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Papers To Be Presented |
Papers to be Presented
Day 1 “Slave History of the Bahamian Archipelago”
Key Note Speaker
Dr Gail Saunders - Director General of Heritage, Bahamas
Bahamian Slave Rebels
As Hilary Beckles and Michael Craton, among others, have argued, resistance both violent and non-violent, was endemic to slave society in the West Indies. The enslaved throughout the Caribbean, including the Bahamas, challenged the Plantocracy in passive, day-to-day, individual and collective resistance.
Despite the collapse of the cotton plantations in the Bahamas which caused slave owners to turn to older Bahamian industries such as raising stock, salt-raking and growing subsistence crops, Bahamian slaves rebelled. The paper will examine three revolts which occurred shortly before emancipation in the Out Islands of Exuma, Cat Island and San Salvador, concentrating on the leaders, Pompey, Dick and Alick who defied their owners for varying reasons.
Aptheker’s theory of revolutionary tradition among slaves stood true for the Bahamas. Bahamian slaves were not docile nor satisfied with their status. Their ultimate and fundamental goal was freedom.
David Bowen – Director of Culture, Turks and Caicos Islands
Cultural influences – the Legacy of Slavery
Ethlyn Gibbs Williams – Director of the Turks and Caicos National Trust
The work of the National Trust in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Nigel Sadler – Director, Turks and Caicos National Museum
Trouvadore Slave Ship – Shipwreck, Survival, Freedom, Legacy
In March 1841 the Slave ship Trouvadore wrecked on the coast of East Caicos. All 193 Africans and 20 crew survived and were taken to Grand Turk. 168 of the Africans went into a one year apprenticeship working in the salt ponds and then were freed in the Turks and Caicos Islands, increasing the population by 7%. This paper will look at the story of Trouvadore and the legacy left by the Africans who entered the community. There will also be a report on the two week survey undertaken in September to look for the wreck of the Trouvadore.
Grace Turner - Bahamian Shipping in Black
The Bahamas’ location on major shipping routes from the Caribbean had a distinct impact on its economy. As plantation agriculture dominated the economies of most Caribbean islands, so seafaring dominated the Bahamian economy. Bahamians at all social levels played their part. Since the mid-18th century slaves and free blacks were a significant segment of the work force involved in all aspects of Bahamian shipping. In the Caribbean region, The Bahamas had the largest percentage of slaves employed in shipping. What is unique for the Bahamian archipelago is the archaeological evidence of this cultural phenomenon. Only in this archipelago, which includes The Bahamas and The Turks & Caicos Islands, are 19th and early 20th century ship graffiti found. The graffiti are interpreted as material evidence of the cultural significance of seafaring and shipping in the archipelago. An analysis of the ship graffiti indicates the artists were knowledgeable about ship construction; a skilled work force. Further, a review of ship graffiti sites implied not only that the artists were of low socio-economic status, but most were definitely of African heritage. Such a finding suggests that, despite their low status, Black Bahamians actively participated in shaping this aspect of Bahamian culture.
Julia Onnie-Hay
As of the late 19th century, Salt Cay was the Home to over 1,000 enslaved Africans who worked in the Salt Industry. Since the Salt Industry collapsed in the 1960s, the population of the island has decreased rapidly as the descendants of those enslaved Africans migrated for work; today under sixty descendents remain. Inspired to preserve some of the wisdom of the Salt Cay elders through growing up as a witness to the Salt Cay Diaspora, two years ago I conducted ethnographic research collecting oral histories from eight of the Salt Cay elders. They relayed how physically and emotionally difficult working in the Salt Industry was, yet reminisced nostalgically about the garden parties and dances that celebrated the tight-knit community that existed. Oral histories serve to provide vivid representations of what life was for enslaved Africans in the Caribbean. In this paper, I present some of the memories of one of these elders regarding living on Salt Cay and contextualize it in a History of Slavery of the island. Finally, I call for a memorial to be constructed in Salt Cay to pay homage to the thousands of enslaved Africans that survived through the apocalyptic colonial environment of forced labor in the Salt Industry.
Day 2 “Presentation of Slave History”
Key Note Speaker
Mende Nazer (to be confirmed)
Mende Nazer was born in Sudan and grew up in a small village. Her life was dramatically changed one night when a band of armed men stormed her village, killed many of the adults, raped the women and took away all of the Children. The Children were sold into Slavery and Mende was transferred to Khartoum where she entered the Home of a local lady and became her slave. She was later sent to London as a slave and with the help of some Sudanese people she was freed in 2000. Her account appears in the book “Slave”. Her presentation will give first hand accounts of life as a slave
Rosemary Alleyne - Use of Archives for Studying Contemporary History
(to be confirmed) I am interested in Presenting a paper at the conference on How Broadcast Archives can be used for the study of contemporary History.
Kelley Scudder - Ethics and the Archaeology of Slavery.
This paper addresses the role that archaeologists play within the community and the nation in which they are working.
Jackie Mulligan – Promotion and PR – The Essential Elements of Heritage Presentation
Dr Keith Tinker – Director of the Bahamas National Museum
The Pompey Museum, Nassau.
An overview of the evolution of the Pompey Museum of Slavery and Emancipation. The presentation will cover the History of the building - Vendue House,and its early use; the origin of the name - Pompey and initial development of the museum; the current exhibition - A Slave Ship Speaks: The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie, and future plans for the museum. The Presentation will include digital images/illustrations to support the paper.
Day 3 “Recent Caribbean Research”
Corey Malcolm – Liberated Africans of Key West
This is the story of three groups of emancipated Africans brought to the island of Key West in 1860. They were bound for Cuba in slave ships, but were liberated by the US Navy. Eventually, they were sent to Liberia. Their story is quite representative of the last days of the transatlantic trade.
Robert Neyland - The U.S. Navy’s Anti-Slavery and Anti-Piracy Patrol
This paper explores the role of the US Navy in the suppression of slave trade and piracy off the West African coast and in the West Indies during the period from 1818 to the 1840s. The paper also explores the potential for an archaeological record in the Navy ship’s lost during this period. As early as 1800, Congress prohibited American ships and crews from engaging in the Atlantic slave trade to Brazil and Cuba. Seven years later, in 1807, Congress outlawed the importation of slaves into the United States and tasked the US Navy with enforcement. In April 1818, Congress approved President Monroe’s request for Navy warships to seize slavers flying the U.S. flag off the coast of West Africa and in the Caribbean. A year later, Congress defined slave trading as piracy---a crime punishable by hanging. On 3 March 1819, the Slave Trade Act authorized a private agency to resettle Africans recaptured from slavers taken along the West African coast. Hence subsidizing the American Colonization Society—whose immediate goal was to end the slave trade by establishing an African colony of former captives and whose long-term goal was to transport all American slaves back to Africa. The US Navy was assigned responsibility for this project in 1820, which resulted in an intimate relationship between the Colonization Society and the Navy. LT Robert Stockton was given command of the schooner USS Alligator and ordered to establish a colony for former slaves. Stockton accomplished his mission, founding the colony, which became the nation of Liberia. The following year, USS Alligator wrecked and was lost in the Florida Keys.
(Presenter to be announced) UNESCO Slave route Project for the Caribbean
In 2000 the Museums Association Of The Caribbean was chosen to produce a comprehensive document on slave heritage sites in the Caribbean. In the end 20 countries/Islands participated in this project and a major record of slave heritage sites in the Caribbean was produced. This paper will look at the process undertaken, the participating countries and the outcomes.
Jerome Teelucksingh - Rise of the Black Jacobins: The Haitian Revolution’s Impact
This paper will investigate the impact of not only the historical masterpiece of James but also the staging of plays, based on the Black Jacobins. Such questions will be explored: the work’s contribution to a better understanding of the dynamics of a slave society and the link between the Black Jacobins and the demise of colonialism and imperialism. The personalities involved such as Toussaint L’Ouverture will be considered in the context of power relations.
The paper will examine the radical influence of the events in France on the slave colony of San Domingo in the West Indies. There was a noticeable similarity between the ancien regime in France and the San Domingo society with both possessing a rigid class structure. In the French West Indian colony, there were clearly demarcated class divisions separating Whites, Mulattoes, free Blacks and slaves.
However, the onset of the French Revolution in 1789 resulted in a similar societal transformation as the San Domingo revolution ousted the whites and replaced them with Toussaint L’Ouverture, a former slave.
Certain questions will be addressed- was the race question subsidiary to the class question in the progress of the San Domingo revolution? Could the revolution have succeeded without the leadership of L’Ouverture?
There will also be an examination of the chaos which ensued during the San Domingo revolution such as the rivalry among L’Ouverture, dessalines and Christophe for power and authority. Secondly, the role of mulattoes and their shifting loyalties to the revolution, especially since they were perceived by some as an intermediate class with political instability. Finally, my paper will deal with the attempt by the bourgeoisie to restore Slavery through the overthrow of L’Ouverture by the cunning tactics of Leclerc and Napoleon.
Wali Tinnie - Dinizulu Gene Tinnie, Project Co-Director
THE DOS AMIGOS/FAIR ROSAMOND SLAVE SHIP REPLICA PROJECT
A Commemoration of the Middle Passage and a Case Study of the 19th Century Illegal 'Slave Trade' to Cuba
This paper presents the background and rationale for the construction of a full-scale, seaborne replica of practically the only slaving vessel to yield a virtually complete set of her original design plans, with the added distinctions of belonging to the era of specially-designed slavers, and of having also served, following her capture, as a pursuit vessel in the British Royal Navy's Anti-Slave Trade Squadron, making several other captures in her own right. The Replica will serve as an international traveling museum, educational resource center, and Ancestral memorial shrine. Equally significant is that the Baltimore-built Spanish brigantine slaver Dos Amigos, sailing from Havana, Cuba; captured in Cameroon, west Africa, adjudicated in Sierra Leone, and refitted in England as the Fair Rosamond, presents a valuable specific case study of a chapter of History whose understanding today is greatly limited by the scarcity, not to mention systematic falsifications, of existing records. The Dos
Amigos/Fair Rosamond story also has connections to Brazil, the other major market for the illicit, but highly lucrative traffic in African captives during the 19th century.
Contents of this story:
Nigel Sadler |
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