Inaug.-diss.--Freiburg i. Br. / Lebenslauf. "Literatur": p. 77.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 309-328).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: Peter R. Kolchin, Dept. of History. Includes bibliographical references.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation langue et littérature / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The American Revolution and its aftermath posed the greatest challenge to the institution of slavery since the first Africans landed in Jamestown. Revolutionary defenses of the natural equality of man provided ammunition for generations of men and women opposed to racial subordination while the ideological strains of the struggle sounded the death knell for slavery in Northern states and led significant numbers of Southerners to question the morality and safety of slaveholding. Most importantly, the bloody and chaotic war in the South provided an unprecedented opportunity for slaves to challenge their bondage as tens of thousands of black men and women fled to the British, the swamps, or the relative anonymity of the cities. In examining the “reconstruction” of Southern slavery in the post-Revolutionary decades, Merging social, military, and economic history, "Origins of the Old South" examines how, in the attempt to rebuild their society from the ravages of war, black and white Southerners together created the new and historically distinct slave society of the “Old South.” The first two chapters of the dissertation demonstrate how the struggle to contain the disorders of a civil war amongst half a million enslaved African-Americans transformed the Southern states—the scene of the war’s bloodiest fighting after 1778—into a crucible in which men, land, and debt melted into capital. State governments redistributed thousands of slaves and millions of acres of land to purchase supplies and raise troops from within a weary populace; the estates of many of the South’s most important planters, comprising roughly ten percent of the region’s real and personal wealth, were confiscated and sold at auction at a fraction of their value; and wartime prestige coupled with the departure of prominent loyalists allowed a legion of “new men” to come into control of the new state governments. The result was the ascendance of a new class of merchant planters, who pushed the locus of Southern development inland, and major changes in the contours of black life in the region. The remaining three chapters of the dissertation examine these twinned consequences of the Revolution over the following three decades. Chapter three follows the experience of enslaved men and women after the war, tracing their movement throughout the Atlantic World and across the boundary between slavery and freedom during the conflict. Chapter four then looks at the impact of the region's ill-fated antislavery push during and immediately after the war, while chapter five shows how early national state governments drove slavery's expansion and closed the revolutionary moment in the process.

This thesis investigates the social and economic history of slavery in Libya in the period between 1800 and 1950. Focusing on Tripoli and the trading centres of Ghadames and Fezzan, it uses a combination of sources including legal records, travel accounts, commercial correspondence, memoirs and oral interviews to examine the impact of the slave trade, the economic and social lives of the enslaved, and their experiences of emancipation. Examining the trading of slaves in Ghadames, the thesis reveals how merchants considered slaves one commodity among others. It analyses how the slave trade continued until the Italian occupation of Libya in 1911, long after the formal prohibition of the trans-Saharan slave trade in 1856. Despite a long-term decline, caravan trading networks remained somewhat resilient and continued with alternative commodities such as ivory and ostrich feathers. This thesis then moves to analyse the social and economic lives of the enslaved, and the legal status of slavery in Libya. It explores the dynamics of employment, resistance by slaves and master-slave relations by analysing two major categories of slaves, who were treated considerably differently; those who worked in the caravan trade in Ghadames, and those slaves who worked as domestic servants in Tripoli. Many existing sources showed the differences in social relationship between slaves and masters. Different occupational categories, such as caravan workers and domestic servants, had different access to patronage, or experiences of abuse and violence. Oral interviews reveal that slaves in Tripoli experienced less violence compared to those in Ghadames and Fezzan in the nineteenth century. However, mistreated slaves had the right to a court hearing. The court provided a platform for slaves to challenge abuse, with some slaves seeking to push these boundaries further by going to court to assert their rights to better treatment by their owners. The third chapter explores the patterns of religious and economic manumission that existed in Libya before the abolition of slavery, It also traces changes of policies of emancipation that pursued by Ottoman and Italian governments. Finally, the thesis explores the social history of emancipation through examining the economic and social lives of communities of freed slaves. Through surveying a large number of legal cases, the thesis argues that slavery in Libya was marked more by continuities than change across the period of study. The legacy of slavery has persisted over time as relations of clientship between ex-slaves and ex-masters replaced direct relations of ownership. This thesis shows the difficulties faced by slaves in negotiating for clientship (al-wala’) from their former masters. Some ex-slaves unquestionably improved their status with a substantial minority experiencing social mobility as caravan workers and agents, while others remained ill-treated, with irregular work and subsistence wage labour; living on the margins of Libyan society.

This dissertation is a systematic investigation of fugitive slave advertisements aiming to understand the nature of fugitives’ rebelliousness in Georgia and Maryland between 1790 and 1810. Hitherto, historical inquiry pertaining to slave fugitivity has focused on other states and other times. This study provides a close reading of 5,567 advertisements pertaining to runaway slaves and analyses extracted data pertaining to the prosopography of 1,832 fugitives and their fugitivity. Its main research questions focus on advertisements as manifest records of rebellion. Who were the fugitives? What do the fugitive slave advertisements reveal about enslaved people’s contestation of slaveholders’ authority? The principal findings are as follows. First, the typography and iconography of fugitive slave advertisements were expressly intended to undermine the individualism and agency of enslaved people. Second, with regard to Georgia and Maryland, while there were spikes between 1796 and 1798 and 1800 and 1801, fugitivity was a daily occurrence, and thus a normative act of rebellion distinct from insurrection. Third, quantitative analysis indicated fugitives were typically young males, in their twenties, likely to escape at any time of the year; Georgia fugitives were more likely to escape in groups. Fourth, qualitative analysis of advertisers’ descriptions of fugitives revealed evidence of challenges to their authority. Depictions of fugitives’ character and remarks or notes on their behaviour constitute evidence of observed characteristics. From the advertisers’ perspective slaves were at their most dangerous when they could read and write or when they were skilled in deception. The “artful” fugitive in particular possessed many skills, sometimes including literacy, which could be used to defy the power that kept him or her in subjection. Fifth, further investigation established clear linkages between literacy and fugitives’ rebelliousness. Qualitative studies to date speak of slave literacy’s theoretical liberating and empowering effects but do not provide tangible accounts of who the literate slaves were or consider literacy as a factor in rebelliousness. The dissertation identified 36 literate slaves in Maryland and 9 in Georgia, and statistical analysis suggested 3.6 percent of US fugitive slaves were literate. Finally, it was evident that literacy was part of a larger contest to circumvent slaveholder authority and attain self-empowerment. Fugitivity itself was the outcome of a history of contestation that might be hidden from history were it not for the advertisements themselves.

The overall aim of the study is to investigate how 12 Years a Slave can help raise awareness among upper secondary students about racism and to inspire sympathy with the characters presented in passages regarding the cruelty and injustice of slavery. The study is based on literary didactics methods, applied to the textual analysis of the passages, to create a hypothetical scheme for teachers that can be used to work with slave narratives in the classroom. The analysis of the passages, in conjunction with the literary didactics methods used, provides methods through which students may increase their awareness of racism and sympathize with the characters in the book by creating their own plays, reenacting the cruelty committed against slaves. Also, when dealing with the injustice of slavery, students can imagine themselves being present even though they will not be able to experience it physically. This may help students sympathize with the main character and help them understand racism from the victim’s point of view.

This essay concern the Bona Dea cult and women in the Roman Republic. By using ancient literary sources and inscriptions the different aspects of the cult is examined from a gender and an intersectional perspective. The essay covers the lives and rights of Roman women, their role in religion in general and how they participated in the Bona Dea cult specifically. The aim of the study is to understand the importance of the cult for women, freedmen and slaves, as well as analysing the paradox of letting women participate in rituals and customs otherwise forbidden to them.