You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

Ben Franklin's world is The podcast dedicated to helping you learn more about how the people

and events of our early American past have shaped the present day world we live in.

And I'm your host, Liz Kovvert. African chattels slavery, the predominant type of slavery

practiced in colonial North America in the early United States, didn't just represent

one monolithic practice of slavery.

Practices of slavery varied by region, labor systems, legal codes, and empire.

Slavery also just wasn't about enslavers enslaving people for their labor.

Enslavers used enslaved people to make statements about their social status

as areas of economic investment that built generational wealth

and is a form of currency.

Nicole Maskeel, an associate professor of history at the University of South Carolina, and the author

of Bound by Bondage, slavery in the creation of the Northern Gentry,

joins us to investigate the practice of slavery

in Dutch New Netherlands and how the colony's elite Dutch families

built their wealth and power on the labor, skills, embodies of enslaved Africans and African Americans.

During our investigation, Nicole reveals details about the colony of New Netherlands and its role

within the Dutch Empire,

the Dutch practice of slavery in New Netherlands,

and how New Netherlands elite families used enslaved people beyond their labor

to create and maintain generational wealth.

But first, in case you missed our happy news in the last episode, Ben Franklin's world is now

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