By David Barry Gaspar (NHC Fellow, 1984–85) Bondmen & Rebels provides a pioneering study of slave resistance in the Americas. Using the large-scale Antigua slave conspiracy of 1736 as a window into that society, David Barry Gaspar explores the deeper interactive character of the relation between slave resistance and white control.
By Karen Ordahl Kupperman (NHC Fellow, 1984–85) Providence Island was founded in 1630 at the same time as Massachusetts Bay by English puritans who thought an island off the coast of Nicaragua was far more promising than the cold, rocky shores of New England. Although they expected theirs to become a model godly society, the … Continued
Edited by Jodi Bilinkoff (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) and Allan Greer From the cult of Saint Anne to the devotees of the Virgin of Guadalupe, from Saint Anthony who competed with Christ for popularity in Brazil, to Jesuits who mixed freely with shamans that talked with the gods, this exciting new anthology examines the conversion of … Continued
By Ashraf H. A. Rushdy (NHC Fellow, 1998–99) Slavery is America's family secret, a partially hidden phantom that continues to haunt our national imagination. Remembering Generations explores how three contemporary African American writers artistically represent this notion in novels about the enduring effects of slavery on the descendants of slaves in the post-civil rights era. Focusing on … Continued
By Gaurav Desai (NHC Fellow, 2001–02; 2009–10) Reading the life narratives and literary texts of South Asians writing in and about East Africa, Gaurav Desai builds a surprising, alternative history of Africa's experience with slavery, migration, colonialism, nationalism, and globalization. Consulting Afrasian texts that are literary and nonfictional, political and private, he broadens the scope … Continued
By Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp (NHC Fellow, 1993–94) As early as the 1780s, African Americans told stories that enabled them to survive and even thrive in the midst of unspeakable assault. Tracing previously unexplored narratives from the late eighteenth century to the 1920s, Laurie Maffly-Kipp brings to light an extraordinary trove of sweeping race histories that African Americans … Continued
By Emília Viotti da Costa (NHC Fellow, 1984–85) The night of August 17, 1823 saw the start of one of the most massive slave rebellions in the history of the Western Hemisphere, the uprising in the British colony of Demerara (now Guyana), in which nearly twelve thousand slaves took up arms against their masters. In Crowns … Continued
By A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. (NHC Fellow, 1993–94) Few individuals have had as great an impact on the law–both its practice and its history–as A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. A winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, he has distinguished himself over the decades both as a professor at Yale, the … Continued
Slavery not only inhibited family formation but made stable, secure family life difficult if not impossible. A father might have one owner, his “wife” and children another. Family separation through sale was a constant threat. Many owners encouraged marriage to protect their investment in their slaves. Abolitionists attacked slavery by pointing to the harm it … Continued
Slave labor differed according to period and location. In the 1700s plantation owners tried to maintain self-sufficiency based on the varied skills of their slaves. A slave’s skill level and value to the master often determined how he/she was treated. Lock-step, highly supervised gang labor, replaced traditional patterns of individual work. Race may have influenced … Continued