It sheds new analytical light on the role of bondage and freedom in the political and social evolution of the United States.

中文翻译：

---

我的奴隶兄弟：战前南部的友谊、男子气概和抵抗

Heerman 观察到，“伊利诺伊州几乎没有自由人为废除奴隶制而斗争”（第 59 页）。作者经常用微观历史小插曲来支持对伊利诺伊州奴隶制和解放的宏观层面的考察——这些小插曲取自晦涩的档案来源——为伊利诺伊州所谓“法国黑人”的日常生活提供了人性化的一瞥。最后三章探讨了 19 世纪上半叶伊利诺伊州奴隶制和废除奴隶制的轨迹。1807 年，领土议会批准契约奴役作为以不同名义保留奴隶的法律机制。在 1818 年建州后的几十年里，当地立法者延续了这一表面上支持奴隶制的使命，以阻止伴随着伊利诺伊州人口从 12 岁开始激增的废奴主义浪潮，1810 年从 000 增加到 1860 年的 170 万。但受约束的非裔美国人找到了聪明的方法来挑战该州的奴役合同法——包括与主人讨价还价和采取法律行动——南部各州的制度化奴隶很少（如果有的话）雇佣这些法。在伊利诺伊州，地方法律和政治“使该州在奴隶和自由之间悬而未决”（第 84 页）。伊利诺伊州反奴隶制运动的兴起始于 1830 年代，当时以一种非常规的方式开始了最早的解放运动，当时一小群自由黑人致力于解放生活在他们中间的法国黑人。赫尔曼解释说，被束缚的非裔美国人通过与自由居民的战略联盟来追求自由诉讼，一旦解放，他们“巧妙地利用法律来保护他们的自由”（第 133 页）。1841 年，在亚伯拉罕·林肯 (Abraham Lincoln) 担任律师、斯蒂芬·A·道格拉斯 (Stephen A. Douglas) 担任法官的案件中，伊利诺伊州最高法院宣布持有奴隶的权利无效，从而“使自由成为伊利诺伊州黑人的规范条件”（第 136 页） ）。随后在 1850 年代进行了政治重组，当时新共和党在伊利诺伊州站稳了脚跟，该州成为废奴主义者“全国的强国”（第 138 页）。即便如此，对解放和种族平等的抵制仍然根深蒂固，直到 1865 年 2 月，伊利诺伊州才在批准第十三修正案的同一立法会议上废除了奴隶法。与理解北美奴隶制的制度方法不同，赫尔曼的这本研究透彻的书应该会吸引所有奴隶制和解放问题的学者。