Dr Christer Petley, editor of the Slavery and Revolution website, answers questions on slavery and on the new movie, 12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen and based on the narrative of Solomon Northup. Click here for the ’60-second guide’.
Northup was a free man born in New York in 1808 who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841 before reclaiming his freedom in 1853. Read his story, the basis for the film, here: http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/northup.html
Category Archives: S&R News and Posts
Improvements to S&R
Since the site went live over a year ago, several new letter excerpts have been added along with other enhancements and additions. The menu now contains links to information on slavery and on Jamaica, useful to anyone studying (or teaching!) these subjects for the first time.
Student Essays about S&R Letters
This month, students in History at the University of Southampton, on the Year 2 Option Module, The British Atlantic World, have been using the letters to frame seminar discussions. Students have brought excerpts of the letters to class, relating these to their wider reading on related topics like the transformation of the British empire and the fall of the planter class. Several students will choose to write assessed essays in response to the question ‘In what ways can Simon Taylor’s letters help us to understand the fall of the planter class in the British Caribbean?’
Last Caribbean Frontier
Review by Christer Petley of The Last Caribbean Frontier by Kit Candlin, about Trinidad, Guyana and Grenada at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Click here
Proslavery Priest
Review by Christer Petley of a book by B.W. Higman about a proslavery Anglican clergyman in eighteenth century Jamaica. Click here
S&R Resources in Use @ UoS
This year several students in History at the University of Southampton have been using the letters and other resources on the site in their work. The letters have provided a focus for seminar discussions on the conflict over slavery and proslavery politics in the Year 3 Special Subject module on slavery and freedom.
Nelson's Caribbean
Sam Willis (@shipwreck_sam), pictured, presents a BBC documentary about Caribbean slavery and the Royal Navy. Thousands of British servicemen died during the wars between Britain and Revolutionary France, defending sugar and slavery in Caribbean islands like Jamaica and Antigua. The documentary includes comments from the editor of the S&R site, Christer Petley. This is the official site, and it is (probably) available on YouTube.
Site Launched!
Welcome to the Slavery and Revolution site.
The first batch of selections, uploaded this month, is taken from letters sent by Simon Taylor in Jamaica to his friend and fellow plantation owner Chaloner Arcedeckne, who lived in Britain. The excerpts presented are from letters written between 1781 and 1793, a period that saw the ending of the American Revolutionary War, the rise of the campaign in Britain to abolish the transatlantic slave trade, and the outbreak of the French and Haitian Revolutions. Arcedeckne entrusted the management of his Jamaican properties to Taylor, and the letters that Taylor sent to him therefore contain discussion of plantation management as well as of other topics, including war, politics, family, religion, weather, and trade.