Comparative Slavery and Slave Revolts: Slave Rebellion in the Americas, 1725-1865

This course explores the history of slave revolts in North and South America and the Caribbean. It examines how acts of resistance transformed the lives of enslaved Africans and their relationships with white Americans, Europeans, and free and enslaved people of African descent. We will consider in what ways geography shaped the aims of a slave rebellion, how is a successful slave revolt determined, and what are the implications of slave unrest and its aftermath in local slave societies and in the Americas? This class will focus on insurrections in Jamaica, Saint Domingue (Haiti), the United States, Cuba, and Brazil.