Transcripts For CSPAN2 Vincent Brown Tackys Revolt 20240713

In the near future on booktv on cspan2. Welcome to you all, im scott stevenson, im the president ceo of the museum of the American Revolution. Its wonderful to have so many familiar faces in the audience and im pleased were live stream the program this evening and we will be on booktv so we will live on forever and ever as 3 00 a. M. When you cant sleep. I will get a text from my father the following morning that says youre on television again. Im curious a show of hands id like to ask how many of you are visiting the first time this evening to the museum. Welcome to all of you. You are surrounded by many of our members, members of our founding members of the museum, members of our Revolution Society and this is a wonderful fellowship of people who are great supporters of the museum. We are very pleased to partner with Haverford Trust you will see them up on the screen here. I know tim glaspie but all i can see is darkness out there, tim and joe mcglocklin. Lets thank them for making read the revolution possible. [applause] its a real pleasure to be welcoming doctor Vincent Brown this evening. As is sometimes the case but not all that often were actually welcoming a good friend to the museum here this evening. Vance was one of the group of scholars who consulted with us during this development of the exhibitions and interactives for the museum so long before the shovel was in the ground the steel began rising here at third and chestnut in philadelphia we were tapping vinces brain for exciting stories of the American Revolution. Convinces the Charles Warren professor of American History and professor of african and africanAmerican History at harvard university. He is the author of the reapers garden which won the james a raleigh prized lewis schedule prize and the merle kirby award. If you have an opportunity to go online, dont do it right now on your phones but when you get home hes developed an online interactive map called slave revolt in jamaica 1717 60¤1 received the John E Oconnor film award and chosen as the best documentary of the hollywood black film festival. Weve got a little sizzle reel to introduce Vincent Brown. Because lonnie bunch had one and we thought you ought to at least get the same treatment. Then we will warmly welcome Vincent Brown. [pause for clip] [pause for clip] [applause] i did not expect the sizzle reel. Now i can lay back and relax. Thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you for all the fantastic work you do here at the museum and for inviting me to speak this evening. I want to thank Hannah Bacher and alex mcclatchey for arranging my appearance here. And ryan david for holding down the tent. Its kind of oncoming for me in a way because consulted early on the museum but also those a abut also because of phil mead one of the curators and he was a graduate student hours at harvard university. I am grateful to be here to support him. [applause] im extremely honored to have Laurel Thatcher or work in the audience. She was instrumental in hiring me and im so grateful. Im grateful you did. Im honored to be with you here. Im hoping we can catch a bit of the spirit of revolution together before its too late. In 1776 Great Britains most important american colony was on the verge of infraction. Colonists perceived that the government and britain was conspiring against the rights of material subjects. They feared a plot against the english liberties they had long enjoyed. At the dinner tables they discussed the merits of open sedition. Those infected with imperial governance dwelled upon topic of americans rebellion. As these jamaican colonists debated liberties, their slaves saw an opportunity. The island was at a critical junction with the british entry into yet another imperial war. Colonists traded exaggerated accounts of the french and spanish military buildup in the caribbean and calculated there was 30 slaves to every white person ready to join the attempts of any enemy in a general massacre. abscheduled to depart the island for north america by the end of the month. Throughout that parish enslaved people gathered frequently in houses, grounds and open fields to hold very serious conversations which stopped suddenly upon the approach of anyone they did not trust. They were strategizing. Now or never, they thought, was the time to make themselves masters of the country, the moment seemed right for successful uprising but this American Revolution was not to be. As so often happens with slave rebellion the thought was trade and the conspiracy and routed the british and jamaica considered the gravity of their predicament in 1776 rather than looking ahead to the loss of the 13 colonies in the north American Continent they look to the past back to the slave direction of 1760 which had been the most threat they reflect on the differences between the unrest of 1760 and 1776 mostly in terms of the nature of warfare with their own slaves. 1776 early march and the origin of the United States of america when the declaration of independence announces separation 13 colonies from Great Britain when referring to the origin of the nation the date obscures the broader context of the times it deflects attention from the fact that. This chart compares private wealth and various and the 13 north american colonies, colonies that became british caribbean and divides the 13 colonies into three regions. Southern, midatlantic and new england. As you can see, colonists on the continent held 70 of the wealth in british america. When you bring north america down by region you see that wealth increases as you move cell. That is according to the degree in the colonial economy depended upon and slave labor. When you examine the average amount of property for a white person astonishing disparity drop them in the british caribbean or some 90 of the population was made up of enslaved black people free white people were stupendously rich boasting more than 17 times the wealth of those in the 13 colonies. Indeed the average private wealth of the three white colonists in jamaica the single most lucrative american colony was nearly 58 times greater than that of a similar settler in new england military deployments were distributed to protect that well. Often they were nearly as many warships assigned to jamaica as to the whole of the north American Continent. Jamaicas plan of emergence will the greater influence in the metropolis the north american peers. This might go some way to explain what poor governor Thomas Hutchinson could get as much support as he needed ab before the American Revolution the british represented the peak of imperial crisis ended slavery bull was generally a source of overwhelming concern. Taking advantage of britains seven year war against its european opponents more than a thousand enslaved black people in jamaica launched a series of uprising that began april 7, 1760 and continued into the next year. Over the course of 18 months the rebels managed to kill 60 whites and destroy tens of thousands of pounds worth of property. During the suppression of the revolt and the oppressions followed over 500 black men and women were killed in battle, executed, or driven to suicide. Another 500 were transported from the island for life. One planter looked through the abwe consider the extent of secrecy of his plan the multitude of the conspirators and the difficulty of opposing interruption in such a variety of places at once, this revolt was more formidable than any known in the west indies. According to two slaveholders in the history of the jamaican conflict one being edward boston the rebellion arose at the instigation of an african man named awhod been achieved in guinea and organize and ab there displacements forced migration and rebellion shows how the slave trade maps, what i call the ds for an warfare that convulsed the eighteenths Atlantic World. The slave trade spread ab somewhere been leaders or soldiers suddenly found themselves uprooted from sustaining landscapes scattered by trade winds and currents and replanted into unfamiliar territories with a labor to rebuild their social lives. Inevitably some of them determined only war could end their bondage. Mostly with Common People who found themselves caught up in expansionary wars cast across the ocean and set down in ely lands were slaveholders brutalize them. This process dispersed from a native land familiar two students of cultural change whose examine transformations in african religion, expression and identity by viewing African American and atlantic history in a common frame. A similar approach, my approach here, shows how the turmoil of the slave men and daily hostilities in life and plantations generate militant response that travel to group and sprouting and rebellious across the americas and back to europe. Thats what happened when the socalled core mounties broke out in series of revolt and conspiracies in the 17 most dramatically abstretching throughout the north atlantic america. The made jamaican 1760 to 61 followed by further uprisings in 65 and 66 were among the largest and most consequential of these. From what observers could get with the tactics of the rebels was clear many had them. Perhaps people arrived in the americas of military training and discipline worthy of knowledge and evasive tactics learned in africa indeed some scholar suggests american slave rebels might be seen in key respects as extensions of african wars. This perspective reveals a conflict networks of migration belonging trans Regional Power and conflict that gave the political history of the 18th century some of its most distinctive contours. Gluing and favorable as a piece of warfare is thus the first step to envisioning a map of atlantic slavery that shows how political and military practices travel take root and grow and the environment. Even as the slave trade force people to remake and renegotiate their affiliations, the massive dispersed of africans across the atlantic scattered a piece of military conflict throughout the americans americas. The stories of ashow how african warfare was reconstituted, not as a direct continuation of previous struggle but as an outgrowth of immigrant experience. British slaveholders value core mounties highly planter is generally hope they were the best suited for cultural labor but at the same time of a dangerous rebellious disposition and proactive services. There were dangerous people to keep them in bondage perhaps in part for the same reason slave traders founder gold coast to be an abundant source of potential workers. In the 17th and 18th century the region witnessed the transformation of major empires. Among dozens of smaller awhich vied for each other in the region. Fueled by arms sales from european traders the wars that attended these contests produce great quantities of captives for sale in the european is on the coast. They also produced a turbulent environment in which complex military campaigns involved both european and african rivalries. Multiple alliances, negotiations and treachery. This context is highly suspect. It was no direct to this, gold coast where shared languages were not enough to supersede local divisions. Having taking its name from core moksha an important coastal town in the 17th century the core monty nation and the americas was both social glue and religious institutions. Functioning as a neutral aid society barrel group and a place to enjoy entertainment. In a base an environment where militarism and brutality were common experience abwhen they did, they drew upon their previous military expenses. However, has a category of belonging core monty was crosscut by many other identification core monty spoke more than one language and came from many different regions and kingdoms for which they brought a variety of experiences just as importantly once in jamaica they serve different roles in slave society. No amount of cultural similarity could resolve all the difficult negotiations of multiple interest and experiences among them. Even with their compatriots enslaved people made friends and foes to politics of belonging. That made the debate on what it meant to be core monty in jamaica as urgent as the forging of the identity itself. In the face of continual assaults on their personal and collective dignity slaves distinguish themselves by their political commitment as much as by ascribed classifications. Among the core montys different ideas of how to live in society how to evade its worst and how to destroy it altogether shape the rebelliousness even as they recalled their prior experiences in africa. In the turbulent world of atlantic warfare nothing was more important than learning whether and how to form form loyal units alliances and coalitions in the states of superior power. Before coming to africa where they learned that a new and different particulars in order to make war on their masters. The former slaves and military veterans of the seven years war was abrebellion by slaves with an anxiety award always more terrible than one slaveholder wrote how much there is no quarter given in it. There he saw how a whole war could be created. He held this view in other times and places where enslaved of the characterized bondage as the permanent state of low intensity war talking regularly about how made they might be waged a war. Warfare anever been more apparent than the era where the violence of expansion and in slavery transformed Europe Africa and the americas as they interrupted across the atlantic oceans european imperial conflicts to the dominion of congress demo abministers and human properties showed up with one another continuously. These clashes amounted to borderless slave war. War to enslave war to expand slavery and war against slaves precipitating boards get slaveholders. In this sense, the revolt was a war with another wars. Which had been verging and overlapping provocation combat zones political alliances and enemy combatants. In effect combining for compex at once. It was an extension of wars on the african continent. It was a race war between black slaves and white slaveholders. It was a struggle among black people over the terms of their belonging for effective control of local territory and the establishment of their own political legacies. And it was most immediately one of the hardest fought battles of the seven years before the titanic with the click between Great Britain and its european rivals. Each of these four struggles emerge from different currents that converge in the direction of the 1760s. Charting their course suggests new stories of place, territory and movement. The new cartography of slavery hold that break together the histories of europe, africa and america. As an example, one of their most will principal readers fought in each kind of new campaign he was an elite official on the gold coast trading with British Forces and probably engaging in combat with political levels, captured and enslaved by Royal Navy Ship captain he fought in naval battles against the french. He was a driver on the captain sugar plantation helping to keep other workers in subjection for a time before he came to lead an uprising that the british would call a race war. As he engaged in these struggles he connected with smallscale everyday violence and enslavement and coerced slavery to the grand scale of imperial geopolitics. Across best instances these wars within wars connected the constituent elements of empire and insurrection. Such an integrated history of slave takes us far from the plantation beyond relations between masters and slaves and outside the conventional locations for observing racial violence. Sectors of slave war in jamaica formed and intertwined itineraries of soldiers who fought in europe and north america and africa. Sailors who crisscrossed the atlantic wars for merchants and empires and slaves who were swept up in many conflicts on both sides of the atlantic ocean. Tracking the movements of profiteers warlords workers captains and ordinary fighters, exposes the shape of the marshall a cappella girl and speaks in a great volcanic network constituting i think a World History from below. Im going to let you read my account as revolt for yourself hopefully. [laughter] no spoilers here. They lost. You can get a glimpse of the way unfolding the maps and im sorry you probably cant read the text, you can get a general sense of how complicated this revolt was even over the first few months across several parishes of the island. For now let me just sketch some of what i think are the revolts underappreciated reverberations to give you a sense of why i think it was so important and how i hope the book can model the kinds of connections of great events and distant places across long spans of time. It can be considered one of the first great events of what historians call the age of revolution. Yet its hardly known outside jamaica to people who are historians of the British Empire or atlantic slavery despite the fact that influence two of the single single moments of the era. The reorganization of British Imperial governments so irritated colonists in north america and the early beginning of the movement to abolish the transatlantic slave trade. As a model for the more contented 1765 act that would rile the colonists in north america the 1760 tax was an early far larger Reform Efforts stimulated by the seven years war. It raged the urgent question of how expanding empire might contain internal antagonists. In this moment for imperial management a new policy would take shape, british had worried over the governments of america since the conclusion of the previous war in 1748. The colonies demographic economic and Strategic Value had increased and the complexity of administer them had grown in tandem. Often failed to supply for the war efforts. This has a shift from permissive to restricted philosophy of colonial ministration in london. Amplifying the widespread conviction that the colonies had too many privileges and those privileges ought to be reduced. News of the slave for him britains most profitable economy, strength and policymakers resolve. In this, it would help by a shift in attitude among the colonists in jamaica. Jamaican colonists had previously been independent as their north american counterparts. But the slave insurrection hat works and against the empire they conveyed their gratitude along with the request from the troops, to the new king george the third period if not for his majestys forces, the Colonial Government thanked the king. The lives and properties of his loyal subjects wed at all likelihood become prey to their slaves. So they jamaica resented the intervention as well as the imposition of new taxes. However, unlike so many north and americans, the recent experience with slavery encourage them to remain duly subject to imperial command. Even after the stamp act to help finance their own security. They did not like many imperial reforms. But they acquiesced to them. After the seven years war with jamaica having served as a model, policies makers preferred the north american colonies. Unlike the jamaican these colonies had the known backlash that would split the British Empire in 1776. If the jamaicans direction help to shape imperial policy towards a colonies, they also offered a rationale for the reform of colonial slavery. Fury for the idea of the security of the colony by limiting the independence and slave trade and rating the condition of being enslaved. Ironically, perhaps perversely, the work of the story and center had an impact on a budding antislavery discourse. The principal threat to colonial slavery were african and insurgents, long promoted the idea that native born slave population will be more a tractable. Planters could avoid working their slavers to death, attach them to us take, establish better tired of childrearing in christianity than slaveholders might be more secure in their possessions. They could also save money on the ever rising prices of importuning laborers from africa. Raising up nativeborn populations with facilitate what reformers constantly referred to as the improvement of the plantation. And would lead to a kinder, gentler, and less menacing slavery. Assumed the beginning of the 19h century, people who campaigned against the slave trade would vote long text to ending the traffic would enhance the internal security the British Empire. In this way, jamaicas turbulence indirectly help the slave trade movement. In fear of africans had indeed inspired the slave trade. Responding to a 1712 uprising in your city, the pennsylvania assembly, imposed a prohibitive 20pound duty on slave importation, citing diverse plots in an direction, not only the islands but on the mainland of america. As a reason for their action. After the revolt, South Carolina stoner river in 1739, that colony enacted a ten year moratorium on the importation of africans for plantation ours who could do without them. The news of jamaican troubles other colonies tried again. Virginias legislatures tempted to levy increase duties on imported slaves in 17627, 1769, in 1772. As virginias governor explained british officials, that just cause to apprehend the most dangerous consequence of employing africans that should find me, not only in preventing their increase but of also lessening their number. He believed that the interest of the country would manifestly require the total expulsion of them. Was merchant interest by colonial concerns, london disallowed these acts. Restrictions on that pennsylvania. With news of jamaica slave war appearing regularly in the pennsylvania gazette, that colonies assembly noted the mischievous consequences, tending the practice of importing slaves into this with the security at stake, many hope to prohibit the trade entirely. In 1761, we pass a law to increase import duties on the slaves and extended in fort smith importunity. In 1773 pennsylvania dash and finally in 1780, the colonies asked for the abolition of slavery as much as these laws might have expressed increasing opposition to the practice of slaveholding, that vision was quite genuine. It would also mean discouraging the arrival of potentially insurgent africans. If most whitecollar feared the presence of africans, many others empathize with their plight. The abolition movements early beginning, african rebels often drew sympathetic responses. Especially from people who helps fewer number of slaves in the caribbean. Many british and north american readers were more horrified by the mortality of their british co nationals than the violence of the rebels. Accounts of the execution circulated more widely with the growing popularity of sentimental literature and christian. It helped the british see their nation is a moral community founding persecution, death, and religious virtue. For some, this imagine commune extended to include the enslaved, however tenuously, and african rebels came to be seen as victims sacrifice to the cruel tierney of slaveholders. One pamphlet is circulating during the 1760 revolt, the two dialogues on the man trade given that enslavement the higher law had violence against slavers. All the black men now on our plantations who are but unjust force, deprived of their liberty, and held into slavery as they have none to appeal to may lawfully repel that force with force. And to recover their liberty, destroy their oppressors. And not only so, but it is the duty of others, white as well as black to assist those miserable creatures that they can in their attempts to deliver themselves out of slavery and to rescue them out of the hands of their cruel tyrants. Now few others are willing to go this far, at least in print. But the pamphlet in fluid that quaker who laid the intellectual firstly and the British Empire. Although he invoked the higher doctrine against the trading hymn of human beings. Among his fellow quakers, servant opposition to war, induce them to see the violent simulated by slave trading is an unconscionable evil. Their belief, the slave trade was a constant source of war, was an orthodox line of reasoning through the early 19th century. Even some who could not condone slavery were revolt could have slaveholding hearing in 1764 a boston writer asserted him planters were used to an arbitrary and cruel government over slaves. Having for so long tasted the suites of oppressing their fellow creatures. That sediment reverberated strongly when james otis rights of the british colonies asserted and proved, published the same year. His defense of the rights of the american settlers from the intimidation of Imperial Administration declared unequipped collis are by the law of nature freeboard. As indeed all men are white or black. Now it england people mocked colonists for being oppressed by showing their brutality toward the enslaved. In slavery rhetoric and seven london Parliamentary Campaign against the jamaican slaveholder who was an advocate of colonial. In the early years of the American Revolution, the literary Samuel Johnson famously raise a toast to the next slave insurrection in the west indies and oxford dinner party. By the end of the century, stories of revolts against slaveholders, and the gruesome execution of slave rebels, helped to promote an emerging anti slave consciousness which ultimately enabled the campaigns to turn the British Public against in the 19th century. But this all happen too late for the rebels themselves. Like most insurrections, the war ended badly. The insurgents were killed or captured, publicly executing grisly displays or banished from the island. Probably along with many bystanders who taken no part in the fighting. Looking back on historians perspective one can see the outcome was never really in doubt. The balance of forces doing the rebellion from the start. The would not win the colony for the british, as the north americans were due to an half decades later and is the asians were due by 1804, taking it from the french. But the rebels in jamaica did not know we would fail. They hope for success even amidst the business of war and in slavery and a colony garrison for battle with foreign and domestic enemies. They could find fissures in the landscape of power beyond the reach of the slaveholders whips. They could even challenge the combined forces of the empire and find in popular memory. Tac is revolts in the 1760s represented a watershed in the course of atlantic history. If a regional political maps have been drawn by the wars that open New Territories for cultivation simulated the slave trade and state power does another record of Historical Movement they have new solidarity and new belonging petition friends from frozen bystanders and redirected the government authorities. Jamaica was the military of the hub of the British Empires most profitable sediment and profitable overseas stronghold what happened there was bound to reverberate widely. Yet, the legacy of the 1760s is ambiguous. At the close of the seven years war they kept the colony the tacky result stimulated reform effort that provoked a greater challenge of the north American Continent. If the jamaican revolt anticipated the revolution offering a beacon of hope to the enslaved, they also left black people on the island divided, maroon from free brak people from africa. The core of montys, augmented the reputation as formidable fighters helping to cast doubt on the translated slave trade with the same time strengthening the association between blackness and social danger. Even in the United States, as late as the mid 19th century, anxiously as troublemakers tackys among us. Perhaps the ambiguous nature helps to register so faintly in the registration today the core wars that shape the era dont fit neatly in a rise of liberal freedom even small dirty wars epitomize the relationship between commerce and global power. There are skewed by the more obvious consequences which seem to speak more directly to the western history of liberty. The relative of security of these events, is also due, i think, to reluctant to acknowledge is it as active war. Few things terrified the wealthy and powerful, more than the prospect of losses to the poor and weak, which would signified a world turned upside down. Dominant people and nationstates develop conventions for conflict. Maintain their honor and defeat in recognizing violence as a regular, if unfortunate feature political struggle. But between the powerful from those they dominate my daily habits, there is no limit to the lengths they go to maintain their supremacy. They will commit atrocities and massacres to be sure, theyll disavow them too. Bill refused to admit their combatants are legitimate enemies and they will get rid of the paths of less powerful people. Because slaveholders wrote the first draft of this history, subsequent history has the different point of view. I from the margins, tackys revolt as a fresh perspective on the periods political landscape. In the study of slavery, the exploration of politics has taken a rise to be the coming of general emancipation. Which points to post revolutionary era in atlantic history. The 19th century, when the process of emancipation can both hades from its become to be seen as a discrete effort which through freedom was an animated force of historical change. Although that era certainly did threaten world historical transformation, emancipation is the master sign of freedom, buying the ozment eanes and strategists centuries of antislavery struggle to the 19th century. When those efforts reach their apathy elk, throughout the Atlantic World, the hopeful years immediately following emancipation were followed in most cases by the re insertion of dominance by former slaveholders. The social antagonism is established slavery, government tension, that shape very tenuous liberties. Legacies of slavery persisted through the 19th and 20th centuries rain of white power, with continuing manifestations in the present. Yet, struggles and against white power were continuous too to. During and after slavery. Slaves and their definitive constantly fought for the states to develop their own notions of belonging, status, and fairness beyond the masters reach. The slave insurrections a 1760s in jamaica can justly be narrated as stories of heroism and defeat. Most of the rebels were killed, executed or forced back into slavery. Inspired future generations but they too would be fighting slaveholders against the longest odds. However, in their courage and ingenuity, these insurgents charted the landscape before us and its limitation that the mass of the powerful never meant to show. These counter mappings, reveal a geography of hope, and possibility in the making. Fugitive territories, carved out through political struggle, they were difficult to maintain. Paradoxical and their alliances, and in most cases get to be one. Thank you. [applause] [background noises] left right customer cutting a . Whatever way you want. I am just actually there to provide symmetry. So we do have a microphone we are going to run again for our audience, we have time for a couple questions. If you want to raise a hand and please make sure youve got the mic when you are speaking. Another point on the seats where youre sitting, you have a survey we would love it if you would give us some feedback on this evenings program. Obviously suggestions for future talks. Feel free to just leave that with a member of the staff in the back after words. We also have just a few books, there was a run on the bookstore. But we are actually going to have some signed book plates available for those of you if you would like to have one of those to take on and affixed to a book that you will be able to come back and pick up. I would like to point out our next read the revolution speaker is caitlin fifth on may 19 this spring. Speaking about her about our sister republics or will be shifting our gaze to the relationship of the Young American republic to latin america revolutionaries. So please, professor thank you so much for that excellent presentation and pardon my rudeness for holding a glass of wine here, along with my question. This was sort of an electric presentation of the scene that i became familiar with reading the slaves clause, which you probably are very familiar with. Which for those who are unfamiliar with that, it spoke about the lack of appreciation of the comprehensive efforts over the centuries to abolish slavery. That were participated in by many, many people. Some that we dont really appreciate that in our study of American History. That this was such an international effort. Specifically, for your work, you pinpointed a very interesting point. In america, quakers were at the forefront of the abolition area movement. Their efforts led mostly to discussion. They were nonviolent. It led to a discussion in the baptist in jamaica, did a different thing. They were led more by violence revolution and revolts. And that effort, seem to have prompted the response of the British Government to eliminate do you have any any difference customer. I do have a thoughts on that. Its a lot times how we approach history which is sometimes when looking for heroes and first causes, and the things we really want to say. This is what matter rather than all these other things. Were going to separate all those causes to find out the things that really matter. The debate youre talking about really tries to pit the religious reformers of the 18th century, beginning with the quakers but moving through a lot of dissenting evangelicals are really led the movement in Great Britain against the slave trade against the enslaved and they are efforts in antislavery over centuries. I dont really approach history to give stickers to people i like or dont like. What im trying to figure out is how complex causes interrelate. So how is it that those religious reformers are responding to the efforts of the enslaved when they see you then. And how does that help to stimulate their movements and organization for the abolition slave trade . How do all things come to factor in the consideration of policymakers . Not choosing one or the other, but how does that predicament reformers find themselves in, faced with religious reformers on one side who are building their political connections and enslave workers on the other who are refusing to do what their masters want them to do. How does that then compel them to make this kind of choices question worked thats what im trying to do here. One of the problems is, weve spent so much time idealizing and valorize inc. That religious reform tradition, beginning with the quakers we havent spent as much time considering what the enslaved are doing themselves. They havent seem to matter as much. So im trying to rebalance that picture so we can really get a complete sense of the predicament people are thinking maybe slavery is not going to work for much longer. Because as you mentioned in 1831, the baptist lead what is the largest slave in the British Empire. This is the largest in the 18th century that was the largest of all in 1831. Thats and they really give up the game. But they had already been conditioned by decades and generations of the prereformers in britain saying this is the way to do this and convince policymakers that slavery was not the only game in town. Not the alleyway to to make money to the 19th century. To trying to develop that much more comprehensive picture of how this decision was made and who struggles matter, is what im really after here. Some accents . Steve mcpherson will go back. Please the gentleman the glasses. Well first of all, i am not an academic but i was fascinated by your presentation in terms of what goes on in the world today. I am learning from history is to provide a perspective on what goes on today. And the issue of looking to more docile, more manageable people that the business interest can dominate and utilize, i was curious, and those enslavers certainly were rational people looking at the world as a business person. And with that in mind, why were th they targets in the gold coast for importing slaves rather than because it appears that there history of being unmanageable aggressive militaristic, and not subject to being controlled, why would these importers billed to the gold coast and tried to bring in that group of people . Planters have all kinds of stereotypes about the people they enslaved. Their stereotypes of each other but especially the people enslaved. On they are often based on the exaggeration of something that they can see. So they are wrong ultimately about these nativeborn populations being more docile ill just said the 1831 rebellion was one of the largest in the British Empires all led by people people nativeborn to the island not by africans at all. So that does not save them. The problem slavery slavery itself and people resist slavery. But, more specifically, why they felt the core montys particularly good agricultural laborers, one they had a long relationship the british have been tracing on the gold coast for some time and that trading relationship develop their over generations. So they kind of knew how things operated, they had a network in place there. And so they were familiar with how things would work, and that facilitated the trade. So they didnt necessarily have all the choices they wanted to go wherever they did. They were responding as much to supply as to their own demands. So thats one thing. The second thing is they had a certain kind of admiration because they recognize these martial people as being familiar in some ways. The british had by the late 18th century an early 20th had been quite militaristic themselves. And so, they recognized in the marshall cast of these people something they could admire and something that conferred honor upon them by having been there. I say this is crude, and i apologize if its offensive, but its almost like the people want to domesticate wild horses. It confirms more mastery upon the person who can domesticate them. And that is their sense of the core montys two. This continues on with stereotypes and other people so the british, and other peoples as well had the idea about who marshall racists are periods when the 19th century they become a characteristic marshall race, on they drafted them into specialized military units within the British Empire. They do the same thing in the 2h century with the zulus, not draft him into the army but valorize them as particularly tough people who they could admire in some way, especially because they can now subjugate them. So theres kind of a lovehate relationship, word greater desire of fear is a better way to put it they desire to master them because they are such a challenge, which gets into kind of a psychology i dont go too far down that road. But you see that playing out certainly over the course of the 17th and 18th century. Samet could you talk to the very early stage mechanics of slave rebellion . One thing specifically is is slavery well understood and known to be this constant state of war. Within the plantation, how did the slaves get the knives they used to kill their masters or to attack the armory . Do they start with knives or do they start with guns . Are the knives things they are working with in their slave occupations . If so, why are they allowed to take them home so to speak if the whites fear being killed . And then between plantations, how do these things spread . Do they turn to there is the quote about 400 people knew it had kept it quiet. Do they tend to have a signal that at such and such a time many plantations are going to rise . Or do plantation c1 neighboring plantation where it succeeds and it sorta spreads spreads like that . I am very interested in how it even begins in a situation where the slave owners know this could happen and pursue mobley are doing everything they can to stop and prevent it. Its a great question i could go into a lot of details but let me just Say Something more general. This is a society which 90 of the population slaves. Right . So that means that you are depending on some enslaved people to help keep control of other enslaved people. Which means they have the instruments to have that control. The man that i mentioned is in fact are a driver of that royal navy seek captains plantation. And as a driver he has a position of authority over other on behalf of the oversea implants are. But yet if he decides to turn on the oversea implants are using the authority granted by them to actually organize a rebellion, that plantation might be quickly lost. So theres got to be a careful negotiation between the owner, or the overseer, and that person of authority who is enslaved. You have to get special favors right . An independent house, access to the implements and tools for hunting. Right, knives and sometimes even guns. And so you are trusting they are so keen to protect their access to the special favors, that they will continue to remain aligned with you rather than align with the master slavers paired with that the linguistic divisions help. You would like to keep that 90 of the population divided among themselves, and offer some special favors for people who are going to keep help you keep control of thats you can manage her situation. More directly. A lot of them had kane knives and they dont collect all the cane knives at the end of the day. When they do, they are not that betty people guarding them and all you have to do is convince one person whos guarding the cane and knives to have one. Once you have one of those knives, you saw in that picture that is a representation of a picture of the storming where they collected muskets and powder to lead the next parts of the rebellion. To the kind of move pointtopoint gathering weapons they can, and trying to gather other people into the revolt. Among the signals for the volt is. His fire so they set these lights so everyone who has been told around the area of the revolt is in a happen, knows that when the fire goes up that now is the time. And that is when they overwhelm the one person who might be guarding the knives on that plantation. Thats kind of help works by the signals and by the fact that if they have done their organizing work properly, again, identify friends from foes, carefully over long. Of time, when things go off things can happen quite quickly. I spend much more time going to the mechanics in the book, but that she give you a general sense of how works. Early on your presentation you had a slide that said 1661 to 1765, and the most frequent destinations. You talked about the various islands. How is wasnt determined to add tens of thousands of people other cases you had hundreds of thousands of people. How was it determined that something went for beta, the easternmost island settlement to jamaica, how were those destinations are charming. Okay said that depends on the largely demand. And also, what kind of particular Merchant Networks deliver connected to what kinds of places prints of the trade at the gold coast, every european powers durable involved in some degree. But the british, the dutch, and the danish are taking greater numbers of people from that particular region of coast than other european slave trading powers. And so those people that the british, danish and dutch are taking, are coming to their biggest most productive, most profitable colonies so jamaica gets the lion share of those in part because they have so many planters demanding more from so many workers, and they have a network to the gold coast, a lot of the planters have invested and shipped straight into the gold coast because they price people from that particular region, because they know people who trade in that region regularly they have long contacts, and so they wind up getting greater numbers of people than people in some of the more marginal colonies. So if youve got a region that is favored by merchants, then the number of people coming, the percentage of people coming the scale of the trade is going to be determined by who in the colonies has the business relationship to connect to that source of supply. Does that make sense . One of the best ways to look at how this plays out over time as a transatlantic slave base where he drew those numbers from. That is a database that has a record of 35 almost 40000 ships now and its trying to come up with an accurate estimate of regional departures and destinations across the atlantic for the entire four centuries of the trade. Thank you. I wanted to see if you could speak to how you view this history and a contemporary context . When we look at the persistence of White Supremacy over centuries and centuries and the reality of it still today, what is your view of all of this history and how it has evolved. What we today, can learn from it to address these incredible inequities that still persist along racial lines. Great question, and a question that takes me away from her work as a historian but ill talk to is is citizen and kai i am particularly engaged in this kind of history. In part because of some of the trouble ive seen in our society. I think a couple of things. One, there are continuous patterns that endure over very long periods of time. Right . So the origin of the word slave, is derived from slav, because slavic people were traded across the baltic seeds slave trade for very long time before we call the fall of constantinople in the movement of european traders out across the mediterranean into the atlantic where they began to rely evermore heavily on enslaved africans to do that kind of work. But the word is still with us right . The pattern, slava slave is still there in our language. I do think about that with the expectations that come with social relationships as well. Over centuries, african typical features came to signify low social status. And even after the end of legal slavery, those features still came to signify dissent from those social status. So even in places where the laws worked radically differently like lets say different parts of latin america, where the laws werent the same, you still find association between black typical features and low social status because of the centuries of slavery. And those affected expectation take different forms in the way that laws work in the way culture works, and the way society is organized. Thats kind of an abstract way of saying we are still contending with those enduring patterns. And yet one of the things its important to me as people were fighting against those types of discrimination even at its height. Even at its most extreme. Even during slavery, those struggles are as continuous as White Supremacy itself. Or white power itself. Racism itself, and i want to emphasize that its only those struggles are mostly those struggles going back to the previous question, which helped to change things for the better. And so thats kind of my engagement with this history in terms of the present. Understanding the situation we find ourselves into today has historical origins, the patterns mightve started a long time ago but the struggles against those discriminatory patterns are continuous too. And i want to identify with those. Not just to give a sticker, but because we are still living that history. One final question before we go for some book signing times, i wanted to ask you about your engagement with landscape. The museum of the American Revolution, here at third and chestnut street, the kind of history with american slavery and american liberty, is just woven into the neighborhood that we are sitting in. I am just curious as a transatlantic story of told how much of the landscape of your story have you been able to travel to . And see and how has that affected your perspective and your work . Thanks for that question i want answered a couple of ways. One of the driving ideas behind this book, is that we can re map the way history looks and reshape our conventional expectations for who matters, what matters and where things matter. So im really trying to integrate the mob of the Atlantic World so we can see how things that happen in west africa reverberate through the americas. Things that happen in jamaica reverberate back to europe. So fundamentally, thats the kind of geographic process. But i dont want to just see that on the twodimensional map from 30,000 feet. I try to locate that kind of in the particular landscapes im talking about so we can see the connection between what happens in west africa, what happens in a particular parish on a particular plantation in jamaica and what might happen in london or even boston or philadelphia later. So your question was that i spend time in those landscapes, some. Certainly in west africa spent quite a bit of time in ghana on the gold coast going to many of those slave forts. Those castles. Some of them are now, our world had heritage sites and tourist traps which they are impressive, you can go in look, they dont have the kind of feeling of really the horror in the terror that i imagine it mustve happened. Its only when you get out to some of the smaller forts and it turns out theres a fort called auto mamba which was in the 18th century the most heavily trafficked fort on the post. It has not been redone and dressed up. There are not a lot of tours there. I went there with another historian there or two or three, one Early Morning it was just before sunrise and there i was on the beach at this fort, and then my imagination in some ways knowing what i knew about the history and being in the place would give me a sense of engagement with that history that was much deeper than i found an the tourist areas. That was quite powerful. Again, nothing that was convey directory by the history, but by my investment of imagination and being in that place. In the same thing as happened in various places in jamaica as i have thought about this history. Very much it is a history of how it is that one connects up different landscapes so they can tell a story that looks quite different than the National Histories that we generally know. Thank you for that. Can we thank vince for being here . [applause] [applause] [applause] thank you offer being here feel like a book signing or just a chance to speak with vincent, we will adjourn out to the hallway