‘To Go and Look for Law’: Late-Stage Slavery, Amelioration, and the Colonial State in the British Crown Colonies

Abstract Focusing on the Anglo-Caribbean and the Cape Colony, this article examines how ‘going to law’ became a common practice in the early nineteenth century as enslaved men and women sought to engage the new rights and resources made available by the process of ‘ameliorating’ slavery. These interactions shaped the character of colonial governance in a multitude of ways, from altering the approaches of officials to prompting public debates over rights, justice, paternalism, and morality. The role of the state in colonial labour systems was thus reciprocally constructed by the rulers and the ruled, albeit from vastly asymmetrical positions of authority.