Gender and Slavery in the Americas

Atlantic slave systems were gendered systems. Across lines of nation and empire, African-descended women and their reproductive labor were crucial to the formation of New World slave systems and the racial ideology that underwrote them. The study of gender is therefore critical in understanding slavery in the Americas. This course analyzes slave systems in North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Our aim will be to explore major points of emphasis in the histories of gender and slavery in these diverse locales. For their final project, students will have the opportunity to engage an area of this historiography more deeply in the form of a paper on a topic of their choosing. Instructor: Staff