When the full abolition of slavery appeared on the political agenda in the Atlantic world, the institutional arrangements that underpinned it changed dramatically. This volume explores how cities were part and parcel of slave societies, and how methods of control as well as routes to emancipation changed in the century before emancipation.

Introduction: urban slavery in the age of abolition Karwan Fatah-Black; 1. Comparative perspectives on the urban black Atlantic on the eve of abolition Wim Klooster; 2. Slaves and slavery in Kingston, 1770-1815 Trevor Burnard; 3. The expansion of slavery in Benguela during the nineteenth century Mariana P. Candido; 4. Freedom of movement, access to the urban centres, and abolition of slavery in the French Caribbean Marion Pluskota; 5. Families, manumission, and freed people in urban Minas Gerais in the era of Atlantic abolitionism Mariana L. R. Dantas and Douglas C. Libby; 6. Disappearing from abolitionism's heartland: the legacy of slavery and emancipation in Boston Jared Ross Hardesty; 7. Runaway slaves in antebellum Baltimore: an urban form of marronage? Viola Franziska Müller; 8. Remembering slavery in urban Cape Town: emancipation or continuity? Samuel North; Afterword: ghosts of slavery Ana Lucia Araujo.