Bridging Two Oceans: Slavery in Indian and Atlantic Worlds
An
International Conference organised by the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull, at the Iziko Slave Lodge, Cape Town, 19 - 22 November 2009.
Provisional programme
**Thursday 19 November**
Welcome and opening address
The Mayor of Cape Town, Alderman Dan Plato, introduced by David Richardson, University of Hull
Historical memory and performance
Chair: Archie Dick, University of Pretoria
Wilma Cruise, Independent artist and writer and Gavin Younge, Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town
'Satan's Seat: The Cape Town Slave Memorial in Post-colonial Context'
David Wilkins, University of Hull
'Repairing historical wrongs in Africa: Whose history?'
Gabeba Baderoon, Pennsylvania State University
'The Two African Oceans: Memories of Slavery in Yvette Christianse's Castaway, Unconfessed and Imprendahora'
Tunde Awosanmi, University of Ibadan
'Slaveprints on Sand and Sea: Rewriting the slave-self in African drama'
Capital and labour
Chair: Sophie White, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Kwabena Adu-Boahen, University of Cape Coast
'West African slavery under European mercantile presence: the case of 16th-18th century Gold Coast'
Anil Persaud, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
'John Rippon and the Circuits of Cane: Capital, Knowledge and Labour at the turn of the 18th Century in the Indian Ocean'
Bonnie Martin, Southern Methodist University
'Mortgaging Slaves in North America and South Africa: Parallels in Funding Slavery and Slave Societies'
In the shadow of slavery
Chair: Chris Saunders, University of Cape Town
Bronwen Everill, King's College London
' "The first requisite to the prosperity of the colony is the suppression of the slave trade": Reassessing the Impact of Sierra Leone and Liberia's Antislavery Activity'
Sandy Shell, University of Cape Town
'Prosopographies and profiles: the Oromo slave children in South Africa, 1888-2008'
Alaine Hutson, Huston-Tillotson University
' "Common Failings of Our Common Humanity": A Preliminary Exploration of Issues Common to Slavery in the Middle East and the Atlantic World'
**Friday 20 November**
Anti-slavery encounters
Chair: Patrick Harries, University of Basel
Mary Wills, University of Hull
'Anti-slavery and the Royal Navy: encounters, experiences and beliefs'
Lindsay Doulton, University of Hull
' "The Flag that sets us free?" Anti-Slavery, Africans and the Royal Navy in the Western Indian Ocean, c. 1860-1890'
Isabelle Denis, Université Paris Sorbonne
'The Amélie and The Pocha: Two slave vessels and the French Navy (Martinique 1822 - Mayotte 1840)'
Patterns of trading
Chair: Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, University of Hull
Stacey Sommerdyk, University of Hull
'Examining the Merchant Communities of the Loango Coast: The Eighteenth Century West Central African Voyages of the Middelburg Commercial Company'
Carlos Liberato, York University, Toronto
'The Slave Trade between the Indian Ocean and the Amazonia, 1778-1846: Volume, Routes and Organisation'
Steven Serels, McGill University
'Salt for Slaves; The Slave Trade at Rowayeh, the Sudan, 1880-1913'
Slavery and education
Chair: Wayne Alexander, Iziko Museums of Cape Town
Yvette Fox and Sue Holmes, East Riding of Yorkshire Council
'The Pedagogy of Learning and Teaching Slavery Studies in Schools'
Albert Jauze, Université de la Réunion
'Education about slavery and the slave trade in Réunion Island'
**Saturday 21 November**
Keynote: Nigel Worden, University of Cape Town
'Changing Networks of Slave Resistance at the Cape: Bridging the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Worlds'
Chair: Nicholas J. Evans, University of Hull
Conceptual frameworks
Chair: David Richardson, University of Hull
Gwyn Campbell, McGill University
'Towards an Understanding of Twin Ocean Slavery'
Nigel Penn, University of Cape Town
'Slavery in the Cape Province'
Judith Spicksley, University of Hull
'Debt as a Framework for the Study of Slavery'
Political economies and social structures
Chair: Judith Spicksley, University of Hull
David Richardson, University of Hull
'The Demography of Slavery in Africa'
Andrea Major, University of Leeds
'Slavery and the Raj'
Edward Alpers, University of California, Los Angeles
'Patterns of Slave Trafficking, 1665-1831'
Movements across oceans
Chair: Jaco Boshoff, Iziko Museums of Cape Town
Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, University of Hull
'Free and forced migration in the Portuguese Atlantic, 1580s-1670s: Western Africa as a case-study'
Richard Allen, Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund, Mauritius
'From Saint Helena to Sumatra: The British East India Company and Slave Trading in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, 1621-1804'
David Eltis and Jane Hooper, Emory University
'The Indian Ocean in Transatlantic Slavery'
**Sunday 22 November**
Keynote: Robert Shell, University of the Western Cape
'From Diaspora to Diorama: UNESCO and the preservation of the legacies of twin ocean slavery'
Chair: Joel Quirk, University of Hull
The diasporic legacies of slavery
Chair: Kate Hodgson, University of Hull
Shihan de Silva, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London
'Asia's Africans: Forgotten Communities'
James Sweet, University of Wisconsin-Madison
'The African Diaspora in the Atlantic World'
Ehud Toledano, Tel-Aviv University
'The emergence of African communities in the Ottoman Empire'
Abolitionism and its aftermath
Chair: Lalou Meltzer, Iziko Museums of Cape Town
Kate Hodgson, University of Hull
'Twin ocean travellers and late eighteenth century European abolitionism'
John Oldfield, University of Southampton
'Transatlanticism and Abolition'
Nicholas J. Evans, University of Hull
'The legacies of abolitionist discourse in the campaigns to abolish the White Slave Trade'
Contemporary slavery and historical problems
Chair: Fiona Clayton, Iziko Museums of Cape Town
Mark Johnson, University of Hull
'Beyond the Veil: Situating Migrant Labour in the Middle East'
Deborah Posel, University of Witwatersrand
'Apartheid in South Africa'
Joel Quirk, University of Hull
'Modern Slavery in Africa: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Problems'
Closing address: The Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu, Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town
'Repairing Historical Wrongs'
Chair: David Richardson, University of Hull
Spotted on my alerts:
A Press Release from Michigan State University about the African Oral Narratives, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, in which MSU will
partner with African scholars to collect and digitize life histories,
folklore and songs from men and women.
<snip>Over a four-year period, the African Oral Narratives project will
collect information from Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria,
South Africa, and Tanzania. The audio and video resources will be in
the languages of Akan (Twi), Wolof, Bamanakan (Mandinka), Igbo, Fula
(Pulaar), Farefare, Amharic, Oromo, Swahili, Zigula, Chewa, Zulu,
Sepedi, Sesotho, Tswana, Afrikaans and English.
Collaborating on the project are MSU’s MATRIX, Department of History
and African Studies Center in partnership with scholars at Addis Ababa
University, University of Ghana, University of Malawi, South African
History Association, United Nations, Indiana University and Oakland
University.
