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showing 317 library results for 'slave trade'

Secret cures of slaves : people, plants, and medicine in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world /Londa Schiebinger. "In the natural course of events, humans fall sick and die. The history of medicine bristles with attempts to find new and miraculous remedies, to work with and against nature to restore humans to health and well-being. In this book, Londa Schiebinger examines medicine and human experimentation in the Atlantic World, exploring the circulation of people, disease, plants, and knowledge between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. She traces the development of a colonial medical complex from the 1760s, when a robust experimental culture emerged in the British and French West Indies, to the early 1800s, when debates raged about banning the slave trade and, eventually, slavery itself. Massive mortality among enslaved Africans and European planters, soldiers, and sailors fueled the search for new healing techniques. Amerindian, African, and European knowledges competed to cure diseases emerging from the collision of peoples on newly established, often poorly supplied, plantations. But not all knowledge was equal. Highlighting the violence and fear endemic to colonial struggles, Schiebinger explores aspects of African medicine that were not put to the test, such as Obeah and vodou. This book analyzes how and why specific knowledges were blocked, discredited, or held secret."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 610.72/408996073
Curious encounters : voyaging, collecting, and making knowledge in the long eighteenth century /edited by Adriana Craciun and Mary Terrall. "With contributions from historians, literary critics, and geographers, Curious Encounters uncovers a rich history of global voyaging, collecting, and scientific exploration in the long eighteenth century. Leaving behind grand narratives of discovery, these essays collectively restore a degree of symmetry and contingency to our understanding of encounters between European and Indigenous people. To do this the essays consider diverse agents of historical change, both human and inanimate: commodities, curiosities, texts, animals, and specimens moved through their own global circuits of knowledge and power. The voyages and collections rediscovered here do not move from a European center to a distant periphery, nor do they position European authorities as the central agents of this early era of globalization. Long distance voyagers from Greenland to the Ottoman Empire crossed paths with French, British, Polynesian, and Spanish travelers across the world, trading objects and knowledge for diverse ends. The dynamic contact zones of these curious encounters include the ice floes of the Arctic, the sociable spaces of the tea table, the hybrid material texts and objects in imperial archives, and the collections belonging to key figures of the Enlightenment, including Sir Hans Sloane and James Petiver."-- 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 910.4(100)"17"
The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1838-1956 : a history /James Heartfield. "After West Indian slavery was abolished in 1833, the campaign turned to the wider world and the goal of Universal Emancipation. Veteran agitators Joseph Sturge, Lord Brougham and John Scoble launched the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society at a world convention in 1840. Throughout its long history the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was instrumental in framing Britain's diplomatic policy of promoting anti-slavery - a policy that projected moral authority over allies and rivals, through naval power and international tribunals. The BFASS pushed for, and prepared the 1890 Brussels conference that divided Africa between the European powers, on the grounds of fighting Arab slavers. The Society was torn between its belief in the civilizing mission of Europeans, and its brief to protect Africans. Rubber slavery in the Belgian Congo, indentured 'coolies' in the Empire, and forced labor in British Africa tested the Society's goals of civilizing the world. This first comprehensive history of the Society draws on 120 years of anti-slavery publications, like the Anti-Slavery Reporter, to explain its unique status as the first international human rights organization; and explains the Society's surprising attitudes to the Confederate secession, the 'Coolies", and the colonization of Africa."--Provided by the publisher. 2016 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 326.8
The decline and fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 / Piers Brendon. Chronicles Britain's rise to imperial might in the wake of the American Revolution, recording life in its diverse colonies and reflecting on the inherent weaknesses of the empire, its inevitable decline, and its legacy for the present. 2010. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 941-44"17/19"
Sicily and the Sea. Inspired by Sicily's archaeological and cultural treasures, this book offers an overview - or perhaps rather an anthology, since a complete survey, if at all possible, would soon become stifling - of the island's history and culture, paying attention not only to ancient and medieval shipwrecks, battles, economy and art, but also to typically Sicilian traditions (from folk-tales and tuna fishing to mafia fighters), modern politics, and the poets, novelists and filmmakers who lived on Sicily or were inspired by its unique character. 2015 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 945.81