History Department, Trent University
HIST 2421H – Slavery and Freedom
Oshawa Campus, Fall 2012
Instructor: Dr. Laurie Jacklin
E-mail: [email protected]
Office: Room 173, Thornton Road Campus
Telephone: x 5048
Office hour: 6.00 pm Thursday or by appointment
Course Description
This course surveys the contested and changing meanings of enslavement and freedom
in Africa, Latin America, Cuba, Europe, and the modern-day United States and Caribbean
during the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery. This course is designed to have students
engage with the seminal debates, interpretations, and historiography of freedom and slavery in
Africa and the Americas. The course readings, films, and lectures introduce students to the
African diaspora as we examine interconnections between ‘race’ and racial slavery, freedom,
diaspora, and cultural identities. We investigate slave cultures, lives, belief systems (Voodoo,
Santeria, Obeah), health, and survivorship of enslaved peoples in the Americas, as well as
revolutions and revolts, the legalities of buying, trading, and selling humans, gendering the
black body, productive and reproductive labour, abolition, apprenticeship, and emancipation.
Enslaved peoples everywhere habitually resisted their enslavement and many different forms of
resistance often unify and link in these histories. Our thematic investigations span diverse yet
interconnected regions and students employ comparative analytical methods to investigate the
broad contours of slavery and freedoms. After completing this course students should be able to
identify major events, developments, and historical figures and situate them within their
broader historical context, while understanding how constructions of ‘race’ and racial slavery
stimulated racism and race consciousness in various polities.
Learning outcomes
Students conduct independent research to gather, review, evaluate, and interpret
primary and secondary evidence, critically assess the arguments of published historians,
formulate original analyses, and communicate the results in essays and group discussions.
Instructional workshops assist students in enhancing their critical thinking and analytical skills
in applied research environments and encourage independent and team research, debates, and
collaboration. On completing this course students should understand several basic conventions
of historical writing, academic integrity, professionalism, the importance of personal initiative
and accountability, and the evolving nature of historical knowledge.
Course format and location
This course meets on Thursday in room 115.
Lecture 2.10-4.00 pm; Seminar #1 @ 4.10-5.00 pm; Seminar #2 @ 5.10-6.00 pm.
25%
Course Evaluation. Due dates.
Assignment details and grading rubrics are posted on the website.
Assignment #1. Slave Narratives and Freedom Narratives. Examine an autobiography
(written by a former slave) or biography (authored by an academic researcher) of your
choice. Analyse the differences between enslavement and freedom in these narratives.
Select an autobiography/biography during the instructor-led research workshop and
have it approved by the professor.
Your essay must be 1,000 to 1,250 words in length (4-5 pages).
Last date for instructor approval of your biography/autobiography: October 4.
Essay due date: October 18, before class begins.
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40%
Assignment #2: Research Paper. Research, develop, and write an original scholarly essay
based on primary evidence (eight to nine sources) and four to six scholarly journal
articles or books. Select your topic in consultation with the instructor. An instructor-led
workshop will introduce and examine several electronic repositories and databases to
assist you in researching primary sources and authenticating their provenance: your
attendance is mandatory at this workshop.
Your essay must be 2,000 to 2,250 words (8-9 pages) in length.
Last date to confirm your topic: November 1.
Due date: November 22 before class begins.
20%
Class participation is based on relevant and quality (not quantity) contributions
demonstrating your engagement with the materials and scholarly interaction with your
peers. Read and reflect on the assigned materials to prepare for the discussions. The
participation grading rubric is posted on the website. Your participation grade reflects
your contributions consistent with academic integrity standards, exercising personal
initiative, responsibility, professionalism, accountability, and working effectively with
your colleagues.
15%
Final exam during the exam period. Two-hour exam. All materials are examinable:
lectures, readings, and films. Essay questions testing comprehensive knowledge.
** Essays are double spaced in 12-point font, with 2.5 cm (1”) margins. Length specifications are
exclusive of footnotes, bibliography, and title page. Papers are single sided and stapled in
the top left. Chicago Style must be used for critical apparatus.
University Policies and Course Policies
Academic Integrity: Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, is an
extremely serious academic offence and carries penalties varying from a zero grade on an
assignment to expulsion from the University. Definitions, penalties, and procedures for dealing
with plagiarism and cheating are set out in Trent University’s Academic Integrity Policy. You
have a responsibility to educate yourself – unfamiliarity with the policy is not an excuse. You are
strongly advised to visit Trent’s Academic Integrity website to learn more:
www.trentu.ca/academicintegrity
Access to Instruction: It is Trent University’s intent to create an inclusive learning environment.
If a student has a disability and/or health consideration and may need accommodations to
succeed in this course, contact Tina in the DSO office in Room 111 (telephone 905.435.5100).
Complete text can be found under Access to Instruction in the Academic Calendar.
Course websites: We use the course website (MyLearningSystem) and Oshawa library ereserves extensively, so check these sites frequently for resources and announcements.
Skills development workshops: These instructor-led sessions provide an instructional forum
and tutorials students develop new skills, techniques, and knowledge for researching historical
sources (primary and secondary). Attendance is mandatory. Your participation mark will be
reduced by 25% for each workshop that you do not attend.
E-mail communication. The subject of your e-mail messages to the instructor must include the
course (HIST 2421H) and a relevant title. Send e-mails from your Trent e-mail account. I do not
open mail from other systems (such as Hotmail) and those messages will be deleted unread.
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Late submission penalties: Essays are submitted in printed format before the lecture begins. Do
not e-mail or slide them under my door. Late penalties are 5% per day (including weekend
days). Essays are not accepted when they are one week late and automatically receive a zero.
Required Texts: All course readings are available either on the reserve in the Oshawa library, ereserve library webpage, Google books, public databases, or our course blackboard.
Week-by-week Schedule
Sept. 6 – Course introduction, syllabus review, and introductory discussion.
Sept. 13 – Foundational Debates: Africa and African slavery; the Williams Thesis
John Thornton, “Chapter 2: The Development of Commerce Between Europeans and
Africans,” in Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800, 2nd ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998 edition). On reserve in library.
Paul E. Lovejoy, "Chapter 1: Africa and Slavery," in Transformations in Slavery: A History
of Slavery in Africa, third ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012 edition). On
reserve in library.
Sept. 20 – Iberians in the Age of Exploration
Research methods workshop: Autobiographies and Biographies. Skills-building
instructional workshop: researching relevant sources for your assignment. Attendance is
mandatory; see note on participation grades regarding penalties for not attending.
Richard Gray, “The Papacy and the Atlantic Slave Trade: Lourenço da Silva, the Capuchins
and the Decisions of the Holy Office,” Past & Present 115 (May 1987): 52-68. E-article.
James H. Sweet, “The Iberian Roots of American Racist Thought,” William and Mary
Quarterly, Third Series, 54, 1 (Jan. 1997): 143-66. E-article.
Sept. 27 – Slave Societies in the Americas: King Cotton versus King Sugar.
Richard Dunn, “The Demographic Contrast between Slave Life in Jamaica and Virginia,
1760-1856,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 151, 1 (March 2007): 43-60.
E-article.
Carolyn Long, “Marie Laveau: A Nineteenth-Century Voudou Priestess,” Louisiana History
46, 3 (Summer 2005): 262-92. E-article.
Herbert Klein, “Chapter 7: Life, Death, and Family in Afro-American Slave Societies,” in
African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean (Oxford: OUP, 1986). E-book.
October 4 – Being Bought, Sold, and Traded. Modern day Traces of the Trade.
Last date for instructor approval of your selected biography or autobiography for “Slave
Narratives and Freedom Narratives,” (assignment #1).
Long film and large class discussion this week. Class will be longer than usual: no seminars.
Walter Johnson, “Chapter 1: The Chattel Principle,” in Soul by Soul: Life Inside the
Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1999). E-book.
Hilary Beckles, “Crop Over Fetes and Festivals in Caribbean Slavery,” in Alvin O. Thompson,
In the Shadow of the Plantation. Caribbean History and Legacy (Jamaica: Randle, 2002).
October 11 – Slave Lives, Communities, and Cultures of Resistance
Marie Jenkins Schwartz, “Chapter 1. Procreation,” in Birthing a Slave. Motherhood and
Medicine in the Antebellum South (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2006).
Trevor Burnard, “Caribbean Slavery, British Anti-Slavery, and the Cultural Politics of
Venereal Disease,” The Historical Journal 55, 2 (2012): 427-51. E-article.
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October 18 – The Revolutionary Era
“Slave Narratives and Freedom Narratives” (Assignment #1): due before class begins.
Skills-development instructional workshop: Researching primary and secondary sources for
your Research Paper. Attendance is mandatory. See note on participation grades.
Carolyn Fick, “The Haitian revolution and the limits of freedom: defining citizenship in the
revolutionary era,” Social History 32, 4 (Nov. 2007): 394-414. E-article.
John Thornton, “‘I Am the Subject of the King of Congo’: African Political Ideology and the
Haitian Revolution,” Journal of World History 4, 2 (Fall 1993): 181-214. E-article.
October 25 – Reading week. No classes.
November 1 – Abolition, Apprenticeship, and Emancipation in the British World (1750-1838)
Last day to confirm your topic for your Research Paper (assignment #2).
Diana Paton, ed., James Williams, A Narrative of Events, Since the First of August 1834, by
James Williams, An Apprenticed Labourer in Jamaica (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 2001).
Read the original narrative by James Williams. E-book in library.
November 8 – Contesting Freedoms
In-class film screening and discussion. This is a lengthy film: please be on time for class.
David Biron Davis, “The Amistad Test of Law and Justice,” in Inhuman Bondage: The Rise
and Fall of Slavery in the New World (Oxford: OUP, 2006).
Ada Ferrer, “Introduction. A Revolution the World Forgot,” in Insurgent Cuba: Race,
nation, and revolution, 1868-1898 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1999). E-book in library.
November 15 – American Civil War and Emancipation
Margaret Humphreys, Intensely Human. The Health of Black Soldiers in the American Civil
War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2008). Chapter 1, “The Black Body at War.”
Edward Rugemer, “Chapter 2: Abolitionists and Insurrections,” in The Problem of
Emancipation: the Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War (Louisiana State Univ.
Press, 2008). E-book in library.
November 22 – Unfree labour and indenture: Neo-slavery in the age of abolition?
Assignment #2 (Research Paper) is due before class begins.
Madhavi Kale, “Race and empire: The case of Indian indentured migration.” Empire online database (Trent licensed database).
Prabhu Mohapatra, “‘Restoring the Family’: Wife Murders and the Making of a Sexual
Contract for Indian Immigrant Labour in the British Caribbean Colonies, 1860-1920,”
Studies in History 11, 2 (1995): 227-60. E-article.
Nov. 29 – Final class for the term. Exam review and preparation.
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