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Bondage in Egypt: Slavery in Southern Illinois. By Darteli Dexter. (Cape Girardeau, MO: Center for Regional History, 2012. Pp. 316, bibliography, appendices, index. Cloth, $25.00.)
Illinois is not usually considered a slave state. Yet the Land of Lincoln was home to the peculiar institution for over a century and contained more slaves than any state north of the Ohio River. While scholars have produced numerous studies of the politics and conflicts that slavery generated in early Illinois, few have provided a comprehensive examination of slavery's history in the state. Darrell Dexter's Bondage in Egypt seeks to remedy this neglect.
Dexter relies heavily on census data, legal proceedings, and other printed sources. The book's first five chapters provide a historical overview of chattel slavery, in which slaves were possessed like livestock, and other forms of bound labor. The next three chapters document battles between proslavery and antislavery forces in antebellum Illinois. The...