THE NEW WORLD IN CHAINS: SLAVERY & THE BONDS OF RACE IN AMERICA
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AMS-20073
Laura Sandy
Semester II 2016
This module is suitable for students who have already taken history modules and acquired a solid
grounding in the methods of historical research, analysis, and writing. This module looks in detail at the
development of Slavery in North America from settlement to emancipation. It covers a wide range of
topics, notions of race and racism, slavery in Africa, the transition from white to black labour, the
development of the slave trade, slave life and culture, punishment and resistance, plantation management
and overseers, female slaves and plantation mistresses, the economics of slavery, slavery during the
American Revolution and Civil War, the lives and position of free people of colour living in a slave
society, the international abolition movement, and the effect of slavery on the social, cultural and
economic development of North America. Learners will gain an in-depth familiarity of a variety of casestudies related to slavery and the slave experience in 18th and 19th century North America informed by
the latest stage in the scholarly debate concerning the nature of slavery and race in American history.
This module explores key moments in the history of western philosophy, disclosing the extent to which
this history participates in the production of the concepts of race and racisms. By the application of
advanced historiographical methods of research students will be able to to piece together the narrative of
slavery and the debate surrounding how slavery and race have evolved over time. Furthermore, they will
gain a conceptual understanding that enables them to apply critically paradigms generated by historians
and social scientists, some of which are at the forefront of debates over slavery in North America and
comparative slave studies. Students taking this module will obtain the ability to evaluate the differing
value of conflicting approaches, a process that throws into relief the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of
knowledge but also the possibility of achieving methodological objectivity. They will also improve their
time management skills and be able to manage their own learning by generating essay topics themselves,
and make use of scholarly articles and primary sources relating to slavery in a way that goes beyond the
insights available from secondary sources alone.
Provisional Lecture Programme
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Slavery and Race
The New World in Chains: The Middle Passage and the Slave Market
The Transition from Servitude to Slavery in the New World
Slavery in Colonial North America
Slavery Under Attack: The American Revolution and the Rise of Anti-Slavery Movements
The World the Slaveholders Made: Planters, Overseers and Non-Slave Owning Whites
The World the Slaves Made: Economy, Culture, and Resistance
Women and Slavery: Plantation Mistresses, Female Slaves and Poor White Women
Historians of Slavery and Slave Narratives
Slavery, Sectionalism and the Problem of Free Blacks
Slavery, Civil War and Emancipation
Course Texts
Mark M. Smith, eds., The Old South (2001)
Paul D. Escott and David R. Goldfield, eds., Major Problems in the History of the American South, Volume I:
The Old South 2nd ed. (1999)
Kolchin, Peter, American Slavery, 1619-1877 (1993)