Jane Landers Class Hours: W 4:10
Benson 121
322-3403
Office Hours: W 1:00
jane.landers@vanderbilt.edu

HISTORY 365:TOPICS:  
ATLANTIC WORLD HISTORY

Welcome to HIS 365. This graduate seminar will explore the history of the Atlantic world created when Europe, Africa, and the Americas began to interact. After reviewing a variety of theoretical and disciplinary approaches to the study of the Atlantic world, we will read a series of monographs and articles designed to acquaint you with the best and most recent scholarship in this rapidly-growing field. Our time frame covers from the mid fifteenth century to the early nineteenth century. Some of our major themes will include the consequences of Atlantic expansion on indigenous societies, the African slave trade and the rise of Atlantic economies, the circulation of peoples, ideas, and material culture throughout the Atlantic in the period under study, and the Atlantic world revolutions that ended colonialism.

APPROACH: Throughout the course we will consider the problems of evidence and ways of "knowing". We will examine new perspectives, methods, and sources and borrow from other disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology, and art history. Our goal will be to enhance our understanding of disparate colonizations of the Atlantic world, and the responses to them by indigenous groups and people of African descent. We will also examine how imperial competition, political ideologies, and subaltern resistance shaped the Atlantic revolutions. We aim to enhance critical thinking, skillful analysis, and polished oral and written work.

FORMAT: This is a seminar course. Each class will incorporate a brief lecture but will focus on discussion of assigned readings for the week. Your grade will be based on your understanding of the readings, as measured by class participation in discussions, an analytical book review, oral presentation and discussion of a second monograph, a research project and a final research paper. This will be a collegial experience involving shared discussions of research.

GRADING: Class discussion 10 %
                    Primary book review 20 %
                    Oral book review & presentation 20 %
                    Research project 30 %
                    Research paper 40 %

CLASS PARTICIPATION and BOOK REVIEWS: As part of the participation/discussion grade, each student will be responsible for leading a discussion session on one of the main course readings and one other book from the attached bibliography (or an alternate after discussion with me). For the first of these presentations you will also write a brief book review (typed, double-space) and provide copies of it for your classmates. (I will provide a hand-out to guide you.) The second presentation does not require a paper but I will expect the same effort otherwise.

CLASS RESEARCH PROJECT: The class will design a collaborative project on the history of the Atlantic World which may take one of several formats. You may either design individual power point presentations or as a group prepare a web page based on the individual research you will be doing for your research papers. We will also be compiling as a group a major bibliography on Atlantic world history sources.

FINAL PAPER: Each of you will also write a 12-15 page research paper (the length suitable for a conference paper), based on original research in primary documents and secondary literature. This will constitute 40 % of your grade. You will need to select a topic early and be prepared to update us weekly on your research progress. The final meetings of the class will be devoted to a presentations of projects and research papers. You must distribute your paper to other class members one week in advance of your presentation so that everyone will have read it. You will then summarize for your presentation and respond to your reader's and classmates critiques.

HONOR CODE: Vanderbilt's Honor Code governs all work in this class. It must be your own.

READINGS: Texts are available on web. All readings should be completed prior to class meetings.

FOLDERS: All articles, documents, and art images are available in folders in the front office which you may xerox.

Readings:

Carney, Judith A. Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001) ISBN 0674004523

Eltis, David. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) ISBN 0521 65548 X

Games, Alison, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ) ISBN 0674007026

Gaspar, David Barry and David Patrick Geggus , A Turbulent Time: te French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean (Bloomington: Indian University Press, 1997) ISBN 0253332478

Harms, Robert W. The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade (Basic Books, 2002) ISBN 0465028713

Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001) ISBN 0674006380

Suggested Secondary Readings:

Berlin, Ira, Many Thousands Gone

Northrup, David, Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850

and Paul E. Lovejoy, The Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua: His Passage from Slavery to Freedom in Africa and America

Seed, Patricia, American Pentimento: The Invention of Indians and the Pursuit of Riches

Wood, Peter, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion

Web Resource: Teaching and Researching Links for the Atlantic World

Fall, 2003   
Prof. Jane Landers                                                             M 1:10-3:00 Benson 121  
                                                                                          Office Hours: W 10:00-12:00 ext. 2-3403 
                                                                                           & by appointment 
                                                                                           jane.landers@vanderbilt.edu

LATIN AMERICAN SLAVERY IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Welcome. This graduate seminar is an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study of slavery in the colonial Americas. It will introduce you to exemplary scholarship in what is an exciting and rapidly growing field of "Atlantic world" slave studies. You will read monographs and essays examining slavery and resistance in Spanish, British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese America. Please note, this is not a course on the antebellum United States.

Throughout the course we will consider the problems of evidence and voice and familiarize ourselves with the range of primary sources available for research, including the most recent data bases. One of our best resources will be our Latin American bibliographer, Ms. Paula Covington, who will meet with the class and assist you thereafter as you work independently on your research papers.

CLASS FORMAT:

DISCUSSION: 10% of the Final Grade

Because this class is based on discussion, attendance is mandatory. It is imperative that you complete reading assignments prior to coming to class in order to participate. I would encourage you to keep journal notations on your readings on which to base discussions.

CLASS PRESENTATION: 25% of the Final Grade

Each student will be responsible for leading one of the class discussions of an assigned monograph. You will write a 4-5 page critical assessment of the text under discussion which will briefly address the key issues in the reading and the sources on which it rests, and which suggests questions or problems for class discussion. Discussion papers must be distributed to all class members, including myself, by 9:00 A.M. the day of the class.

RESEARCH PAPER : 40% of the Final Grade &

POWER POINT PRESENTATIONS: 25 % of the Final Grade

You will write a twelve to fifteen page (conference-length)research paper (Typed, double-spaced) using primary and secondary sources. The paper will be worth 30% of your final grade and is due December 8th. That final meeting will be devoted to 20 minute summations of your research accompanied by the power point presentations. Be prepared to take questions from your audience.

READINGS:

Brooks, James F. Captives and Cousins, Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (Chapel Hill, 2002) F790. A1 B76

Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade (Cambridge, 1999) (Introduction and Chaps. 1-3). HT 1322 .K54

Landers, Jane Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana, 1999). F320. N4 L36

Moitt, Bernard. Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635-1848 (Bloomington, 2001). HT 1079 .W 48 M65

Price, Richard, ed. Stedman’s Suriname: Life in an Eighteenth-Century Slave Society (Baltimore, 1992) F2410. S8152

Reis, João José. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: the Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia (Baltimore, 1993) HT 1129. S24 R4513

Schafer, Daniel. L. Anna Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Owner (Gainesville, 2003) E 444 .K56 S33

Tannenbaum, Frank Slave & Citizen: The Negro in the Americas (NY, 1946). E29. N3 T3

Wood, Peter H. Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (NY, 1974). E445. S7 W6

Complementary Reserve Readings:

Ascraft-Eason, Lillian. "‘She Voluntarily Hath Come’: A Gambian Woman Trader in Colonial Georgia in the Eighteenth Century," in Paul E. Lovejoy, ed. Identity in the Shadow of Slavery (London, 2000), 202-221.

Berlin, Ira. "From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 53 (April 1996): 251-288.

Brown, Ras Michael."’ Walk in the Feenda’: West-Central Africans and the Forest in the South Carolina-Georgia Lowcountry", in Linda M. Heywood, ed. Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora (Cambridge, 2002), 289-317.

Gallay, Alan. Ch. 11, "Contours of the Indian Slave Trade," in The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 (New Haven, 2002), 288-314.

Klooster, Wim. "Subordinate but Proud: Curaçao’s Free Blacks and Mulattoes in the Eighteenth Century", New West Indian Guide 68, nos. 3 & 4 (1994): 283-300.

Usner, Daniel. "From African Captivity to American Slavery: The Introduction of Black Laborers to Colonial Louisiana" , 25 - 47.

All of our books are available on Amazon or other internet sites. I have also put copies on reserve in the Central library basement. Copies of the articles to be read will be available in a marked box atop the department mail boxes (Benson 227) and on electronic reserve.

COURSE CALENDAR:

M September 1 Studying Comparative Slavery
Reading: Tannenbaum, Slave & Citizen (128 pp)

                          M September 8 Africans and the rise of the Atlantic slave trade 
                          Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade, intro; ch.1-3 (77 pp)
                          Complementary readings: Berlin,"From Creole to African"; Brown,"’ Walk in the Feenda’

                         M September 15 English slavery
                         Reading: Wood, Negroes in Colonial South Carolina (326 pp)
                         Complementary reading: Gallay, Ch. 11 "Contours of the Indian Slave Trade" (36 pp)

                         M September 22 Indigenous slavery
                         Reading: Brooks, Captives and Cousins (368 pp)

                          M September 29 Spanish slavery
                          Reading: Landers, Black Society (253 pp)
                         Complementary reading: Hanger & Childs

                        M October 6 French Slavery
                        Reading:Moitt, Bernard.Women & Slavery in the French Antilles (176 pp)  
                        Complementary reading: DuBois,

                       M October 13 Research Tools and Sources with Prof. Paula Covington, (6th floor teaching classroom) 
 
                       M October 20 Dutch Slavery
                       Reading: Price, Richard. Stedman’s Suriname: Life in an Eighteenth- Century Slave Society (318 pp) 
                       Complementary reading: Klooster, "Subordinate but Proud" (17 pp)

                        M October 27 Women in slavery
                        Reading: Schafer, Daniel L. Anna Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Owner (131 pp) 
                        Complementary readings: Ashcraft-Eason, "‘She Voluntarily Hath Come’: A Gambian Woman Trader in Colonial Georgia" (19p)

                       M November 3 Portuguese Slavery
                       Reading: Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil (232 pp)
                       Complementary readings: Schwartz

                       M November 10 Discussion of complementary readings

                       M November 17 Discussion of complementary readings

                       M November 24 Thanksgiving break ; Work on research presentations

                       M December 1 Presentations of research

                       M December 8 Presentations of research; Papers due.

Recommended Supplementary Reading:

On African Slave Trade:

Donnan, Elizabeth. Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, 4 vols (Washington, DC 193-35).

Harms, Robert. The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade (NY, 2002).

Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade ( Cambridge, 1999).

Miller, Joseph. Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830 (Madison, 1988) HT 1221. M55

General:

Blackburn, Robin. The Making of New World Slavery: from the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800 (London, 1997).

Brooks, James F., ed. Confounding the Color Line: the Indian -Black Experience in North America (Lincoln, NE, 2002). E98.R28 C66

Curtin, Philip, ed. Africa Remembered: Narratives by West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade (Madison, 1967) DT 471. C8

Eltis, David The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (NY 2000) HT1048 .E47

Engerman, Stanley, Seymour Drescher and Robert Paquette, eds. Slavery (NY, 2001).

Gallay, Alan. The Indian Slave Trade: the Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 (New Haven, 2002).

Gallay, Alan. Ed. Voices of the Old South: Eyewitness Accounts, 1528-1861 (Athens, 1994).

Landers, Jane. Against the Odds: Free Blacks in the Slave Societies of the Americas (London, 1996) E 185.18 A38

Landers, Jane. Colonial Plantations and Economy in Florida (Gainesville, 2000). F314. 696

Lovejoy, Paul E. and Robin Law. The Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua : His Passage from Slavery to Freedom in Africa and America (Princeton, 2001). E444 .B2 B56 2001

Mann, Kristin, and Edna G. Bay, eds. Rethinking the African Diaspora : the Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil (London, 2001). DT16.5 .R48 2001

Mullin. Michael. American Negro Slavery : a Documentary History (Columbia, SC, 1976).

Northrup, David. Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850 (NY, 2002).

Phillips, William D. Jr., Slavery From Roman Times to the Early Atlantic Trade (Minneapolis, MN, 1985) HT 861. P46

Rubin, Vera and Arthur Tudeen, eds. Comparative Perspectives on Slavery in New World Plantation Societies (NY, 1977).

Tannenbaum, Frank. Slave and Citizen (New York, 1946). E29. N3 T3

Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World (Cambridge, 1992) DT 31. T516

Usner, Daniel H. Jr. Indians, Settlers & Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy : the Lower Mississippi Valley before 1783 (Chapel Hill,1992).

Wright, Donald R. African Americans in the Colonial Era: from African Origins through the American Revolution

On African Slavery in Latin America:

Bowser, Frederick P. The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 1524-1650 (Stanford, 1974) HADE 1147. B67

Carroll, Patrick J. Blacks in Colonial Vera Cruz: Race, Ethnicity, and Regional Development (Austin, 1991) F 1392. B55 C37

Conrad, Robert Edgar, ed. Children of God's Fire : a Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (Princeton, 1983 ). HT 1126. C.55

Díaz, María Elena. The Virgin, the King, and The Royal Slaves of El Cobre: Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba (Stanford, 2000). HT 1079. E4 D 53

Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge, 1992) F 185.93 .L6 416

Hanger, Kimberly. Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769-1803 (Durham, NC, 1997) F379. N59 N44

Karasch, Mary. Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850 (Princeton, 1987) HT 1129. R 53 K 37

Palmer, Colin. Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650 (Cambridge, 1976) HT 1053. P35

Pescatello, Ann M. The African in Latin America (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975)

Paquette, Robert L. Sugar is Made With Blood: the Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict between Empires Over Slavery in Cuba (Middletown, CT, 1988) F1783. P25

Rout, Leslie B. Jr. The African Experience in Spanish America (Cambridge, 1971) F 1419. B55 R 68

Schwartz, Stuart. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835 (Cambridge, 1985).

Vinson, Ben III. Bearing Arms for his Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico (Stanford, 2001). UA 605. M55 V56

On African Slavery in Early Anglo-America and the British Caribbean

Alford, Terry. Prince Among Slaves: the True Story of An African Prince Sold Into Slavery in the American South (Oxford, 1977).

Beckles, Hilary and Verene Shepherd. Caribbean Slave Society and Economy (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randall Publishers, 1991)

Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in Mainland North America (Cambridge, 1998) E 446. B48

_______. Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Cambridge, 2003).

Berlin, Ira and Philip D. Morgan, eds. The Slaves' Economy: Independent Production by Slaves in the Americas (London, 1991) HT1071. S55

Bolster, Jeffrey. Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail (Baltimore, 1997).

Breen, T.H. and Stephen Innes, 'Myne Owne Ground': Race & Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676 (Oxford, 1980).

Craton, Michael. Searching for the Invisible Man: Slaves and Plantation Life in Jamaica (Cambridge, 1977) HT 1096. C7

Gaspar, David Barry. Bondsmen and Rebels: A Study of Master-Slave Relations in Antigua (Baltimore, 1985).

Handler, Jerome S., and Frederick W. Langer. Plantation Slavery in Barbados: An Archaeological and Historical Investigation (Cambridge, 1978).

Littlefield, Daniel. Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the Slave Trade in Colonial South Carolina (Urbana, 1981) E445. S7 L57

Littlefield, Daniel. Africans and Creeks (Westport, CT 1979).

Morgan, Phillip. Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (Chapel Hill, 1998).

Mullin, Michael. Africa in America: Slave Acculturation and Resistance in the American South and the British Caribbean (Urbana, 1992) E 443. M85

Olwell, Robert. Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740-1790 (Ithaca, NY 1998)

Sidbury, James. Ploughshares into Swords: Race, Rebellion & Identity in Gabriel’s Virginia (Cambridge, 1999).

Sobel, Mechal. The World They Made Together: Black and White Values in 18th Century Virginia (Princeton, 1987) E185.93 V8 S 64

Walsh, Lorena. From Calabar to Carter’s Grove: the History of a Virginia Slave Community (1977) F234. C35 W35

Walvin, James and Michael Craton. A Jamaican Plantation: The History of Worthy Park, 1670-1970 F1895.W65 C7

Walvin, James. An African’s Life: the Life and Times of Olaudah Equiano, 1745-1797 (London, 1999)

On Resistance and Revolt:

Aptheker, Herbert. American Negro Slave Revolts (New York, 1983) E 447.A67

Davis, T.J. Rumor of Revolt: The "Great Negro Plot" in Colonial New York (NY, 1985).

Egerton, Douglas R.. Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 & 1802 (Chapel Hill, 1993).

Egerton, Douglas R.. He Shall Go Out Free: the Lives of Denmark Vesey (Madison,1999).

Gaspar, David Barry and David P. Geggus. A Turbulent Time: The Haitian Revolution in the Greater Caribbean (Bloomington, 1996).

Geggus, David P. The Impact of the Haitian Revolution on the Atlantic World (Columbia, 2001)F 1923 .I53

Heuman, Gad, ed. Out of the House of Bondage: Runaways, Resistance, and Marronage in Africa and the Americas (London, 1986) HT 867.097

Mullin, Gerald. Flight and Rebellion: Slave Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Virginia (Oxford, 1972).

Gary Y. Okihiro, ed. In Resistance, Studies in African,Caribbean, and Afro-American History (Amherst, MA, 1986) HT 855.15

Price, Richard. Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas (Baltimore, 1996).

Wood, Peter H. Black Majority: Slaves in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York, 1974) E445. S7 W66.

On African Culture in the Americas:

Armstrong, Douglas V. The Old Village and the Great House: An Archaeological and Historical Examination of Drax Hall Plantation St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. (Urbana, 1990).

Austin, Allan. Ed. African Muslims in Antebellum America : a Sourcebook (NY, 1984).

Crahan, Margaret E. and Franklin Knight, ed. Africa and the Caribbean: the Legacies of a Link (Baltimore, 1979). F2169 .A37

Diouf, Sylvian A. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas, NY 1998).

Ferguson, Leland. Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800 (Washington, D.C.,1992) E 445.S7 F37

Georgia Writers' Project, Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies Among the Georgia Coastal Negroes (Athens, GA, 1948) E 185.93 G4 N7

Gomez, Michael. Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill, 1998), E 185.15 .G18

Heywood, Linda M. ed., Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora (NY, 2002)

Joseph, J. W. Another’s Country: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on Cultural Interaction in the Southern Colonies

Joyner, Charles. Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community (Urbana and Chicago, 1984) F279. A43.

Lovejoy, Paul E.,ed. Identity in the Shadow of Slavery (London, 2000).

Palmié, Stephan, ed., Slave Cultures and the Cultures of Slavery (Knoxville, 1995) HT 861 .S35.

Price, Richard. Alabi's World (Baltimore, MD, 1991) F2431. S27 A57

Singleton, Theresa A "I, Too, Am America": Archaeological Studies of African-American Life Charlottesville, VA 1999)

Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit, African & Afro-American Art and Philosophy (New York, 1984) E 29. N3 T 48

Thompson, Robert Farris. Faces of the Gods: Art and Altars of Africa and the African Americas (NY)

Gender

Clinton, Catherine and Michelle Gillespie, eds. The Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South (New York, 1997).

Ferguson, Moira, ed. The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (London: Pandora, 1987)

Gaspar, David Barry and Darlene Clark Hine, eds. More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Bloomington, 1996).

Higgins, Kathleen J. "Licentious Liberty" in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais (University Park, PA 1999).

Moitt, Bernard Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635-1848 ( Bloomington, 2001).

Schwarz-Bart, André. A Woman Named Solitude (New York, 1973) PQ 2637. C 736 M 813 and PZ. S415

Other Resources:

Africa & African-American Studies homepage http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/central/afam.html#afamjour

CD-Roms

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, G.K. Hall & Co.

W.E.B. Du Bois Institute Dataset of Slaving Voyages, Cambridge U. Press

Louisiana Slave Database and the Louisiana Free Database, 1719-1820

Other Databases available on Acorn

America: History and Life

Art Abstracts

Art Index

Anthropological Literature

Historical Abstracts (time period -1800H)

JSTOR

Journal of African History

Journal of Negro History

ProQuest Direct

Bibliographies, Dictionaries, and Encyclopedias

Danky, James P. African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography (Z6944. N39 A 37 1998)

Finkelman Paul and Joseph Miller. Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery (HT861.M24 1998)

Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, ed. The Harvard Guide to African-American History (Cambridge, MA, 2001) Ref. E185.H326

Hogg, Peter C. The African Slave Trade and Its Suppression: A Classified and Annotated Bibliography of Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Articles. London, Frank Cass, 1973.(Z7164.S6 H63 1973)

Middleton, John. Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara 4 vols. NY, 1997 (Ref. DT351. E53 1997)

Miller, Joseph. Slavery and Slaving in World History: A Bibliography, 1900-1991 (Z7164.S6 M544 1993)

Miller, Joseph Calder. Slavery: A Worldwide Bibliography, 1900-1982. White Plains, NY: Kraus International, 1985. (Ref. Z 7164.S6 M543 1985)

Oliver, Roland and Michael Crowder. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Africa. Cambridge, 1980. (DT3.C35 1980)

Smith, John David. Black Slavery in the Americas: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography, 1865-1980. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982. (Ref. Z7164.S6 S63 1982)

Vogel, Joseph O. Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa: Archaeology, History, Languages, Cultures and Environments. Walnut Creek, CA, 1997 (Ref. DT2.E53 1997)

Historical Dictionary of Congo (DT 546.215.D4 1996) (these are a good source for the general history of particular African countries--just search Acorn under Historical Dictionary & the modern country name)

Art

The Image of the Black in Western Art (N8232. I46)

Main Journals Containing Africa and African American History

Historical Archaeology (E 11.S625)

International Journal of African Historical Studies (DT 1. A226)

Journal of African History (DT 1. J65)

Journal of Negro History (E 185. J86)

Journal of Religion in Africa (BL 1.J85) (Divinity)

Slavery & Abolition (HT 851.S58)

William & Mary Quarterly (F221.W71)

World Archaeology (CC1.W6)

Internet Resources

African-American Archaeology Newsletter

www.ilinks.net/~newsouth/nsa.html

African American Burial Ground

http://www.afrinet.net/~hallh/abg.html

African American Odyssey at the Library of Congress  www.loc.gov

American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology (W.P.A. Interviews) http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/wpa/wpahome.html

Atlantic History Seminar

http://www/fas/harvard.edu/~atlantic/index.html

California African American Museum

www.caam.ca.gov

Detroit's Museum of African American History

www.maah-detroit.org/

Gilda Lehrman Institute of American History

http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/gilder.htm

Henrietta Marie Shipwreck

www.melfisher.org

Levi Jordan Plantation

www.webarchaeology.com

Museum of African Art

www.si.edu.organiza/museums/africart/homepage/nmafa.htm

North American Slave Narratives (UNC "Documenting the South" project; autobiographies published antebellum through 1920)

http://metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/neh/neh.html

PBS (Africans in America)

www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia

Smithsonian

www.si.edu/

Underground Railroad Project, National Park Service

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/ugrr.htm

Lists of Interest

slavery@LISTSERV.UH.EDU

diaspora@yorku.ca

H-AFRESEARCH

Spring 2001
Prof. Jane Landers
T & TH 2:35-3:50
Benson 121
SC 1312 
2-3403
Office Hours: W 10:00-noon 
jane.landers@vanderbilt.edu

                                                                                                  HISTORY 259

DECLINE OF THE IBERIAN EMPIRES, 1700-1820

Welcome to HIST 259, an upper-level course on the late colonial history of Latin America (1700 to early nineteenth-century). For the benefit of those who will be taking this class without having taken HIST 258 or for whom this might be their only Latin American history class, this course will begin with a brief review of the Spanish, Amerindian, and African populations which created Latin America and the structures of Spanish colonial society. Thereafter, it will examine in depth the Bourbon reforms; the social, economic, and political tensions in the mature colonial society of the 18th century; and the wars of independence leading to the dissolution of the Spanish empire in the 19th century.

FORMAT: This will be a lecture course but discussion is encouraged and will be noted. Your grade will be based on your understanding of the lectures and readings as measured by a midterm exam, two 4-5 page reaction papers, and a final exam.

GRADING: Midterm exam 40%
                    Reaction papers 20%
                    Final exam 40%

MIDTERM EXAM: The midterm exam has been scheduled for Thursday, March 1. This fifty-minute exam will incorporate map, short answer, and identification elements, as well as short essays. It will be worth 40% of your final grade.

REACTION PAPERS: You will write two 4-5 page reaction papers (typed, double-spaced) which will be worth a total of 20% of your final grade. These will address central themes, which I will identify, related to class readings and lectures. You will have a variety of possible selections, and several are keyed to films, outside guests, or events. At least one of your two papers must be related to one of our guest lectures. Please read the hand-out on papers and grading policy.

FINAL EXAM: The final exam is scheduled for Wednesday, May 2, at 3:00 P.M Our alternate exam is scheduled for Friday, April 27^th at noon. This two hour exam follows the format of the midterm. The objective material and one minor essay will be taken from new material covered since the midterm. The major essay question will be cumulative. Your final will be worth 40% of your final grade.

TEACHING ASSISTANT: Our TA and grader for this course is Mr. Barry Robinson. His office is located at SC 6174 (7^th floor) and he may be reached by phone at 343-7852 or by email at barry.m.robinson@vanderbilt.edu. His office hours are Friday 1:00-2:30 and by appointment.

READINGS:

Brown, Jonathan C. Latin America: A Social History of the Colonial Period.

Landers, Jane. Black Society in Spanish Florida

Von Humboldt, Alexander. The Island of Cuba

Kinsbruner, Jay. Independence in Spanish America: Civil Wars, Revolutions, and Underdevelopment.

And selected articles and documents on regular and electronic reserve:

Stuart B. Schwartz, "Resistance and Accommodation in Eighteenth-Century Brazil: The Slaves’ View of Slavery"

                                                    Mary Karasch, "Suppliers, Sellers, Servants and Slaves"

                                                    Lyman L. Johnson, "Francisco Baquero: Shoemaker and Organizer"

Texts are available at the Vanderbilt University Bookstore. Copies of these books are also available at the Reserve Desk of the Central Library and articles have been posted on electronic reserve as well. All readings should be completed prior to class meetings.

NOTE: Vanderbilt's Honor Code governs all work in this course--both tests and papers. Please pay close attention to the section on plagiarism. Uncertainty does not excuse a violation and plagiarism will not be tolerated. Your work must be your own.

Jane Landers 
Class Hours: W 3:10-5:00
Benson 121 
2-3403 
Office Hours: W 10:00  jane.landers@vanderbilt.edu 

HISTORY

THE HISTORY of GENDER and of WOMEN in COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA

Welcome. This graduate seminar will explore the history of gender and its impact on Spanish, Indian, and African women in colonial Latin America. After reviewing a variety of theoretical and disciplinary approaches to the study of gender, we will read about each group of women in their native context and then examine their lives in the new multi-ethnic societies that developed in Latin America after the fifteenth century. Some major themes we will address include gender and family roles, women's work and economic activity, legal and social statuses of distinct groups of women and related issues of social control, and the religious and public lives of women.

APPROACH: Throughout the course we will look at problems of evidence and ways of "knowing". We will examine new perspectives, methods, and sources and borrow from other disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology, and art history. Our goal will be to enhance our understanding of gender and women’s history in Latin American while developing critical thinking and skillful analysis in our written work.

FORMAT: This is a seminar course. Each class will incorporate a brief lecture but will focus on discussion of assigned readings for the week. Your grade will be based on your understanding of the readings, as measured by class participation in discussions and book review, two three-to-four page reaction papers, and a final research paper. This will be a collegial experience involving shared discussions of research. 

GRADING: Class participation/discussion/book review presentations 30% 
                    Reaction papers 30%
                    Final paper 40%

CLASS PARTICIPATION: As part of the participation/discussion grade, each student will be responsible for leading a discussion session on one of the main course readings and one other book to be selected from the attached bibliography (or an alternate after discussion with me). For the first of these presentations you will also write a brief book review (typed, double-space) and provide copies of it for your classmates. (I will provide a hand-out to guide you.) The second presentation does not require a paper but I will expect the same effort otherwise.

REACTION PAPERS: You will write also two 3-4 page reaction papers (typed, double-spaced) which will be worth a total of 30% of your final grade. I have created/and will create a variety of these so you may choose any two. These will address a central theme which I will identify as well as a discussion of evidence and/or method.

FINAL PAPER: You will also write a 12-15 page research paper (the length suitable for a conference paper), based on original research in primary documents and secondary literature. This will constitute 40 % of your grade. You will need to select a topic early and be prepared to update us weekly on your research progress. The final meetings of the class will be devoted to an exchange and critique of your research papers. You must distribute your paper to other class members one week in advance of your presentation so that everyone will have read it. You will then summarize for your presentation and respond to your reader's and classmates critiques.

HONOR CODE: Vanderbilt's Honor Code governs all work in this class. It must be your own.

READINGS: Texts are available at the Vanderbilt University Bookstore. All readings should be completed prior to class meetings.

Cook, Alexandra Parma and Noble David Cook. Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance: A Case of Transatlantic Bigamy (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991).

Higgins, Kathleen J,. "Licentious Liberty" in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999).

Perry, Mary Elizabeth, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

Schroeder, Susan, Stephanie Wood, and Robert Haskett. Indian Women of Early Mexico (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997).

Silverblatt, Irene, Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru (Princeton: Princeton University Press, l987).

Socolow, Susan Migden. The Women of Colonial Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Stern, Setve J. The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico (Chapel Hill: Universiity of North Carolina Press, 1995).

FOLDERS: All articles, documents, and art images are available in folders in the front office which you may xerox.

COURSE CALENDAR:

August 29 Introduction to gender analysis, sources of evidence, and multi-disciplinary approaches for women's history. Discussion of class format and requirements.

Assignment for next meeting: Joan Scott, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," American Historical Review 91, no.5 (December, 1986): 1053-1075;

                          Possible reaction paper: Write an analysis (materialist or symbolic) of one of the documents in Socolow

September 5 (make-up) Discussion of article and Socolow documents

September 12 Discussion of Socolow and folder 1 (on documentary evidence)

September 19 Discussion of Silverblatt and folder 2 (on anthropological and ethnohistorical evidence)

Possible reaction paper: Using the insights or perspectives of ethnohistory and anthropology, analyze a piece of evidence of your choice (documentary or material) for what it tells us about indigenous culture.

September 26 Discussion of Perry and folder 3 (on iconographic evidence)

Possible reaction paper: Select one of the images from Socolow or other works we have been reading or which you have found in the course of research and analyze what it illustrates about some aspect of gender

October 3 Discussion of Cook & Cook and folder 4 (on archaeological evidence)

Possible reaction paper: Consider both the limits and the possibilities of archaeological evidence for examining gender history

Assignment: If you have not already chosen one, I would like you to return to class with a topic and a preliminary bibliography. Be sure to include a variety of research materials–primary and secondary–books and articles–other. We will discuss these as a group and exchange ideas on additional bibliography.

October 10 Meeting with Paula Covington in Electronic Classroom, Central Library and discussion of folder 5

October 17 Discussion of Higgins and folder 6 (more on documentary evidence)

October 24 Spring Break (Research time!)

Assignment: Over break I would like you to prepare an outline of the structure of your paper, update your bibliography, and draft at least one section of your paper to present to the class on your return.

October 31 Discussion of Stern and research topics

November 7 Second book presentations (4) and discussion of folder 7 (more on art and material culture readings)

November 14 Remaining second book presentations

November 21 Thanksgiving Break (More research time!)

November 28 Discussion

December 5 Presentations and critiques of final papers.

December 12 Presentations and critiques of final papers.