In this lecture series we will be tracing the history of enslavement with reference to both the victims and the perpetrators of this system of unfree labour. Thomas Thistlewood, who arrived in Jamaica in 1750, has left us a remarkable account of the violence underpinning plantation life in his In Miserable Slavery. We will be reading this memoir alongside Mary Prince's testimony, The History of Mary Prince, since texts like these provide us with invaluable information about the inhumane conditions under which the slaves, who were transported to the Caribbean as part of the Transatlantic Slavery system as well as their 'Creole' offspring, were forced to subsist. Among more contemporary accounts we have Caryl Phillips' The Atlantic Sound, which memorably recounts his visit to the once notorious Gold Coast slave trading centre at Elmina Castle, described by him as: "If one imagines the Gold Coast to be a large shopping street, then Elmina Castle was undoubtedly its Harrods or Saks Fifth Avenue".
MAIN TEXTS:
Thomas Thistlewood. In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica 1750 – 1786. Ed. Douglas Hall. Kingston, JA: U of W. Indies, 1999.
Mary Prince. The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave. Ed. Sarah Salih. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000.
Caryl Phillips. The Atlantic Sound. New York: Knopf, 2000.
Course material will be placed in the Semesterapparat (IB) or, if otherwise difficult to locate, will be made available online.
Participation
All lecture series material to be read in preparation for each session as scheduled; regular participation in the full lecture series; end of term written test.
Please check the TAS website under "Your Studies" for guidelines, especially on note-taking during a lecture series.
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