HIST 312 Race, Rights, and Revolution in the Atlantic World

The circulation of labor goods people and cultures between Africa, Europe and the Americas created an Atlantic World whose history transcends continental and national boundaries. This course examines the relationship between race rights and revolution during the Atlantic Age of Revolution that stretched from roughly the mid-eighteen to mid-nineteenth centuries. In particular we will explore how Revolutions in British North America, France and Haiti influenced the movement to end the slave trade and slavery in the Americas and galvanized slave revolts and other movements for Black liberation and human rights around the Atlantic World. A variety of readings including autobiography social and political history and ethnography will illuminate not only the history of the Atlantic World but new forms of scholarly writing that break the mold of national historical narratives. Themes include: slavery slave revolt the discourse of human rights resistance religion labor and shifting ideologies of difference in particular gender class and race.