Showing posts with label Slavery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Slavery. Show all posts
Monday, 17 September 2012
International Conference: 1804 & Its Afterlives
International Conference: 1804 & Its Afterlives
The Space, Nottingham Contemporary, Friday 7th & Saturday 8th December 2012
1804 & Its Afterlives brings together international speakers whose path-breaking studies have challenged previous orthodoxies about the Haitian Revolution, its local and international repercussions, and its afterlives as inspiration for critical thought, cultural production and political change. Speakers include Colin (aka Joan) Dayan, Barbara Browning, Michael Largey, Dick Geary, Ada Ferrer, Martin Munro, Millery Polyné, Matthew J Smith, Nick Nesbitt.
Free. Book online to receive a full conference programme:
http://nottinghamcontemporary.org/event/1804-its-afterlives
Supported by the University of Nottingham Institute for the Study of Slavery
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Slavery and Revolution - new resource partly based on our archives
We're pleased to promote a new resource, developed by Dr Christer Petley, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Southampton
Slavery and Revolution, is an internet resource for research about Jamaica and Atlantic slavery in the Age of Revolution, which uses a blogging format to showcase excerpts from letters written by Simon Taylor (1738-1813), a slaveholder and plantation owner who lived in Jamaica during a period characterised by revolution, war, and imperial reform. Taylor wrote from Jamaica to friends, family members, business associates, and political allies in Britain. The letters showcased were written between the 1770s and Taylor’s death. These were years of uncertainty and change for all the inhabitants of the British Caribbean, enslaved and free. They included rebellions and resistance by enslaved people, hurricanes, drought, disruption to trade, the rise of the British abolition movement, the French and Haitian Revolutions, war between Britain and France, the Second Maroon War, civil rights campaigning by free people of colour, and the abolition of the slave trade.
Taylor’s worldview was that of a slaveholder. He perceived Africans as inferior to Europeans and believed that it was his right to treat Africans and their descendants as property, as slaves who he could buy, sell, and put to work as he pleased. He generally saw enslaved people not as human beings but as a source of labour. His comments can make for uncomfortable reading. Nevertheless, his letters are important sources for historical research because of the new light that they can shed on a number of themes, including transformations to empire and slavery during the Age of Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century.
The original copies of these letters are held in the UK at Cambridge University Library and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library. The transcriptions appear here with the kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library. Each excerpt is accompanied by the full reference to the item from which it has been drawn in the Vanneck-Arcedeckne collection in Cambridge University Library or the Taylor Family Papers in the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library
The website is a free resource, open to anyone. Its contents are intended for use by academics, students, and others to use in their research, teaching, and learning.
Web address: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/slaveryandrevolution/
Follow Slavery and Revolution on Twitter: Slavery & Revolution @SlandRev
Email: c.petley@soton.ac.uk
Slavery and Revolution, is an internet resource for research about Jamaica and Atlantic slavery in the Age of Revolution, which uses a blogging format to showcase excerpts from letters written by Simon Taylor (1738-1813), a slaveholder and plantation owner who lived in Jamaica during a period characterised by revolution, war, and imperial reform. Taylor wrote from Jamaica to friends, family members, business associates, and political allies in Britain. The letters showcased were written between the 1770s and Taylor’s death. These were years of uncertainty and change for all the inhabitants of the British Caribbean, enslaved and free. They included rebellions and resistance by enslaved people, hurricanes, drought, disruption to trade, the rise of the British abolition movement, the French and Haitian Revolutions, war between Britain and France, the Second Maroon War, civil rights campaigning by free people of colour, and the abolition of the slave trade.
Taylor’s worldview was that of a slaveholder. He perceived Africans as inferior to Europeans and believed that it was his right to treat Africans and their descendants as property, as slaves who he could buy, sell, and put to work as he pleased. He generally saw enslaved people not as human beings but as a source of labour. His comments can make for uncomfortable reading. Nevertheless, his letters are important sources for historical research because of the new light that they can shed on a number of themes, including transformations to empire and slavery during the Age of Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century.
The original copies of these letters are held in the UK at Cambridge University Library and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library. The transcriptions appear here with the kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library. Each excerpt is accompanied by the full reference to the item from which it has been drawn in the Vanneck-Arcedeckne collection in Cambridge University Library or the Taylor Family Papers in the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library
The website is a free resource, open to anyone. Its contents are intended for use by academics, students, and others to use in their research, teaching, and learning.
Web address: http://blog.soton.ac.uk/slaveryandrevolution/
Follow Slavery and Revolution on Twitter: Slavery & Revolution @SlandRev
Email: c.petley@soton.ac.uk
Monday, 5 March 2012
The Slave Business and Its Material and Moral Hinterlands in Continental Europe
CONFERENCE: The Slave Business and Its Material and Moral Hinterlands in Continental Europe
International Slavery Museum, Liverpool, April 20-22, 2012
The history of transatlantic slavery is one of the most active and fruitful fields of historical research worldwide. As scholarship in this field is increasingly global, it opens up unique possibilities for international collaboration. More particularly, the most recent research which looks beyond the familiar Atlantic axis and the principal slave-trading nations has made clear the scope for new kinds of comparative and trans-regional studies. The conference revisits a number of key themes relevant to the relationship between slavery (outside Europe) and the dynamics of (European) metropolitan society, giving specific attention to developments in Continental Europe and in particular to the German-speaking regions. These themes include the impact of the slave business on capitalist development and the development of discourses around slavery and abolition in the public sphere. Behind that there lie questions about private conscience – in the first instance about what was known and knowable about the implication of individual economic actors in one of the earliest globalised businesses. By focusing our attention on regions which were physically and politically distant not only from the mines and plantations of the Americas but also from Europe’s ‘slave capitals’ like Liverpool, London, Nantes and Bordeaux, we hope not only to assemble new data and thereby better understand the material ‘reach’ of transatlantic slavery, but also to address wider questions about the ways in which location/space structures knowledge, values and interest by applying them to the particularly dramatic case of slavery in what are still seen as marginal places. How does the geographical status of ‘hinterland’ relate to conditions of economic and moral/discursive interchange?
The conference begins with a keynote lecture by Catherine Hall, Director of the UCL/ESRC project on British stakeholders in slavery and post-abolition compensation, and ends with a session on memory work in teaching, public art and public and community history.
Confirmed speakers
Sabine Broeck (University of Bremen): Bremen and the slave business: Notes on a Hermeneutics of Absence, and a Pedagogy of the Trace Peter Haenger (Basel): Basel and the slave trade: from profiteers to missionaries Dan Hopkins (University of Missouri at Kansas City): Julius von Rohr, an Enlightenment scientist of the plantation Atlantic Jokinen (Hamburg): The Slave Trader Heinrich Carl Schimmelmann and Cultures of Remembrance in Wandsbek: Vestiges, Myths and Protests Craig Koslofsky (University of Illinois at Urbana): A German Diary of a Slaving Journey in the 1690s Jochen Meissner (Humboldt University Berlin): Southern European and Latin American Responses to British Abolitionism Kwame Nimako (University of Amsterdam): The Peace of Westphalia, Slavery and the Berlin Conference: A Continuum Anne-Sophie Overkamp (Viadrina University, Frankfurt a.d.O): The German backcountry and the Atlantic exchange: The participation of textile merchants from the Wupper valley in the Atlantic trade, 1760-1810 Allan Potofsky (University of Paris-Diderot): Paris as Atlantic Hinterland, from the Ancien Régime to the French Revolution Alan Rice (University of Central Lancashire): Chair / comment Barbara Richiger (Cooperaxion - Bern): A Swiss database of slave-trade stakeholders Alexandra Robinson (University of Liverpool): A case study of the Earle family’s Leghorn business 1751 -1808 Klaus Weber (Viadrina University, Frankfurt a.d.O): ‘All the Negroes cloathed with German Linen’: Central European Implications with the Atlantic Slave Trade, 15th-19th Centuries
For full details, visit the conference website at http://www.liv.ac.uk/soclas/conferences/Hinterlands/
International Slavery Museum, Liverpool, April 20-22, 2012
The history of transatlantic slavery is one of the most active and fruitful fields of historical research worldwide. As scholarship in this field is increasingly global, it opens up unique possibilities for international collaboration. More particularly, the most recent research which looks beyond the familiar Atlantic axis and the principal slave-trading nations has made clear the scope for new kinds of comparative and trans-regional studies. The conference revisits a number of key themes relevant to the relationship between slavery (outside Europe) and the dynamics of (European) metropolitan society, giving specific attention to developments in Continental Europe and in particular to the German-speaking regions. These themes include the impact of the slave business on capitalist development and the development of discourses around slavery and abolition in the public sphere. Behind that there lie questions about private conscience – in the first instance about what was known and knowable about the implication of individual economic actors in one of the earliest globalised businesses. By focusing our attention on regions which were physically and politically distant not only from the mines and plantations of the Americas but also from Europe’s ‘slave capitals’ like Liverpool, London, Nantes and Bordeaux, we hope not only to assemble new data and thereby better understand the material ‘reach’ of transatlantic slavery, but also to address wider questions about the ways in which location/space structures knowledge, values and interest by applying them to the particularly dramatic case of slavery in what are still seen as marginal places. How does the geographical status of ‘hinterland’ relate to conditions of economic and moral/discursive interchange?
The conference begins with a keynote lecture by Catherine Hall, Director of the UCL/ESRC project on British stakeholders in slavery and post-abolition compensation, and ends with a session on memory work in teaching, public art and public and community history.
Confirmed speakers
Sabine Broeck (University of Bremen): Bremen and the slave business: Notes on a Hermeneutics of Absence, and a Pedagogy of the Trace Peter Haenger (Basel): Basel and the slave trade: from profiteers to missionaries Dan Hopkins (University of Missouri at Kansas City): Julius von Rohr, an Enlightenment scientist of the plantation Atlantic Jokinen (Hamburg): The Slave Trader Heinrich Carl Schimmelmann and Cultures of Remembrance in Wandsbek: Vestiges, Myths and Protests Craig Koslofsky (University of Illinois at Urbana): A German Diary of a Slaving Journey in the 1690s Jochen Meissner (Humboldt University Berlin): Southern European and Latin American Responses to British Abolitionism Kwame Nimako (University of Amsterdam): The Peace of Westphalia, Slavery and the Berlin Conference: A Continuum Anne-Sophie Overkamp (Viadrina University, Frankfurt a.d.O): The German backcountry and the Atlantic exchange: The participation of textile merchants from the Wupper valley in the Atlantic trade, 1760-1810 Allan Potofsky (University of Paris-Diderot): Paris as Atlantic Hinterland, from the Ancien Régime to the French Revolution Alan Rice (University of Central Lancashire): Chair / comment Barbara Richiger (Cooperaxion - Bern): A Swiss database of slave-trade stakeholders Alexandra Robinson (University of Liverpool): A case study of the Earle family’s Leghorn business 1751 -1808 Klaus Weber (Viadrina University, Frankfurt a.d.O): ‘All the Negroes cloathed with German Linen’: Central European Implications with the Atlantic Slave Trade, 15th-19th Centuries
For full details, visit the conference website at http://www.liv.ac.uk/soclas/conferences/Hinterlands/
Saturday, 14 January 2012
2012 Frederick Douglass Book Prize
The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition is pleased to announce the 2012 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, an annual award for the most outstanding nonfiction book published in English on the subject of slavery and/or abolition and antislavery movements.
Publishers and authors are invited to submit books that meet these criteria.
We are interested in all geographical areas and time periods. Please note, however, that works related to the Civil War are acceptable only if their primary focus relates to slavery or emancipation.
Nominations for books published in 2011 will be accepted beginning in January 2012. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2012. To receive instructions on how to submit a book (information will be available in late fall/early winter), please contact the Gilder Lehrman Center, MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, at 230 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, fax (203) 432-6943, or e-mail to gilder.lehrman.center@yale.edu
Publishers and authors are invited to submit books that meet these criteria.
We are interested in all geographical areas and time periods. Please note, however, that works related to the Civil War are acceptable only if their primary focus relates to slavery or emancipation.
Nominations for books published in 2011 will be accepted beginning in January 2012. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2012. To receive instructions on how to submit a book (information will be available in late fall/early winter), please contact the Gilder Lehrman Center, MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, at 230 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, fax (203) 432-6943, or e-mail to gilder.lehrman.center@yale.edu
Monday, 14 November 2011
British Library Scholarship PhD Project: Narratives and depictions of slaves and former slaves in Canada: 1800 - 1900
British Library Scholarship PhD Project
Narratives and depictions of slaves and former slaves in Canada: 1800 - 1900
Supervisors: Dr Jane Hodson (School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics) and Dr Philip Hatfield (British Library)
The British Library Scholarships arise from the special relationship the University has with the British Library. They support projects that draw significantly on both the holdings and expertise of the British Library.
Project description
The aim of this research project is to explore narratives which describe experiences of slavery which took place in Canada. Canada has a positive popular reputation regarding slavery, being seen as one of the safest end points of a journey via the ‘underground railroad’. However, it also has a darker history, having witnessed both the enslavement of many Native Americans and the use of African origin slaves prior to abolition. A significant body of nineteenth-century literature by and about slaves and former slaves in Canada exists but it has been poorly researched, not least because it has often been overshadowed by American slave narratives (Clarke, 2005).
This project will work from the British Library collections to develop a database of Canadian slave narratives. The database will record information about the authoring, editing and publication of the narratives, plus a brief description and classification of the contents. Particular attention will be paid to the way in which the slave's voice, experience and perspective are handled.
The database will then be used to explore both what might be specifically Canadian about these narratives, and how these narratives relate to wider social, literary and political networks. This is of particular significance as it seems that some Caribbean narratives, such as that of Mary Prince, were sponsored and edited by prominent Canadian literary figures, in Prince’s case Susanna Moodie.
The project aims to address some of the following questions:
• To what extent do Canadian slave narratives constitute a specifically Canadian experience/depiction of slavery?
• How do these Canadian narratives connect to other nineteenth century discourses about slavery?
• In particular, how do these Canadian narratives align with key American and Caribbean narratives such as The History of Mary Prince (1831)?
Relevant Library Holdings
The British Library provides a uniquely centralised resource for considering the representation of slaves, former slaves and their narratives in Canada. The British Library collections hold the vast majority of texts published in North America which bear reference to African slave experiences. Materials published in Canada are extensively present in either original form (some of which are very rare) or reproductions. Further, and very significantly, the Library holds an extensive collection of newspapers from eastern Canada running from the mid 18th century. It has been noted that the majority of slave narratives (especially early ones) published in Canada would have been in these papers, as opposed to in monographs, and that this area requires more critical attention (Clarke, 2005).
Award details
The scholarship will cover the cost of UK/EU tuition fees and provides an annual, tax-free maintenance stipend at the standard Research Council rate (£13,590 in 2011-12). The recipient will also receive a Research Training Support Grant of £500 per year. International applicants will need to pay the difference between the UK/EU and Overseas tuition fees.
Eligibility
• Academic requirements – applicants should have, or expect to achieve, a first or upper second class UK honours degree or equivalent qualifications gained outside the UK in an appropriate area of study.
• Allowed study options – applicants should be registering on their first year of study with the University for 2012-13.
• Residency restrictions – awards are open to UK, EU and international applicants.
How to apply
• Applicants are advised to contact both supervisors (Jane Hodson j.hodson@sheffield.ac.uk; Philip Hatfield Philip.Hatfield@bl.uk) to discuss their application in the first instance.
• Complete an application for admission as a postgraduate student - http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/apply
• On the application form please state you are applying for this project and briefly outline (in less than 500 words) your reasons for doing so.
Applicants may be asked to attend an interview.
Closing date 3 February 2012.
Narratives and depictions of slaves and former slaves in Canada: 1800 - 1900
Supervisors: Dr Jane Hodson (School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics) and Dr Philip Hatfield (British Library)
The British Library Scholarships arise from the special relationship the University has with the British Library. They support projects that draw significantly on both the holdings and expertise of the British Library.
Project description
The aim of this research project is to explore narratives which describe experiences of slavery which took place in Canada. Canada has a positive popular reputation regarding slavery, being seen as one of the safest end points of a journey via the ‘underground railroad’. However, it also has a darker history, having witnessed both the enslavement of many Native Americans and the use of African origin slaves prior to abolition. A significant body of nineteenth-century literature by and about slaves and former slaves in Canada exists but it has been poorly researched, not least because it has often been overshadowed by American slave narratives (Clarke, 2005).
This project will work from the British Library collections to develop a database of Canadian slave narratives. The database will record information about the authoring, editing and publication of the narratives, plus a brief description and classification of the contents. Particular attention will be paid to the way in which the slave's voice, experience and perspective are handled.
The database will then be used to explore both what might be specifically Canadian about these narratives, and how these narratives relate to wider social, literary and political networks. This is of particular significance as it seems that some Caribbean narratives, such as that of Mary Prince, were sponsored and edited by prominent Canadian literary figures, in Prince’s case Susanna Moodie.
The project aims to address some of the following questions:
• To what extent do Canadian slave narratives constitute a specifically Canadian experience/depiction of slavery?
• How do these Canadian narratives connect to other nineteenth century discourses about slavery?
• In particular, how do these Canadian narratives align with key American and Caribbean narratives such as The History of Mary Prince (1831)?
Relevant Library Holdings
The British Library provides a uniquely centralised resource for considering the representation of slaves, former slaves and their narratives in Canada. The British Library collections hold the vast majority of texts published in North America which bear reference to African slave experiences. Materials published in Canada are extensively present in either original form (some of which are very rare) or reproductions. Further, and very significantly, the Library holds an extensive collection of newspapers from eastern Canada running from the mid 18th century. It has been noted that the majority of slave narratives (especially early ones) published in Canada would have been in these papers, as opposed to in monographs, and that this area requires more critical attention (Clarke, 2005).
Award details
The scholarship will cover the cost of UK/EU tuition fees and provides an annual, tax-free maintenance stipend at the standard Research Council rate (£13,590 in 2011-12). The recipient will also receive a Research Training Support Grant of £500 per year. International applicants will need to pay the difference between the UK/EU and Overseas tuition fees.
Eligibility
• Academic requirements – applicants should have, or expect to achieve, a first or upper second class UK honours degree or equivalent qualifications gained outside the UK in an appropriate area of study.
• Allowed study options – applicants should be registering on their first year of study with the University for 2012-13.
• Residency restrictions – awards are open to UK, EU and international applicants.
How to apply
• Applicants are advised to contact both supervisors (Jane Hodson j.hodson@sheffield.ac.uk; Philip Hatfield Philip.Hatfield@bl.uk) to discuss their application in the first instance.
• Complete an application for admission as a postgraduate student - http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/apply
• On the application form please state you are applying for this project and briefly outline (in less than 500 words) your reasons for doing so.
Applicants may be asked to attend an interview.
Closing date 3 February 2012.
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Slavery collections
Please note that the Senate House Library Slavery archive subject guides have been upgraded.
They now include relevant archives held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library, including Taylor Family, West India Committee, Castle Wemyss Estate and Sandbach Tinne and Co collections, adding to the Senate House Library collections, including those of the Akers Family and of William Hewitt
http://www.shl.lon.ac.uk/specialcollections/archives/slaveryarchivesources.shtml
They now include relevant archives held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library, including Taylor Family, West India Committee, Castle Wemyss Estate and Sandbach Tinne and Co collections, adding to the Senate House Library collections, including those of the Akers Family and of William Hewitt
http://www.shl.lon.ac.uk/specialcollections/archives/slaveryarchivesources.shtml
Monday, 12 September 2011
Biographies: The Atlantic Slave Data Network
Biographies: The Atlantic Slave Data Network
Call for Database Contributions, Michigan State University.
The National Endowment for the Humanities has funded "Biographies: The Atlantic Slaves Data Network" (ASDN). The ASDN will provide a platform for researchers of African slaves in the Atlantic World to upload, analyze, visualize, and utilize data they have collected, and to link it to other datasets, which together will complement each other in such a way as to create a much richer resource than the individual datasets alone. To help you better understand our vision we encourage you to visit the project website at : http://www.slavebiographies.org/
Project Directors have recently met with representatives from MATRIX, Michigan State University's digital humanities center, who will create the ASDN website. MATRIX is currently assessing the needs of the ASDN based upon Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's large dataset for Louisiana and Walter Hawthorne's smaller dataset for Maranhão, Brazil. But the more examples of datasets we have the better able we will be to define fields, to work through issues of combining data in different electronic formats, and to cope with other challenges we are bound to face. What we need now are additional scholars to share their database structures to help us create and set the parameters of the ASDN.
Any scholars interested in sharing their databases are encouraged to contact the Project Directors at the email addresses posted below.
Databases will not be made public unless permission is granted.
Project Directors:
Gwendolyn Midlo-Hall, ghall1929@gmail.com
Walter Hawthorne, walterh@msu.edu
General Project Information:contact@slavebiographies.org
Call for Database Contributions, Michigan State University.
The National Endowment for the Humanities has funded "Biographies: The Atlantic Slaves Data Network" (ASDN). The ASDN will provide a platform for researchers of African slaves in the Atlantic World to upload, analyze, visualize, and utilize data they have collected, and to link it to other datasets, which together will complement each other in such a way as to create a much richer resource than the individual datasets alone. To help you better understand our vision we encourage you to visit the project website at : http://www.slavebiographies.org/
Project Directors have recently met with representatives from MATRIX, Michigan State University's digital humanities center, who will create the ASDN website. MATRIX is currently assessing the needs of the ASDN based upon Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's large dataset for Louisiana and Walter Hawthorne's smaller dataset for Maranhão, Brazil. But the more examples of datasets we have the better able we will be to define fields, to work through issues of combining data in different electronic formats, and to cope with other challenges we are bound to face. What we need now are additional scholars to share their database structures to help us create and set the parameters of the ASDN.
Any scholars interested in sharing their databases are encouraged to contact the Project Directors at the email addresses posted below.
Databases will not be made public unless permission is granted.
Project Directors:
Gwendolyn Midlo-Hall, ghall1929@gmail.com
Walter Hawthorne, walterh@msu.edu
General Project Information:contact@slavebiographies.org
Monday, 5 September 2011
SAS-Space
So shameless self promotion - and to inform you we have added some conference papers on various Caribbean topics, presented by the Commonwealth Studies Librarian at the Society for Caribbean Studies conference to SAS-Space, the School's Institutional Repository.
Clover, David (2005) Dispersed or destroyed: archives, the West Indian Students' Union, and public memory. Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, 6 . ISSN 1471-2024
Clover, David (2006) Visions of the Caribbean: exploring photographs in the West India Committee Collection. Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, 7 . ISSN 1471-2024
Clover, David (2007) The West Indian Club Ltd: an early 20th century West Indian interest in London. Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, 8 . ISSN 1471-2024
Clover, David (2008) “This horably wicked action”: abortion and resistance on a Jamaican slave plantation. Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, 9 . ISSN 1471-2024
More papers on various topics will be added over the next few weeks.
Clover, David (2005) Dispersed or destroyed: archives, the West Indian Students' Union, and public memory. Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, 6 . ISSN 1471-2024
Clover, David (2006) Visions of the Caribbean: exploring photographs in the West India Committee Collection. Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, 7 . ISSN 1471-2024
Clover, David (2007) The West Indian Club Ltd: an early 20th century West Indian interest in London. Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, 8 . ISSN 1471-2024
Clover, David (2008) “This horably wicked action”: abortion and resistance on a Jamaican slave plantation. Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, 9 . ISSN 1471-2024
More papers on various topics will be added over the next few weeks.
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull Ph.D Scholarships for 2011
Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull Ph.D Scholarships for 2011
To celebrate recent research successes, the University of Hull has made available 30 UK/EU PhD scholarships and 30 international PhD fees bursaries. Of these, 20 scholarships and bursaries will be available to students from FASS (Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences), which includes the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation.
Applicants from European Union are eligible for a scholarship which includes course fees and a stipend to cover living costs. Students from outside the European Union are eligible for a scholarship which covers course fees. As part of this larger scholarship round, the Wilberforce Institute is particularly keen to encourage applications for scholarships in the following areas:
* Historical Slave Systems and Global Diasporas.
* The Abolition of Slavery and the Transition to Freedom.
* Memories, Legacies and Representations of Slavery and Abolition.
* Modern Slavery, Human Rights and Human Development.
* Wartime Enslavement and Sexual Violence.
The deadline for applications is the 31st of May.
Applications
Formal applications for a scholarship need to be made through the University's Admissions Office, rather than to the Wilberforce Institute directly. Application forms can be obtained from the University Admissions Office or downloaded in Word format from their website.
University of Hull Admissions Office <http://www2.hull.ac.uk/student/admissions.aspx>
The University of Hull, HU6 7RX, UK
Tel +44 (0)1482 466850
Fax +44 (0)1482 442290
Email admissions@hull.ac.uk
In order to apply for a scholarship, you should submit the following information:
1. A Completed Application form:
2. A research proposal (around 1,000-1200 words) which should explain:
a) the area of the project
b) the research questions that will be addressed
c) the approach and methods to be employed
3. A brief statement of how the applicant is qualified (formally and in terms of skills, personal attributes etc.) to carry out the project
4. Two references from individuals who are qualified to comment upon your project and professional career to date.
For further information, please contact Dr Douglas Hamilton at D.Hamilton@hull.ac.uk
To celebrate recent research successes, the University of Hull has made available 30 UK/EU PhD scholarships and 30 international PhD fees bursaries. Of these, 20 scholarships and bursaries will be available to students from FASS (Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences), which includes the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation.
Applicants from European Union are eligible for a scholarship which includes course fees and a stipend to cover living costs. Students from outside the European Union are eligible for a scholarship which covers course fees. As part of this larger scholarship round, the Wilberforce Institute is particularly keen to encourage applications for scholarships in the following areas:
* Historical Slave Systems and Global Diasporas.
* The Abolition of Slavery and the Transition to Freedom.
* Memories, Legacies and Representations of Slavery and Abolition.
* Modern Slavery, Human Rights and Human Development.
* Wartime Enslavement and Sexual Violence.
The deadline for applications is the 31st of May.
Applications
Formal applications for a scholarship need to be made through the University's Admissions Office, rather than to the Wilberforce Institute directly. Application forms can be obtained from the University Admissions Office or downloaded in Word format from their website.
University of Hull Admissions Office <http://www2.hull.ac.uk/student/admissions.aspx>
The University of Hull, HU6 7RX, UK
Tel +44 (0)1482 466850
Fax +44 (0)1482 442290
Email admissions@hull.ac.uk
In order to apply for a scholarship, you should submit the following information:
1. A Completed Application form:
2. A research proposal (around 1,000-1200 words) which should explain:
a) the area of the project
b) the research questions that will be addressed
c) the approach and methods to be employed
3. A brief statement of how the applicant is qualified (formally and in terms of skills, personal attributes etc.) to carry out the project
4. Two references from individuals who are qualified to comment upon your project and professional career to date.
For further information, please contact Dr Douglas Hamilton at D.Hamilton@hull.ac.uk
Friday, 18 March 2011
list available online for early West India Committee records
The West India Committee was formed in the 18th century, by London merchants, engaged in the West Indian trade, and absentee owners of West Indian estates. The Committee acted as a pressure group for West Indian interests, principally in the support of the sugar and rum trades and, in the first decades of its existence, in opposition to the abolition of the slave trade and then slavery.
The collection description of the collection is available on the ULRLS Archives Catalogue.
Included in the collection is a microfilm copy of the early records, minutes and papers of the West India Committee, the original material being sold by the West India Committee to the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, and the microfilm copy being made as a condition of export.
M915 West India Committee minutes 1769-1924 [microfilm] contains:
Minutes and papers of the West India Committee and its predecessors, sub-committees and related organisations, including:
•West India Merchants
•West India Planters and Merchants
•Admiralty Committee of the West India Merchants
•Sub-Committee of the West India Planters and Merchants Appointed to Oppose the Abolition of the Slave Trade
•Literary Sub-Committee of the West India Planters and Merchants
•Merchants, Owners and Masters of Ships
•Jamaica Planters and Merchants
•Country Committees and Proprietors’ Groups: eg. Demerara and Berbice (later British Guiana), Jamaica, Trinidad, and Importers of West Indian Cocoa committees
•British and Colonial Anti Bounty Association
•Board of Commissioners of Grenada and St. Vincent
•Meeting of MPs Interested in the West Indian Colonies
We have added a PDF listing for contents of the microfilm to the collection description. We hope this increases access to the collections and assists users in requesting parts of the collection. (If you want to see this colelction please ask for Reels required). If interested in using this collection please email Senate House Library Special Collections.
The collection description of the collection is available on the ULRLS Archives Catalogue.
Included in the collection is a microfilm copy of the early records, minutes and papers of the West India Committee, the original material being sold by the West India Committee to the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, and the microfilm copy being made as a condition of export.
M915 West India Committee minutes 1769-1924 [microfilm] contains:
Minutes and papers of the West India Committee and its predecessors, sub-committees and related organisations, including:
•West India Merchants
•West India Planters and Merchants
•Admiralty Committee of the West India Merchants
•Sub-Committee of the West India Planters and Merchants Appointed to Oppose the Abolition of the Slave Trade
•Literary Sub-Committee of the West India Planters and Merchants
•Merchants, Owners and Masters of Ships
•Jamaica Planters and Merchants
•Country Committees and Proprietors’ Groups: eg. Demerara and Berbice (later British Guiana), Jamaica, Trinidad, and Importers of West Indian Cocoa committees
•British and Colonial Anti Bounty Association
•Board of Commissioners of Grenada and St. Vincent
•Meeting of MPs Interested in the West Indian Colonies
We have added a PDF listing for contents of the microfilm to the collection description. We hope this increases access to the collections and assists users in requesting parts of the collection. (If you want to see this colelction please ask for Reels required). If interested in using this collection please email Senate House Library Special Collections.
Friday, 11 March 2011
Slavery and the English Country House
Final research papers from the work on slave trade and abolition links commissioned by English Heritage on four sites in its care have now been published on the EH website at:
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/people-and-places/the-slave-trade-and-abolition/slavery-and-the-british-country-house/
The four sites are: Bolsover Castle, Brodsworth Hall, Northington Grange and Marble Hill House.
A book containing all the papers from the 2009 conference "Slavery and the British Country House" is due to be published by English Heritage later in 2011.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/people-and-places/the-slave-trade-and-abolition/slavery-and-the-british-country-house/
The four sites are: Bolsover Castle, Brodsworth Hall, Northington Grange and Marble Hill House.
A book containing all the papers from the 2009 conference "Slavery and the British Country House" is due to be published by English Heritage later in 2011.
Monday, 7 December 2009
New online resources - 19th Century British Pamphlets
Members of the library now have access to the new 19th Century British Pamphlets collection. This collection, created by RLUK (Research Libraries UK), contains a number of the most significant British pamphlets from the 19th century held in UK research libraries. Pamphlets were an important means of public debate, covering the key political, social, technological, and environmental issues of their day. They have been underutilized within research and teaching because they are generally quite difficult to access – often bound together in large numbers or otherwise hard to find in the few research libraries that hold them. The digitization of more than 20,000 pamphlets from seven UK institutions will provide researchers, students, and teachers with an immensely rich and coherent corpus of primary sources with which to study the socio-political and economic landscape of 19th century Britain. This collection was created with funding from the JISC Digitisation Programme
Significant collections within the resource for colonial history include:
Earl Grey Pamphlets Collection
Still owned by the family, this collection was largely accumulated by the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Earls Grey. Charles was Foreign Secretary (1806-07) and Prime Minister (1830-34). Henry George was Under Secretary for Home Affairs (1830) and the Colonies (1830-34), Secretary at War (1835-39), and Secretary of State for the Colonies (1846-52). Albert Henry George was Administrator of Rhodesia (1896-97) and Governor-General of Canada (1904-11). The Greys were particularly interested in parliamentary reform, colonial affairs and Catholic emancipation.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection
On deposit from the FCO, this collection comprises the earlier collections of the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office. Both include rare publications from overseas. The Foreign Office Collection consists largely of pamphlets sent back to London by British ambassadors to help with policy formation. It is particularly rich in material related to South America, the Near East, and to the various great European political "questions" of the 19th century. The Colonial Office Collection is chiefly comprised of pamphlets sent back from Britain's colonies, including some unique early material from Australasia.
Knowsley Pamphlet Collection
The Knowsley collection reflects the political careers of the Earls of Derby. Edward George, the 14th Earl, was successively Irish Secretary (1830-33), Colonial Secretary (1833-34, 1841-44), and three times Prime Minister (1852, 1858-59, and 1866-68). His son, Edward Henry, 15th Earl, was Colonial Secretary and later Indian secretary in his father's administration of 1858-59.
LSE Selected Pamphlets
LSE has a substantial number of 19th century pamphlets. Among its pamphlets are comprehensive collections of political party materials, including election manifestos and political cartoons. There are also collections from pressure groups such as the Fabian Society, Imperial Federation Defence Committee, Poor Law Reform Association, Workhouse Visiting Society, Liberal and Property Defence League, and from cooperative movements such as the Cooperative Women's Guild.
Wilson Anti-Slavery Collection
A collection of 19th-century anti-slavery pamphlets received in 1923 from the executors of Henry Joseph Wilson (1833-1914), the distinguished Liberal Member of Parliament for Sheffield. The collection is of particular importance for the study of the activities of the provincial philanthropic societies, such as the Birmingham and Midland Freedmen's Aid Association, the Birmingham and West Bromwich Ladies' Negro's Friend Society, the Glasgow Emancipation Society, the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society, and the Sheffield Ladies Female Anti Slavery Society. Of interest is the prominent role of women in the movement, who formed themselves into societies which lobbied MPs and printed pamphlets on the conditions of slaves. Here we have details of what was sold at their bazaars to raise funds and lists of names of subscribers, the minutiae which bring alive the history of the movement.
Significant collections within the resource for colonial history include:
Earl Grey Pamphlets Collection
Still owned by the family, this collection was largely accumulated by the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Earls Grey. Charles was Foreign Secretary (1806-07) and Prime Minister (1830-34). Henry George was Under Secretary for Home Affairs (1830) and the Colonies (1830-34), Secretary at War (1835-39), and Secretary of State for the Colonies (1846-52). Albert Henry George was Administrator of Rhodesia (1896-97) and Governor-General of Canada (1904-11). The Greys were particularly interested in parliamentary reform, colonial affairs and Catholic emancipation.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection
On deposit from the FCO, this collection comprises the earlier collections of the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office. Both include rare publications from overseas. The Foreign Office Collection consists largely of pamphlets sent back to London by British ambassadors to help with policy formation. It is particularly rich in material related to South America, the Near East, and to the various great European political "questions" of the 19th century. The Colonial Office Collection is chiefly comprised of pamphlets sent back from Britain's colonies, including some unique early material from Australasia.
Knowsley Pamphlet Collection
The Knowsley collection reflects the political careers of the Earls of Derby. Edward George, the 14th Earl, was successively Irish Secretary (1830-33), Colonial Secretary (1833-34, 1841-44), and three times Prime Minister (1852, 1858-59, and 1866-68). His son, Edward Henry, 15th Earl, was Colonial Secretary and later Indian secretary in his father's administration of 1858-59.
LSE Selected Pamphlets
LSE has a substantial number of 19th century pamphlets. Among its pamphlets are comprehensive collections of political party materials, including election manifestos and political cartoons. There are also collections from pressure groups such as the Fabian Society, Imperial Federation Defence Committee, Poor Law Reform Association, Workhouse Visiting Society, Liberal and Property Defence League, and from cooperative movements such as the Cooperative Women's Guild.
Wilson Anti-Slavery Collection
A collection of 19th-century anti-slavery pamphlets received in 1923 from the executors of Henry Joseph Wilson (1833-1914), the distinguished Liberal Member of Parliament for Sheffield. The collection is of particular importance for the study of the activities of the provincial philanthropic societies, such as the Birmingham and Midland Freedmen's Aid Association, the Birmingham and West Bromwich Ladies' Negro's Friend Society, the Glasgow Emancipation Society, the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society, and the Sheffield Ladies Female Anti Slavery Society. Of interest is the prominent role of women in the movement, who formed themselves into societies which lobbied MPs and printed pamphlets on the conditions of slaves. Here we have details of what was sold at their bazaars to raise funds and lists of names of subscribers, the minutiae which bring alive the history of the movement.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Anti-Slavery journals available online in British Periodicals e-resource
Library members interested in slavery may be interested in looking at the British Periodicals database, available in the library.
ProQuest's British Periodicals is a large database of periodicals, charting the development and growth of the periodical press in Britain from its origins in the 17th century to the Victorian 'age of periodicals' and beyond. The database includes digital copies of each page of the titles included, in a high resolution bitonal facsimile, and includes illustrations and advertisements. The full text of each publication can be searched.
Some titles of specific interest include:
ProQuest's British Periodicals is a large database of periodicals, charting the development and growth of the periodical press in Britain from its origins in the 17th century to the Victorian 'age of periodicals' and beyond. The database includes digital copies of each page of the titles included, in a high resolution bitonal facsimile, and includes illustrations and advertisements. The full text of each publication can be searched.
Some titles of specific interest include:
- Anti-Slavery Reporter (1825-1833)
- Anti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines' Friend (1840-1931) and
- Freed-man. A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Interests of the Freed Coloured People (1865-1868)
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Featured collection: West India Committee rare books (2)
In vivid contrast to the anti-abolitionist perspective of Bridges’ Annals stand the stoutly anti-slavery sentiments of Edwin Angel Wallbridge’s The Demerara Martyr, Memoirs of the Rev. John Smith, Missionary to Demerara. This 1848 first edition, which is also extremely scarce, examines the Demerara slave rebellion of 1823, taking the figure of John Smith as its central focus.
John Smith was born in Northamptonshire and had a background in trade. At the age of eighteen, he underwent a religious conversion and felt a calling to missionary service. Smith received some training in Essex and Gosport and was ordained, accepting a missionary post in Demerara. He set out with his new wife, Jane, a fellow member of the evangelical movement and in February, 1817, arrived at his post at Le Resouvenir estate in Demerara. Demerara, a former Dutch colony, had been in British hands since 1814, and was to become part of British Guiana in 1831.
John Smith was born in Northamptonshire and had a background in trade. At the age of eighteen, he underwent a religious conversion and felt a calling to missionary service. Smith received some training in Essex and Gosport and was ordained, accepting a missionary post in Demerara. He set out with his new wife, Jane, a fellow member of the evangelical movement and in February, 1817, arrived at his post at Le Resouvenir estate in Demerara. Demerara, a former Dutch colony, had been in British hands since 1814, and was to become part of British Guiana in 1831.
Some reservations had been expressed about Smith’s suitability for the post in Demerara, notes E. V. Da Costa, a historian of the Demerara slave uprising. Smith’s referee to the London Missionary Society, the Reverend John Angell James, described the would-be missionary as “entirely a novice” and ill-prepared for such a challenging posting, where a missionary was likely to encounter hostility and resentment from slave-owners. Da Costa points out that Smith’s working-class origins, youth and lack of experience must have made it impossible to gain the trust and respect of the status-conscious landowners of Demerara, and contributed to his fatal alienation from them.
Although Smith was not popular among the planters of Demerara, he seems to have engaged well with the slaves to whom he ministered, gradually tailoring his schedule of services and the content of his sermons to their needs and interests. He did not, however, further or favour the slave rebellion which commenced on August 18, 1823. On the other hand, he also refused to join a militia of planters to counter the rebellion. For this he was arrested, convicted by a court martial of fomenting discontent among the slaves, and condemned to death by hanging. He died of a lung disease while in prison, before news of the English government’s decision to grant him clemency reached Demerara. The hostility of the colonial authorities carried over even into the funeral arrangements, according to Wallbridge. Mrs Smith was not allowed to follow her husband’s coffin to the graveyard, and the monument which members of Smith’s congregation built was summarily torn down.
The account of the events leading to Smith’s death was written by fellow missionary Wallbridge to commemorate Smith and rehabilitate him as a martyr rather than conspirator and convicted felon. Wallbridge draws on Smith’s own diary and correspondence, including letters written from prison, and quotes from them at length. Wallbridge’s narrative, published fifteen years after the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, concludes with stern pronouncements on the lingering effects of slavery and the ongoing need to defend the precarious “civil and religious liberty” which had been secured for the people of British Guiana: “the deteriorating influence of slavery is not confined to those who were once unjustly held in bondage; it taints – it still taints every part of the social frame ….”
The Demerara Martyr is part of the West India Committee deposit, which was entrusted to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies on permanent loan from the Crown Agents in 1977.
Sources:
Da Costa, Emilia Viotti, Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Mitchell, Don, Mitchell’s West Indian Bibliography, 9th edition [ http://www.books.ai/, accessed 19 March, 2009], s.v. “Wallbridge, Edwin Angel” and “[Smith, John]”.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [ http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25850, accessed 20 March 2009], s.v. “Smith, John (1792?–1824)”.
Wallbridge, Edwin Angel, The Demerara Martyr: Memoirs of the Rev. John Smith, Missionary to Demerara, London: Charles Gilpin, 1848.
Featured collection: West India Committee rare books
George Wilson Bridges’ The Annals of Jamaica, a history of the West Indies and an apology for slavery, was published by John Murray in two volumes in London in 1827 and 1828.
Bridges (1788-1863) was an Anglican clergyman, but his move to Jamaica in 1816 took place under the shadow of scandal. He had been obliged to leave England after he fathered a son before marriage and eloped with the mother, Elizabeth Raby Brooks. In Jamaica, he took up the lucrative rectorship of St Ann’s parish.
Bridges had a chequered career in Jamaica. Although he had success serving as a mouthpiece for slave-owners and in persecuting Methodist missionaries on the island, in 1829 he was himself investigated for the savage beating of Kitty Hilton, his slave. The Jamaican council of protection, which exonerated him, was harshly criticised by Viscount Goderich, secretary of the Colonial Office, for failing to bring Bridges to account for the physical abuse. Bridges also provoked controversy with his Annals, where he discussed, among other things, the deportation from Jamaica of two free black men, Louise Celeste Descesne and John Escoffery. The book’s publisher, John Murray, was prosecuted in 1829 for libels against Descesne and Escoffery in the second volume, and Murray cooperated in the book’s recall and suppression.
This first edition, held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies library, is interesting not only because of its rarity but also because it bears an inscription by its author. Bridges dedicates the book thus:
The unworthy Author, in / presenting this work to / Joseph Sharp / hopes that he may be / allowed to solicit his prayers / for one under the heavy hand / of an offended God – and / to subscribe himself his / afflicted friend / G W Bridges / Jamaica – 25th Feb: 1837.
Bridges’ melancholy references to his afflictions probably refer to the death of his four daughters in a boating accident on January 1, 1837. Bridges’ wife Elizabeth had left him in 1834, and was in England at the time of their death.
That same year, Bridges left for Canada with his surviving son, and after a five-year sojourn, returned to England. Bridges and his wife were never reconciled, but after her death, he explored the estrangement in a private publication entitled Outlines and Notes of Twenty-Nine Years, referring to the period between estrangement and Elizabeth’s death in 1862.
In addition to the Annals and Outlines, Bridges published several pro-slavery tracts. These included A Voice from Jamaica (1823), which argued against Wilberforce’s Appeal in favour of abolition, published earlier that year. He also published collections of his own photography.
The Annals of Jamaica is part of the West India Committee deposit, which was entrusted to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies on permanent loan from the Crown Agents in 1977.
Sources:
Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter, London: for the London Society for the Abolition of Slavery, vol. 3, 1831.
Bridges, George Wilson, The Annals of Jamaica (2 vols.), London: John Murray, 1827-8.
Hannavy, John, ed., Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-century Photography, London: Routledge, 2008, s.v. “Bridges, Reverend George Wilson”.
Mitchell, Don, Mitchell’s West Indian Bibliography, 9th edition [ http://www.books.ai/ , accessed 19 March, 2009], s.v. “Bridges, George Wilson”, “Lushington, Stephen”, “Lescesne, Louis Celeste” and “Escoffery, John”.
Turner, Mary, Slaves and Missionaries: The Disintegration of Jamaican Slave Society, 1787-1834, Barbados: The Press University of the West Indies, 1998.
That same year, Bridges left for Canada with his surviving son, and after a five-year sojourn, returned to England. Bridges and his wife were never reconciled, but after her death, he explored the estrangement in a private publication entitled Outlines and Notes of Twenty-Nine Years, referring to the period between estrangement and Elizabeth’s death in 1862.
In addition to the Annals and Outlines, Bridges published several pro-slavery tracts. These included A Voice from Jamaica (1823), which argued against Wilberforce’s Appeal in favour of abolition, published earlier that year. He also published collections of his own photography.
The Annals of Jamaica is part of the West India Committee deposit, which was entrusted to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies on permanent loan from the Crown Agents in 1977.
Sources:
Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter, London: for the London Society for the Abolition of Slavery, vol. 3, 1831.
Bridges, George Wilson, The Annals of Jamaica (2 vols.), London: John Murray, 1827-8.
Hannavy, John, ed., Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-century Photography, London: Routledge, 2008, s.v. “Bridges, Reverend George Wilson”.
Mitchell, Don, Mitchell’s West Indian Bibliography, 9th edition [ http://www.books.ai/ , accessed 19 March, 2009], s.v. “Bridges, George Wilson”, “Lushington, Stephen”, “Lescesne, Louis Celeste” and “Escoffery, John”.
Turner, Mary, Slaves and Missionaries: The Disintegration of Jamaican Slave Society, 1787-1834, Barbados: The Press University of the West Indies, 1998.
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Resource for Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
The Transatlantic Slave Trade Data base http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces - this free website, created by Emory University, is an enlarged and revised edition of the Cambridge 1998 CD-ROM dataset. It is much easier to use, and consists of four main databases: - Voyages - search for particular voyages in this database of documented slaving expedictions. Lists, tables, charts, and maps can be created using information from the database.
- Estimates - this database offers an interactive feature to help you to analyze the full volume and multiple routes of the slave trade.
- Images - this database is a collection of digitised maps, manuscripts, paintings, sketches, and photographs of people, places, and vessels. Many of these also link to related voyage records.
- African names - this database identifies over 67,000 Africans aboard slave ships, using name, age, gender, origin, and place of embarkation.
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