William Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195326031
- eISBN:
- 9780199868308
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326031.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book examines both the social and the political history of slavery. James Polk — President of the United States from 1845 to 1849 — owned a Mississippi cotton plantation with about fifty slaves. ...
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This book examines both the social and the political history of slavery. James Polk — President of the United States from 1845 to 1849 — owned a Mississippi cotton plantation with about fifty slaves. Drawing upon previously unexplored records, this book recreates the world of Polk's Mississippi plantation and the personal histories of his slaves, in what is arguably the most careful and vivid account to date of how slavery functioned on a single cotton plantation. Life at the Polk estate was brutal and often short. Fewer than one in two slave children lived to the age of fifteen, a child mortality rate even higher than that on the average plantation. A steady stream of slaves temporarily fled the plantation throughout Polk's tenure as absentee slavemaster. Yet Polk was in some respects an enlightened owner, instituting an unusual incentive plan for his slaves and granting extensive privileges to his most favored slave. By contrast with Senator John C. Calhoun, President Polk has been seen as a moderate Southern Democratic leader. But this book suggests that the president's political stance toward slavery — influenced as it was by his deep personal involvement in the plantation system — may actually have helped to precipitate the Civil War that Polk sought to avoid.Less
This book examines both the social and the political history of slavery. James Polk — President of the United States from 1845 to 1849 — owned a Mississippi cotton plantation with about fifty slaves. Drawing upon previously unexplored records, this book recreates the world of Polk's Mississippi plantation and the personal histories of his slaves, in what is arguably the most careful and vivid account to date of how slavery functioned on a single cotton plantation. Life at the Polk estate was brutal and often short. Fewer than one in two slave children lived to the age of fifteen, a child mortality rate even higher than that on the average plantation. A steady stream of slaves temporarily fled the plantation throughout Polk's tenure as absentee slavemaster. Yet Polk was in some respects an enlightened owner, instituting an unusual incentive plan for his slaves and granting extensive privileges to his most favored slave. By contrast with Senator John C. Calhoun, President Polk has been seen as a moderate Southern Democratic leader. But this book suggests that the president's political stance toward slavery — influenced as it was by his deep personal involvement in the plantation system — may actually have helped to precipitate the Civil War that Polk sought to avoid.
Ian Clark
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199297009
- eISBN:
- 9780191711428
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199297009.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
The first part of the conclusion summarizes the findings from the historical cases. These fall into four categories. The first is where a strong world society constituency is able to influence the ...
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The first part of the conclusion summarizes the findings from the historical cases. These fall into four categories. The first is where a strong world society constituency is able to influence the policy of a leading state, or group of leading states, as in the case of the slave trade or social justice in 1919. In the second case, the same holds true, but it is actually the leading states that proactively encourage world society action, as with human rights at San Francisco. In the third case, as at The Hague, there was no specific state ‘norm entrepreneur’. Fourthly, there is the negative case where the state sponsor was not strong enough to have the norm accepted, as with Japan and racial equality in 1919. Theoretically, the argument points to a degree of normative assimilation between international and world society, and a corresponding degree of social integration. The relationship is one of complementariness rather than displacement. This develops English School discussions of the topic. However, there is a warning that past coalitions between world society groups and leading states — that seem to have stimulated humanitarian norms — could in the future promote less attractive norms.Less
The first part of the conclusion summarizes the findings from the historical cases. These fall into four categories. The first is where a strong world society constituency is able to influence the policy of a leading state, or group of leading states, as in the case of the slave trade or social justice in 1919. In the second case, the same holds true, but it is actually the leading states that proactively encourage world society action, as with human rights at San Francisco. In the third case, as at The Hague, there was no specific state ‘norm entrepreneur’. Fourthly, there is the negative case where the state sponsor was not strong enough to have the norm accepted, as with Japan and racial equality in 1919. Theoretically, the argument points to a degree of normative assimilation between international and world society, and a corresponding degree of social integration. The relationship is one of complementariness rather than displacement. This develops English School discussions of the topic. However, there is a warning that past coalitions between world society groups and leading states — that seem to have stimulated humanitarian norms — could in the future promote less attractive norms.
Larry Gragg
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199253890
- eISBN:
- 9780191719806
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253890.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This book challenges the notion that the 17th-century English planters of Barbados were architects of a social disaster. These planters were not simply profligate, immoral, and grasping capitalists ...
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This book challenges the notion that the 17th-century English planters of Barbados were architects of a social disaster. These planters were not simply profligate, immoral, and grasping capitalists who exploited their servants and slaves in a quest for quick riches in the cultivation of sugar. To be sure, they quickly transformed the island's economy from one of semi-subsistence to the most successful plantation economy in the seventeenth-century English empire. Yet, they, like English emigrants to other regions in the empire, transplanted many familiar governmental, religious, and legal institutions; eagerly started families; sought to abide by traditional views about the social order; and resisted compromises in their diet, apparel, and housing, despite their tropical setting. In short, they were more than rapacious entrepreneurs. Seldom becoming absentee planters, these Englishmen developed an extraordinary attraction to Barbados, where they saw themselves, as one group of planters explained in a petition, as ‘being Englishmen transplanted’. The book draws heavily upon material from the Public Record Office and the Barbados Archives.Less
This book challenges the notion that the 17th-century English planters of Barbados were architects of a social disaster. These planters were not simply profligate, immoral, and grasping capitalists who exploited their servants and slaves in a quest for quick riches in the cultivation of sugar. To be sure, they quickly transformed the island's economy from one of semi-subsistence to the most successful plantation economy in the seventeenth-century English empire. Yet, they, like English emigrants to other regions in the empire, transplanted many familiar governmental, religious, and legal institutions; eagerly started families; sought to abide by traditional views about the social order; and resisted compromises in their diet, apparel, and housing, despite their tropical setting. In short, they were more than rapacious entrepreneurs. Seldom becoming absentee planters, these Englishmen developed an extraordinary attraction to Barbados, where they saw themselves, as one group of planters explained in a petition, as ‘being Englishmen transplanted’. The book draws heavily upon material from the Public Record Office and the Barbados Archives.
Virginia Yans-McLaughlin (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195055108
- eISBN:
- 9780199854219
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195055108.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
Providing an interdisciplinary and global perspective on immigration to the United States, this book represents an important step forward in the development of immigration studies. The book aims to ...
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Providing an interdisciplinary and global perspective on immigration to the United States, this book represents an important step forward in the development of immigration studies. The book aims to help redirect thinking on the subject of immigration by giving a summary of the current state of immigration studies and a coherent new perspective that emphasizes the international dimensions of the immigrant experience from the time of the slave trade to present-day movements of Asian and Latin American peoples. This book challenges ethnocentric American or European perspectives on immigration, disputes the classical assimilation model of a linear progression of immigrant cultures toward a dominant American national character, questions human capital theory as an explanation of ethnic group achievement, reveals conflicting ethnic and racial attitudes toward immigration restriction, and examines the revival of interest in oral history, immigrant autobiographies, and other subjective documents.Less
Providing an interdisciplinary and global perspective on immigration to the United States, this book represents an important step forward in the development of immigration studies. The book aims to help redirect thinking on the subject of immigration by giving a summary of the current state of immigration studies and a coherent new perspective that emphasizes the international dimensions of the immigrant experience from the time of the slave trade to present-day movements of Asian and Latin American peoples. This book challenges ethnocentric American or European perspectives on immigration, disputes the classical assimilation model of a linear progression of immigrant cultures toward a dominant American national character, questions human capital theory as an explanation of ethnic group achievement, reveals conflicting ethnic and racial attitudes toward immigration restriction, and examines the revival of interest in oral history, immigrant autobiographies, and other subjective documents.
Silvia Scarpa
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199541904
- eISBN:
- 9780191715464
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199541904.003.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration
This introductory chapter synthesises the structure of the book that is subdivided into five chapters. The first chapter examines trafficking in persons in the light of the recent definition of the ...
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This introductory chapter synthesises the structure of the book that is subdivided into five chapters. The first chapter examines trafficking in persons in the light of the recent definition of the phenomenon given by the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons and identifies the most common forms of exploitation related to it. The second reviews the most important international instruments against slavery and the slave trade, the white slave traffic and trafficking in persons. The third discusses States' obligations under international human rights, criminal and labour law. The last two chapters deal with the contribution made to this field by the most important regional organizations in Europe, namely the Council of Europe and the European Union. Finally, it concludes by explaining that notwithstanding the many efforts already made to fight against trafficking in persons, improvements to the international protection standards for trafficking victims need to be made.Less
This introductory chapter synthesises the structure of the book that is subdivided into five chapters. The first chapter examines trafficking in persons in the light of the recent definition of the phenomenon given by the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons and identifies the most common forms of exploitation related to it. The second reviews the most important international instruments against slavery and the slave trade, the white slave traffic and trafficking in persons. The third discusses States' obligations under international human rights, criminal and labour law. The last two chapters deal with the contribution made to this field by the most important regional organizations in Europe, namely the Council of Europe and the European Union. Finally, it concludes by explaining that notwithstanding the many efforts already made to fight against trafficking in persons, improvements to the international protection standards for trafficking victims need to be made.
Colin Dayan
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691070919
- eISBN:
- 9781400838592
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691070919.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Abused dogs, prisoners tortured in Guantánamo and supermax facilities, or slaves killed by the state—all are deprived of personhood through legal acts. Such deprivations have recurred throughout ...
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Abused dogs, prisoners tortured in Guantánamo and supermax facilities, or slaves killed by the state—all are deprived of personhood through legal acts. Such deprivations have recurred throughout history, and the law sustains these terrors and banishments even as it upholds the civil order. Examining such troubling cases, this book tackles key societal questions: How does the law construct our identities? How do its rules and sanctions make or unmake persons? And how do the supposedly rational claims of the law define marginal entities, both natural and supernatural, including ghosts, dogs, slaves, terrorist suspects, and felons? The book looks at how the law disfigures individuals and animals, and how slavery, punishment, and torture create unforeseen effects in our daily lives. Moving seamlessly across genres and disciplines, the book considers legal practices and spiritual beliefs from medieval England, the North American colonies, and the Caribbean that have survived in our legal discourse, and it explores the civil deaths of felons and slaves through lawful repression. Tracing the legacy of slavery in the United States in the structures of the contemporary American prison system and in the administrative detention of ghostly supermax facilities, the book also demonstrates how contemporary jurisprudence regarding cruel and unusual punishment prepared the way for abuses in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Using conventional historical and legal sources to answer unconventional questions, the book illuminates stark truths about civil society's ability to marginalize, exclude, and dehumanize.Less
Abused dogs, prisoners tortured in Guantánamo and supermax facilities, or slaves killed by the state—all are deprived of personhood through legal acts. Such deprivations have recurred throughout history, and the law sustains these terrors and banishments even as it upholds the civil order. Examining such troubling cases, this book tackles key societal questions: How does the law construct our identities? How do its rules and sanctions make or unmake persons? And how do the supposedly rational claims of the law define marginal entities, both natural and supernatural, including ghosts, dogs, slaves, terrorist suspects, and felons? The book looks at how the law disfigures individuals and animals, and how slavery, punishment, and torture create unforeseen effects in our daily lives. Moving seamlessly across genres and disciplines, the book considers legal practices and spiritual beliefs from medieval England, the North American colonies, and the Caribbean that have survived in our legal discourse, and it explores the civil deaths of felons and slaves through lawful repression. Tracing the legacy of slavery in the United States in the structures of the contemporary American prison system and in the administrative detention of ghostly supermax facilities, the book also demonstrates how contemporary jurisprudence regarding cruel and unusual punishment prepared the way for abuses in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Using conventional historical and legal sources to answer unconventional questions, the book illuminates stark truths about civil society's ability to marginalize, exclude, and dehumanize.
Daniel Butt
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199218240
- eISBN:
- 9780191711589
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199218240.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, International Relations and Politics
This introductory chapter outlines the empirical context of the debate over reparations for historic international injustice, with particular reference to colonialism and the slave trade. It ...
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This introductory chapter outlines the empirical context of the debate over reparations for historic international injustice, with particular reference to colonialism and the slave trade. It characterizes the argument of the book as a specific type of non-ideal theory, and explains the book's commitment to a particular kind of practicality, whereby its arguments can be employed by real world political actors. It outlines an approach to international justice labelled ‘international libertarianism’, advocated by writers including John Rawls, David Miller, Michael Walzer, and Thomas Nagel, which is analogous to domestic libertarianism in terms of its commitment to respect for sovereignty, self-ownership, and the minimal state. This is distinguished from alternative accounts of international justice such as cosmopolitanism and realism. The book's focus on rectificatory duties, rather than rights, is explained, and the terminological relation between terms such as restitution and compensation, and nation and state, is explicated.Less
This introductory chapter outlines the empirical context of the debate over reparations for historic international injustice, with particular reference to colonialism and the slave trade. It characterizes the argument of the book as a specific type of non-ideal theory, and explains the book's commitment to a particular kind of practicality, whereby its arguments can be employed by real world political actors. It outlines an approach to international justice labelled ‘international libertarianism’, advocated by writers including John Rawls, David Miller, Michael Walzer, and Thomas Nagel, which is analogous to domestic libertarianism in terms of its commitment to respect for sovereignty, self-ownership, and the minimal state. This is distinguished from alternative accounts of international justice such as cosmopolitanism and realism. The book's focus on rectificatory duties, rather than rights, is explained, and the terminological relation between terms such as restitution and compensation, and nation and state, is explicated.
John N. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195396027
- eISBN:
- 9780199852383
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195396027.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
In the second book of the Republic, Plato writes a few paragraphs on the place of trade and merchandising in society. His use of “diakonia” and its cognate words there is examined here in itself and ...
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In the second book of the Republic, Plato writes a few paragraphs on the place of trade and merchandising in society. His use of “diakonia” and its cognate words there is examined here in itself and then in association with usage in two other passages from the Politicus and Gorgias. Although the three passages discuss social functions, they use our words in quite different ways. Thus, in the first the word group provides a colorless term in the definition of a non-political function, in the second it denotes a function that is highly compatible with political activity, and in the third a function that exemplifies political ineptitude. If despite the differences of meaning that these uses imply, an aspect of meaning is nonetheless observable that is common to all three, a valuable insight will have been gained. This chapter discusses the functions of the subordinate and the go-between, the Greek god Hermes, and Greek slaves.Less
In the second book of the Republic, Plato writes a few paragraphs on the place of trade and merchandising in society. His use of “diakonia” and its cognate words there is examined here in itself and then in association with usage in two other passages from the Politicus and Gorgias. Although the three passages discuss social functions, they use our words in quite different ways. Thus, in the first the word group provides a colorless term in the definition of a non-political function, in the second it denotes a function that is highly compatible with political activity, and in the third a function that exemplifies political ineptitude. If despite the differences of meaning that these uses imply, an aspect of meaning is nonetheless observable that is common to all three, a valuable insight will have been gained. This chapter discusses the functions of the subordinate and the go-between, the Greek god Hermes, and Greek slaves.
Stanley L. Engerman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780197265314
- eISBN:
- 9780191760402
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265314.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter deals with the background and implementation of the registration of slaves on the island of Trinidad after 1813. Registration was introduced by James Stephen in the British Colonial ...
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This chapter deals with the background and implementation of the registration of slaves on the island of Trinidad after 1813. Registration was introduced by James Stephen in the British Colonial Office as a means of limiting the inflow of slaves in the illegal slave trade. Slave registration was extended to the other British colonies and then extended every three years until the end of slavery in 1834. Other registrations of slaves are noted, including the manifests of the coastal shipping of slaves in the USA after 1808.Less
This chapter deals with the background and implementation of the registration of slaves on the island of Trinidad after 1813. Registration was introduced by James Stephen in the British Colonial Office as a means of limiting the inflow of slaves in the illegal slave trade. Slave registration was extended to the other British colonies and then extended every three years until the end of slavery in 1834. Other registrations of slaves are noted, including the manifests of the coastal shipping of slaves in the USA after 1808.
Simon Gikandi
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691140667
- eISBN:
- 9781400840113
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691140667.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
It would be easy to assume that, in the eighteenth century, slavery and the culture of taste—the world of politeness, manners, and aesthetics—existed as separate and unequal domains, unrelated in the ...
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It would be easy to assume that, in the eighteenth century, slavery and the culture of taste—the world of politeness, manners, and aesthetics—existed as separate and unequal domains, unrelated in the spheres of social life. But to the contrary, this book demonstrates that these two areas of modernity were surprisingly entwined. Ranging across Britain, the antebellum South, and the West Indies, the book illustrates how the violence and ugliness of enslavement actually shaped theories of taste, notions of beauty, and practices of high culture, and how slavery's impurity informed and haunted the rarified customs of the time. The book focuses on the ways that the enslavement of Africans and the profits derived from this exploitation enabled the moment of taste in European—mainly British—life, leading to a transformation of bourgeois ideas regarding freedom and selfhood. It explores how these connections played out in the immense fortunes made in the West Indies sugar colonies, supporting the lavish lives of English barons and altering the ideals that defined middle-class subjects. Discussing how the ownership of slaves turned the American planter class into a new aristocracy, the book engages with the slaves' own response to the strange interplay of modern notions of freedom and the realities of bondage, and it emphasizes the aesthetic and cultural processes developed by slaves to create spaces of freedom outside the regimen of enforced labor and truncated leisure. Through a close look at the eighteenth century's many remarkable documents and artworks, the book sets forth the tensions and contradictions entangling a brutal practice and the distinctions of civility.Less
It would be easy to assume that, in the eighteenth century, slavery and the culture of taste—the world of politeness, manners, and aesthetics—existed as separate and unequal domains, unrelated in the spheres of social life. But to the contrary, this book demonstrates that these two areas of modernity were surprisingly entwined. Ranging across Britain, the antebellum South, and the West Indies, the book illustrates how the violence and ugliness of enslavement actually shaped theories of taste, notions of beauty, and practices of high culture, and how slavery's impurity informed and haunted the rarified customs of the time. The book focuses on the ways that the enslavement of Africans and the profits derived from this exploitation enabled the moment of taste in European—mainly British—life, leading to a transformation of bourgeois ideas regarding freedom and selfhood. It explores how these connections played out in the immense fortunes made in the West Indies sugar colonies, supporting the lavish lives of English barons and altering the ideals that defined middle-class subjects. Discussing how the ownership of slaves turned the American planter class into a new aristocracy, the book engages with the slaves' own response to the strange interplay of modern notions of freedom and the realities of bondage, and it emphasizes the aesthetic and cultural processes developed by slaves to create spaces of freedom outside the regimen of enforced labor and truncated leisure. Through a close look at the eighteenth century's many remarkable documents and artworks, the book sets forth the tensions and contradictions entangling a brutal practice and the distinctions of civility.
Curtis J. Evans
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195328189
- eISBN:
- 9780199870028
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195328189.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter explores how the conversion of African slaves in the British North American colonies to Christianity became an object of analysis and how debates about the role that blacks would play in ...
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This chapter explores how the conversion of African slaves in the British North American colonies to Christianity became an object of analysis and how debates about the role that blacks would play in the American nation focused on their religion. The chapter examines the crucial connection between denials of African intellectual capacity and assertions of the uniqueness of slave religious expression. Romantic racialists like Harriet Beecher Stowe asserted that black slaves were naturally or peculiarly religious and their explanation of black religion as feeling or emotion became the dominant paradigm for understandings of black cultural contributions to the United States. Yet there was an inherent tension in this view of black religion because it linked black uniqueness to Africa and painted a rather hazy picture about the specific nature of black participation in America, if slavery were to be abolished. Romantic racialists left their legatees with a conflicted notion of intellectually inferior Africans in their midst with alleged special religious qualities as the locus of their potential contribution of an ambiguous “spiritual softness” to American culture.Less
This chapter explores how the conversion of African slaves in the British North American colonies to Christianity became an object of analysis and how debates about the role that blacks would play in the American nation focused on their religion. The chapter examines the crucial connection between denials of African intellectual capacity and assertions of the uniqueness of slave religious expression. Romantic racialists like Harriet Beecher Stowe asserted that black slaves were naturally or peculiarly religious and their explanation of black religion as feeling or emotion became the dominant paradigm for understandings of black cultural contributions to the United States. Yet there was an inherent tension in this view of black religion because it linked black uniqueness to Africa and painted a rather hazy picture about the specific nature of black participation in America, if slavery were to be abolished. Romantic racialists left their legatees with a conflicted notion of intellectually inferior Africans in their midst with alleged special religious qualities as the locus of their potential contribution of an ambiguous “spiritual softness” to American culture.
Peter Widdicombe
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199242481
- eISBN:
- 9780191697111
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199242481.003.0013
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This concluding chapter compares what Athanasius says about the themes of our change from slaves to sons and the corresponding change in our relation with God with what Origen has to say. While these ...
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This concluding chapter compares what Athanasius says about the themes of our change from slaves to sons and the corresponding change in our relation with God with what Origen has to say. While these themes are important for both writers, Athanasius has comparatively little to say about them and Origen much. The reasons for this correspond to the differences in the structure of their theologies, and reflect both the differences in challenges each was attempting to meet — Arianism in the case of Athanasius, and Marcionism in the case of Origen — and, more generally, the differences in their relations to Greek philosophy and Christian tradition.Less
This concluding chapter compares what Athanasius says about the themes of our change from slaves to sons and the corresponding change in our relation with God with what Origen has to say. While these themes are important for both writers, Athanasius has comparatively little to say about them and Origen much. The reasons for this correspond to the differences in the structure of their theologies, and reflect both the differences in challenges each was attempting to meet — Arianism in the case of Athanasius, and Marcionism in the case of Origen — and, more generally, the differences in their relations to Greek philosophy and Christian tradition.
Vincent L. Wimbush
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199873579
- eISBN:
- 9780199949595
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199873579.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book is a transdisciplinary analysis of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in England in 1789. It was one of the earliest ...
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This book is a transdisciplinary analysis of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in England in 1789. It was one of the earliest and remains to this day one of the best-known English language “slave” narratives. This now famous work was not really meant to be in any simple respects autobiographical; and it does not unproblematically register the several interests and motivations of a slave, spiritual, or travel narrative. Notwithstanding the inclusion of some formal elements of all these genres, it is best read as something else altogether—as a reflexive social-political commentary and criticism disclosed by a simple narratological framework. What Equiano wrote was not so much his life story as it was his creative effort to describe, critique, and reshape dominant society through his mimetics of what he, as strategically positioned “stranger,” understood to be—and named as—the “magic” that was the (British-inflected) practice of scripture reading, reflected within the structure of discourse and power relations that the author calls “scripturalization”. The book uses Equiano’s narrative to think with; it is a site for historical and contemporary social-critical excavation, using scriptures as social-cultural phenomenon and dynamics as analytical wedge. This scripturalizing mimetics open an analytical window onto the dynamics and structuring of British (and by extension Euro-American) civilization as a kind of ideological-discursive and social-psychological slavery, the representations of which are the deeper interest of this book. The form of enslavement identified as scripturalization in turn poignantly raises the possibility—with Equiano the ex-slave as model—of a particular type of negotiation or escape: ideological-psychological marronage, if not freedom in absolute terms. In Equiano’s reflexive thinking and discursive are the elements for the construction of “the African,” or “the Ethiopian,” the complex self within a reconceptualized modern, pluralistic society.Less
This book is a transdisciplinary analysis of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in England in 1789. It was one of the earliest and remains to this day one of the best-known English language “slave” narratives. This now famous work was not really meant to be in any simple respects autobiographical; and it does not unproblematically register the several interests and motivations of a slave, spiritual, or travel narrative. Notwithstanding the inclusion of some formal elements of all these genres, it is best read as something else altogether—as a reflexive social-political commentary and criticism disclosed by a simple narratological framework. What Equiano wrote was not so much his life story as it was his creative effort to describe, critique, and reshape dominant society through his mimetics of what he, as strategically positioned “stranger,” understood to be—and named as—the “magic” that was the (British-inflected) practice of scripture reading, reflected within the structure of discourse and power relations that the author calls “scripturalization”. The book uses Equiano’s narrative to think with; it is a site for historical and contemporary social-critical excavation, using scriptures as social-cultural phenomenon and dynamics as analytical wedge. This scripturalizing mimetics open an analytical window onto the dynamics and structuring of British (and by extension Euro-American) civilization as a kind of ideological-discursive and social-psychological slavery, the representations of which are the deeper interest of this book. The form of enslavement identified as scripturalization in turn poignantly raises the possibility—with Equiano the ex-slave as model—of a particular type of negotiation or escape: ideological-psychological marronage, if not freedom in absolute terms. In Equiano’s reflexive thinking and discursive are the elements for the construction of “the African,” or “the Ethiopian,” the complex self within a reconceptualized modern, pluralistic society.
William Bain
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780199260263
- eISBN:
- 9780191600975
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199260265.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Examines the internationalization of trusteeship as it arose in the context of British colonial administration in Africa, the Berlin and Brussels Conferences, and the experience of the Congo Free ...
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Examines the internationalization of trusteeship as it arose in the context of British colonial administration in Africa, the Berlin and Brussels Conferences, and the experience of the Congo Free State. It is out of these experiences and events that the idea of trusteeship emerges as a recognized and accepted practice of international society. The chapter has five sections: the first discusses British attitudes towards Africa; the second looks at Lord Lugard's ‘dual mandate’ principle of colonial administration—the proposal that the exploitation of Africa's natural wealth should reciprocally benefit the industrial classes of Europe and the native population of Africa; the third discusses the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 and the Brussels Conference of 1890; the fourth describes trusteeship in relation to the Congo Free State. The fifth section of the chapter points out the progression from the idea of trusteeship in the East India Company's dominion in India—in which the improvement of native peoples would come about rapidly and result in institutional forms and practices that closely resembled those in Europe—to a new incrementalist approach in which societies and people were thought of as occupying different rungs on a progressive ‘ladder of civilization’, and, depending on their stage of development on this ladder, were suited to different forms of constitution.Less
Examines the internationalization of trusteeship as it arose in the context of British colonial administration in Africa, the Berlin and Brussels Conferences, and the experience of the Congo Free State. It is out of these experiences and events that the idea of trusteeship emerges as a recognized and accepted practice of international society. The chapter has five sections: the first discusses British attitudes towards Africa; the second looks at Lord Lugard's ‘dual mandate’ principle of colonial administration—the proposal that the exploitation of Africa's natural wealth should reciprocally benefit the industrial classes of Europe and the native population of Africa; the third discusses the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 and the Brussels Conference of 1890; the fourth describes trusteeship in relation to the Congo Free State. The fifth section of the chapter points out the progression from the idea of trusteeship in the East India Company's dominion in India—in which the improvement of native peoples would come about rapidly and result in institutional forms and practices that closely resembled those in Europe—to a new incrementalist approach in which societies and people were thought of as occupying different rungs on a progressive ‘ladder of civilization’, and, depending on their stage of development on this ladder, were suited to different forms of constitution.
Martin Ruef
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691162775
- eISBN:
- 9781400852642
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691162775.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
At the center of the upheavals brought by emancipation in the American South was the economic and social transition from slavery to modern capitalism. This book examines how this institutional change ...
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At the center of the upheavals brought by emancipation in the American South was the economic and social transition from slavery to modern capitalism. This book examines how this institutional change affected individuals, organizations, and communities in the late nineteenth century, as blacks and whites alike learned to navigate the shoals between two different economic worlds. In the aftermath of the Civil War, uncertainty was a pervasive feature of life in the South, affecting the economic behavior and social status of former slaves, Freedmen's Bureau agents, planters, merchants, and politicians, among others. Emancipation brought fundamental questions: How should emancipated slaves be reimbursed in wage contracts? What occupations and class positions would be open to blacks and whites? What forms of agricultural tenure could persist? And what paths to economic growth would be viable? To understand the escalating uncertainty of the postbellum era, the book draws on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data, including several thousand interviews with former slaves, letters, labor contracts, memoirs, survey responses, census records, and credit reports. The book identifies profound changes between the economic institutions of the Old and New South and sheds new light on how the legacy of emancipation continues to affect political discourse and race and class relations today.Less
At the center of the upheavals brought by emancipation in the American South was the economic and social transition from slavery to modern capitalism. This book examines how this institutional change affected individuals, organizations, and communities in the late nineteenth century, as blacks and whites alike learned to navigate the shoals between two different economic worlds. In the aftermath of the Civil War, uncertainty was a pervasive feature of life in the South, affecting the economic behavior and social status of former slaves, Freedmen's Bureau agents, planters, merchants, and politicians, among others. Emancipation brought fundamental questions: How should emancipated slaves be reimbursed in wage contracts? What occupations and class positions would be open to blacks and whites? What forms of agricultural tenure could persist? And what paths to economic growth would be viable? To understand the escalating uncertainty of the postbellum era, the book draws on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data, including several thousand interviews with former slaves, letters, labor contracts, memoirs, survey responses, census records, and credit reports. The book identifies profound changes between the economic institutions of the Old and New South and sheds new light on how the legacy of emancipation continues to affect political discourse and race and class relations today.
Kevin C. Macdonald and Seydou Camara
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197264782
- eISBN:
- 9780191754012
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264782.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
The Bamana state of Segou (c.1700–1861) has been used as an exemplar of the slave system of economic production amongst Sahelian states by anthropologists and historians such as Bazin (1974), Roberts ...
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The Bamana state of Segou (c.1700–1861) has been used as an exemplar of the slave system of economic production amongst Sahelian states by anthropologists and historians such as Bazin (1974), Roberts (1987), and Meillassoux (1991). However, little is known about the nature of Segou's connection to broader slave-trading networks of the time or, from an archaeological perspective, how such slave systems of production may be viewed in terms of settlement types or patterns. This chapter addresses aspects of these two puzzles through the field research of Project Segou, a collaboration between University College London and the Malian Institut des Sciences Humaines. It concentrates on results from the 2006 season directed by the authors — fieldwork which focused on the nature and history of Segou's slave economy. The chapter summarizes findings on the functioning of the Segovian slave system of production, and then briefly considers two case studies: one concerning Segou's first major war of enslavement, and a second examining two of Segou's enigmatic Sifinso (or ‘schools of the black hair’), places which may have played an important role in the mental conditioning of select groups of new captives.Less
The Bamana state of Segou (c.1700–1861) has been used as an exemplar of the slave system of economic production amongst Sahelian states by anthropologists and historians such as Bazin (1974), Roberts (1987), and Meillassoux (1991). However, little is known about the nature of Segou's connection to broader slave-trading networks of the time or, from an archaeological perspective, how such slave systems of production may be viewed in terms of settlement types or patterns. This chapter addresses aspects of these two puzzles through the field research of Project Segou, a collaboration between University College London and the Malian Institut des Sciences Humaines. It concentrates on results from the 2006 season directed by the authors — fieldwork which focused on the nature and history of Segou's slave economy. The chapter summarizes findings on the functioning of the Segovian slave system of production, and then briefly considers two case studies: one concerning Segou's first major war of enslavement, and a second examining two of Segou's enigmatic Sifinso (or ‘schools of the black hair’), places which may have played an important role in the mental conditioning of select groups of new captives.
R. D. Grillo
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198294269
- eISBN:
- 9780191599378
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198294263.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Some of the most horrifying episodes of ethnic violence of the twentieth century occurred in a territory originally part of the Ottoman Empire. Although for later generations the Empire was a byword ...
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Some of the most horrifying episodes of ethnic violence of the twentieth century occurred in a territory originally part of the Ottoman Empire. Although for later generations the Empire was a byword for ramshackle, corrupt organization, and by the nineteenth century this was probably correct, in its heyday, in the 150 years or so from the fall of Constantinople in 1453, many regarded it as a symbol of harmony, and indeed for Jews fleeing persecution in Spain it offered a safe haven. During that period the Empire incorporated ethnic and religious differences into its system of rule in ways that gave formally subordinate groups relative autonomy in their cultural, religious, economic, and political affairs (the millet system), and allowed some of their members to rise to positions of great power and eminence, e.g. the slave elite created by the devshirme.Less
Some of the most horrifying episodes of ethnic violence of the twentieth century occurred in a territory originally part of the Ottoman Empire. Although for later generations the Empire was a byword for ramshackle, corrupt organization, and by the nineteenth century this was probably correct, in its heyday, in the 150 years or so from the fall of Constantinople in 1453, many regarded it as a symbol of harmony, and indeed for Jews fleeing persecution in Spain it offered a safe haven. During that period the Empire incorporated ethnic and religious differences into its system of rule in ways that gave formally subordinate groups relative autonomy in their cultural, religious, economic, and political affairs (the millet system), and allowed some of their members to rise to positions of great power and eminence, e.g. the slave elite created by the devshirme.
William R. Ryan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387285
- eISBN:
- 9780199775774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387285.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter explains how in Charles Town, as in Williamsburg and Boston, the issue of gunpowder and who possessed it became absolutely critical. What would happen if black slaves were to get their ...
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This chapter explains how in Charles Town, as in Williamsburg and Boston, the issue of gunpowder and who possessed it became absolutely critical. What would happen if black slaves were to get their hands on the precious supply of powder that patriots had themselves purloined from the State House on the night of April 21, 1775? In Charles Town, news of Lexington and Concord coincided with rumors that the British government intended to exploit South Carolina's explosive demographic situation by using black slaves and Native American mercenaries to stamp out Whig resistance. In this chapter, we learn how the free black harbor pilot Thomas Jeremiah became implicated in an alleged plot to foment a British‐assisted slave insurrection. White Whigs remained divided on the question of whether or not to blockade Charles Town Harbor in order to preclude an assault on the city by the Royal Navy.Less
This chapter explains how in Charles Town, as in Williamsburg and Boston, the issue of gunpowder and who possessed it became absolutely critical. What would happen if black slaves were to get their hands on the precious supply of powder that patriots had themselves purloined from the State House on the night of April 21, 1775? In Charles Town, news of Lexington and Concord coincided with rumors that the British government intended to exploit South Carolina's explosive demographic situation by using black slaves and Native American mercenaries to stamp out Whig resistance. In this chapter, we learn how the free black harbor pilot Thomas Jeremiah became implicated in an alleged plot to foment a British‐assisted slave insurrection. White Whigs remained divided on the question of whether or not to blockade Charles Town Harbor in order to preclude an assault on the city by the Royal Navy.
William R. Ryan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387285
- eISBN:
- 9780199775774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387285.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter closely examines the dramatic moments leading up to Jeremiah's trial, hanging, and public incineration by Charles Town patriots. The chapter argues that the pilot became embroiled in a ...
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This chapter closely examines the dramatic moments leading up to Jeremiah's trial, hanging, and public incineration by Charles Town patriots. The chapter argues that the pilot became embroiled in a power struggle between the last royal governor of South Carolina, Lord William Campbell, and the wealthy patriot planter Henry Laurens. Enmeshed in a three‐way tug of war, the boatman would eventually pay the ultimate price. On Friday, August 18, 1775, at noon, Jeremiah was brought before the gallows. Before the noose could be tightened around his neck, he boldly proclaimed his innocence, telling his accusers that one day, “God's judgment would … overtake them for shedding his innocent blood.” While the rest of spectacle is difficult to piece together, “Jerry” reportedly met death “like a man and a Christian.” After he was asphyxiated, his remains were set on fire—as both a reminder and a warning. “Surely,” one contemporary concluded, “there is no murder so cruel and dangerous as that committed under the appearance of law and justice.”Less
This chapter closely examines the dramatic moments leading up to Jeremiah's trial, hanging, and public incineration by Charles Town patriots. The chapter argues that the pilot became embroiled in a power struggle between the last royal governor of South Carolina, Lord William Campbell, and the wealthy patriot planter Henry Laurens. Enmeshed in a three‐way tug of war, the boatman would eventually pay the ultimate price. On Friday, August 18, 1775, at noon, Jeremiah was brought before the gallows. Before the noose could be tightened around his neck, he boldly proclaimed his innocence, telling his accusers that one day, “God's judgment would … overtake them for shedding his innocent blood.” While the rest of spectacle is difficult to piece together, “Jerry” reportedly met death “like a man and a Christian.” After he was asphyxiated, his remains were set on fire—as both a reminder and a warning. “Surely,” one contemporary concluded, “there is no murder so cruel and dangerous as that committed under the appearance of law and justice.”
William R. Ryan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387285
- eISBN:
- 9780199775774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387285.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter shows the impact of Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore's proclamation on South Carolina. The chapter illustrates how Lord Campbell came to be seen as a deliverer by Afro‐Carolinians. By ...
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This chapter shows the impact of Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore's proclamation on South Carolina. The chapter illustrates how Lord Campbell came to be seen as a deliverer by Afro‐Carolinians. By employing Charles Town slaves as spies, messengers, and marauders, Campbell helped fuel the greatest hopes of South Carolina blacks, while at the same time fanning the deepest fears of South Carolina whites regarding servile insurrection. During the early winter of 1775, nearly 500 slaves fled their habitations in the hopes that the British would grant them their freedom. Despite the patriot “Indian” raid on Sullivan's Island in mid‐December, a number of slaves acted as counterrevolutionaries, assisting the royal governor of South Carolina in his attempts to undermine provincial authority.Less
This chapter shows the impact of Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore's proclamation on South Carolina. The chapter illustrates how Lord Campbell came to be seen as a deliverer by Afro‐Carolinians. By employing Charles Town slaves as spies, messengers, and marauders, Campbell helped fuel the greatest hopes of South Carolina blacks, while at the same time fanning the deepest fears of South Carolina whites regarding servile insurrection. During the early winter of 1775, nearly 500 slaves fled their habitations in the hopes that the British would grant them their freedom. Despite the patriot “Indian” raid on Sullivan's Island in mid‐December, a number of slaves acted as counterrevolutionaries, assisting the royal governor of South Carolina in his attempts to undermine provincial authority.
