History 200: Themes in World History

Slaves and Rebels in the Early Modern Atlantic World

Fall 2008

 

Professor Marjoleine Kars

Office: 713 Admin Building

Phone: 455-2032

Office hours: M/W 2:30-300 and by appointment

Email kars@umbc.edu

Prof. Kars’ webpage: http://userpages.umbc.edu/~kars/ 

Teaching Assistant: Ann Chapman

727 Admin Building

ann4@umbc.edu

Office Hours: Mon 2:30-3:30; Wed 12-1, or by appointment

 

NOTE: It is always best to email before you plan to come to office hours so that Ann and I can block out time for you. (I often schedule meetings with students and advisees during office hours, so it's best to contact me before you plan to arrive to make certain I'm available).

 

Course Meeting Place: AD LH3
Campus Map: http://www.umbc.edu/aboutumbc/campusmap/map_flash.html
Course Meeting Time: M/W 1-2:15 pm

 

NB. This syllabus is subject to (minor) changes - I will announce in class when a change has been made or a reading has been added.

 

Course Description:

In this course we will investigate slavery and resistance to it in the Atlantic world.   We will look at the slave trade, the development of racial slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas, day-to-day resistance to slavery, the gendered nature of slavery, maroons and guerilla warfare, slave conspiracies and rebellions, the American and Haitian revolutions, abolitionism and emancipation, as well as slavery’s effects on the modern world.

 

Learning Objectives:

General Education Requirement: SS
This course meets the Social Science General Education Program. The Social Sciences seek to understand attitudes, beliefs, and social behaviors of individuals, groups, and institutions, and identify factors that influence them, both past and present. GEP courses in the Social Sciences enable students to:
– critically evaluate research regarding the complex interplay of individuals, groups, and institutions;
– understand the strengths and weaknesses of, and be able to apply research methods within, the many fields of social sciences;
– provide insight into the development and implementation of programs and policies designed to improve people's lives.
The course is designed to help students develop competencies for Oral and Written Communication and Critical Analysis and Reasoning. These include understanding and applying both the verbal and nonverbal aspects of communication by utilizing fundamental rhetorical strategies and conventions, acknowledging and documenting sources used to support an argument, formulating questions and problems, evaluating various methods of reasoning, and constructing cogent arguments, providing supporting evidence, articulating reasoned judgments, and drawing appropriate conclusions.

Academic Integrity
I expect students enrolled in this course to uphold the UMBC Policy on Academic Integrity http://www.umbc.edu/provost/integrity/acc_policy/. In the Spring of 2002, the UMBC Faculty and Student Senates adopted the following statement emphasizing the importance of academic integrity:

By enrolling in this course, each student assumes the responsibilities of an active participant in UMBC's scholarly community in which everyone's academic work and behavior are held to the highest standards of honesty. Cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and helping others to commit these acts are all forms of academic dishonesty, and they are wrong. Academic misconduct could result in disciplinary action that may include, but is not limited to, suspension or dismissal. To read the full Student Academic Conduct Policy, consult the UMBC Student Handbook, the Faculty Handbook, or the UMBC Policies section of the UMBC Directory.

Books Ordered from the UMBC bookstore:
1) Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007).

2) Cassandra Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007).

3) Jon Sensbach, Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2005).

4) Madison Smart Bell, All Souls’ Rising (New York: Vintage 2004).

5) Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, Enlarged Edition, Now with "A True Tale of Slavery," Jean Fagan Yellin (Editor), John S. Jacobs (Contributor) (Boston: Harvard University Press; 2000).

 

NB: the bookstore will send books back to the publishers about a month into the semester, so buy all the books before that time.  Not having been able to get a hold of a book will not be a valid excuse for getting out of a quiz.

 

Grading:

Five scheduled book quizzes: 20 points each

Three surprise quizzes: 10 points each

Paper: 100 points   For an example of a paper that is like the one I want you to write, except this one is much longer, click here

Exam I: 100 points (Oct. 20) 

Exam II: 100 points

total: 430 points

 

Grades will be assigned as follows:

430-387: A

386-343: B

343-300: C

299-256: D

255 and below: F

 

Paper Explanation

List of Primary Sources Options for the paper

List of Movies to watch for extra credit (you can only do one movie) - all students have the option of doing TWO extra credit projects for a maximum of five points each - one of the options is a movie, from the attached list, and one is to attend a talk.

 

Class Meetings and Assignments:

Week 1: Introduction

August 27: introduction to the course and the instructional team.  We will watch part of a movie about modern slavery.

 

Week 2:  What is slavery?

September 1:  Labor Day, no class.

September 3:  Slavery ancient and modern

Reading: each student is signed up to study a website from this list.  If your name is not on it, email Ann. 

 

Recommended: Suzanne Miers, “Contemporary Forms of Slavery,” Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol. 34, No. 3, Special Issue: On Slavery and Islam in African History: A Tribute to Martin Klein (2000), pp. 714-747, available through research port. 

 

Interesting Web Resource:

The Feminist Sexual Ethics website, Dept of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University and the Ford Foundation, contains essays about religion and slavery, as well as about contemporary slavery.

 

Week 3: The Roots of Racism and of Atlantic Slavery

Sept. 8:   Read Lose Your Mother  - images for lecture

Sept. 10:  Read Lose Your Mother - images for lecture

 

Week 4: West Africa and the Slave Trade

Sept.15:  Read Lose Your Mother  - images for lecture

Sept 17:  Finish Lose Your Mother.  Book Quiz.  images for lecture Mr. Joseph Ole Tipanko, from the Maasai community, will visit.  Click here for a flyer about his community and how you may help.

 

Week 5: Development of South Atlantic Slavery: Brazil and South America

Sept. 22:  Read:  Stuart B. Schwartz, “Resistance and Accommodation in Eighteenth-Century Brazil: The Slaves’ View of Slavery,” Hispanic American Historical Review 57, no. 1 (1977): 69-81 (JSTOR)

images for lecture

Sept.  24:  Read Rebecca's Revival.  For some interesting articles on the African experience in early Spanish America, see the special issue of The Americas 57.2, October 2000, Guest Editors: Matthew Restall and Jane Landers

available through Project Muse on the Research Port website.

 

Week 6: Slavery in the Caribbean

Sept. 29:  Read Rebecca’s Revival. Images for lecture

Oct.  1:  Finish Rebecca’s Revival.  Book Quiz. images for lecture

 

Week 7: Rebellions and Conspiracies

Oct. 6:  María Elena Martínez, "The Black Blood of Spain: Limpieza de Sangre, Racial Violence, and Gendered Power in Early Colonial Mexico," William and Mary Quarterly 61, 3 (July 2004): 479-520, available on History Cooperative or  by clicking here.  Powerpoint with images

Oct. 8:  no reading.  Work on your document.

 

Week 8: Maronage

Oct. 13:  Read: http://www.yale.edu/glc/maroon/schweninger.pdf  plus read the section on maroons in Jamaica, a website put together by Prof. Ed Baptist and students at the University of Miami

Oct. 15:  Document Write-Up due.

Review session with the TA will be held:

 

Week 9:  Testing

Oct. 20:  Midterm

Oct. 22:  Begin reading Epic Journeys

 

Week 10: Colonial America

Oct. 27: Read Epic Journeys.  Take a look at the slave codes of South Carolina

Oct. 29: Read Epic Journeys. images for lecture

  

Week 11: A Revolution within a Revolution?

Nov. 3:  Finish Epic Journeys.  Book Quiz. images for class

Nov. 5: Start reading All Souls' Rising images for class

 

Week 12: Haitian Revolution

Nov. 10: Read All Souls' Rising  images for class

Nov. 12: Read All Souls' Rising  We will watch a documentary: "Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property," in class.

 

Week 13: Aftermath

Nov. 17: Finish All Souls' Rising - Book Quiz.  

Nov. 19: Nat Turner's confession.   NB. If you want to hand in a draft of your paper, today is the deadline.  Only complete drafts will be read.  For interesting sources on Nat Turner, click on

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/natturner/more.html and http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/turner/menu.html

 

 

Week 14: Antebellum Rebellions

Nov. 24: Read Life of a Slave Girl.

Nov. 26: Read Life of a Slave Girl.  No class meeting because of  Thanksgiving.

 

Week 15: Abolitionism and Aftermath

Dec. 1: Finish: Life of a Slave Girl.  Book Quiz.

Dec. 2: Read 1807-2007: Over 200 years of campaigning against slavery through p. 25 only.

At http://www.antislavery.org/homepage/resources/PDF/PDFslavery.htm

 

NB. Final Paper due on Dec. 5 on Blackboard by 5 pm under "course documents" - be sure to follow the instructions for submitting through turn-it in.  Any hour the paper is late, I'll subtract points up to a letter grade a day.  Bring a hard copy of your paper AND your document to class on Dec. 8!  For further instructions see http://blackboard.umbc.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_43_1

 

For a guide to slavery in MD, click http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/intromsa/pdf/slavery_pamphlet.pdf

 

Week 16:  Testing

Dec. 8: Exam II - be sure to bring a copy of your paper, with a copy of the document, to class.