HIS 241 - Slavery and the Environment in a Comparative Context (in the Bahamas) (1)

This course offers a rare opportunity to explore historic slave plantation ruins on a remote island in the Bahamas as a means of interpreting the history of slavery. We will examine the attempt by British Loyalists, who left the American colonies after the Revolutionary War, to establish cotton production in the Bahamas, using slave labor, and how the environmental context led to significant differences in the evolving relationships between enslaved people and plantation owners. A significant portion of the course (two weeks) will be conducted at the Gerace Research Centre, College of the Bahamas on the island of San Salvador; this will enable us to explore the ruins of several slave plantations, including the Farquharson Plantation. The journal Charles Farquharson kept from 1831-1832, which includes a slave uprising, is the only one in existence documenting a Bahamian slave plantation, and will be a central course text. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. This course is cross-listed with Environmental Studies.
(Humanities)