History 6395 The British Atlantic in the Age of Slavery
Instructor:
Karl Ittmann
Email
Kittmann@mail.uh.edu.
530
AH, ext 33102
Office
Hours T, 1-2pm, TH 10:30-11:30 and by appointment
This
course examines the development of the Atlantic world after 1500. It places a
special emphasis on the role of England and Great Britain in this process, but
will also examine the role of Africa and other European societies as well. Each
student is expected to participate in class discussions and will be responsible
for leading class discussion for one seminar session. Each student will prepare
a 20-25 page historiographic essay on a topic in Atlantic history of his or her
choosing to be selected in consultation with the instructor. Comparative topics
are allowed and can be structured to fit particular geographic or topical
interests. Grades will be determined by the following formula, Class
participation and presentation 50%, essay 50%.
Robin Blackburn, The Making of New
World Slavery
Seymour Drescher, Capitalism and Anti-Slavery
David Eltis, Europeans and the Rise of African
Slavery in the Americas
Pieter
Emmer, The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy
Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many Headed Hydra
Patrick
Manning, Slavery and African Life
Joseph
Miller, Way of Death
John
Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery
Schedule of Classes
Week 2 January 24 Defining the Atlantic Economy
Robin Blackburn, The Making of New
World Slavery, 1-83, 217-262, 307-593
David Eltis, Europeans
and the Rise of African Slavery in the Americas
Week 4 February 7 Labor and the Atlantic
Economy
Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many Headed Hydra
Nicholas Rogers, “Vagrancy, Impressment and the
Regulation of Labour in 18th century Britain,” Slavery and
Abolition, 1994 15(2), 102-113.
Week 5 February 14 Africa
and Slavery
Patrick
Manning, Slavery and African Life
John
Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World,
1-125.
Week 6 February 21 Identity
in the Atlantic World
Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the
Atlantic World, 129-334
David
Armitage, “Making the Empire British: Scotland in the Atlantic World
1542-1707,” Past and Present, 1997, (155), 34-63.
Nicholas
Canny, “The Marginal Kingdom: Ireland as a Problem in the First British
Empire,” in Bernard Bailyn and Philip Morgan, eds. Strangers within the
Realm, 35-66.
Michael
Craton, “Reluctant Creoles: The Planter’s World in the British West Indies,” in
Bernard Bailyn and Philip Morgan, eds. Strangers within the Realm,
314-362.
Jack
Greene, “Empire and Identity from the Glorious Revolution to the American
Revolution,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire, 208-230.
Robin
Law and Kristin Mann, “West Africa in the Atlantic Community: The Case of the
Slave Coast,” William and Mary Quarterly, 1999, 56(2), 307-334.
James
Merrell, “’The Customes of our Countrey’: Indians and Colonists in Early America,”
in Bernard Bailyn and Philip Morgan, eds. Strangers within the Realm,
117-156.
Philip
Morgan, “Cultural Implications of the Atlantic Slave Trade,” Slavery and
Abolition, 18(1), 1997 122-145.
.
Week 7 February 28 The
Dutch Atlantic
Pieter
Emmer, The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy
Week 8 March 7 No class Spring Break
Week 9 March 14 The
Portuguese, Brazil and Africa
Joseph
Miller, Way of Death
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery
Week 11 March 28 Abolition-Part II
Seymour Drescher, Capitalism and Anti-Slavery
Selwyn Carrrington, “British West Indian Economic Decline and Abolition 1775-1807,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 1989 14(27) 33-59.
Robert Conrad, “Economics and Ideals: The British Anti-Slavery Debate Reconsidered,” Indian Historical Review 1988-89 15(1-2) 212-232.
Chaim Kaufmann and Robert Pape, “Explaining Costly International Moral Action: Britain’s Sixty-Year Campaign Against the Atlantic Slave Trade,“ International Organization, 1999, 53(4) 631-668.
Clare Midgley, “Slave Sugar Boycotts, Female Activism and the Domestic Base of British Anti-Slavery Campaign,” Slavery and Abolition, 1996, 17(3), 137-62.
David Ryden, “Does Decline Make Sense? The West Indian Economy and the Abolition of the British Slave Trade,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2001, 31(3) 347-374.
Week 12 April 4 Free Labor and
the end of Slavery
Henrice Altink, “Slavery by Another Name: Apprenticed Women in Jamaican Workhouses in the Period, 1834-8,” Social History, 2001, 26(1), 40-59.
Seymour Drescher, “Abolitionist Expectations,” in Howard Temperley, ed., After Slavery, 41-66.
Stanley Engerman, “Comparative Approaches to the Ending of Slavery,” Slavery and Abolition, 2000, 21(2), 281-300.
Pieter Emmer, “Freedman and Asian Indentured Laborers in the Post-Emancipation Caribbean, 1834-1917, in Howard Temperley, ed., After Slavery, 150-168.
Janet Ewald, “Crossers of the Sea: Slaves, Freedman, and Other Migrants in the Northwestern Indian Ocean, c. 1750-1914,” American Historical Review, 2000, 105(1) 69-91.
Leon Fink, “From Autonomy to Abundance: Changing Beliefs About the Free Labor System in 19th century America,” in Stanley Engerman, ed., Terms of Labor, 116-136.
Jim Hagen and Robert Castle, “Settlers and the State: The Creation of an Aboriginal Workforce in Austrialia,” Aboriginal History, 1998 (22), 24-35.
Zine Magubane, “Labour Laws and Stereotypes: Images of Khoikhoi in the Cape in the Age of Abolition,” South African Historical Journal, 1996 (35) 115-134.
Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, “Spanish Cuba: Race and Class in Spanish and Cuban Anti-Slavery Ideology,” Cuban Studies, 25 1995, 101-122.
Rebecca Scott, “Defining the Boundaries of Freedom in the World of Cane: Cuba, Brazil and Lousiana after Emancipation,” American Historical Review, 99(1), 1994 70-102.