ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the legal origins of international slave trade repression law in the law of prize. It describes two additional forms of violence, namely: violence against recaptives by prize crews; and violent, but productive, resistance carried out by recaptives. The book shows how British Commissioners at Sierra Leone, who often sat alone, interpreted slave trade repression treaties inventively by minimising some of the fallout – at least for captors – of apparently unlawful seizures. It explores the examination of the state of recaptivity, a liminal and precarious legal state and the legal construction of the recaptive further by focusing on the broader economies of slave trade repression. The book provides a counter-legal history of abolition by focusing on the construction of the recaptive and the roles that recaptives played in litigation.
