Origins of the Black Atlantic

Between 1492 and 1820, abouttwo-thirds of the people who crossed the Atlantic to the Americas were Africans. With the exception of the Spanish, all the European empires settled more Africans in the New World than they did Europeans. The vast majority of these enslaved men and women worked on plantations, and their labor was the foundation for the expansion of the Atlantic economy during theseventeenth andeighteenth centuries. Until relatively recently, comparatively little attention was paid to the perspectives, daily experiences, hopes, and especially the political ideas of the enslaved who played such a central role in the making of the Atlantic world. Over the past decades, however, huge strides have been made in the study of the history of slavery and emancipation in the Atlantic world. This collection brings together some of the key contributions to this growing body of scholarship, showing a range of methodological approaches, that can be used to understand and reconstruct the lives of these enslaved people.

Contents Series Editor’s Preface Preface Introduction Part I: People and Ideas in Circulation David Barry Gaspar, "’A Dangerous Spirit of Liberty’: Slave Rebellion in the West Indies in the 1730s" Richard Sheridan, "The Jamaican Slave Insurrection Scare of 1776 and the American Revolution," Neville A.T. Hall, "Maritime Maroons: Grand Marronage from the Danish West Indies," Julius Scott, "The Common Wind: Currents of Afro-American Communication in the Era of the Haitian Revolution" Part II: Atlantic Generations Richard Gray, "The Papacy and the Atlantic Slave Trade: Lourenço da Silva, The Capuchins, and the Decisions of the Holy Office," Ira Berlin, "From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America," Emily Clark and Virginia Meacham Gould, "The Feminine Face of Afro-Catholicism in New Orleans, 1727-1852," Part III: Africa in the Americas John Thornton, "African Soldiers in the Haitian Revolution," João Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia, selections. Kenneth Bilby, "Swearing by the Past, Swearing to the Future: Sacred Oaths, Alliances, and Treaties Among the Guianese and Jamaican Maroons," Part IV: Insurrection and Emancipation in the Atlantic Matthew Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion and the Struggle Against Slavery in Cuba Eric Williams, "The Slaves and Slavery," Steven Hahn, "‘Extravagant Expectations’ of Freedom: Rumour, Political Struggle, and the Christmas Insurrection Scare of 1865 in the American South," Rebecca Scott, "Reclaiming Gregoria’s Mule: The Meanings of Freedom in the Arimao and Caunao Valleys, Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1880-1889," Permission Acknowledgements Index

Laurent Dubois is Professor of History at Duke University. He is the author of A Colony of Citizens: Revolution & Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804. Julius Scott is a Lecturer in the History department at the University of Michigan. He is also part of their Center for Afroamerican and African Studies.