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 the shape of peaks in a book in network constituting a World History from below. Now, i will let you lead my account and vote for yourself hopefully. There are no spoilers here. You can get a glimpse of the way that unfolded on the maps, the resolution is not greater nothing is too small but you can get a general sense of how complicated this was even of the first few months across several parishes of the island. For now let me just get some of what i think are the underappreciated reverberation. To give you a sense of i think it was so important and how i hope the book can model the connections in distant places across time, they anticipated the American Revolution by decades and half in the revolution by three decades. It can be considered one of the first great events of what historians call the age of resolution. Yet its hardly known outside of jamaica to people who want historians of the British Empire or atlantic slavery. This is despite the fact that the influence of the signal moments of the era, the reorganization of British Imperial government that is so irritated colonists in north america in the beginning of the movement to abolish the transit atlantic slave trade, let me talk about those in term in the aftermath to recruit, they pass new poll taxes and commercial duties. The Colonial Government committed to attacks on parchment and paper ascertained by stamps. Something that imperial reformers would attempt a few years later for all of america. The jamaica stamp act of 1760 was meant to address the cost, that continue to enforce until december 1763 when it was replaced for good of burden for all the wealthiest communists. As a model for the more contentious 75 stanback that would rile the converse north america, the 1760 tax was an early local instance of a far larger reform effort stimulated by the sevenyear war. As imperial policymakers celebrated in north america, africa and the caribbean, they contemplated a threat to the most untrue most vital colony. On november 7, 1760, 2 weeks after the death of king george the second, the board of trade considered accounts of the jamaican traction which raised the urgent question of how expanding upon might contain the internal attacking me. In this moment it would take shape. British statements had worried over the government for over a decade with the previous word for 1748. The colonies demographic and Strategic Value had increased over the 18th century and the complexity had grown in tandem. Partly by the behavior of north american colonists and the sevenyear war. In the midst of the conflict they slaughtered the authority of governors, in violation of the navigation acts of trading with the enemy. Colonists failed to supply enough local troops and resources to the war. As historian explained this coincide with the dramatic shift from a permissive to a fundamentally restrictive philosophy of Colonial Administration in london amplifying the widespread conviction that the colonies had too many privileges in those ought to be reduced. News of the slave war in the profitable colony strengthen the policymakers and in this they were held by a shift in attitude among the colonists in jamaica. Jamaican colonists had been independent as the north american counterparts. But the slave direction reminded slaveholders of the benefits. They can have gratitude along the request for more troops. George the third in the trade, if not for the magnesium forces he think the king, the lives in the property in all likelihood have become afraid to their slaves. Jamaica resented the influence as well as the position of the new taxes, however, unlike so many north america their recent experience was to encourage them to remain duly subject to imperial command even passing the stanback to help finance their own security. They did not like many imperial reforms but they act that we requested, jamaica serving as a model for imperial control policymakers preferred a raft of new legislation for the north american colonies. Yet unlike little neil jamaica submission, these policies inspired the wellknown backlash would ultimately split the British Empire in 1776. If the jamaica instructions help to save imperial policy, they also offered a rationale for colonial slavery. Fearing for the rebellion concerning britain performed pragmatic plans for enhancing the security of the colonies by limiting the dependence of the slave trade in the mutilating the condition of the slaves. Ironically perhaps perverse the historian planter had a Significant Impact on abutting antislavery discourse. In the argument of the principal threats the colonial slavery were african and monte long promoted the idea that a nativeborn slave population would be more tractable, blowing side and they couldve avoided working the slaves to death, tax them to stay driver continue to seal them by sale, establish better conditions of childrearing in christianity. They were more secure in their possession. They could also save money on the ever rising prices of labor from africa. Raising up david born populations consolidated what they referred to as the improvement of the plantation and we lead to a gentler and less menacing slavery. Through the beginning of the 19th century people who campaigned when invoke long tax would enhance the security of the british in prayer, in this way jamaicas turbulence indirectly help nurture the slave trade movement. In fear of african had indeed inspired the first efforts of slave trade, responding to a 7012 uprising in new york city the Pennsylvania Assembly of the 20pound duty of slave importation with diverse plots and interaction and not only the islands but the mainland of america. As a reason for their actions, after the revolt near South Carolina in the river in 1739, that enacted a ten year moratorium on africans and planters found they cannot do without them. Amid news of jamaicas trouble in the 1760s, other colonies tried again. Virginias legislators and tempted to levy an increase duties on imported slaves in 1767, 1769 in 1772. As virginias governor explained to british officials, colonist had pause to apprehend the most dangerous consequence of importing africans and you should find me not only prevented the increase but also lessening their numbers. He believed the interest of the country would manifestly require the total expulsion of them. Influence more binder enter merchant, london disallowed all these acts. Restriction was were more successful in pennsylvania. In 1761 when news of jamaicas slave were appearing regularly in the pennsylvania gazette, the colony assembly noted the missed devious consequences attending the practice of importing slaves into this province. With her security at stake many hope to prohibit the trade entirely. In 1761 the colony passed a law to increase the import duties on slaves and extended the enforcement in perpetuity. And theyd finally doubled me and then finally they have an abolition of slavery as much as the laws mightve expressed increasing opposition for slaveholding and that is quite genuine. They were also aimed at discouraging the arrival of potentially insurgent africans. If most white colonists feel the presence of that the many others emphasized. In the really beginning they drew sympathetic responses. With fewer numbers of slaves than the caribbean. Many british and north american readers were terrified by the brutality of the nationals invited the violence of the rebels. Account to the execution circulated more widely with the popularity literature and christian martyrology which helped the british to imagine their nation as a more community founding the persecution, death and religious virtue. For some, this imagined community extended to include the slaves, however, tenuously and african rebels became to see victims sacrifice to purity of slaveholders. One pamphlet during the 1760, james fillmores man trade argued that given the enslavement they have a higher law that authorizes violence against enslavers and im quoting. Oliver black man now on our plantation hereby unjust forced deprived of their liberty and held in slavery as they have none to appeal to may lawfully repel the force with force and to recover the liberty destroy the oppressors and not only so what is the duty of others, white as well as black to assist the creatures of thinking in their attempts to deliver themselves out of slavery into rescue them out of the hands of their cruel tyrants. A few others are willing to go this far, the pamphlet with anthony benedek that had the slave trade abolition. In the British Empire. He awarded the topic of slavery bulls, he had a higher law doctrine infiltrating human beings among the fellow quakers the opposition to war induced them to see the violence as unconscionable evil. Their belief that it was a constant source of war or reasoning through the early 19 century even some who cannot condone could condemn slaveholders turning having for so long pasted the suites of oppressing the fellow creatures. That rated strongly in james otis is to the british colonies asserted improved publishes same year. His defense of the rights of american settlers from the intimidation of Imperial Administration declared that columnist or by the law of nature freeborn as indeed white or black. In england people mocked american attempting to be impressed toward slaves. Antislavery in the campaign against the jamaican slaveholder he was an advocate colonial prerogative. In the early years of the maker revolution, the literary celebrities Samuel Johnson raised a toast to the next slave in the west indies at an oxford dinner party. By the end of the century stories revoked again slaveholders in the gruesome execution of slave rebels help to promote an emerging antislavery consciousness which ultimately enable the campaign that turn the British Public against the slave trade and slavery in the 19th century. This all happened too late for the rebels themselves. Like most in the direction package war ended badly. The insurgents were killed or captured, publicly executed and grisly slaves were and vanished from the island, probably with many bystanders who taken the part in the fight. Looking back at the historians perspective, one can see the outcome as number and depth, the balance of forces doomed from the start. They would not when the colony from the british as north americans were due to two and half decades later and by 1804 taken that from the french. They did not know that they would fail, they were acting like they were over success, even at the business of war and slavery in a colony with battle foreign domestic enemies, they could find them in the pointer power beyond the reach of the stakeholder whip. They could even challenge the combined forces of the British Empire and finding enduring place and popular minimum rates. Through 1760s it represented a watershed in the course of atlantic history. If regional political maps had been drawn by the words that open New Territories for cultivation, stimulated the slave trade and enhance state power, it had another record of historical movement. They channel people into new solidarity and gave meaning to categories of belonging partition friends from folks and by standards and redirected the priorities of governing authorities. Since jamaica was a commercial on military help of the British Empire at a profitable settlement and overseas military stronghold, what happened there was bound to end widely. Yes the legacy of the 1760s is ambiguous and the close of the seven years war kept it and it helped stimulate an imperial reform effort that revoked a greater challenge of the north american colony, if it revolted and anticipated the asian revolution offering a beacon of hope to be enslaved they also left black people on the island divided in rooms from three black people from africans. The core montys arm into the reputation as promotable fighters helping to cast doubts on the Transatlantic Slave Trade while the same time strengthening the association between blackness and social danger. Even in the United States as late as the mid19 century anxious slaveholders referred to troublemakers as tach used among us. Perhaps the ambiguous nature of the legacies helps to explain while they register in the imagination today. The core montys work is to shape the error, dont fit neatly into the narrative of the rise and progress in the liberal freedom even though such small dirty wars epitomize the relationship between labor commerce and global power. They are obscured by the more consequences of the revolutions wishing to speak more directly to history liberty. The obscurity of these events is to be reluctant to acknowledge it as an act of war, if you think terrified the wealthy and powerful more than the prospect of losses to the poor and weak which would signify the world turned upside down, the people nationstates develop conventions for legitimate conflict maintaining their honor and victory and defeat in recognizing violence as a regular and its an unfortunate future of struggle. Between the powerful and those they dominate my daily habit, there is no limit to the links logo to maintain their supremacy. They will have the massacres to be sure that they will disembowel them too. They will refuse to admit that they have a legitimate enemy and they will denigrate the past and present struggles of more powerful people because slaveholders wrote the draft and subsequent history algae is trying to escape their point of view. In the tacky revolt into the political landscape, in the study of slavery, the exploration is taken arise to be the becoming of general emancipation which point to the post revolutionary era and alien to history. The 19th century when a couple states from haiti to brazil, its a discrete effort. Emancipation is the master sign of freedom and buying is the aims of strategies of antislavery to the 19th century when those efforts reached and throughout the Atlantic World the hopeful years followed emancipation were following in most cases by the reassertion of dominance by former slaveholders. Then tagging is an established and slavery govern attention that shaped liberties. Legacies of slavery persisted through the 19th and 20th centuries of white power discontinue manifestation. The struggle with white power is a continue to, during and after slavery, slaves and their descendents are constantly fight for the space to develop their own notion of belonging, status and fairness beyond the masters reach. This leaves direction of the 1760s in jamaica can be narrated as heroism and defeat, most of them were killed and continue to force back into slavery. And to inspire future generations but they too will be fighting at slaveholders up to ththe longest aunts. However, in their courage and ingenuity, these insurgents charted the landscape of force and limitation that the powerful never meant to show, the counter mappings reveal a geography of hope and possibility in the making and fugitive territory carved out through political struggle and difficult to maintain paradoxical and their lives and in most cases yet to be one. Thank you. [applause] whatever way you been. [laughter] im just there to provide symmetry. We do have a microphone that we will run for our audience is higher there so if we have time for a couple of questions, if you want to reach her hand but please make sure you have the mike when youre speaking. Another point on the seats when youre sitting, you had a survey and we would love it if you would give us some feedback on the program and obviously suggestions for future talks. Feel free to leave that with a number of staff in the back and after words. We also have a few books, there was a run on the bookstore but were actually going to have some signed bookplates available for those of you if you like to have one to take on to a book that you will be able to come back and pick up, i would like to point out our next Refill Revolution speaker is caitlin on may 19, the spring speaking about her book our sister republics where we will shift our gaze to the relationship of the Young American republic to latin American Revolutionaries. Please professor, thank you for the excellent presentation and pardon my rudeness for holding a glass of wine along with my questions but this was sort of an electric presentation of the theme that i became familiar with reading the slaves cause which are probably very familiar with which for those who are unfamiliar with, and spoke about the lack of appreciation of the comprehensive efforts over the centuries to abolish slavery that were participated in by many, many people so we dont really appreciate that in our study of American History that this was such an International Effort but specifically for your work, you pinpointed a very interesting point in america quakers were at the forefront of the abolition during movement, their efforts led mostly to discussion, they were nonviolent and led to a discussion and yet the baptist in jamaica did a different thing, they were led more by violence revolution in revolt in that effort seems to have prompted the response of the British Government to eliminate and abolish slavery as a more peaceful approach obviously did not, do you have any comment as to that differe different. Are we good . I do have some thoughts. Let me go back to the way that we approach history, which is sometimes when were looking for heroes in first causes in the things that we really want to say, this is what mattered rather than all these other things, we will separate out to find the thing that mattered to concentrate, thats what youre talking about the trays to put the religious reformers of the 18th century, beginning with the quakers but moving through the dissenting evangelicals who led the movement in Great Britain against slave trade against the enslaved and their continuous efforts of antislavery over centuries. I dont approach history looking at people who i like or dont like, what im tried to figure out is how complex causes interrelate. How is it that those religious reformers are responding to the efforts of the and slaves when they see them and how does that stimulate their movement and organization for the abolition of the slave trade, how do these things come to factor in the consideration of policymakers not choosing one or the other but how does our predicament that reformers find themselves in phase with the religious on the one side were building their political connection and enslaved workers on the other who are refusing to do with their masters wanted to do, how does that compel them to make those choices, thats what im trying to do here, one problem weve spent so much time idealizing and while raising that religious reform tradition beginning with the quakers, we have not spent as much time considering what the and slaves were doing themselves, they havent seem to matter as much. Im trying to rebalance a picture so we can get a complaincompletesense of the prd maybe slavery is not good to work too much longer because as you mentioned in 1831 the baptist lead a large slave world and the British Empire in the 18th century, that was the largest of all in 1831 and thats when they give up the game. But they had already been conditioned by decade and generation of antislavery reform in britain saying theres another way to do this to convince policymakers that slavery was not the only game in town or the only way to make money in the 19th century. Trying to develop that compounds a picture of how those decisions are made and who struggles matter is what im really after. Doesnt make sense . First and then well go back. The gentleman in the glasses. First of all i am not an academic, i was fascinated by your presentation in terms of what goes on in the world today. Learning from history is to provide a perspective on what goes on today. In the issue of looking to more docile, more manageable people that the business interest can dominate and utilize, i was curious that those enslavers certainly were rational people looking at the world as a business person and with that in mind why were they the target in the gold coast for importing slaves because it appears that there history of being unmanageable, aggressive, militaristic and not subject to being controlled, why would these importers go to the gold coast and tried to bring in that group of people. Planters have all types of stereotypes by the people they enslaved, about each other but thespecially the peopling slaves but there based on the exaggeration of something that they can see, they are wrong ultimately about native born population being more dos ill and as we said 1831 rebellion comes the largest in the British Empire and led by people who are nativeborn to the island, not by africans at all, that does not save them, the problem with slavery is slavery itself. People slavery, more specifically why they felt the core of montys were particular good Agricultural Laborers, when they had a long relationship with the gold coast, they have been trading for some time in a trading relationship that developed over a generation. So they knew how things operated and had a network in place so they were familiar with how things would work and that facilitated the trade. So they do not necessarily have all the choices that they wanted to go where they did and responding as much to supply as to their own demand. That is one thing. The second thing, then a certain kind of admiration because they recognize the marshall people of being familiar in some ways, the british by the late 17th century an early 18th century had been militaristic themselves. So they recognized in the marshall cast that something that they couldve meyer and something that conferred on or upon them and i say this, it is crude and i apologize if its offensive it is almost the way people want to domesticate wild horses, it confers more mastery upon the person who can domesticate them. And thats their sense of them too. This continues on but with other people. The british have these ideas of who marshall racist are. In the 19th century they become a characteristic marshall race and they drop them into specialized military units within the British Empire. And with the zulus not just drafting them into the more army but to people who they can a meyer in some way because they can subjugate them. There is a lovehate relationship or desire fear empire cicely because they are a challenge in this consensus psychology, i dont want to go too far down the road but you can see that playing out over the course of the 17th and 18th century. Can you please talk about the very early stage mechanics of a slave rebellion, what im thinking specifically, is slavery is well understood in a constant state of war, within the plantation how did the slaves get the knives that they use to kill their masters or attack the armory, do they start with knives or guns and on the knives things that they are working with in their slave occupations. If so why are they allowed to take them home so to speak of the whites fear being killed in between plantations, how did they spread, there was the quote about 400 people knew it and kept it quiet, do they tend to have a signal that such and such a time any plantations will rise or do plantation c1 neighboring plantation where it succeeds and it spreads, and very interested in how it begins in a situation where the slave owners know that this can happen and presumably do everything that they can to stop and prevented. Thats a great question, i could go into a lot of details in the book so let me Say Something much more general, this is a society in which 90 of the population is enslaved. So that means you are depending on some enslaved people to keep control of other enslaved people. Which means they have the instruments at that control, the man that i mentioned is a driver on the sea captain plantation and as a driver is a position of authority over other slaves on behalf of the overseer and the planter and if he decides to turn on them using the authority granted by them to organize a rebellion that plantation might be quickly lost so there has to be a careful negotiation between the owner or the overseer and that person of authority who is enslaved yet to give special favors, and independent house, access to the implements and tools to hunting, sometimes even guns. So youre trusting that they are served keen to protect their access and those special favors that they will continue to remain align with you. In that the divisions and religious divisions help. He would like to keep that 90 of the population divided among themselves and offer some special favors to people who will help you keep control of that so you can manager situation, more directly if a lot of them have knives and dont collect them, when they do theres not that many people guarding them and you have to convince one person whos guarding it to let you have a cane knife, went to have it in the picture that you representation of the florida where they collected muskets and powder to lead the next part of the rebellion. They move pointtopoint gathering what weapons they can in trying to gather other people into, among the singles fire. Solicit the plantation so everybody who has been told everybody who has been told around the area that the revolt will happen knows when the fire goes out that now is the time and thats when they overwhelm to one person who got indicate knives and thats how it works by the signals and by the fact if they did the organizing work properly again identifying friends from foes carefully over a long period of time when things go off things can happen quite quickly. I spend much more time going into the mechanics of the book but that gives you a general sense. Early on in your presentation you had a slide that said 1661 t destinations and you talked about the various islands, how is it determined some cases you have tens of thousands of people in other cases youve hundreds of thousands of people, how is it determined that barbados, the easternmost island, some in jamaica, how are those destinations determined. Not depends on the networks and is largely demand. Also what kind of particular Merchant Networks connect to what kind of places. So the trade of the gold coast every european power is involved in some degree but the british, dutch and the danish retaking greater numbers of people from that particular region of coast than other european slave trading powers. So those people the british, danish and dutch are taking our coming to their biggest more productive and profitable colonies. Jamaican gets the lion share because they are so many planters demanding more from so many workers that they have a network to the goalpost and a lot of the planters have invested in ships because they price people from that particular region because i know people who trade regularly and they have long contracts so they one. Getting greater numbers of people and people in those marginal colonies. If you have a region that is favored by merchants, then the number of people coming, the percentage of people coming the scale will they be determined in the colonies has a business relationship to connect to the source of supply. Does that make sense . One way to go and look how it plays out over time is a trade database where he drew the numbers from, that database has a record of about 35 or 40000 ships and is trying to come up with an accurate estimate of regional departures and destination across the atlantic for the forced entries of trade. And want to see if you can speak to how you view the history and a content free context when we look at the persistent of White Supremacy over centuries and centuries and the reality today, what is your view of all the history and how it evolved and what we today can learn from it to address the incredible inequities that persist along with racial lines. Great question and a question that takes me away from my work but ill speak to you as a citizen. And why am engaged with this history in part because the troubles we see in our society. I think a couple of things, there are continuous patterns that endure over long periods of time so the origin of the word slave is derived from sloth because love and people were training across the baltic trade for very long time before the fall in the movement of european traders across the mediterranean into the atlantic where they rely on a heavily enslaved africans to do that work. But the word is still with us, the pattern is still there in her language. I do think about that with an expectation that comes with social relationships as well over centuries african features came to signify no social status. And even after the end of legal slavery those features still came to signify, dissent from the social status so even in places where the laws were drastically different like say different parts of latin america where the laws were not the same you still find association between black features, african features and most social status because a century of slavery. Those struggles are mostly those struggles back to the previous question, helped achieve things for the better answer that is kinand so that iskind of my engs history. Understanding the situation we find ourselves in today has historical origins and the patterns they have started a long time ago but those against the discriminatory patterns are continuous and i want to identify those. A final question before we go for some exciting times. I want to ask about your engagement with landscape. The museum of the American Revolution here at chestnut street, the kind of history of american slavery and liberty is woven into the neighborhood we are setting. Im curious theres a transatlantic story that youve told us so much of the landscape of the story. How much have you been able to travel to and see how has that maybe affected your perspective and work backs to the complex one has the driving idea behind the book that we can remap the way the history books and reshape our expectations for matters, what matters and where things matter. So im trying to integrate so we can see how things that happen in west africa reverberated through. Things that have been in jamaica reverberates back to europe so fundamentally committed is the kind of geographic process. But i dont just want to see that on a twodimensional map from 30,000 feet. I tried that in the landscape that im talking about so we can see the connection between what happens in west africa and in the particular parish, the particular plantation in jamaica and what might happen in london or boston or philadelphia. So, the question was did i spend time in those landscapes. Some certainly west africa. Its been quite a bit of time going to many of those. You can go and look and they dont have the kind of feeling of the murder and the terror. There is a fort that was in the mid18 century the most heavily trafficked but hasnt become a World Heritage site. There was another historian or two or three before sunrise driving out. There i was on the beach and then my imagination being in the place could give me the sense of engagement with that history was much deeper than i found. Nothing conveyed in the history that by buying investment of imagination and being in that place and the same thing happens in various places in jamaica as i thought that this history. But very much of the history of how it is when connected to different landscapes so they can to a story that looks quite different than the National Histories that we generally known. Thank you for that. And can we think vince. [applause] thank you all for being here. If you would like a book signed for just this chance to speak with vincent, out in the hallway. Thank you for being here. Up next on booktv, a look at life in American History with marie arana, silver sword and stone