Im the president and ceo of the museum of the American Revolution. Its wonderful to have so many familiar faces in the audience. And im pleased we are also Live Streaming program this evening and we will be on book tv and live on forever and ever. The founding members of the museum and members of the Revolution Society and people that are great supporters. We are pleased to partner and see them up on the screen. I know Tim Gillespie but all i can see is darkness. Tim and Joe Maclachlan so lets thank them. [applause] welcoming doctor Vincent Browne as is sometimes the case that not all that often in the exhibitions for the museum here so long before the shuttle was in the ground and the steel began rising in philadelphia it was exciting stories and a professor of africanAmerican History at Harvard University. The garden that won the prize and the award if there was an opportunity right now and the slave revolt in jamaica in 1761 and it is a narrative you can go online and you may be speaking about this a little bit during your talk this evening but its a great online resource and hopefully will begin to be used in the classrooms. Shes received guggenheim fellowships in his documentary in the heart of blackness received the film award chosen as the best documentary so youll definitely want to check that out. In 2017 for those of you in here when we opened the museum and the revolution Vincent Browne was one of the absolutely stunning keynote speakers. We went back and read the transcript and comments and they continue to inspire us and you may have seen him on the morning peace. All of these are available on the morning website. I will introduce Vincent Browne. We thought you ought to get the same treatment and then we are going to welcome. It can motivate people. Loyalty to a cause into the courage to carry them out and we appreciate the efforts of men, women and children of all sports. There are losses and victories and the determination to turn them into lessons. It is and should be a living history. This kind of history is messy and contradictory, tragic and ironic and it has the virtue of being close to the truth so im deeply grateful to the curators of the exhibit for having the courage to tell the truth, to show us not only the proud story of the National Origin but the multifaceted account of how one might have experienced the time. [applause] thank you so much for that lovely introduction, maybe overgenerous, but it was fantastic and also thank you for the fantastic work that you do here at the museum and for inviting me to speak this evening. I also want to thank anna for raising my appearance here and ryan and david for holding down and thanks to all of you for coming out tonight. I very much appreciate you and your interest in history and that which you dont know and would like to explore i appreciate that. Its kind of a homecoming for me because i was at the opening and also because phil mead is one of the curators at Harvard University and hes doing amazing work and its nice to kind of be here to help support. [applause] and im honored to have laura in the audience tonight. [applause] one of the leading revolutionary historians of the country and Harvard University where she was instrumental in hiring me and i am still grateful. The government in britain was conspired a right of material subject. They feared a plot against the english liberty they long enjoyed. At the dinner table they heatedly discussed americas oversedation, those disinfected with imperial governments dwelled upon the topic of american rebellion. As easter making colonists build entered debated liberty their slaves saw an opportunity. The island was at a critical juncture with the british entry into another imperial war. Exaggerated accounts of her french and spanish military buildup in the caribbean and calculated 30 slaves to every white person. Ready to join the attempts of any enemy in a general massacre. On july 3 a regiment of troops were at fort royal scheduled to depart the island from 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 like a successful appraising but this American Revolution was not to be. As so often happened the plot was betrayed in the conspiracy unraveled. When the british in jamaica considered a gravity of their predicament in 1776 rather than looking ahead to the loss of the 13 colonies on the north American Continent they look to the past, back to the slaves direction of 1760 which had been the most dangerous threat to the british impaired today. They reflected on the differences of 1760 in 1776 mostly in terms the nature of warfare with their own slaves. 1776 marks the moment in the United States of america when the declaration of independence announced the 13 colonies from Great Britain, when referring to the origin of the nation the date obscured the broader context of the time, deflects attention from the fact that we cannot 26 colonies in america, not just the 13 network away. And by far the most profitable military significant and politically connected were in the caribbean. This chart compares private wealth and various regions of Great Britains empire in 1774. A divisive territory in england and wales and British American as a whole in the 13 what north american colonies and became the United States, those in the british caribbean and divide the 313 into three regions, southern, midatlantic and new england. As you can seek colonists the view is 70 of the america because the property holder was much larger than the caribbean. But when you break down by region you see that wealth increases as you move south, that is according to the degree the colonial economy depended of and slave labor and when you examine the average amount of property per weiss white person and astonishing disparity, and the british caribbean were some 90 of the population made up of enslaved black people, free white people were stupendously rich boasting within 17 times the wealth of those in the 13 colonies. The average private wealth of a free white colonists in jamaica the single most lucrative colony was nearly 50 times greater than that of a similar settler in new england. Military deployments were distributed to protect the wealth. Often they were nearly as many warships assigned to jamaica as to the whole america economy. In jamaicas plan is emerging and will the greater influence in the north american peers. This might go some way to explain why the governor Thomas Hutchinson cannot get as much as support is needed as soon as he wanted from british policymakers when they rose up in the 1770s. Before that American Revolution the british were well aware that the event that we now know as tackys revolt was generally a source of overwhelming concern. Taking advantage of britains seven years war against the european opponent, more than a thousand enslaved black people launched a series of appraising which began on april 7, 1760 and continued into the next year. Over the course of 18 months they managed to kill 60 whites industry tens of thousands of pounds worth of property, during the suppression of the revolt and the suppression that follow come over 500 bachmann women were killed in battle, executed or driven to suicide. Another 500 were transported from the island for life. One planter wrote that he considered the extent of secrecy of his plan the multitude of the conspirators and the difficulty of opposing interruption in a variety of places that it wants, this was more formidable than any other known in the west indies. According to the history of the jamaican conflict without being edward long, the rebellion of the instigation of an african man named tacky who had been a chief in guinea. It was organized and executed by people called laura montys from the gold coast, the west african region stretching between the rivers who had an established reputation for military. Their displacement force migration and rebellion shows how the slave trade mapped what i call the warfare that convulsed the 18th century Atlantic World. The slave trade spread, people from Atlantic Africa throughout their america, some who had been leaders were soldiers suddenly found themselves uprooted from landscapes, scattered by trade and current and replanted into unfamiliar territory to rebuild their social lives. Inevitably some of them determined that only war could in their bondage. Mostly it was Common People who found themselves caught up in expansionary wars, cats across the ocean and sat down in alien land where slaveholders exploited and brutalize them. When new conflict promised to liberate them or offered rewards for serving their masters slaves might take up arms to which present to the prospect of a better life. The prosperous transplantation and adaptation to a strange new one is familiar of students to a cultural change transit examined transformation african religion, expression and identity by viewing africanamerican and hellenistic history in a common frame. A similar approach, my approach here shows how the turmoil in the displacement and life implantation society generated a response that traveled and sprouted and rebellions across the americas and back to europe. That is what happen when the socalled were montys broke out in conspiracies in the 17 and 18 century, most dramatically to india, st. John, new york, antigua and jamaica. And stretching throughout the north and manic america. In 1760 61 followed by further uprising in 65 and 66 were among the largest and most consequential of these. From what observers could see from the tactic revolt, it was clear many have been soldiers in africa. Perhaps all rival of training and disciplines Word Knowledge of basic tactics learned in africa. Indeed some scholars suggest american slave might be seen in key respects as extensions of african wars. This perspective reveals the conflict networks of migration belonging trains Regional Power and conflict they give the political history of the 18th century some of the most distinctive contours. And as the speech of warfare it is not the first step to envisioning a map of atlantic slavery that shows how political and military practices travel, take root and grow in desperate environments. Even as a slave trade force people to remake and renegotiate their affiliation, the masses disperse across the land take scattered the seeds of military conflict throughout the americas. The study of the core monty shows how african warfare has been constituted not as a direct continuation of previous struggles but is an outgrowth of experience british slaveholders value him highly, planters held they were the best for Agricultural Labor but at the same time there be dangerous rebellious disposition and promote disturbances. They were dangerous people to keep in bondage perhaps in part for the same reasons flame traders found it to be an abundant source of potential workers. In the 17th and 18th 73 they had a transformation, among dozens of smaller which bribed for each other within the region. Fueled by arms sales from european traders, the words that attended these contest produced great quorum tea of captive foresail in the european on the coast. They also produced a turbulent environment in which complex military campaign involved with european and african rivalries with alliances, negotiation and treachery. This context with the notion that it forms anything like an ethnic group in africa but if theyre not a discernible group in africa, who were the core montys. According to the research on the subject it was a loosely structured organization of conationalist who socialize with an 81 another. Forming were contemporaries called a nation in the americas, this was a phenomenon in creating category comprising people who share or could understand all the languages and familiar with region under religious practices and broaden strategies with political corporation. There was no direct to the ethnicity on the coast where shared languages were not enough to supersede local divisions. Having taken his name an important coastal time in the 17th century the nation in the americas was both social glue and religious institution. Functioning as a mutual aid society, burial group and a place to enjoy entertainment. As a base of social communion in an environment where militarism and brutality were a common experience, National Gatherings come provide a forum for people to plan, organize and stage revolts. When they did so, they drowned their previous military experiences. However, as a category of belonging he was crosscut by many other acts of identification. He spoke more than one language innkeeper many different regions and kingdoms where they had a variety of experiences and just as important we once in jamaica they had different roles in slave society. So no amount of cultural similarity can resolve all the difficult negotiations of multiple interest and experiences among them. Even with their patriots enslaved people make friends and politics of belonging and made the debate of what it meant to be in jamaica as urgent of the forging of the identity of itself in the face of continual assault on their personal and neglected dignity they distinguish themselves for the political commitment as much as classification, among the core montys, different ideas of how to limit society and the worst abuses and how to destroy altogether shape the rebelliousness as they recall their prior experiences in africa. In the world of atlantic warfare, nothing was more important than learning whether and how to form loyal units, alliances and coalition in the face of superior power. The enslaved had one through hard experience on the gold coast before coming to africa where they learned with new and different particulars to make war on their masters. The former slave and military veteran of the seven years war, famously defined slavery itself as a perpetual state of war, this was not war in the conventional sense between distinct armies directed by the rulers of states, rather mastery was by its nature a forceful assault to be met with simmering violence ignited by the resentment against the fraud and cruelty of slaveholders. Two of the slaveholders as they asked are you not hourly in dread of an interaction and it was not a rhetorical question. Since early days of jamaican slave societies and slaveholders had considered it a reconcilable and you and testing enemy. Made subject to the colonists only by the role of the whip, rebellion by slaves was a perennial anxiety, war in one slaveholders wrote by how much there is no quarter given in it. He had been in jamaica in 1772 with the adam still reeling from the uprising of the previous decade. There he had seen how an entire work can be organized around violence and counterattacks. On a continuous scale from the epic. He held this with black people and other times and placed it where the enslaved characterize their bondage as a permanent state of low intensity war talking regularly about how they might wage the war. Warfare migrates. This is never been more apparent than the era when the violence expansion and enslavement transformed europe, africa and the americas as they interacted across ceiling to goshen. European conflicts extended of capitalist agriculture, african battles with trading slaves, masters in the human properties shoveled with one another continuously, these clashes on a borderless slave war, were to enslaved, were to expand slavery and war against slaves participating wars buying slaves again slaveholders. In this it was a war with another war which had diverging, combat zones, Political Alliance and a comeback. And for conflicts at once. Whos the extension of war on the african continent, it was a race war between black slaves and white slaveholders, it was a struggle among black people over the turns of their belongings for effective control of local territory and the establishment of their own political legacy and it was most immediately one of the hardest battles of the seven years war the titanic global conflict between Great Britain and european rivals. Each of these four struggled, emerged from different currents that converge in the direction of the 1760s. Charting their course of new stories, territory and movement in the new cartography of slave that brings together histories of europe, africa and america. As an example one of the principal leaders of man called wager also known by his african name fought in each kind of campaign, he was an elite official on the gold coast trading with British Forces and probably engaging in combat with political rivals. Captured and enslaved by a Royal Navy Ship captain, he fought the navy battles against the french. He was the driver on the sugar plantation helping to keep other workers in subjection for a time before he came to leading uprising that the british could call a race war. As he engaged in the success of struggles, he connected with smallscale everyday violence of enslavement to the grand scale of imperial geopolitics. In reach of these conflicts have locking patters of state, commerce, migration, labor and militancy. These words within wars and the elements of empire and insurrection, it takes as far from the plantations beyond relations between masters and slaves and outside the conventional location to observing racial violence. Vectors of slave were in jamaica within intertwined our tender rate of soldiers who fought in europe, north america and afri africa, sailors who crisscrossed for emergency and empires in slaves who were swept up in many complex on both sides of the alien to goshen. Tracking the movement of profiteer more loads, workers, captives and ordinary fighters exposes