Slavery, Freedom, and British Empire in the Colonial
Period
Olaudah Equano
• 1789 The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
• Challenges to image of Africa and Africans
• Represents expansion and freedom
Atlantic World: Bridge between Old and New Worlds
• Flow of ideas, people, and goods
• Culture, laws and political institutions reflect European
powers
• 18th century- Height of slave trade
• 1700-1775- 280,000 slaves out of 585,000 persons
Contradictions in British America
Liberty for whom?
#1: Slavery and Empire
The World the Slaveholders Made
•World Commerce-slave trade
•Asiento- Spanish
•Treaty of Utrecht 1713 (Dutch)
Atlantic Trade (First Lecture Notes)
•Triangular Trade routes
•Caribbean- seasoning process
•Tobacco, Indigo, Rice, Sugar
•Sir William Dunbar of Natchez, MS and Jamaica
Middle Passage: “the door of no return…”
1762- Quaker Abolitionist John Woolman
Africa and the Slave Trade
Gunpowder Empires (First Lecture Notes)
• European supply of weapons to African societies
African Rulers Involvement in Triangular Slave Trade
• Played Europeans against one another
• Collected taxes from foreign merchants
• Sold captives to European traders
Consequences (First Lecture Notes: Portuguese)
• Disruption of African society
• Cheap imports/traditional crafts
• Militarized states
• Loss of people weakened and distorted West Africa
Slavery in the Colonies
What is a slave society VS a society with slaves?
The Chesapeake
•Tobacco-based plantation slavery
•Consolidation of the Elite
South Carolina and Georgia
•Rice-based plantation slavery
•Indigenous slavery
•Rice Kingdom
•The Experiment in Georgia
New England and Middle Colonies
•No plantations
Slavery and the Law
•Enhancement of master’s power
•Violence
•Race as a social division
•Free-Blacks in Virginia
Slavery in the North
Development of Free-Black Communities
•Philadelphia
•“In the Shadow of Slavery…” New York
Colonial Life
•Work patterns
•Differences of Law
• Marriages
• Testify in Court
• Own property/Pass along rights
Slave Culture
In the Nether World…
•Charter generations (Ira Berlin)
•Abduhl Rahman, Natchez, Mississippi
•Process of creating cohesive culture
•19th century- identify as African Americans
•Creoles: Slaves born in the New World
The World the Slave Made…
•John Blassingame and Eugene Genovese
• Slave quarters and Family
•South Carolina and Georgia
• The Gullah
•Enslaved Women
• Code Noir
•Slave religion
• Syncretic religions- Catholicism and Vodu. Candoble
The Turning Point…The Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804
(Part of the Revolutionary Period: 1760s through the 1790s)
Boukman and a ceremony in Bois Caïman…
•Situation in 1789: social hierarchy
• “Declaration of Rights of Man”
• Vincent Oge
•Slave revolt against French masters
Key Leaders
•Toussaint L’ Ouverture
•Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Second and Third Phases of Revolution
•Civil War, Economic and Political instability
Impact on Slavery in North America
•Restrictive Laws
#2: Creating a British Empire:
Mechanisms for Freedom
British Patriotism
• Symbolism
• Economy
• Religious
British Constitution
• Identity and Concept of Liberty
• Slavery and Liberty
• Contempt of Foreigners
Language
• General right to resist
Political Ideals in the Anglo-American World
Republican Liberty
•Public and Social Quality
•Virtue
•“Country Party”
•Britain: luxury and political manipulation
Liberal Freedom (Liberalism)
•Private and Individual
•John Locke
• Opinions about women
•Exclusions to universal right of liberty
Colonial Policies and the Public Sphere
The Right to Vote
• Colonial Politics
• Law verses Custom: Free Blacks
Political Culture
• Competitive- Middle Colonies
• Appointive verses elected
• Property Qualifications
• Wealth, Education, Social Prominence=right to public office
Colonial Government
• Salutary neglect
The Rise of Assemblies
• Pennsylvania
Politics and the Press in Public Space
Language and the Political Nation
• Dominated by gentry
• Expansion of public sphere
• Literary, Philosophical, Scientific, Political
• Benjamin Franklin and the Junto
• American Philosophical Association
The Colonial Press
• Market for printed material
• Circulating libraries
• Colonial newspapers
Freedom of Expression
• Freedom of speech: 16th century Britain
• Freedom of press: viewed as dangerous/discouraged