Don Wildman

For this, we're fortunate to have the guidance of historian Justine Hill Edwards, author of a number of award-winning books and publications, including Savings and Trust, The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedmen's Bank, which won the 2025 Frederick Douglass Book Prize.

as well as Unfree Markets, The Slave's Economy, and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina.

She is an associate professor at the great and good University of Virginia.

Professor Hill Edwards, Justine, welcome to the podcast.

Honored you could be here.

Thank you for inviting me and thank you for having me.

You teach what I understand is a very popular class covering the origins of American slavery and right there in Virginia.

I'm curious, what are the ideas that most resonate with your students?

Knowledge is power.

It frees us up and it's actually it ends up having a positive impact, which is such a welcome thing in this world today.

Hopefully this episode does the same for listeners.

The American system of slavery, the slave economy begins, of course, as a transatlantic practice.

Where does it first begin?

Who initiates it and why do they conceive of doing it at that time?

Why the Portuguese?

I always wondered that.

What was their culture that they began this practice?

Was the notion of

I'm looking for the chicken egg here.

The notion of, oh, free labor or, oh, these people need to be dominated.