Philip Misevich
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300134360
- eISBN:
- 9780300151749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300134360.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter explains the understanding of the African end of the slave trade through an analysis of the Registers of Liberated Africans in conjunction with the revised edition of the Transatlantic ...
More
This chapter explains the understanding of the African end of the slave trade through an analysis of the Registers of Liberated Africans in conjunction with the revised edition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database (TSTD2). The slave trade from Sierra Leone never came close to matching the export figures of the more active slaving centers south of the equator. By providing a linguistic identification of recaptive names from the Havana Registers and pinpointing the geographic regions in which they are currently used, an estimation of the point of enslavement for these recaptives is possible. Comparing the Rio Pongo results with the distances traveled by slaves from southern Sierra Leone ports leads to some noteworthy contrasts between the north and south. Thus, the potential that culturally significant evidence such as African names can have for shedding further light on the African end of the slave trade is demonstrated.Less
This chapter explains the understanding of the African end of the slave trade through an analysis of the Registers of Liberated Africans in conjunction with the revised edition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database (TSTD2). The slave trade from Sierra Leone never came close to matching the export figures of the more active slaving centers south of the equator. By providing a linguistic identification of recaptive names from the Havana Registers and pinpointing the geographic regions in which they are currently used, an estimation of the point of enslavement for these recaptives is possible. Comparing the Rio Pongo results with the distances traveled by slaves from southern Sierra Leone ports leads to some noteworthy contrasts between the north and south. Thus, the potential that culturally significant evidence such as African names can have for shedding further light on the African end of the slave trade is demonstrated.
Katie Donington, Ryan Hanley, and Jessica Moody
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781781382776
- eISBN:
- 9781786944009
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781382776.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
The Introduction to this volume (Britain’s History and Memory of Transatlantic Slavery) sets out the current context of scholarship on the history of Britain’s involvement in transatlantic slavery ...
More
The Introduction to this volume (Britain’s History and Memory of Transatlantic Slavery) sets out the current context of scholarship on the history of Britain’s involvement in transatlantic slavery and the slave trade and its abolition, and work around the memory of this history. This chapter considers what is ultimately at stake through configuring, reconfiguring and contesting the place of slavery and the slave trade in British national identity narratives, how this has changed in the last thirty years and why examining such relationships through a ‘local’ lens is important for interrogating the relationship between history, memory and identity. The Introduction sets out the structure of the book in its two parts and gives brief overviews of the following chapters.Less
The Introduction to this volume (Britain’s History and Memory of Transatlantic Slavery) sets out the current context of scholarship on the history of Britain’s involvement in transatlantic slavery and the slave trade and its abolition, and work around the memory of this history. This chapter considers what is ultimately at stake through configuring, reconfiguring and contesting the place of slavery and the slave trade in British national identity narratives, how this has changed in the last thirty years and why examining such relationships through a ‘local’ lens is important for interrogating the relationship between history, memory and identity. The Introduction sets out the structure of the book in its two parts and gives brief overviews of the following chapters.
Padraic X. Scanlan
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780300217445
- eISBN:
- 9780300231526
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300217445.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African History
Before the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire in 1807, colonial Sierra Leone was an experiment in free trade and free labour, founded by the Sierra Leone Company, a joint-stock ...
More
Before the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire in 1807, colonial Sierra Leone was an experiment in free trade and free labour, founded by the Sierra Leone Company, a joint-stock company led by antislavery activists, and settled by African American Loyalists from Nova Scotia. This chapter explores the early history of the colony, and shows how antislavery was undermined by the routines of the transatlantic slave trade. Meanwhile, African American settlers were marginalised, and the arrival of 500 Jamaican Maroons in 1800 helped to cement the relationship between the leaders of the antislavery movement and the British armed forces.Less
Before the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire in 1807, colonial Sierra Leone was an experiment in free trade and free labour, founded by the Sierra Leone Company, a joint-stock company led by antislavery activists, and settled by African American Loyalists from Nova Scotia. This chapter explores the early history of the colony, and shows how antislavery was undermined by the routines of the transatlantic slave trade. Meanwhile, African American settlers were marginalised, and the arrival of 500 Jamaican Maroons in 1800 helped to cement the relationship between the leaders of the antislavery movement and the British armed forces.
Leonardo Marques
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300212419
- eISBN:
- 9780300224733
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300212419.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This book explores U.S. participation in the transatlantic slave trade to the Americas from the American Revolution to the U.S. Civil War. It shows how U.S. citizens engaged in multiple forms of ...
More
This book explores U.S. participation in the transatlantic slave trade to the Americas from the American Revolution to the U.S. Civil War. It shows how U.S. citizens engaged in multiple forms of participation in the slave trade and how these forms changed over time. The book discusses the emergence of a U.S. branch of the transatlantic slave trade in the aftermath of independence and its quick dismantling in the early nineteenth century. It then looks at the forms of U.S. participation in a highly internationalized contraband slave trade that supplied captives to Brazil and Cuba in the mid-nineteenth century. The growth of these forms of U.S. participation resonated in the U.S. public sphere, contributing to growing tensions around the slavery issue in the 1850s, and in the international arena, stimulating frictions between the British Empire and the United States. This work explores these national and international tensions and the role of slave-trading networks in exploiting and prolonging them.Less
This book explores U.S. participation in the transatlantic slave trade to the Americas from the American Revolution to the U.S. Civil War. It shows how U.S. citizens engaged in multiple forms of participation in the slave trade and how these forms changed over time. The book discusses the emergence of a U.S. branch of the transatlantic slave trade in the aftermath of independence and its quick dismantling in the early nineteenth century. It then looks at the forms of U.S. participation in a highly internationalized contraband slave trade that supplied captives to Brazil and Cuba in the mid-nineteenth century. The growth of these forms of U.S. participation resonated in the U.S. public sphere, contributing to growing tensions around the slavery issue in the 1850s, and in the international arena, stimulating frictions between the British Empire and the United States. This work explores these national and international tensions and the role of slave-trading networks in exploiting and prolonging them.
Katie Donington, Ryan Hanley, and Jessica Moody (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781781382776
- eISBN:
- 9781786944009
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781382776.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This book brings together new research from established and emerging scholars whose work focuses on Britain’s history and memory of transatlantic slavery and the slave trade. These chapters focus on ...
More
This book brings together new research from established and emerging scholars whose work focuses on Britain’s history and memory of transatlantic slavery and the slave trade. These chapters focus on the ‘small stories’ of slavery and abolition within the ‘local’ experiences of individuals and communities who were nonetheless part of the ‘national sin’ of slavery. Broken down into two parts, Part One considers some small scale specifics of Britain’s history of slavery and the slave trade, and Part Two considers how this history and its legacies has been remembered (or not) through individual people and in particular places. The book contains chapters which consider how people became involved in the slave trade, slavery and the campaign to end it, and covers such places as the Channel Islands, London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Buckinghamshire and Portsmouth.Less
This book brings together new research from established and emerging scholars whose work focuses on Britain’s history and memory of transatlantic slavery and the slave trade. These chapters focus on the ‘small stories’ of slavery and abolition within the ‘local’ experiences of individuals and communities who were nonetheless part of the ‘national sin’ of slavery. Broken down into two parts, Part One considers some small scale specifics of Britain’s history of slavery and the slave trade, and Part Two considers how this history and its legacies has been remembered (or not) through individual people and in particular places. The book contains chapters which consider how people became involved in the slave trade, slavery and the campaign to end it, and covers such places as the Channel Islands, London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Buckinghamshire and Portsmouth.
Jeroen Dewulf
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496808813
- eISBN:
- 9781496808851
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496808813.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The transfer of this Afro-Iberian tradition from West-Central Africa to Manhattan is apparent when seen in the context of the Dutch involvement in the transatlantic slave trade in the seventeenth ...
More
The transfer of this Afro-Iberian tradition from West-Central Africa to Manhattan is apparent when seen in the context of the Dutch involvement in the transatlantic slave trade in the seventeenth century. In chapter five, entitled “The Pinkster King as Leader of a Brotherhood,” it is shown how the Charter Generation in New Netherland established a cultural and social pattern modeled upon Afro-Iberian customs that for many decades would continue to influence African American celebration culture and the master-slave relationship in Dutch-speaking areas in New York and New Jersey. It shows the Pinkster celebrations were not only important from a cultural point of view but also served as inter-social negotiations both within the African American community and between masters and slaves.Less
The transfer of this Afro-Iberian tradition from West-Central Africa to Manhattan is apparent when seen in the context of the Dutch involvement in the transatlantic slave trade in the seventeenth century. In chapter five, entitled “The Pinkster King as Leader of a Brotherhood,” it is shown how the Charter Generation in New Netherland established a cultural and social pattern modeled upon Afro-Iberian customs that for many decades would continue to influence African American celebration culture and the master-slave relationship in Dutch-speaking areas in New York and New Jersey. It shows the Pinkster celebrations were not only important from a cultural point of view but also served as inter-social negotiations both within the African American community and between masters and slaves.
Andrew Pearson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781382837
- eISBN:
- 9781781383957
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781382837.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, African Studies
This book is an examination of the South Atlantic island of St Helena’s involvement in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. In the decades after 1807, British anti-slavery revolved around ...
More
This book is an examination of the South Atlantic island of St Helena’s involvement in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. In the decades after 1807, British anti-slavery revolved around Sierra Leone, but following the establishment of a British Vice-Admiralty court at St Helena in 1840, this dynamic radically changed. The island became a new hub of naval activity in the region, acting as a base for the West Africa Squadron and a principal receiving depot for captured slave ships and their human cargo. During the middle decades of the nineteenth century over 25,000 ‘recaptive’ or liberated Africans were landed at St Helena. This book provides an account and evaluation of this episode. It begins by considering the geo-political events that brought St Helena into the fray of abolition, and the manner in which colonial policy set in London meshed with practical reality in the distant South Atlantic. The greater part of the book focuses closely on St Helena. It examines the relationship between the Royal Navy and the island during this period of slave-tradesuppression, the operation of the ‘depots’ that were set up to receive the liberated Africans, and the medical treatment that was afforded to them. The lives of the survivors, both in the immediate and longer-term, is also considered, from the limited settlement that occurred on St Helena, to their wider diaspora across the Atlantic world.Less
This book is an examination of the South Atlantic island of St Helena’s involvement in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. In the decades after 1807, British anti-slavery revolved around Sierra Leone, but following the establishment of a British Vice-Admiralty court at St Helena in 1840, this dynamic radically changed. The island became a new hub of naval activity in the region, acting as a base for the West Africa Squadron and a principal receiving depot for captured slave ships and their human cargo. During the middle decades of the nineteenth century over 25,000 ‘recaptive’ or liberated Africans were landed at St Helena. This book provides an account and evaluation of this episode. It begins by considering the geo-political events that brought St Helena into the fray of abolition, and the manner in which colonial policy set in London meshed with practical reality in the distant South Atlantic. The greater part of the book focuses closely on St Helena. It examines the relationship between the Royal Navy and the island during this period of slave-tradesuppression, the operation of the ‘depots’ that were set up to receive the liberated Africans, and the medical treatment that was afforded to them. The lives of the survivors, both in the immediate and longer-term, is also considered, from the limited settlement that occurred on St Helena, to their wider diaspora across the Atlantic world.
Fabienne Viala
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620665
- eISBN:
- 9781789623666
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620665.003.0017
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This essay examines the nature, scope and consequences of the seism of memory since its eruption in 2000 in Guadeloupe, French West Indies. In particular, it questions how the context of a ...
More
This essay examines the nature, scope and consequences of the seism of memory since its eruption in 2000 in Guadeloupe, French West Indies. In particular, it questions how the context of a multifaceted appetite for collective remembrance took the form of competing strategies for memorialization in the space. As such, it focuses on the heritage of pain, resistance and pride at the local, national and regional levels. I draw on Shalini Puri’s analysis of the repressed memory of the 1983 Grenada revolution in Operation Urgent Memory to identify in the landscape of Guadeloupe submerged, residual and eruptive ‘platforms of memory’ (Puri, 2012). In the specific case of Guadeloupe, the collective efforts of the Guadeloupean people for re-appropriating their non-French and non-European heritage on the island have turned into competitive post-traumatic approaches of the history of transatlantic slave trade. This essay eventually analyses the case of the Mémorial ACTe (MACTe) – Museum of Contemporary Caribbean Art and Memorial for the History of the Slave Trade – as constituting the most successful expression of what I define as cultural marronage, in the ambivalent postcolonial environment of the French Overseas Regions.Less
This essay examines the nature, scope and consequences of the seism of memory since its eruption in 2000 in Guadeloupe, French West Indies. In particular, it questions how the context of a multifaceted appetite for collective remembrance took the form of competing strategies for memorialization in the space. As such, it focuses on the heritage of pain, resistance and pride at the local, national and regional levels. I draw on Shalini Puri’s analysis of the repressed memory of the 1983 Grenada revolution in Operation Urgent Memory to identify in the landscape of Guadeloupe submerged, residual and eruptive ‘platforms of memory’ (Puri, 2012). In the specific case of Guadeloupe, the collective efforts of the Guadeloupean people for re-appropriating their non-French and non-European heritage on the island have turned into competitive post-traumatic approaches of the history of transatlantic slave trade. This essay eventually analyses the case of the Mémorial ACTe (MACTe) – Museum of Contemporary Caribbean Art and Memorial for the History of the Slave Trade – as constituting the most successful expression of what I define as cultural marronage, in the ambivalent postcolonial environment of the French Overseas Regions.
Jeroen Dewulf
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496808813
- eISBN:
- 9781496808851
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496808813.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book presents the history of the nation’s forgotten Dutch slave community and free Dutch-speaking African-Americans from seventeenth-century New Amsterdam to nineteenth-century New York and New ...
More
This book presents the history of the nation’s forgotten Dutch slave community and free Dutch-speaking African-Americans from seventeenth-century New Amsterdam to nineteenth-century New York and New Jersey. It also develops a provocative new interpretation of one of America’s most intriguing black folkloric traditions, Pinkster. Dewulf rejects the traditional interpretation of this celebration of a “slave king” as a form of carnival. Instead, he shows that it is a ritual rooted in mutual aid and slave brotherhood traditions. By placing Pinkster in an Atlantic context, Dewulf identifies striking parallels to royal election rituals in slave communities elsewhere in the Americas, which he relates to the ancient Kingdom of Kongo and the historical impact of Portuguese culture in West-Central Africa. Whereas the importance of African-American fraternities providing mutual aid has long been acknowledged for the post-slavery era, Dewulf’s focus on the social capital of slaves traces concern for mutual aid back to seventeenth-century Manhattan. He suggests a stronger impact of Manhattan’s first slave community on the development of African-American identity in New York and New Jersey than has hitherto been assumed. While the earliest historians working on slave culture in a North American context were mainly interested in an assumed process of assimilation according to European standards, later generations pointed out the need to look for indigenous African continuities. The findings of this book suggest the necessity to complement the latter with an increased focus on the contact Africans had with European?primarily Portuguese?culture before they were shipped as slaves to the Americas.Less
This book presents the history of the nation’s forgotten Dutch slave community and free Dutch-speaking African-Americans from seventeenth-century New Amsterdam to nineteenth-century New York and New Jersey. It also develops a provocative new interpretation of one of America’s most intriguing black folkloric traditions, Pinkster. Dewulf rejects the traditional interpretation of this celebration of a “slave king” as a form of carnival. Instead, he shows that it is a ritual rooted in mutual aid and slave brotherhood traditions. By placing Pinkster in an Atlantic context, Dewulf identifies striking parallels to royal election rituals in slave communities elsewhere in the Americas, which he relates to the ancient Kingdom of Kongo and the historical impact of Portuguese culture in West-Central Africa. Whereas the importance of African-American fraternities providing mutual aid has long been acknowledged for the post-slavery era, Dewulf’s focus on the social capital of slaves traces concern for mutual aid back to seventeenth-century Manhattan. He suggests a stronger impact of Manhattan’s first slave community on the development of African-American identity in New York and New Jersey than has hitherto been assumed. While the earliest historians working on slave culture in a North American context were mainly interested in an assumed process of assimilation according to European standards, later generations pointed out the need to look for indigenous African continuities. The findings of this book suggest the necessity to complement the latter with an increased focus on the contact Africans had with European?primarily Portuguese?culture before they were shipped as slaves to the Americas.
João José Reis, Flávio dos Santos Gomes, Marcus J. M. de Carvalho, and H. Sabrina Gledhill
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- December 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190224363
- eISBN:
- 9780190093549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190224363.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History, World Early Modern History
This chapter reports on Rufino’s life as a cook on the Ermelinda, a slave ship whose name changed more than once, usually to to fool the domestic and foreign authorities who were combating the ...
More
This chapter reports on Rufino’s life as a cook on the Ermelinda, a slave ship whose name changed more than once, usually to to fool the domestic and foreign authorities who were combating the illegal slave trade. The Ermelinda was a much larger vessel than the Paula and São José, on which Rufino had previously worked. The Ermelinda had to be carefully prepared in order to avoid unnecessary incidents and losses. Captains, masters, supercargoes, cooks, and sailors in general had specific tasks to fulfill. The Ermelinda’s crewmen included people from several nationalities—Africans, Brazilians and Europeans. Africans were employed in several tasks, and their knowledge of indigenous languages was greatly valued in the African trading ports.Less
This chapter reports on Rufino’s life as a cook on the Ermelinda, a slave ship whose name changed more than once, usually to to fool the domestic and foreign authorities who were combating the illegal slave trade. The Ermelinda was a much larger vessel than the Paula and São José, on which Rufino had previously worked. The Ermelinda had to be carefully prepared in order to avoid unnecessary incidents and losses. Captains, masters, supercargoes, cooks, and sailors in general had specific tasks to fulfill. The Ermelinda’s crewmen included people from several nationalities—Africans, Brazilians and Europeans. Africans were employed in several tasks, and their knowledge of indigenous languages was greatly valued in the African trading ports.