https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649218799369 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 1–14 © American Sociological Association 2018 DOI: 10.1177/2332649218799369 sre.sagepub.com Original Research Article The French and American revolutions are seen as emblematic of political modernity, overthrowing the authority of the king and colonial overseers. They located power in the hands of “the people” and asserted the right for popular self-determina- tion. Yet both revolutions denied these same free- doms and rights to their racialized populations. The language of freedom and self-government was pre- mised on a white body politic, and the racialized populations were seen as outside the political realm. In this context, Haiti and Liberia sought to claim freedom and self-governance for formerly enslaved populations: Haiti through revolution and Liberia by gaining independence over an initial American colonial project. On the basis of their particular experience of colonial subjecthood, these actors made claims to freedom that were not anticipated in the American and French political declarations. The actions of Haitian revolutionaries and the framers of the Liberian postcolonial state proclaimed their freedom in response to a racial- ized global order. To claim freedom, they had to legitimize their self-determination to a global world order that sought to deny them their exis- tence. In this article we demonstrate how modern politics was shaped in opposition to black subjects, and we suggest that in order to study race, racisms, and the legacies of slavery, it is necessary to under- stand how colonized and enslaved subjects responded to colonial structures and sought ave- nues to escape them. 799369SRE XX X 10.1177/2332649218799369Sociology of Race and EthnicityHammer and White research-article 2018 1 Brown University, Providence, RI, USA 2 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA Corresponding Author: Ricarda Hammer, Brown University, Maxcy Hall, Box 1916, 108 George Street, Providence, RI 02912, USA Email: ricarda_hammer@brown.edu Toward a Sociology of Colonial Subjectivity: Political Agency in Haiti and Liberia Ricarda Hammer 1 and Alexandre I. R. White 2 Abstract The authors seek to connect global historical sociology with racial formation theory to examine how antislavery movements fostered novel forms of self-government and justifications for state formation. The cases of Haiti and Liberia demonstrate how enslaved and formerly enslaved actors rethought modern politics at the time, producing novel political subjects in the process. Prior to the existence of these nations, self-determination by black subjects in colonial spaces was impossible, and each sought to carve out that possibility in the face of a transatlantic structure of slavery. This work demonstrates how Haitian and Liberian American founders responded to colonial structures, though in Liberia reproducing them albeit for their own ends. The authors demonstrate the importance of colonial subjectivities to the discernment of racial structures and counter-racist action. They highlight how anticolonial actors challenged global antiblack oppression and how they legitimated their self-governance and freedom on the world stage. Theorizing from colonized subjectivities allows sociology to begin to understand the politics around global racial formations and starts to incorporate histories of black agency into the sociological canon. Keywords colonialism, postcolonial, transnational, racial formation, citizenship