Emancipation through Colonization: Brazil and Cuba

In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, our lecture series revisits one of the major social and political upheavals of the nineteenth century: the abolition of chattel slavery and of similar forms of legalized human bondage. Rather than examining the topic through a narrow national lens, this series traces how very different societies abolished unfree labor and grappled with slavery's legacy. It compares how emancipation played out in the United States, Germany, Russia, and Latin America but also highlights transnational connections and influences. What were the global repercussions - social, economic, and political - of the prohibition of unfree labor? Why did some actors champion gradual and peaceful reform, while others resorted to revolutionary violence? How do we write a history that gives voice not just to the elites but also to the voiceless - the slaves, serfs, bondsmen, and bondswomen who left behind little if any documentation? Exploring emancipation and its difficult aftermath on both sides of the Atlantic will bring new, challenging perspectives to conventional narratives of the nineteenth century as an age of "progress" and "civilization."