Over the coming weeks, students taking this module will be spending much of their time researching and preparing group presentations on the following key themes, focusing in particular on how historians have approached and interpreted these.
These are the themes (with introductory reading freely accessible online):
1. Slave communities and resistance
How can we find out about slave communities, what was resistance, what forms could it take and how did it change over time?
Zacek, N. ‘Reading the rebels: currents of slave resistance in the eighteenth-century British West Indies’ (2007): http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Slavery/articles/zacek.html
2. Britain and slavery
How was Britain changed by having slave colonies in the Caribbean, what was their         economic contribution and how did they shape British society or culture?
Dresser, M. and A. Hann (eds), Slavery and the British Country House (2013): Â Â Â Â Â http://bit.ly/1kYhlnn, especially 13-16.
BBC, ‘How Many Britons are Descended from Slave-owners?’ (2013):     http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21601374
3. The rise of abolitionism
Why was there an abolition movement, how can we account for the timing of its rise and what factors were necessary in order for it to gain popularity and succeed?
BBC, ‘Abolition’ (2014): http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/
Walvin, J. ‘Abolishing the Slave Trade’ (2007): http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Slavery/articles/walvin.html