Summary: The Routledge History Of Slavery | 9780415520836 | Gad Heuman, et al

Read the summary and the most important questions on The Routledge History of Slavery | 9780415520836 | Gad Heuman; Trevor Burnard

• 0 Introduction

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• Major themes in this volume:

  • slavery was both a formal institution as well as a negotiated relationship: slaves made communities with their own rules/systems, but were influenced by the community of 'free people' they were controlled by
  • although race isn't the only denominator for slavery, it is a very important one. Slavery and race were in some cases the differentiator

• What important points do we have to keep in mind when we talk about Slavery in the New World?

  • the economic succes is almost unimaginable without slavery. Almost all product that was moved were slaves or slave products
  • it was different because it was based on racial difference
  • gender influenced slavery; women were seen as workers before they were seen as mothers. proper work/social roles for men were revised. and women were sexualized
  • slavery in Americas was deadly and creative: new cultural expressions

• What were 'slave societies' according to Tannenbaum?

  Socities in which the slavery could not be separated from ordinary life, but instead suffused every aspect of life. social, economic, cultural and political structures all revolved around slavery.

• Which work was the hardest with the worst demographic experiences? And why?

  Slaves in sugar productions. Sugar was in high demand and highly profitable. Death rates were extremely high, due to ill health and loss of children. 

• What is considered one of the most intriguing issues in the study of slavery?

  The debate about New World slave cultures and the extent to which these cultures were reflections of African cultural forms. 
  Slaves maintained a common crealised slave culture. 

• What are examples of the interconnected lives of blacks and whites?

  • Religion: (Africanised) Catholicism
  • relationships between white men/black women
  • trading partnerships
  • plotting of white/black servants against masters

• In which forms did the resistance against slavery come?

  • escaping from: forts etc
  • violence on the Middle Passage
  • running away from masters: establishing maroons: autonomous societies consisting of African born slaves, bulwarks of freedom
  • day-to-day resistance: breaking tools, slow work
  • rebellion: with different aims, abolition (individual/overall), free days

• How was freedom a gradual process?

  • Slavery was replaced by: 'apprenticeship' or 'patronato-system'. Slaves still had to work full workweeks without slaves for a certain amount of years.
  • The Free Womb law: only newborn children were freed (1871 Brazil)

• What did slaves expect from freedom?

  • work for employers of their own choice
  • move around freely
  • reconstitute their families
  • own the houses they had build and the grounds they had worked

• 0.1 Novel evidence for Roman Slavery - Hopkins

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• On which text is Hopkins' method based?

  The Life of Aesop, the only surviving biography of a slave surviving from antiquity. A pack of lies, its obviously fiction.