The African Diaspora
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The African Diaspora Hist 5901.3 Paul E. Lovejoy FRSC Distinguished Research Professor Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History This seminar examines the slave trade and the African diaspora, including the regional and ethnic origins of the enslaved population, the demographic structure of the slave trade, and the cultural disjunctures in the cultural and social experiences of the enslaved population and hence addresses issues of ethnicity, identity, religion and resistance. The course concentrates on the African diaspora in the Americas, beginning with an analysis of the historical context of enslavement in Africa and the subsequent adjustments of enslaved Africans and their descendants to the plantations, mines, and cities of the Americas. The seminar will use the W.E.B. Du Bois database of slaving voyages to identify topics of study, specifically relating to an analysis of gender, age, regional origin, and final destination in determining areas of future research. Linkages with the diaspora and between different parts of the diaspora and Africa will be examined, including the period after the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of slaves in the Americas. The development of a parallel diaspora in the Islamic world, both within West Africa and across the Sahara Desert into the heartlands of Islam, will be studied for comparative purposes. Finally, the impact of the external slave trade to the Americas and the Islamic world on western Africa and the related transformations in African history are also considered. Students will write two book reports, each 5-10 pages in length (15% each), and an essay, maximum 20 pages in length (40%) on a research-related topic, such as MRP subject, PhD subject, or a topic to be agreed upon with the instructor. In addition, students will be assessed on their seminar participation (30%). Week One: September 8: Black Atlantic Creole debate – Mintz and Price, Balyn, Berlin, Braithwaite, Lovejoy Gilroy, Black Atlantic; Patterson, Social Death, and sociology DuBois, and African American intellectuals Week Two: September 15: – Africanist Perspectives on the African Diaspora Assigned readings: Paul E. Lovejoy, "The African Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture and Religion under Slavery," Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation, 2:1 (1997) Paul E. Lovejoy, “Methodology through the Ethnic Lens,” in Toyin Falola and Christian Jennings, eds., Sources and Methods in African History: Spoken, Written, Unearthed (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2003), 105-17 1 Paul E. Lovejoy, “Diplomacy in the Heart of Africa: British-Sokoto Negotiations over the Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade,” in Myriam Cottias and Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, Distant Ripples of British Abolition in Africa, Asia and the Americas (Africa World Press, 2013) Yacine Daddi Addoun and Lovejoy, “The Arabic Manuscript of Muhammad Kaba Saghanughu of Jamaica, c. 1820,” in Annie Paul, ed., Creole Concerns: Essays in Honour of Kamau Brathwaite (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press), 313-41 Daddi Addoun and Lovejoy, “Muhammad Kābā Saghanughu and the Muslim Community of Jamaica,” in Paul E. Lovejoy (ed.), Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton: Markus Wiener, Publisher, 2003), 201-20 Michael Zeuske, “Historiography and Research Problems of Slavery and the Slave Trade in a Global-Historical Perspective,” International Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 57 (2012), 87-111 Week Three: September 22: – Databases: How to live with them Assigned readings: Voyages: Transatlantic Slave Trade Database Louisiana Slave Database: http://ibiblio.org/laslave Biographies: Atlantic Slave Database Network http://slavebiographies.org/project/\\ Matrix » Blog Archive » Africa Past and Present: Episode 60 www2.matrix.msu.edu/africa-past-and-present-episode-60/ Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005) Week Four: September 29: Ethnicity, Slavery and African history Assigned Readings: Paul E. Lovejoy, ed., Identity in the Shadow of Slavery. London: Continuum, 2nd ed., 2009 Paul E. Lovejoy and David V. Trotman, eds., Trans-Atlantic Dimensions of Ethnicity in the African Diaspora, London: Continuum, 2004 Walter Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade 1600-1830 (Cambridge: 2010) Gad Heuman, “The Social Structure of the Slave Societies of the Caribbean,” in Franklyn W. Knight, ed., General History of the Caribbean, vol. 3, 138-168 Barry W. Higman, “The Sugar Revolution,” Economic History Review 53:2 (2000), 213- 236 Week Five: October 6: – The Upper Guinea Coast and Diaspora Assigned readings: David David Eltis, Philip Morgan, and David Richardson, “Agency and Diaspora in Atlantic History: Reassessing the African Contribution to Rice Cultivation in the Americas,” American Historical Review, 112 (2007), 1329-1358 Walter Hawthorne , Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400–1900 (Heinemann: 2003) 2 Walter Hawthorne, “Being now, as it were, one family”: Shipmate Bonding on the Slave Vessel Emilia, in Rio de Janeiro and throughout the Atlantic World,” Luso- Brazilian Review 45:1 (2008), 53-77 Judith Carney, Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001) Judith Carney and R.N. Rosomoff, In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009) Bruce Mouser on SHADD – www.tubmaninstitute.ca/shadd Week Six: October 13: – Thanksgiving – Trans-Atlantic Passages under Slavery Assigned readings: James H. Sweet, Domingos Alvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011) James H. Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African- Portuguese World, 1440–1770 (Chapell Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003) James H. Sweet, “Mistaken Identities? Olaudah Equiano, Domingos Álvares, and the Methodological Challenges of Studying the African Diaspora,” American Historical Review, 114:2 (2009), 279-306 Paul E. Lovejoy, “Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa – What’s in a Name?” Atlantic Studies, 9:2 (2012), 165-84 Week Seven: October 20: – Biographies Assigned readings: Sean Kelley, “The Dirty Business of Panyarring and Palaver: Slave Trading on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Eighteenth Century,” in Lovejoy and Schwarz, eds., Empire, Slave Trade and Slavery in Sierra Leone: Building Civil Society Past and Present Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2013 Sean Kelley, From Sierra Leone to South Carolina: Tracing the Captives of the Sloop Hare, manuscript Robin Law and Paul E. Lovejoy, eds. The Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua: His Passage From Slavery to Freedom in Africa and America (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2001); Paul E. Lovejoy, “Les origines de Catherine Mulgrave Zimmermann: considérations méthodologiques,” Cahiers des Anneaux de la Mémoire 14 (2011), 247-63 Paul E. Lovejoy, “Freedom Narratives of Trans-Atlantic Slavery,” Slavery and Abolition, 32:1 (2011), 91-107 Week Eight: October 27: – Yoruba and the Making of the Diaspora Assigned readings: Toyin Falola and Matt D. Childs, eds., The Yoruba Diaspora in the Atlantic World (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005) Robin Law and Kristin Mann, “West Africa in the Atlantic Community: The Case of the Slave Coast,” William and Mary Quarterly, 56:2 (1999), 307-334 3 Robin Law, “Ethnicity and the Slave Trade: ‘Lucumi’ and ‘Nago’ as Ethnonyms in West Africa,” History in Africa 24 (1997), 205-19 Paul E. Lovejoy, “Jihad in West Africa during the ‘Age of Revolution’: Towards a Dialogue with Eric Hobsbawm and Eugene Genovese,” Topoi, 2013 Week Nine: November 3: – The Meaning of Creole Assigned readings: Jane Landers, in Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010) Ana Lucia Araujo, Mariana P. Candido, and Lovejoy, eds., Crossing Memories: Slavery and African Diaspora. Trenton, NJ, Africa World Press, 2011 Richard Price, “The Miracle of Creolization: A Retrospective," New West Indian Guide 75(2001):35-64, also published in Kevin A. Yelvington (ed.), Afro-Atlantic Dialogues: Anthropology in the Diaspora, Santa Fe: SAR Press, 2006, 113-145 Ira Berlin, “From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African- American Society in Mainland North America,” William and Mary Quarterly 53 (1996) Linda M. Heywood and John K. Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas 1585-1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) Week Ten: November 10: – Fugitive Slaves in the Americas Assigned readings: Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec, with Léon Robichaud, Le Marronnage à Saint-Domingue: Histoire, mémoire, technologie http://www.marronnage.info/ David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002) David Geggus, “Slave Resistance and Emancipation: the Case of Saint Domingue." In Seymour Drescher, Pieter C. Emmer, eds., Who Abolished Slavery? Slave Revolts and Abolitionism: A Conversation with João Pedro Marques (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 132-140 Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) Week Eleven: November 17: – Liberated Africans and the Suppression of the Slave Trade Assigned readings: Leslie Bethell,