Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Sears, C

Titel

American Slaves and African Masters: Algiers and the Western Sahara, 1776-1820

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• 01 02 Whether by falling prey to Algerian corsairs or crashing onto the desert shores of Western Sahara, a handful of Americans in the first years of the Republic found themselves enslaved in a system that differed so markedly from nineteenth century U.S. slavery that some contemporaries and modern scholars hesitate to categorize their experiences as 'slavery.' Sears uses a comparative approach, placing African enslavement of Americans and Europeans in the context of Mediterranean and Ottoman slaveries, while individually investigating the system of slavery in Algiers and Western Sahara. This work illuminates the commonalities and peculiarities of these slaveries, while contributing to a growing body of literature that showcases the flexibility of slavery as an institution. 04 02 Remembering the 'Horror of Mahometan Vassalage:' 'This World if full of Vicissitudes' PART I: ALGIERS 'Far Distant From our Country, Families Friends and Connections': American Slaves in Ottoman Algiers 'Once a Citizen of the United States of America, but at Present the Most Miserable Slave': Americans and Slave Community 'American Livestock, Now Slaves in Algiers': Elite Slaves in Ottoman Algiers 'We Set No Great Value Upon Money': A Slave Economy PART II: WESTERN SAHARA 'Sons of Sorrow': American Slaves in the Western Sahara 'Clear the Country of All You Christian Dogs': The Business of Redemption A Different Kind of Slavery 13 02 Christine E. Sears is an assistant professor of History at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where she teaches classes in the Atlantic World, Early American Republic, and comparative slavery. 02 02 This study illuminates the commonalities and the peculiarities of different slaveries and contributes to a growing body of literature that showcases the flexibility of slavery as an institution. 19 02 1) POWERFUL CONTRIBUTION TO ENSLAVEMENT STUDIES: While others have delineated the different strands of slavery in the Ottoman and Mediterranean worlds, Sears offers a particularly convincing and concrete examination by contrasting these with the American system of slavery. 2) HOT TOPIC: Enslavement studies is a rapidly growing field, with an exciting new transnational dimension that this study exemplifies. 3) UNUSUALLY BROAD PERSPECTIVE: Sears is actually an American historian, but her study reveals an impressive and credible engagement with all of the relevant literature in Middle Eastern and North African social/cultural studies. 08 02 "Sears presents a highly readable history of the 140 American captives of corsairs in Algiers or from shipwrecks. Recommended." - CHOICE