Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age

383 Pages·2006·11.38 MB·English

by  Christopher Leslie Brown

Arming Slaves
Since its founding in 1998, The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slav-
ery, Resistance, and Abolition, which is part of the Yale Center for Interna-
tional and Area Studies, has sponsored an annual international conference on
major aspects of the chattel slave system, its ultimate destruction, and its
legacies in America and around the world. The Center’s mission is, one, to
increase knowledge of this story across time and all boundaries, and, two, to
reach out to broader publics which demonstrate a growing desire to under-
stand race, slavery, abolition, and the extended meanings of this history over
time. Because the research, discoveries, and narratives presented at our con-
ferences do so much to enrich our knowledge of one of humanity’s most
dehumanizing institutions and its place in the founding of the modern world,
as well as of the first historical movements for human rights, we are immensely
grateful to Yale University Press for engaging in this joint publication venture.
The Gilder Lehrman Center is supported by Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehr-
man, generous Yale alumni and devoted patrons of American history. The
Center aspires, with Yale University Press, to offer to the broadest possi-
ble audience the best modern scholarship on a story of global and lasting
significance.
david w. blight, Class of 1954 Professor of History at Yale University,
and Director, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of
Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition
Edited by
CHRISTOPHER LESLIE BROWN
and PHILIP D. MORGAN
Arming Slaves
FROM CLASSICAL TIMES TO
THE MODERN AGE
Yale University Press
New Haven &
London
Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Philip
Hamilton McMillan of the Class of 1894, Yale College.
Copyright ∫ 2006 by Yale University.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any
form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright
Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from
the publishers.
Set in Sabon Roman types by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Arming slaves : from classical times to the modern age / edited by Christopher Leslie
Brown and Philip D. Morgan.
p. cm.
Based on lectures from a conference in Fall 2000 at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the
Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-300-10900-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-300-10900-8
1. Slave soldiers—History. I. Brown, Christopher Leslie. II. Morgan Philip D., 1949–
III. Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.
ub416.a86 2006
355.3%308625—dc22
2005026285
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of Thomas E. J. Weidemann
Contents
Maps ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction, by David Brion Davis 1
Arming Slaves and Helots in Classical Greece, by Peter Hunt 14
The Mamlu¯k Institution, or One Thousand Years of Military Slavery in the
Islamic World, by Reuven Amitai 40
Armed Slaves and Political Authority in Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade,
1450–1800, by John Thornton 79
Making the Chikunda: Military Slavery and Ethnicity in Southern Africa,
1750–1900, by Allen Isaacman and Derek Peterson 95
Transforming Bondsmen into Vassals: Arming Slaves in Colonial Spanish
America, by Jane Landers 120
Arming Slaves in Brazil from the Seventeenth Century to the Nineteenth
Century, by Hendrik Kraay 146
Arming Slaves in the American Revolution, by Philip D. Morgan and
Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy 180
viii Contents
The Arming of Slaves in the Haitian Revolution, by David Geggus 209
Citizen Soldiers: Emancipation and Military Service in the Revolutionary
French Caribbean, by Laurent Dubois 233
The Slave Soldiers of Spanish South America: From Independence to
Abolition, by Peter Blanchard 255
Armed Slaves and the Struggles for Republican Liberty in the U.S. Civil War,
by Joseph P. Reidy 274
Armed Slaves and Anticolonial Insurgency in Late Nineteenth-Century Cuba,
by Ada Ferrer 304
The Arming of Slaves in Comparative Perspective,
by Christopher Leslie Brown 330
List of Contributors 354
Index 356
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