Black Lives & Native Lands: Rewriting the History of New England
David Guzman May 5, 2020, Black Perspectives
The study of slavery in New England has experienced something of a
revival in the last decade. Given that New England is often treated as a
hub of liberty after the American Revolution, colonial America
scholar Jared Ross Hardesty joins a number of historians
in dissociating the region from the parochialism and exceptionalism
given to it in earlier studies. In his book, **Black Lives, Native
Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England, Hardesty
convincingly argues that New England should be a part
of a wider story of slavery and colonization in the Americas. Meant as a
synthetic history, Hardesty treads the same path as Lorenzo Johnston
Greene did in his 1942 work,
The Negro in Colonial New England, 1620-1776. Updated with the
latest scholarship on the subject, Hardesty’s work offers a brief and
concise history of slavery in New England.
Utilizing a settler-colonial framework of analysis for much of his work,
Hardesty organizes his chapters chronologically and thematically, first
outlining the origins of sixteenth-century England’s involvement
in slavery and ending with the problems associated
with emancipation in New England. Weaved throughout his narrative are
the themes of oppression, exploitation, enslavement, resistance,
and assertions of humanity. Drawing from newspapers, account books,
letters, autobiographies, and legal documents, Hardesty’s inclusion
of enslaved peoples’ lives greatly enriches and humanizes the narrative
crafted from his rich source of secondary literature. It also reflects
his keen ability to construct the lives, experiences, and pasts
of enslaved men and women even among a scarcity of
documentary evidence.
continue
think
absolute power depends on absolute control over knowledge, which in turn necessitates absolute corruption
Popular posts from this blog
Elles Houwelingon, January 21, 2019, New Historian Everyone has heard shocking stories about the transatlantic slave trade, but this was hardly the only type of slavery in which Europeans were engaged. The Pacific slave trade involved the forceful enslavement of Pacific islanders from the mid 19thcentury to the 20thcentury. This particular type of slavery is often referred to as “blackbirding”. The primary focus of “blackbirding” was to supply cheap labor to sugar-cane plantations on Pacific plantations, particularly in Queensland, Fiji, New Caledonia, and the Samoan Islands. This was mainly achieved through trickery and kidnapping. They were frequently deceived about the length of time for which they were “contracted” and the nature of their “contract”. If all this failed, the islanders were simply loaded onto slave ships at gunpoint. The captured islanders were collectively known as Kanakas, which means Person or Man in Hawaiian. These workers were essentially t
The truth about Jackson’s savagery was just as disturbing as the fake news. After a particularly bloody battle in 1814, Andrew Jackson’s men counted the dead Indians by cutting off their noses. They collected 557 noses. and... (this comment) Jackson ran an ad in the Nashville Gazette, in October, 1804, for the capture of a runaway slave, which stated that in addition to the reward, he would pay an extra $10 per 100 lashes (up to 300), to anyone who willing to inflict them upon his miscreant property. He was known to hold a vengeful lifetime grudge against anyone whom he felt had slighted him, regardless of how minor the supposed offense. His betrayal the Choctow tribe, whom he persuaded to become American allies over the British during the war of 1812, culminated in the “Indian Removal Act” (Trail of Tears), of which he took personal responsiblity to see implemented, resulted in the death of thousands of men, women and children. It’s no surprise that the current occupant of the Wh
Here is where you can find us: https://thebigisms.wordpress.com/2020/11/29/my-white-friend-asked-me-on-facebook-to-explain-white-privilege-i-decided-to-be-honest-yes-magazine/ (we will leave this blog up since there is so much history to read and consider.)
Comments