Afro-Latin America: Race and Revolution

Catalog description

Too often the history of race in the Americas is overly defined by concepts of racial identity and race relations in the United States. When examined quantitatively, fewer than five percent of the approximately 10 million slaves who survived the Middle Passage arrived in what we know as the United States of America. This course will examine the impact of slavery throughout the Americas, from the establishment of the plantation in Brazil through the impact of Black migration throughout the Americas today. Through lecture and discussion, we will identify patterns of racial identity and participation in the formation of the Latin American nation state that will give us a more nuanced understanding of both race and nation in the Americas. We will examine the development of the modern plantation from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century as well as the role of urban slavery in this era throughout Latin America. We will study the various paths to abolition with a particular focus on the Haitian Revolution and the common practice of military service among slave populations during the early nineteenth century struggles for Latin American independence. Additionally, we will look at the comparative abolition of slavery in the United States and Latin America, the role of slaves and free blacks in Central America, as well the role of race in the tensions between Haitians and Dominicans on the island of Hispaniola. The second half of the course will move to an examination of contemporary black politics, patterns of anti-black racism and state violence, and the emergence of new social movements for racial, gender, and economic justice in the Americas. This course meets the criteria for General Education designation in the B.A. fields of Humanities (GH), Social and Behavioral Sciences (GS), and International Cultures (IL).