Rethinking Atlantic Narratives of Slavery and Freedom
This working group is a platform for academic exchange and mutual research support, where attendees are invited to share their work-in-progress with colleagues and peers. It comprises diverse researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds, who are at different stages of their career. We meet regularly (once a month), usually on a Wednesday in the middle of the month. The working group is open to all BCDSS members, fellows, alumni, affiliates, and everyone else interested—everybody is welcome!
"Freedom" is one of the overarching themes of Atlantic History. Particularly when turning to the Americas, many narratives depict freedom as an ultimate goal that, even if unachievable, guided people’s lived experiences. This is even true for those accounts that are not optimistic or recognize freedom as a linear or expeditious process.
There is, however, not always a lot of attention to what freedom means, what it meant in different times and places, and how different people understood it. For example, we can think of freedom largely as not being forced to work against one’s will for the benefit of others. We can also think of it as civil and legal rights or social inclusion in society. Depending on the historical context, all, some, or none of these meanings can make sense.
Just like the concept of and the ideas behind freedom have been fluid and relational, "Atlantic slavery" is no monolith either. With dramatic variations in place and time, and often fundamentally different experiences for the enslaved, the plural “slaveries” is but a first try to stress the diverse shapes that institutions and processes of slavery took in Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
In this vein, and in sync with the primary research agenda of the BCDSS, this working group aims to move beyond the confines of the conceptual binary opposition "slavery/freedom." We will do so by, first, considering slavery and freedom not as antithetical but rather as intertwined and mutually constitutive. We are therefore interested in examining how historical actors mobilized certain language, ideas, and ideologies, and to which ends.
Second, we propose that "slavery" and "freedom"—regardless of the discussions about their definition and meanings—might not fully capture the struggles of the people who have been subjected to forced labor, violence, and exploitation in the Atlantic region. This motivates us to look for other concepts and methods to raise new questions (and answers) to better understand their experiences and to learn how freedom and slavery (including its legacies) impacted other forms of coercion and asymmetrical dependencies.
If you like to participate, please contact Pia Wiegmink, Viola Müller (on parental leave), and/or Luvena Kopp.
Upcoming sessions
November 20, 2024, 5–6 pm: Natalie Joy (Northern Illinois University, BCDSS Amo Fellow 2023/24), "'Of an unconstitutional and sinful color': Black Abolitionists, Native American Ancestry, and US Citizenship in the Early 19th Century."
December 11, 2024, 5–6:30 pm: Paul Arthur (Edith Cowan University), "'Chains of Empire': The Impacts and Legacies of Slavery in Australia."
Past sessions
October 2024: Text discussion, Introduction of Sojourners, Sultans, and Slaves: America and the Indian Ocean in the Age of Abolition and Empire (2023) by Gunja SenGupta and Awam Amkpa.
July 2024: Amalia Levi (BCDSS PhD Researcher), "Enslaved People in Jewish Households in 17th Century Barbados."
June 2024: Charmaine Nelson (University of Massachusetts and Slavery North Initiative), Juneteenth Lecture "Enslaved Females in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century North America: Examining the Fugitive Slave Archive" (organized by the BCDSS in cooperation with the Amerikahaus NRW and the North American Studies Program).
May 2024: Diego Schibelinski (BCDSS PhD Researcher), "Retelling Sailors' Stories: Labor Commodification aboard Slave Ships in the 1810s."
March 2024: Steeve Buckridge (Grand Valley State University), "Rethinking Caribbean Archives of Slavery via Material Culture."
February 2024: Christine Mertens (Roosevelt Institute for American Studies, Middleburg/Leiden University), "Free Black Surveillance in the Early Antebellum South."
January 2024: Group discussion, "Approaches to Rethinking the Narratives of Slavery and Freedom"
December 2023: Marcella Schute (Roosevelt Institute), "The African Apprentice Bill of 1858: A Covert Effort to Reopen the Slave Trade in Louisiana."
November 2023: Mariana Candido (Emory University), "Enslavement and Commodification in Angola." (Joint venture with the Research Group Concepts of Slavery in African History).
July 2023: Damian Pargas (Leiden University), "In the Shadows of Slavery: Free Black Citizenship and Democracy in Antebellum America."
June 2023: Joseph Biggerstaff (BCDSS PhD Researcher), "A global history of Barbadian sugar plantations, 1640–1846."
May 2023: Justin Roberts (BCDSS Fellow), "Fragile Empire: Slavery in the Early English Tropics, 1645–1720."
April 2023: Viola Müller (BCDSS Postdoctoral Researcher), "From Slavery to Illegality? A Comparative Study of Labor Coercion and Capitalism in the Americas, 1840–1914."
March 2023: Sunčica Klaas (BCDSS Postdoctoral Researcher), "People and Power on the Move: Thinking about Atlantic Slaveries from the Perspective of New Mobility and Migration Studies."
February 2023: Kick-off Meeting.
