Humanities Core Course

Forms of Association

Professor Haynes

Winter Quarter, Week IV

 

Nation, Empire and Identity: Becoming a British Subject in the Context of the Atlantic Slave Trade and Abolition

 

I.        Understanding the Boundaries of Race in the Atlantic World

 

A.     Disclosing Slavery and Nominal Freedom

 

1.      acutely conscious of the structure of exploitation of slavery that provides few alternatives to acceptance (p. 86)

 

2.      no rights or legal standing as a slave in the British Caribbean and access to African slaves through Atlantic trade made their lives expendable and inherently insecure (pp. 87, 91-99 and 112.)

 

3.      nominal nature of freedom for free blacks reflected the entitlement of whites to dominate blacks; subject to exploitation and enslavement.

 

B.      Becoming Free through Slavery

 

1.      condition of freedom required Equiano to participate in and enable the slave-based Atlantic economy (pp. 117-120)

 

2.      profit generated from Equiano’s labor and purchasing his own freedom enriched his master

 

3.      experienced nominal nature of a free black in British Georgia: subject to incarceration, physical abuse and robbery (pp. 134-135, 137,

 

4.      England represented an alternative site of possibility for enacting his freedom (pp. 88-89 and 107)
(William Hogarth, Marriage A La Mode: Toilette [1743] from http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG116 & Rake’s Progress: Orgy [1735] from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:William_Hogarth_027.jpg )

 

C.     Enacting Freedom through the British Nation-State

 

1.      knowing and harnessing laws in the name of British liberty: threatens Captain Pascal with a lawsuit and intervenes on behalf of John Annis (pp. 139, 151-152

 

2.      membership in fellowship among London disserting community provides an imperative for acting in the world as part of British colonialism in Latin America (pp. 153-155)

 

3.      Request for ordination in the Church of England to serve as a missionary in Africa denied, but appointed to help organize the relocation of the black poor to Sierra Leone (pp. 183 and 186-187)

II.     (William Hogarth, Four Times of Day: Morning, [1738] from http://www.library.northwestern.edu/spec/hogarth/Decay2.html & Edward Savage, The Washington Family, 1789-1796 from http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?564+0+0+gg62)

 

1.      engaged in formal relationship with the state as a functionary entitled Equiano to a right to be heard on the management of the Sierra Leone project (pp. 190-191)

 

2.      assumed role as a spokesperson for a constituency in relation to slavery: led a delegation to thank Society of Friends for publishing anti-slavery tracks; praised leaders of abolition movement and sympathizers in Parliament; enjoined the Queen to intervene. (pp. 191-192).