Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern AgeChristopher Leslie Brown, Philip D. Morgan Arming slaves as soldiers is a counterintuitive idea. Yet throughout history, in many varied societies, slaveholders have entrusted slaves with the use of deadly force. This book is the first to survey the practice broadly across space and time, encompassing the cultures of classical Greece, the early Islamic kingdoms of the Near East, West and East Africa, the British and French Caribbean, the United States, and Latin America.To facilitate cross-cultural comparisons, each chapter addresses four crucial issues: the social and cultural facts regarding the arming of slaves, the experience of slave soldiers, the ideological origins and consequences of equipping enslaved peoples for battle, and the impact of the practice on the status of slaves and slavery itself. What emerges from the book is a new historical understanding: the arming of slaves is neither uncommon nor paradoxical but is instead both predictable and explicable. |
Contents
1 | |
14 | |
The Maml ̄ uk Institution or One Thousand Years of Military Slavery in theIslamic World | 40 |
Armed Slaves and Political Authority in Africa in the Era of the Slave Trade14501800 | 79 |
Military Slavery and Ethnicity in Southern Africa 17501900 | 95 |
Arming Slaves in Colonial SpanishAmerica | 120 |
Arming Slaves in Brazil from the Seventeenth Century to the NineteenthCentury | 146 |
Arming Slaves in the American Revolution | 180 |
Emancipation and Military Service in the RevolutionaryFrench Caribbean | 233 |
From Independence toAbolition | 255 |
Armed Slaves and the Struggles for Republican Liberty in the US Civil War | 274 |
Armed Slaves and Anticolonial Insurgency in Late NineteenthCentury Cuba | 304 |
The Arming of Slaves in Comparative Perspective | 330 |
List of Contributors | 354 |
356 | |
The Arming of Slaves in the Haitian Revolutio | 209 |
Other editions - View all
Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age Christopher Leslie Brown,Philip D. Morgan No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
Abbasid abolition African American armed slaves arming of slaves army Athenian Ayalon Bahia Basse-Terre battle Biassou Black Military Experience black soldiers Brazil Brazilian British caliph Cambridge captured Caribbean century Céspedes Chikunda citizens Civil colonial commander Confederate corps Cuba Cuban David Ayalon depended early Egypt elite emancipation Empire enlisted enslaved esclavos estates European ex-slaves fighting forces former slaves fought free blacks free coloreds freed freedom French Geggus gens de couleur governor Greek Guadeloupe Haitian Revolution Havana Helots History hoplites independence insurgents insurrection Islamic island José labor leaders London mamlūks manumission masters military service military slavery militia mobilization Mongols Muslim navy Negro number of slaves officers Ottoman owners patriot plantation planters political population Portuguese prazeiros prazos racial rebel rebellion regiments Reidy republican role rowers royalist rulers Saint Domingue Seljuq served slave recruitment slave soldiers slaveholders social Society South Spain Spanish sultanate thousand Thucydides tion units warfare weapons