African Atlantic: 1450-1850

Catalog description

Starting from the mid-15th century, the Atlantic world has been shaped by the complex interactions and history of the Americas, Europe, and Africa. From 1500 to 1820, more than three out of four migrants to the Americas were Africans. Yet for the history of Africans in the Atlantic world often becomes visible only through the history of slavery and white European settler colonialism. Looking to regions such as West and Central Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America, this class reimagines the Atlantic world through the labels “African-Atlantic” and “Black Atlantic” to consider how African and African-descended communities not only survived, but thrived, embraced, and maneuvered their environments for their own purposes. This course centers upon Africans and their Afro-descendants’ contributions to the Atlantic world sphere as well as their varied historical experiences and cultural formations embedded in the heart of Atlantic modernity.