Referring to the massacre of indigenous people in the
Iberian American colonies and the impoverishment of the masses in Spain and
Portugal as a result of colonisation Voltaire argued that therefore ‘no one has
won’.
Colonialism and slavery were central themes at the
International Society for 18th Century Studies held in Edinburgh from
14 to 19 July. Voltaire’s views were
discussed in the closing plenary session on Enlightenment Legacies by Maria das
Gracas de Souza of the University of Sao Paolo.
Indigenous
peoples and uneven development
Voltaire believed that Europeans were more advanced
peoples, and regarded the power of reasoning and understanding of indigenous
people’s as not being well developed. The development of science and the arts
in Europe had divided people into the ‘enlightened’ and the ‘underdeveloped’,
although progress was uneven and not inevitable.
This mix of superiority and pre-‘Marxist’ uneven
development theory is interesting at a time when Western Europe’s economy depended
on the exploitation of indigenous people, including the enslaved Africans forcibly
transported to the Americas. They produced the wealth that afforded the elite, the
‘middle classes’ and the intellectuals to develop the Enlightenment in all its
facets. It was 400 years ago that the use of enslaved Affricans by the English
began in Virginia. (Note 1) One of the dark aspects of the Enlightenment
classification system was the beginning of racial hierarchy developed by Carl Linnaeus,
with Africans as the lowest form of human beings, giving pro-slavery advocates
justification for it.
It can be argued that the ‘good/light’ side of the
Enlightenment in history studies until recently has masked the ‘evil/dark’ side
of its colonial economies, ethnic cleansing, brutal treatment of the enslaved
and impoverishment of European workers and peasants.
A different perspective on the Enlightenment comes
from North, Central and South American and Caribbean historians. They help to
challenge those who inhabit the ‘good/light’ Enlightenment comfort zone. The
growing evidence of the depth of Scottish involvement in the slavery business
is a challenge to those involved in studying the Scottish Enlightenment, given
even much respected authors like Thomas Smollett had links with the business.
Colonialism,
African Slavery and the Black Presence
The ISCECS programme had panels of talks and roundtables on Writing Black Atlantic Lives, Caribbean
Connections, Jamaica Connections, Colonial Space – Colonial Power (4),
Reckoning with Scotland’s Slavery Connections, Fashioning Slavery, Scots,
Empire and Identity, 18thC Constructions of Race, Black British Writers, Colonial
Encounters, Slavery & Identity (2), and Researching, Writing and Teaching
Black and Minority Ethnic Identities: Where are We now? (at University level). There
were also individual papers in other panels inc. on Mary Prince, two black
female slaves in Buenos Aires 1764-1773, Black British Women in 18th
Portraiture, and concepts of culture and race. One of the German Slavery
Identities panels had three papers on black people and non-Europeans.
BAME
Academics
In the BAME session Amanda Goodrich (Open
University) mentioned the fact that British history BAME academics are now
overburdened with requests to attend conferences/workshops etc to talk about
diversity and that bursaries are needed to cover their attendance. She
also mentioned that not all BAME academics want to be automatically identified
with BAME history and expected to research or teach it and some feel
overburdened by this expectation. They want to choose their area of
history. She mentioned the growing issues of ‘whose history is it’, and
whether there should be ‘black history’ and what that means. She also raised questions about how we research
and write BAME history and the difficulties that might arise in the
process.
Margot Finn (UCL) summarised the Royal Historical
Society’s Race, Ethnicity & Equality Working Group report identifying
barriers to equality and diversity in the discipline of history, seeking to
achieve on positive change in the environments in which historians of colour in
the UK work, and enhancing the wider practice and discipline of History by
increasing the presence of racial and ethnic minorities in university: https://royalhistsoc.org/policy/race.
Regulus Allen (Cal Poly, San Luis
Obispo) explained her experience teaching in the United States and the work she
was undertaking to develop good practice. Srividhya Swaminathan (Long Island
University) ) discussed the dangers of ‘ghettoisation’ and the artificial
construct of ‘whiteness.’ Ryan Hanley (Bristol) reviewed the development of
British Black History studies and publishing and the leading role of
non-academics. Several of us at the panel have been involved in such
discussions for a long time through the Black History networks and at BSCECS
Annual Conferences. (Note 2)
Britain
and Suriname
The third paper by Hilde Neus (Anton de Kom
University of Suriname) was about 72 coloured women who attempted a court case
against the civil guards in 1779. It is a reminder that England and the Britain
had direct dealings with Suriname in the 17thC (e.g. colonial control and Aphra
Behn), and colonial rule for the Dutch in the French Wars. It was also the
subject of Stedman’s book illustrated by William Blake, There will also have
been trade links directly between Britain and Suriname and via the Dutch ports
given so many merchants trading links. It is possible that most users of the UCL
based Legacies of British Slave-ownership database will not realise that if
they put into the search box for notes, 72 individuals are listed with Suriname
links, including the Austin family, the Scots born James Balfour, John Bent who
also owned land in Sussex, the Scots MP James Blair, Colin Campbell of Glasgow
and Rotterdam, including those who received British West Indies compensation,
and some who became slave owners in Suriname after emancipation in the British
West Indies. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs.
The Legacies project has helped to revolutionise our understanding of Britain
in the long-18thC. (Note 3)
The
relationship between academic and non-academic historians
The discussion at the BAME roundtable allowed me
to classify two groups of academics: those who value the contribution by
non-academics (several of whom were present), and those who do not. I challenged those academics, whose books
weave theories and conclusions on thin evidence, who consider non-academics as
not being academically rigorous. I was also critical of large funded research
projects which seek to involve non-academic historians and volunteers but do
not have enough money in budgets to meet expenses and pay people. (Note 4)
(1) ‘The purchase of 20 Africans at
Jamestown, Virginia during 1619 occurred weeks before the first meeting of the
Virginia House of Assembly. The 400th anniversary of the simultaneous
beginnings of slavery and democracy in British North America, and the
continuing dilemma of democracy and race, provide a context to discuss the
experiences of Africans brought here to labor under a brutal system of slavery.
This panel examines the history and nature of this first landing of Africans in
America, as well as legacies down to our own time. What was the meaning of
liberty and community for 17th Century Americans? What does it mean to be
American for their descendants and fellow minorities? What resonance do these issues
have as the United States faces a Presidential election threatening to become
the most racist appeal to voters in living memory?’ Two years later Anthony
Johnson was brought to Virginia, but by the mid-century was a slave owner
himself . (Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition
enewsletter 29 July 2019)
(2) See my
blog postings:
(3) The Legacies success rested on the retiring
Director Nick Draper, a former banker, whose PhD study opened up the
compensation records, and whose academic rigour has been first class. The
team’s collaboration with community, family, independent and local historians
has been a key part of the project. Without it
I could not have written Croydon’s
Connections with the British Slavery Business in Strange Bedfellows. Croydon’s Slave Owners and Historians (Croydon
Natural History & Scientific Society. Proceedings. Vol. 20. Part 1.
September 2017). Nick’s successor is Professor Matthew Smith, Head, Department
of History and Archaeology at the University of the West Indies at Mona,
Jamaica. His publications include Liberty,
Fraternity, Exile: Haiti and Jamaica After Emancipation (2014) and Red and Black in Haiti: Radicalism,
Conflict, and Political Change (2009). The Mona campus is on the former
slave plantation owned for a while by Bonds of the Park Hill Estate in Croydon.
Without the Legacies project it would be more difficult for Miranda Kaufmann,
the author of Black Tudors, to
research her current newly commissioned book on Heiresses: Slavery & The Caribbean Marriage Trade. Miranda was
at the Congress and is also co-organiser of the What is Happening in British
Black History workshops and network which is meeting again on 14 November: http://www.mirandakaufmann.com/blog/call-for-paperswhats-happening-in-black-british-history-xi-deadline-16th-september-2019
(4) Community
led projects like the Kennington Common 1848 Chartist project run by Friends of
Kennington Park, have had academics helping, including Katrina Navikas (Hertfordshire Uni.) The
project is perhaps one of the best models I know about. Details can be seen at www.kenningtoncharter.org. At the
Friends AGM on 23 July two pamphlets were launched: one about the project, and
another containing essays including one by Katrina. As a supporter of the
project I published last year my introduction to Lambeth Chartism, and will be
publishing one on Lambeth radicalism before Chartism to sell at a talk I am
giving at this year’s Lambeth History Fair on 7 September.
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