HIST 400 - Comparative Slave Systems in the Americas

Credit Hours: 4
Frequency of Offering: Offered in alternate years, usually in the fall semester

This course explores the establishment of slavery in the Americas. It details the extent to which slaves across the entire Americas were involved in the same process of hemispheric exploitation and debasement. The course is particularly sensitive to the experiences of the slaves themselves, seeking to understand how they made sense of their world. To that end, issues such as slave religion, family life, recreational forms and the full range of cultural productions such as music, dance and storytelling are investigated in order to get a glimpse of the complex pattern of responses which slaves created in the attempt to erect a zone of freedom even in their enslavement.