Narratives of Slavery

This course will uncover the history of the slave trade, the labor regimes of slavery in the Caribbean and North America, and the rise of the Cotton Kingdom through the voices of the very people who lived through it: enslaved people themselves. We will read slave narratives, court documents, abolitionist treaties, oral histories of formerly enslaved people, and fictional accounts produced in the period. We will give special attention the ways that different kinds of historical sources-different types of narratives-shape what we know and how we know it in the history of slavery.