HY486: The Anti-Slave-Trade Atlantic World, c.

1807-1870

ASSESSED ESSAY

The FIRST ASSESSED ESSAY must be submitted no later than 12:00 (noon) on Monday 29 January 2024
(Winter Term) and the SECOND ASSESSED ESSAY no later than 12:00 (noon) on Monday 29 April 2024
(Spring Term). The mark for the first essay will account for 40% of the overall grade for the course, and
the second essay will account for 60%. The following regulations govern the submission of the assessed
essay. Please remember that the assessed essay counts as part of the examination and is governed by
the LSE examination regulations.

Submission: Assessed essay must be submitted on your Moodle course to Turnitin.

Submission of your work on Moodle should reach the Department by no later than 12.00 (noon) on
Monday 29 January 2024 and on Monday 29 April 2024. Please note that the date and time that you
submit your work on Moodle is taken as the official submission time for the purposes of lateness
penalties. The department may withhold provisional marks and feedback if you do not submit your work
on Moodle to Turnitin.

Your essay must be typed or word processed.

The first page of the essay should only state your examination candidate number, the course code
(‘HY486’), the name of Teacher Responsible for the Course [TRC – Dr Jake Subryan Richards], and the
title of the essay. Your file for Turnitin submission MUST include your candidate number and the course
code in the title, so it reads: "HY486CandidateNumberxxxxx.doc"

Please state at the end of the essay the total number of words included in the text and footnotes: it is
ESSENTIAL that you do this.

The maximum of words allowed for the text and footnotes is 4,000 words for the first essay and 6,000
words for the second essay. Please add a bibliography (i.e. a list of books, articles, websites and other
sources consulted). The bibliography does not count towards the word limit. One mark will be deducted
for up to every one hundred words by which you exceed the permitted maximum. This means that
the penalty kicks in at one word over the limit--i.e. at 4,001 words for the first assessed essay and
6,001 words for the second assessed essay.

Late submission: The Department expects students to meet Assessed Essay deadlines, and it is your
responsibility to organise your time appropriately. Extensions to deadlines can only be considered if you
experience circumstances which are sudden, unforeseen, out of your control and proximate to the
assessment(s) in question. You will also need to supply evidence of those circumstances which meets
LSE’s Standards of Evidence policy; in the majority of cases, requests without evidence cannot be
considered.

To allow for processing time, any extension requests must be made at least three days in advance of
the submission deadline. Students should complete the form provided on the course Moodle page,
gather supporting documents or other evidence, and email the form and the evidence to
ih.pgadmin@lse.ac.uk. You will be notified by e-mail as to whether your extension is granted by the Chair
of the Exam Sub-Board. Please do not assume that your extension has been granted until you have
received such an e-mail.

Unfortunately, the Department cannot consider extension requests made less than three days before
the submission deadline. If you experience adverse circumstances after this time but before the
submission deadline, you should consult the Exceptional Circumstances procedures.

Unless late submission has been authorised, 5 points out of 100 will be deducted from the grade for
unauthorised late submissions received during the first 24 hours after the deadline, and a further 5
points will be deducted for each subsequent 24-hour lateness period or fraction thereof. In accordance
with Departmental policy, computer theft and computer hardware, software or printer failures or
malfunctions will not be accepted as valid reasons for late submission. Please therefore be sure to
keep back-up copies of all your work.

You are expected to save your material other than on a single computer hard drive throughout. Leave
enough time to proof-read your work thoroughly, particularly if English is not your first language.

Plagiarism: As the essay is part of your examination, plagiarism is regarded as cheating and, if evidence
for it is strong enough, the essay will be marked ZERO. In addition, you are likely to find yourself in front
of the LSE Misconduct Panel, where harsher punishments are available. For further details, please see:
https://info.lse.ac.uk/Staff/Divisions/Academic-Registrars-Division/Teaching-Quality-Assurance-and-
Review-Office/Assets/Documents/Calendar/RegulationsAssessmentOffences-Plagiarism.pdf

All students are asked to tick a declaration on all work submitted on Moodle as part of the formal
assessment for their degree other than work produced under examination conditions, to the effect that
they have read and understood the School’s rules on assessment offences and that the work submitted
is their own apart from properly referenced quotations.

Feedback: Feedback on assessed essays is offered in the form of a summary of the examiners' comments
by the TRC. Your essays will not be handed back, since they must remain in the Department so that they
can be accessible to the external examiners.

Questions

1. How far did the law create similar conditions for enslaved people in British, French, and
Spanish colonies in the Americas?
2. ‘Province of freedom’ or ‘slave-traders’ paradise’. Which description best suits early Sierra
Leone?
3. To what extent were the anti-slave-trade courts arms of the British empire?
4. How far and in what ways were slaving ships unique spaces in the Atlantic world?
5. How did African societies change because of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade?
6. To what extent was there a radical “free soil” principle in Haiti in the early nineteenth
century?
7. ‘Antislavery uprising’ or ‘colonists’ paranoia’: which is a better explanation of the nature of
La Escalera?
8. How surprising is it that the Brazilian slave trade ended with legislation rather than violence?
9. How far was the annexation of Lagos the logical consequence of establishing the Sierra
Leone Colony?
10. ‘On the spectrum between slavery and freedom, indenture sat in the middle.’ Discuss.
11. How did the Black Atlantic change between c. 1807 and 1900?
12. How far did the distinction between the sea and the land affect the implementation of
anti-slave-trade practices?
13. ‘Abolition was primarily a commercial project masked as a legal one.’ Discuss.
14. How far did representations of slave resistance change between c. 1780 and 1870 in the
Americas?