"William Kiser's new book on slavery and debt peonage in nineteenth-century New Mexico sits at the cutting edge of several historiographical trends in American history. Joining new scholarship that has demonstrated the ubiquity of Native American captivity and enslavement, the book also furthers recent efforts to nationalize the story of the Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction. Cogently argued and rigorously researched, this book is a must read for anyone interested in nineteenth-century US history."
Journal of American Ethnic History
"Thousands of people in the nineteenth-century Southwest had little freedom or right to their own labor. Kiser's fascinating Borderlands of Slavery documents local and national political wrangling over systems of involuntary labor . . . [Kiser] adds important insights into the ways captivity and peonage intersected with larger abolition politics."
American Historical Review
"This fine book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on slavery and captivity in the U.S. Southwest. William S. Kiser's scholarship complements earlier works by James F. Brooks, Andrés Reséndez, and others by providing an in-depth analysis of debt peonage in the Southwest and by showing the nationwide impact of political debates and legislation elicited by southwestern practices of unfree labor."
Journal of American History
"Borderlands of Slavery offers an original analysis of the workings of Indian slavery and debt peonage in the Southwest, the legislation around these practices, the opinions in favor of and against them held by Hispanics and Anglos, and the terrible toll that they took on indigenous peoples and impoverished mestizos."
Andrés Reséndez, University of California, Davis
"Could slavery in any form expand into the American West? Was it realistically possible? Did the U.S. government have the right to regulate the expansion of slavery? These are some of the massive questions that dominated the political discourse of the antebellum United States. William S. Kiser explores how the reality of Native captivity and debt peonage in New Mexico played a crucial role in the answers that both northern and southern politicians offered to these questions...Borderlands of Slavery, already the winner of the 2018 Historical Society of New Mexico Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá Award, has much to offer historians from many fields."
The Journal of the Civil War Era
"William S. Kiser has given us the most comprehensive portrayal yet of debt peonage in New Mexico in the years following the American takeover of this region, all while showing that, although related, debt peonage and Indian slavery were different forms of bondage. His indefatigable research has brought to light social, legal, and political dimensions of the Southwest's post-Civil War labor institutions and customs that were far more important than scholars generally believe."
James F. Brooks, University of California, Santa Barbara