This dissertation analyzes the wills left behind by African-born ex-slaves in nineteenth-century Salvador in order to shed light on the lives that they led in the Bahian capital upon their arrival as slaves from Africa, and upon the re-acquisition of their freedom through the alforria system. The material assets and the slave ownership of libertos are studied in depth, as well as their religiosity, and the larger world and networks within which they operated in their Brazilian lives, with a specific eye towards African agency and processes of community formation. The qualitative and in-depth study of post-mortem testaments and inventories as meaningful texts in their own right provides the opportunity to decipher the individual voices of freed Africans, as well as to acquire insight into their Bahian worlds. The relationships, affective ties, and kinship networks of libertos, as well as their efforts to exercise agency and deliberation over their own lives, and the lives of others to whom they were connected, also become evident in the process. The testaments also make it possible to acquire a deeper understanding of African cosmologies in Brazil, through the ways in which libertos understood the passage from the worldly life to the afterlife, the meanings they gave to death, to funerals and other last rites. Understandings of justice, legality, and honor also come to the forefront, while the complex context of nineteenth century Bahia (and Brazil in general) constitutes the constant backdrop against which all these discussions acquire meaning. Understanding the lives, belief systems, and connections of African libertos also has important repercussions for understanding the experiences of Africans and their descendants in slave societies all over the Atlantic World. Insights deriving from the in-depth analysis of libertos’ wills have important implications for furthering our knowledge with regards to the Atlantic slave trade, slave ownership, and enslavement, as well as processes of identity and community formation, retention, adaptation, and resistance in the African Diaspora as a whole. / acase@tulane.edu

La figure du uicarius, esclave appartenant à un esclave en chef (ordinarius) dans le pécule duquel il se trouve, traduit une hiérarchisation à l’intérieur du microcosme de la sous-dépendance. Comme en témoignent les sources, à la fois multiples et diversifiées, le vicariat complexifie à l’évidence l’appréhension des stratifications serviles. Ce travail entreprend d’éclairer l’origine de ce statut (achat ou héritage cognatique). Ce faisant, il révèle une stratégie de parenté qui contribue à la consolidation et à la réinvention des logiques de la famille servile. Il éclaire par ailleurs l’utilité, tant domestique que professionnelle, du vicariat. Pépinière de jeunes esclaves, le vicariat est une « école servile ». En formant les vicaires à leur propre « métier d’esclave », les ordinarii, véritables magistri, leur dispensent un savoir spécialisé (peritia) de haute technicité. Véritables chevilles ouvrières de l’Empire, ils constituent dans la familia Caesaris, où ils sont massivement représentés, le socle de l’appareil d’Etat romain. / The vicariat was a subownership system based on a slave (uicarius) belonging to another slave (ordinarius). The uicarii were included in the peculium of the first-degree slaves. The vicariat testified of hierarchies among slaves. This study aims to enlight origin of this status (purchase or cognatic inheritance). By doing so, it disclosed strategies in order to strengthen the slaves families. It also demonstrates vicariat’s utility on the domestic level as well as professional. The vicariat was a nursury for young slaves and a “slave school”. By training uicarii for a specific work, the chief slaves were magistri who taught them specialized knowledges. In the familia Caesaris, the vicariat was a important linchpin of administration in Roman State.

This thesis examines the rhetoric of Theodore Dwight Weld's American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. Published anonymously in 1839, Weld's publication became the longest antislavery tract in American history. It left its mark on the abolitionist movement itself and future antislavery literary works most notably Uncle Tom's Cabin. Despite its historical and rhetorical importance, Weld's text has been subjected to little critical exploration. This being the case, it is the goal of this study to find the dominant means of persuasion that Weld used to argue to antebellum northern audiences that slavery is evil and should be abolished. Weld accomplishes this goal by using a judicial motif throughout his tract. In his text, Weld acts as prosecutor and asks his readers to act as jurors in judging the legitimacy of slavery in the United States. In doing so, Weld relies on evidence in the form of testimony and newspaper advertisements to prove his arguments. I utilize the Hermagorian system of stasis to shed light on Weld's use of the judicial motif. This system points to four main questions, which represent the main stands of argument between a prosecutor and defense. The four main questions are the stases of conjecture, definition, quality, and objection. Under the stasis of conjecture I show that Weld demonstrates that slavery results when individuals are motivated by absolute arbitrary power. Under the stasis of definition I argue that the South offered the justifications of "necessary evil" and "positive good" in linking their way of life to the institution of slavery. Weld rejects these justifications and establishes his own account of slavery to be a thirst for absolute power over others. In the third stasis of quality I show that Weld argues that human nature is against slavery and therefore, should be abolished. In the last stasis of objection I show that Weld answers the question of whether abolitionists are justified in condemning slavery. Using The Hermagorian system of stasis shows that although each one is applicable to an analysis of Weld's tract, the stases of quality and objection are the most fruitful in establishing the effectiveness of Weld's rhetoric. By combining both emotion and logic for his jurors, Weld accomplishes his role as prosecutor in the case. Once his jurors act in accordance to the judicial motif as members of humanity and see the slaves in the same light, they are forced to bring back a just verdict of guilty because slavery is against the very essence of humanity itself. / Graduation date: 1999

Thesis (M.Th. (New Testament))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 309-331).

An exploration of self-deception in proslavery arguments in the antebellum South. This work explores how proslavery theorists were able to support slavery despite overwhelming evidence that slavery was immoral. By using non-intentional self-deception, slavery supporters tested their hypothesis that slavery was good in a motivationally biased manner that aligned with their interests and desires.

<p>After the establishment of the British Protectorate in the Busa&lsquo / idi Sultanate in 1890, the British colonial administration embarked on a policy of transforming the administration of Islamic law and its institutions which included the kadhi, liwali and mudir courts. The ultimate objective of the transformation process was to incorporate such institutions into the colonial enterprise and gradually reform them. Within a span of seven decades of their colonial rule in the Busa&lsquo / idi Sultanate, the British colonial authorities managed to transform the administration of Islamic law and its institutions. Key areas of the transformation process included the formalisation of the administration of Islamic law in which procedural laws related to MPL and wakf regulations were codified. Kadhi courts and wakf commissions were institutionalised and incorporated into the colonial apparatus. In the process of transforming the kadhi courts, the British colonial authorities adopted three major policies: institutional transformation, procedural transformation, and exclusion of criminal jurisdiction from kadhi courts. The focus of the transformation process was on the curtailment of kadhis powers. By 1916 criminal jurisdiction was removed from kadhis and their civil jurisdiction was gradually confined to MPL. Other significant areas of the transformation process were the wakf institutions and slavery. Wakf institutions were related to land issues which were crucial to the colonial politics and the abolition of slavery in the Busa&lsquo / idi Sultanate was a primary concern of the British colonial administration. Through policies of compromise and coercion, the British colonial officials managed to gradually abolish slavery without causing&nbsp / political or social upheavals in the Sultanate. Due to the fact that there was no uniform policy on the transformation exercise undertaken by the British colonial officials on the ground, the reform process was marked with transformative contradictions which seemed to be a hallmark of British colonial policy in the Busa&lsquo / idi Sultanate. For instance, British colonial policies on transforming wakf institutions were caught in a contradiction in that, on the one hand, colonial efforts were geared towards transforming the land system in order to achieve economic development, and on the other hand, the British colonial officials were keen to uphold a paternalistic approach of adopting a non-interference policy in respect of religious institutions. Similarly, in abolishing slavery, the British colonial government, on the one hand, was under pressure from philanthropists and missionaries to end slavery, and, on the other hand, the British colonial officials on the ground portrayed their support of the slave owners and advocated a gradual approach to abolish slavery. Findings of this thesis reveal that the British colonial administration managed to achieve complete reform in some cases, such as, the abolition of liwali and mudir courts and confining kadhis&rsquo / civil jurisdiction to MPL, while in other areas, such as, the management of wakf institutions and the abolition of slavery, the British faced resistance from the Sultans and their subjects which resulted in partial reforms. Hence, in the process of transforming the administration of Islamic law and its institutions in the Busa&lsquo / idi Sultanate, the British colonial administration adopted a dual policy of reforming and retreating.</p>

Jane Austens <i>Mansfield Park</i> has earned a reputation as a difficult text for its politically-charged negotiations of ethics and unsatisfactory heroine. Since Edward Said presented the novel as an example of British literature that contributed to an expanding imperialist venture (95), scholarly attention has shifted to focus on the extent to which the novel critically engages with macrocosmic power structures and hegemonic discourse. That is, how does Mansfield Parks description of power dynamics at home reflect slave-related issues in the foreign atmosphere? Austens interest in and familial connections to slave-related issues, contemporary cultural awareness of abolitionist sentiment, and textual allusions to the slave trade all contribute to the novels counterpoint between domestic and foreign spaces: the Bertram family is economically dependent on a slave plantation in Antigua. A microcosm of plantation life, Mansfield Park represents the dilemmas of marginalized women who are presented with choices to rebel against or submit to patriarchal authority. In order to preserve her own physical, emotional, and psychological safety, Fanny Price bids for patriarchal favour. While others are punished severely for their rebellion, Fanny is rewarded for her submissive choices and enjoys an elevated social status. However, she inspires no reformation and remains an unsatisfactory heroine. Like the grateful Negro of contemporary plantation tales, Fanny functions to stabilize the status quo through her gratitude and loyalty, reinforcing societys tightly-controlled boundaries of acceptable behaviour. Mansfield Parks revelatory strength is that it exposes the mechanisms by which power is produced and maintained in domestic and imperial spaces.

I argue that William Wells Brown’s narrative, Clotel, is informed by the white racism inherent in Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia and reveals evidence of the trauma it has fostered transgenerationally. By examining Toni Morrison’s Beloved, I assert that the trauma of slavery is transmitted transgenerationally in the black female body. I develop my argument using trauma theory, postulated through the work of Cathy Caruth, Dori Laub, Diana Miles, Abraham and Maria Torok, and William Cross. My purpose is to reveal the relevance and lasting significance of the legacy of slavery in contemporary American society. Thomas Jefferson’s white supremacist ideas, along with the system of slavery which nurtured them, continue to plague contemporary American thought and continue to shape African American female identity.

This thesis examines the influence of the abolition debates on two of William Blake’s early writings, “The Little Black Boy” and The Visions of the Daughters of Albion. It also considers Blake’s engravings for John Gabriel Stedman’s Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam as proof of his abolitionist interest. Chapter one provides an overview of current Romantic criticism which situates Blake and other Romantic writers within a historical context. Chapter two summarizes the abolition movement in the late eighteenth century. Chapters three, four and five specifically discuss Blake’s work as abolitionist in intent.