Slavery, Democracy, and Racial Violence in the Americas

This seminar will provide students with an introductory course about the origins of racial violence in the Americas. After a short theoretical introduction, the course will analyze the enslavement of Indigenous peoples and Africans and their descendants as a fundamental instrument of European colonialism and the expansion of capitalism. The following section will describe the role of slavery in the making of constitutional regimes and criminal justice systems across the continent during the Age of Revolutions. Finally, the last classes will focus on the legacies of slavery after emancipation by analyzing phenomena such as lynching, capital punishment, police brutality, and incarceration. The seminar will also illuminate the formation of different racial and legal regimes in the Americas by offering a transnational perspective that integrates the United States, Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, and Brazil as components of a longue durée Atlantic history.