Lee B. Wilson, "Bonds of Empire: The English Origins of Slave Law in South Carolina and British Plantation America, 1660–1783" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
New Books in Law
00:00
What Is a Conditional Bond?
In the book, i trace this back to colonies like south carolina and jamaica. The conditional bond is a very old legal instrument. It comes out of medimediaeval england. And it would ensure that if a debt wasn't paid, that the creditor could take the debtor to court over the debt. For transatlantic trade, you need a legal guarantee that someone is going to pay their obligations. So what we see is overtime, transatlantic slave traders start to require con a bonds of purchasers in order to make sure that they are paying debts for slaves.
Transcript
Play full episode
