AP/HREQ 4050.

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Slavery, Colonialism and, African Communities in the Americas
Fall Winter 2023-2024
Thursday 2:30 -5:30 pm
Room VH 2016

Course Director: Kirk Atkinson

kirka@yorku.ca
Office Hours:
416 736 2100 ext. 55235

Note: This course outline is your road map to the course, so always consult it.

Course Description:

This course focuses on slavery and post-slavery among African descendants in United States, the
Caribbean, Brazil, and Mexico, while also considering historical origins of anti-black racism, Atlantic slave
trade and the impact of colonial land appropriation and the enslavement process on Indigenous
communities in Americas. Course credit exclusion: AP/MIST 4050 6.00 Prerequisites: 78 credits, or
permission from the undergraduate program director

II. Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

1. To understand the origin and the historical causal drivers for the colonial and imperial establishment
chattel slavery in the Americas. 2. To identify, explore and assess the central problematic and
historiographical debates that makeup the field of slavery and African experience in the Americas. 3. To
understand the difference between historical and analytical interpretation versus uninformed
explanation of slavery and how it impacted and shaped the lives enslaved peoples in the Americas. 4. To
be able to better contextualize and conceptualize how African slaves in the Americas exercised agency in
creating their world/reality subject to the historical contingency imposed by a white supremacist slave
culture. 5. To develop a rigorous understanding of the development and role of slavery in the Americas
and to read the historical record of slavery and its impact on the lives of Africans and enslaved people in
the Americas.

III. Course Pedagogy and eClass page

This seminar course will include some ex-cathedra elements, which means mini-lectures presented by
the professor. This method will also include discussions of the compulsory readings, video documentary
if possible.

The course has an online eClass page that is accessible via eclass.yorku.ca Students should visit this
page for the latest course announcements, assignment instructions, course policies, and links to
additional compulsory readings for the course. The students are also invited to consult the website for

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further information and documentation. Full comprehension of the subject matter of the course
requires doing readings, as well as assiduous and attentive participation in all course lectures and group
presentations throughout the academic term.

Students will be fully responsible for reading and responding appropriately to all information
distributed through eClass. Information provided on this page will be considered to have been provided
to all registered students within 24 hours of posting. Please check regularly. This should be your first
stop before emailing the Instructor.

Group work will be a core feature of the pedagogy of learning process in the seminar.

Lecture notes and framework discussions will be posted on each topic

Students working in groups will produce brief analytical discussion and answers to four Forum questions
that will be distributed throughout the term. Two forum questions will be in the first half, and two in the
second half.

The group Forum discussion and answers will be judged on analytical substance and quality of the
discussion and answers including demonstration of awareness of key problematic and central thesis
articulated in the readings.

In each of the classes, students working in groups will lead a group presentation on one of the weekly
topics and readings by analytically framing the debate on the topic as predicated in the readings.
Students will identify key issues and concepts and indicate their significance to the topic. Student will
justify the reasoning behind their selection of issues and concepts and justification of the significance
assigned to the issues and concepts. Other students must be prepared to debate and discuss the framing
and argument articulated by the group leading the discussion.

As part of the participation students who merely agree with what other students have contributed
rather without contributing and adding their own critical value-added analytical perspective will not be
rewarded.

In terms of the research paper. Students will have the option to write the paper as group paper or as
individual research paper. Co-authoring a research paper can be demanding and takes collaborative and
coordination effort but can be productive and enhancing of collaborative learning. If you are intending
to do a group research paper, you can only do so in the group you are arbitrarily assigned to.

IV. Readings and documents

There is no textbook for this course. The readings are/will be made available on eClass where necessary
other readings will be accessible from Scott Library in the form of ebook/online access electronic
academic journals.

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V. Course Evaluation (further details at the end of the syllabus)

1. Attendance and participation 20%

2. Student led group presentations where students will analytically
frame and interpret the readings Identifying core problematic/s, 20%
central issues, working thesis and controversies:
3. Attendance for all group presentations (the 5% will be given to 5%
Students who have attended all fellow students’ presentations:
3. Four Forums discussions and answers: 20%
4. Research Paper: 35%

Further Explanation of the Course Evaluation:

For attendance and participation, the breakdown will be 10% for attendance and 10% for participation.
Students can miss two classes and there will be no deduction from participation and attendance. Any
subsequent absences will lead to a reduction in attendance marks.

There will be a 10% penalty for missing your group presentation providing it Is possible to reschedule
the presentation. In the even the presentation cannot be rescheduled a grade of zero will be allocated.

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Week 1: Introduction to the Course (2023-09-07)

1. How the course will be conducted and organized

2. Students’ and professor’s background and expectations
3. Course objectives and syllabus comment
4. Course assignment

Week 2: Conceptualization of Slavery (2023-09-14)

1. Overview of the general contour of Slavery in the Americas

Required Readings

Orlando Patterson, Slavey and Social death, Harvard University Press, 1982. Introduction: The
Constituent Elements of Slavery. pp, 1-14 (Scott Library (SL) ebook/Online)

Week 3: The Atlantic Slave trade (2028-09-21)

Required Readings

Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1998), introduction and Chapter 1. Pp.

Week 4: The Enlightenment ideology and Epistemology from the social contract to the racial contract
(202-09-28)

1. Race thinking in the age of Enlightenment

2. Enlightenment laying in the pathway for racial subordination and domination

Required Readings

Charles Mills, The Racial Contract, Cornell University Press, 1999, Introduction (pp. 1-8) and Overview:
The Racial Contract (pp. 9-40). (SL ebook/Online)

Week 5: Slavery and the Racial Contract (2023-10-05)

1. Norms and Spaces

2. Norms and the Individual
3. Racial Contract and the Modern social Contract
4. Racial Contract, Violence, and Ideological Conditioning

Required Readings

• Charles Mills, The Racial Contract, Cornell University Press, 1999, Chapter 2. Details (pp. 40-91). (SL
ebook/Online)

Week 6: The Doctrine of Discovery and Colonialization in Iberian America: Iberian Roots of American
Racist Thought. (2023-10-19)

1. Enslavement and coerced labour of Indigenous people

2. What was the logic behind the enslavement and coerced labour of indigenous people?

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Required Readings

• Anghie, A. “Fransisco De Vitoria and the Colonial Origins of International Law” pp. 11-26 Social and
Legal Studies. Vol. 5. No.3 1996. (SL ebook/Online)

• Almond Wheeler, Chapter 2 enslavement by the Spaniards. In Almond Wheeler Lauber, , Ph.D.
Columbia University 1913. (SL ebook/Online)

• James H Sweet, “Iberian Roots of American Racist Thought,” William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 51. No.
1 1997. (SL ebook/Online)

Week 7: Slavery in Iberian America and the making of the Capitalist World Economy (2023-10-26)

1. The role of Indigenous labour and African slavery in the political economy of Iberian America
2. Slave mode/s of production
3. Enslaved and coerced labour in the emergence of Capitalism in the 16 th century

Required Readings

• Herbert S. Kline Chapter 2 The Establishment of African Slavery in Latin America in the 16 Century, in
Herbert S. Kline, African Slavery in Latin America. Oxford University Press, 1986 (SL ebook/Online)

• Immanuel Wallerstein. The Modern World-System 1 Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the
European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. Academic Press inc., 1974 various pages to be
assigned. (SL ebook/Online)

• Steve J. Stern. Feudalism, Capitalism, and the World-System in the Perspective of Latin America and
Caribbean. American Historical Review 1988, Vol. 93, No. 4. (SL ebook/Online)

Week 8: Slavery in Brazil (2023-11-02)

Required Readings

• Jean M. Hebrard. Slavery in Brazil: Brazilian Scholars in the Key Interpretive Debates

• Joao Josse Reis, and Herbert Klein. Slavery in Brazil. In Jose M. Moya, Oxford Handbook of Latin
American History. 2010. (SL ebook/Online)

• Thomas E. Skidmore, Chapter 1, Birth and Growth of Colonial Brazil 1500-1750 in Thomas E. Skidmore.
Brazil Five Centuries of Change. Oxford University Press. 1999

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Week 9: Nation building in the South Atlantic Region of Brazil Constitutionalizing slavery and the
denial of citizenship and civil liberty to Africans and Indians (2023-11-09)

1. Why the 19th century constitution made no provision citizenship for Africans and Indians?
2. What factors must be considered in the dialectic between free labour and slave labour in the South
Atlantic region of Brazil?
3. What is the contribution of slave labour to the economic development and modernization of the
South Atlantic region?

Required Readings

• Yuko Miki. Chapter 1 “.”Outside of Society Slavery and Citizenship.” in Yuko Miki. Frontiers of
Citizenship: A Black and Indigenous History of Post-colonial Brazil Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1998). (SL ebook/Online)

Week 10: Capitalism and Slavery: The historical perspective from the British Caribbean (2023-11-16)

1. Capitalism and Slavery

2. Sugar and African slavery in the Caribbean

Required Reading

• Eric Williams. Capitalism and Slavery. University of North Carolina Press. 1944 Chapter 1. The Origin of
Negro Slavery

• Herbert S. Kline Chapter 3. “Sugar and Slavery in the Caribbean in 17th and 18th Centuries, in Herbert S.
Kline, African Slavery in Latin America. Oxford University Press, 1986. (SL ebook/Online)

Week 11: Planter Class and the institution of Slavey (2023-11-23)

Required Readings

• Richard S Dunn, Chapter 2. “Barbados the Rise of the Planter Class,” & Chapter 3. “Barbados the
Power of the Planter Class.” In Dunn. Sugar and Slaves the Rise of the Planter Class in the English West
Indies 1624-1713. The University of North Carolina Press, 1972.

• Wylie Sypher, “The West-Indian as a "Character" in the Eighteenth Century Author(s).” Studies in
Philology. 1939, Vol. 36, No. 3. (SL ebook/Online)

Week 12 The Fall of the Planter Class in the (2023-11-30)

Required Reading

• Christer Petley. “Rethinking the Fall of the Planter Class.” Atlantic Studies, 2012. Vol. 9. No. 1. (SL
ebook/Online)

• Daniel Livesay. “The Decline of Jamaica’s Interracial Households and the Fall of the Planter class
Atlantic Studies, 2012. Vol. 9. No. 1. (SL ebook/Online)

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Week 13: Slave Rebellion and Resistance in the Americas British West Indies (2024-01-11)

Required Readings

• Hilary McD Beckles, “The 200 Years War: Slave Resistance in the British West Indies: An Overview of
the Historiography.”

• Hilary Beckles & Karl Watson, “Social protest and labour bargaining: The changing nature of slaves'
responses to plantation life in eighteenth‐century Barbados.” Slavery and Abolition 1988, Vol., 8 No.
3. (SL ebook/Online)

• Michael Craton, “The Passion to Exist: Slave Rebellions in the British West Indies 1650-1832.” The
Journal of Caribbean History; Jan 1, 1980; 13. (SL ebook/Online)

Week 14: Gendering slavery the privileging and dis-privileging of White and Black women’s bodies
(2024-01-18)

Required Readings

• Hilary McD. Beckles, “White Women and Slavery in the Caribbean.” History Workshop, Autumn,
1993, No. 36. (SL ebook/Online)
• Maureen Elgersman, Chapter 3. “The Power Within: Black Women and Jamaican Slavery.” In
Elgersman, Unyielding Spirits Black Women and Slavery in Early Canada and Jamaica. (SL ebook/Online)

Week 15: Gendering Slavery in the Old South Black and White Women (2024-01-25)

Required Reading

• Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the
Old South (1988)
Week 16: The Dialectic of Slavery and the American Revolution (2024-02-01)

Required Readings

• Edward E. Baptist, Chapter 11. “Afterword: The Corpse 1861-1937.” In Baptist, The Half has Never
Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, Hachette Book Group. 2014. (SL
ebook/Online)
• Ira Berlin, Many Thousand Gone: The First Two Century of Slavery in North America. Harvard Press
2000.
Berlin Part 111. Slave and Free The revolutionary Generations pp. 217-229

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Week 17: The Dialectic of Slavery and the American Revolution – Continuation (2024-02-08)

Required Readings

• Berlin, Chapter 11. “Fragmentation in the Lower South.” Pp. 290-325. & the “Epilogue: Making Race,
Making Slavery” pp. 358-369

Week 18: Slavery and the Black Family (2024-02-15) *

Required Readings

• Eugene D. Genovese, Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slave Make. Vintage Book, 1971. Part 11. “Our
Black Family.” PP. 70-75 & “The Myth of the Absent family.” Pp. 450-55

• Andrea A. Sims, Review of Herbert A. Gutman. The Black family in Slavery and freedom 1750-1925.
Journal of Black Psychology, 1978 Vol. 4(1-2). (SL ebook/Online)

Week 19: Slavery and the Law (2024-02-29)

Required Readings

• Thomas D. Morris, Southern Slavery, and the Law. University of North Carolina Press. 1996. pp. 17-37.
“Function of Race in Southern Slave Law,” The Part I: Sources: Racial and Legal: Section 1; pp. 61-81.
“Slaves as Property - Chattels Personal or Realty, and Did It Matter” Part II: Slaves as Property: Section 3
pp. 102-132. “Contract Law in the Sale and Mortgaging of Slaves” Part II: Slaves as Property: Section 5

Week 20: Contesting Slavery the Abolitionist Movement (2024-03-07)

Required Readings

• Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists. Chapter 8. “The Politics of Freedom.” pp. 168-96

• Glenn A. Crothers, ““To Bear our Righteous Testimonies against All Evil”: Virginia Quakers’ Response to
John Brown.” Quaker History Friends Historical Association, Vol. 100, No. 2. Fall 2011. (SL ebook/Online)

Week 21: Emancipation and Manumission (2024-03-14)

Required Readings

• Morris D. Thomas, southern Slavery, and the Law. Pp. 371-400. “Emancipation: Conceptions,
Restraints, and Practice.” Part IV: Manumission: Section 18. & pp. 400-425. “Quasi and in Futuro
Emancipations.” Part IV: Manumission: Section 19

Week 22: The Civil War, Black Reconstruction: A Wicked legacy (2024-03-21)

Required Readings

• W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935 Chapter 4. Pp.
55-84

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• Jose Itzigsohn, “Class, Race, and Emancipation: The Contributions of The Black Jacobins and Black
Reconstruction in America to Historical Sociology and Social Theory.” C.L.R. James Journal, 2013. Vol. 19,
No. 1-2. (SL ebook/Online)
Week 23: The Second Reconstruction and its Contradictions I (2024-03-28)

Required Readings

• Manning Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America 1945-
1982. Macmillan Press, 1984. Chapter 1. “Prologue the Legacy of the Frist Reconstruction.” Pp. 1-12;
Chapter 3. “The Demand for Reform 1954-1969.” Pp. 41-66 Reaction: The Demise of the Second
Reconstruction, 1976-1982. pp. 168

Week 24: The Second Reconstruction and its Contradictions 2 (2024-04-04)

Required Readings

Manning Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America 1945-1982.
Chapter 4. “We Shall Overcome 1960-64.” Pp. 95-128; Chapter 7. “Reaction: The Demise of the Second
Reconstruction, 1976-1982.” Pp. 168-200

Research paper: 40%. Due Date to be determined – To be uploaded on eClass Turnitin. Turnitin score
must be 20% or less.

Content:

- clearly formulated analytical introduction and thesis of the topic/paper you wish to explore and that
capture the problematics, issues, and analytical puzzles at the core of your topic
- identify at least eight different sources and prepare a brief literature review;
- define the conceptual or theoretical framework to be used in your analysis;
- sort out arguments and evidence, linking them coherently and succinctly; - sum up findings or
argumentation and specify issues that need further inquiry.
- this include identifying historical and conceptual disagreements in the literature and wider academic
debates on your topic

Form:

- the use of titles and subtitles for different parts of your essay is facultative, but too many subdivisions
must be avoided;
- at least 4 substantive verbatim quotations must be utilized in the paper. Be sure to property cite the
sources of your argument, facts, and information where necessary.
- any commonly used format for the presentation of foot / endnotes can be adopted, in so far as
consistency is scrupulously respected.

A thesaurus is a valuable writing tool to consult for strengthening the vocabulary of the paper if skillfully
used.

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The research paper is the major assignment for this course. The research essay must be a holistic work
that demonstrates considerable research, writing and thinking. The paper should not exceed 8-10 pages
double-spaced excluding Title page and bibliography.

The learning objectives of the research paper are:

- to contribute to deeper understanding of theoretical and conceptual issues related to slavery I the
Americas;
- to engage with some of the broad themes of the course;
- to develop effective written communication skills and academic writing style;
- to strengthen critical analysis.

The papers will be evaluated according to the followings criteria:

- effective communication, academic style, grammar and spelling;

- clear and logical organization of ideas and pertinent examples;
- referencing according to academic conventions;
- understanding of key concepts and theories and quality of argumentation.

Late papers will be subject to a 2% per day late penalty except in exceptional cases, with the professor’s
prior agreement. Extensions will not be granted on the day an assignment is due, except in case of
medical or family emergency, accompanied by appropriate documentation.

References and citations must follow a standard academic format. Please consult style manuals and/or
resources available at York University’s Centre for Academic Writing: http://writing-
centre.writ.laps.yorku.ca/

Note: Beware of academic fraud! Academic fraud is an act committed by a student that could falsify
scholastic evaluation (i.e. papers, exams, etc.). Any person found guilty of academic fraud is subject to
severe sanctions. Some examples of academic fraud include: - plagiarism or cheating of any kind; -
submitting work of which the student is not the author, in whole or in part (except for duly cited
quotation or references); - presenting research data that has been falsified or concocted in any way;
and - submitting, without written prior approval from the professors concerned, the same work for
more than one course. For further information, please consult York University’s website:
http://www.yorku.ca/academicintegrity/students/policy.htm

New Academic Changes: Student need to get acquainted with the below information: Course Relief:
http://secretariat-policies.info.yorku.ca/policies/course-relief-policy/ Repeating Courses:
http://secretariat-policies.info.yorku.ca/policies/repeating-passed-orfailed-courses-for-academic-credit-
policy/ Withdrawal from Courses: http://secretariat-policies.info.yorku.ca/policies/withdrawn-
fromcourse

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