RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Rehearsals for Reparations
JF RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
FD Russell Sage Foundation
SP 132
OP 150
DO 10.7758/RSF.2024.10.2.06
VO 10
IS 2
A1 Perrone, Giuliana
YR 2024
UL http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/10/2/132.abstract
AB This article considers a subset of lawsuits in which emancipated people sued to have their enslavers’ bequests to them honored. It contends that we should see these suits as contests over reparations. By exploring this unappreciated history, this article argues that enslavers themselves believed reparations were due and were willing to pay them, that there was a general agreement between enslaved and enslaver about the form reparations should take, and that there was a similar understanding that reparations should be generational. The article further suggests the promise of additional inquiry into historical testamentary records. Such a novel archive would add to contemporary arguments in favor of reparations by identifying an unacknowledged effort to provide compensation to formerly enslaved people.