Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Theses Department of History 2-10-2009 The Atlantic Mind: Zephaniah Kingsley, Slavery, and the Politics of Race in the Atlantic World Mark J. Fleszar Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_theses Recommended Citation Fleszar, Mark J., "The Atlantic Mind: Zephaniah Kingsley, Slavery, and the Politics of Race in the Atlantic World." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2009. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_theses/33 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE ATLANTIC MIND: ZEPHANIAH KINGSLEY, SLAVERY, AND THE POLITICS OF RACE IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD by MARK J. FLESZAR Under the Direction of Dr. Jared Poley and Dr. H. Robert Baker ABSTRACT Enlightenment philosophers had long feared the effects of crisscrossing boundaries, both real and imagined. Such fears were based on what they considered a brutal ocean space frequented by protean shape-shifters with a dogma of ruthless exploitation and profit. This intellectual study outlines the formation and fragmentation of a fluctuating worldview as experienced through the circum-Atlantic life and travels of merchant, slaveowner, and slave trader Zephaniah Kingsley during the Era of Revolution. It argues that the process began from experiencing the costs of loyalty to the idea of the British Crown and was tempered by the pervasiveness of violence, mobility, anxiety, and adaptation found in the booming Atlantic markets of the Caribbean during the Haitian Revolution.