Mariana Dantas’ Black Townsmen: Urban Slavery and Freedom in the Eighteenth-Century Americas uses a comparative framework to show how seemly diverse spaces had similar models of urban black behaviour. She shows how slavery and the transition to freedom impacted the formation of urban society in the Americas. The central thesis is enslaved and free blacks had vital roles in their struggle for freedom and autonomy by using their labour to navigate the urban settings in which they lived. Dantas uses various sources from Baltimore and Sabara. Higher numbers of probate records are utilised for Sabara, inventories and wills are used more with Baltimore. Trade licenses are used in Sabara to show the diversity of those who worked in local urban settings. Manumission papers and Church records were important in the Sabara case, showing involvement in local society. Private papers and account books from Baltimore were valuable sources on the practice of slavery within the city. Census records, town directories, and newspapers also helped with research in the Baltimore case while these types of documents are almost non-existent in Sabara due to printing presses being prohibited.

Comparing Baltimore and Sabara, Dantas answers the historiographical questions of how urban blacks helped to shape their environment. Standing in direct opposition to an earlier historiographical belief that denies or overlooks the importance of urban people of African descent, Dantas builds upon a more recent historiographical view that looks at regional and local studies of slavery. Her methodology to bridge the gaps that culture, society, economics, and politics create in the comparative method focuses on a historical theme. Elected labour is the focal point of her historical theme in the comparative analysis.

Limitations of Black Townsmen comes from source bases; throughout the comparative study, Dantas mentions the lack of detail to help provide an in-depth look into the comparative work. In Sabara, enslaved people were categorized by their ethnic origins such as African, Crioulo, or Pardo, while in Baltimore, most people of colour were labelled black. I found the stricter labels of black people in Sabara to be interesting.

I believe she broadens the field by looking at how those of African descent play a part in shaping their environment to benefit themselves and retain some control over their lives. Mariana Dantas writes to counter an earlier historiographical tradition that has denied urban blacks in shaping society in the Americas. Looking at two distinct locations and tying them together has proved her point. While Baltimore and Sabara were culturally, economically, politically, and socially different, persons of African descent could navigate using their labour. Formerly enslaved people and freeborn blacks were incorporated into all sectors of the two cities’ urban economies.

The narrative style reads like an academic dissertation, which it is; there are many examples throughout the text and repetition as the text builds upon itself. For the narrative itself, Dantas says ignoring black interactions in urban settings would be ignoring those whose processes defined urbanisation as their efforts to improve their condition defined the nature of urban environments. With all the repetition and examples, I believe there is enough evidence of black interactions to prove the urbanisation effect they had on their societies.