whatever they were, they were these underground things that could be fairly extensive in some ways. interesting. how do you think he fits into the larger story of slavery systems. is it a major part of back? is it a small side issue? is a part of the spectrum ranging from people on plantations resisting to slave rebellions or how do you fit it into a story of what we know is continual resistance by african-americans to slavery? >> i think you know again i say that it's a major problem because you know just in terms of sheer numbers and we don't know what the numbers are by the way. i would probably say individuals

small groups, families, large communities especially in the small swamp all over the south. in sheer numbers you know what to me is unique in that place in the resistance story is that they were unique in many ways. and even less underground. also they added a special kind of a freedom. they raised their food and nobody else was. when they created a mentality to life in the white hegemony.

when somebody would run away to the south which was two cities or when people would run away to the north to canada or for free blacks they all lived under the control segregated and discriminated against and there were things that they were not allowed to do. if only the maroons were -- and they created that alternative to life and the slavery south and in the free north. and what i conceive of that is also the fact that you know these ideals of voluntary separation, this is something that exists within the african-american community and you find that actually in many different forms whether it's

cultural, political, economic, social. i can see that in the black church, so all these ideas of voluntary separation and determination we see the maroons as really the precursor of ideas that really run deep into the african-american experience. >> a lot of the information in the book is from the colonial era. you dealt with flaws early on. as the south gets more populated as the 19th century goes along the population grows, the woods began to be taken over by the plantations and farms. i mean does the opportunity or the options shrank as there are

less areas to kind of survived and away from my control? >> well what i saw is actually large communities. many of the large communities with one chapter 4 each in the 1780s but then other communities, i mean in the 1860s with actually a cultural sentiment. people eating corn and rice and cows and pigs and rice was the thing. so those groups continue to

exist maybe on a smaller scale and the individuals and families actually we can see maroons coming out of the woods in 1865. some coming out when the young came to the south and going into the woods with the army. we also see the maroons actually enrolling in the army. >> so marans if i'm not mistaken stayed in the woods and in caves for a while and then headed off to the north. >> those were particular cases who people for one reason or another could not go on being marans and decided to then go to the north. i have some examples of that.

there were also people who wanted to go to the north and could not for one reason or another and leave for a year or two years and then found the opportunity and then went away. >> one of the areas you mention which doesn't sound like a very hospitable place the great dismal swamp of virginia. it seems like there were maroon communities. it seems like that was more in the past. >> that was the reason i figured out there were so many. we don't exactly remember it but the 19th century where there were two or 3000 marines there were liberated but the swamp was south of virginia and north of north carolina. people actually ran away their.

some were really living really secretly deep into the swamp. they had farms and they could cultivate and others which is very interesting as well, others slave people. they were people that worked in the swamps on the canal and others who made shingles. and maroons sometimes were employed and gave them part of their rations and they made shingles for them. but this kind of -- that is one of the things that is also very interesting. the fact that the maroons, one

thing that many of them dead was to. we see maroons trading for example the -- that they gather. some made baskets and they. that to free blacks as well as white people. one of the things that they. , that they. for word guns and ammunition. >> we are going to turn soon to open the floor to questions from the audience but i wanted to allow sylviane to do a little reading for the book so what he do that? >> one of the things that i think needs to be mentioned is

is you know a maroon was not for everyone. it was difficult. it was a hard life. people had have to be very creative and self-confident. they had to have extraordinary qualities to be able to survive in the wild and in some lived very well and some of them became folk heroes. you read the interviews and you see people who say they didn't have to work. they 1-800-better than we did. there were a lot of successes that they had. there are were also a lot of difficulties.

moran celebrated success and also faced disappointments in disasters. but in their pursuit of freedom and autonomy they created new forms of life as they were measuring themselves from a terror system and together based a the challenging environment. they knew it was reporting. they put their lives on the line every day to be free. although the stories are one of courage and successfulness freedoms were won. to a -- who could not understand why a maroon could return even when he was hungry the latter simply replied i always wanted to be free and i didn't come back. [applause] >> so thank you.

>> we have time for a few questions questions. there is a microphone over there so anyone who would like to pose a question to sylviane please drool over to the microphone and there you are. okay. go ahead. >> hello. my question is i'm just wondering about the geographical dangers they may have faced. i heard you say something about some of the women, the children never came out from the caves. i just wanted to know if you could see expand on that. what did you mean by that? >> well for example there were people who lived in caves. marans lived at night and during the day they -- especially those of the motherland but we have for example pat teen and his

wife and his 15 children. the wife and they children never got out of the cave. they lived completely in the cave. we have many examples in the interviews of people remembering when children got out of the caves and some were said to have become blind. some more almost blind. they were very shy. they always wanted to be around people. they were said to be wise so there were people who actually spend all their lives as children in the caves. >> go ahead. >> i just want to compliment you and thank you for sharing our history and part of our history that i really didn't know about.

i knew about it in the caribbean but not in the u.s. and it makes me feel very proud to know that we fought and we struggled and we survived. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. >> and picking up from there, i'm a teacher and my students are very excited to hear me talk about how excited i am about this. i do have a question about the relationship between the maroons and the united states with those in the caribbean. you did mention in the book something about captain cooed joe who existed in the caribbean and somehow his name is brought up here. was there communication between them and if so how? >> i talk about this. i have a full chapter on this

community in georgia and south carolina. it's a really interesting community because it's a community that builds a war camp in the united states. it is a whole war camp and one of the leaders was named captain cudgel. we don't know where that came from. when we look at the african names the most popular african names are in cooed joe. there is also a possibility that people from the caribbean because we know of course a lot of people actually lived in the caribbean before being

transported to the united states there may have been you know some kind of -- jamaicans who arrived there would talk about the maroons of jamaica but we don't know. >> thank you. >> okay, next. >> hi. i was wondering what your research revealed about the educational system within the caves and the community there. the educational system that they had. >> did they have any access to education? >> no. no. >> anything at all? >> no. >> remember slaves, it was against the law to teach slaves that many managed to acquire that anyway but education was not something that was readily available. yes. >> you kept mentioning going to

the seas and i'm having a hard time imagining what they were doing and what sort of agency they had and the other question is were there any particular areas in the south where there is higher concentrations and at the height of it how many maroons would you say there were in the south? >> the first question was -- nes there are examples of maroons who just walked to their cities and some were known. for example people were saying in their petitions they would go from here to here and there were security forces there. we know that they went to the city. they for example. for their fish etc..

so as incredible as it sounds there were maroons who went to the city at night and worked for the white people there. and were treated -- retreated to the woods. the other question was about the members. as i mentioned we don't know. thousands at any given point but that's not something that is possible to know. >> you was just like where geographically were they the most concentrated? >> they were maroons all over. there were maroons here in new york. there were maroons in brooklyn, a there were maroons in every

state. we know for example because of the landscape there, the swamps there were a lot but they were in south carolina and virginia. >> thank you. >> remember it was pretty hard to get to the north. almost all of the slaves on the north were from maryland, virginia, kentucky bordering on free soil. if you were in alabama it would have been pretty hard to get to the north. so either you become a maroon or many fugitives went to cities like mobile and montgomery to be with the free populations there because getting in the further north would be too difficult. we probably have time for a couple more questions so sylviane can go out and sign

books so maybe the first two and the rest of the questions we can ask her when she is signing books. >> thank you. thank you for the presentation. it gets very interesting. i was curious about the marans in the swamps and their relationship to rice growing. rice of course is something that is grown in swamps and we know that many of the slaves came with the knowledge of growing rice from africa and therefore going out into the swamps would have been quite an attractive thing were then agriculturally for supporting themselves. >> actually i was looking at what they were growing in terms of food. rice in louisiana and south carolina were two areas that

were used to rice that most of the main crop in the united states in the northern communities was corn as well as vegetables like squash and peas. >> growing rice requires a kind of hydraulic system with canals and guides and gates and it's probably not something maroons would have been in a position to construct. >> they were small plots. that was one of the things also. they were rather small so again when you grow rice it has to be even more extended. >> the final question.

>> i haven't read your work but i'm looking forward to it. i have a question. in relationship to the maroons looking at louisiana want to focus on that before the louisiana purchase and being in haiti there was a lot of transfer between slaves from haiti and louisiana to this -- through the french connection and also being that in 1793 the first refugee crisis in america when the french planters came to louisiana and their words a lot of interconnections and in haiti there is a large population of maroons. so being there would you think

that is also something that could have led to the spread of the marans? >> i'm not sure because maroons and louisiana didn't get encouragement or anything from anybody. so i don't think haiti would have had an influence on that particular. >> let us all thank sylviane diouf. [applause] and we can reconvene in the alcove where the book will be available. so see you there. history.

>> welcome. on behalf of the center i would like to welcome you all here for a think what is a moment as and a landmark event for us, an evening honoring the launch of brian davis new book. a couple of acknowledgments and brief introductions and then we will start the program and turn the program over to the speakers out there but i would like to begin by sending my thanks to my colleague and friend dr. held rockman who was the person who arranged for this event and

brought professor davis in the center together. i would also like to tell -- thank a shell from the publishers the publishers of the book as well as leslie irvine on the gilded learning institute for the help and cooperation in arranging this evening. i also would like to very much welcome and recognize alan and francis numbers of the simon wiesenthal board of trustees who have taken the time to come here this evening as well. thank you for that. a few brief words of introduction for my part. one of the reasons that i was so led i jumped at this effort and the was because this work and the work of professor davis has meant such a great deal to us. personally my own work has benefited from some of professor davis's writings particularly years ago when i was researching and preparing anti-semitism and

anti-catholicism a minute to give you an example of the breath of professor davis's work. also we are greatly indebted to professor davis in firmly confronting anti-semitism reticulated a few decades ago when it was a time of great controversy and great tension and yet he stood out and forthrightly condemned what needed to be condemned and did it in a scholarly and dispassionate manner that left a great impression. in many ways it is an natural fit for the salmon -- simon wiesenthal center -- a person who after liberation devoted his life to bringing justice to the victims of the holocaust and becoming a human

rights champion in a broad sense trying to ensure that the lessons of that period would never be forgotten and no group jewish or others would ever suffer such a fate again. in a sense there is a great affinity between that and the work of professor davis. for example it doesn't take more than a cursory glance at her own world to see how short of the ideal way of fallin decided by the defeat of the nazi genocide and says oppression and genocide are continually present in our world today. professor davis reminds us in the epilogue of this book that slavery still exists under certain conditions the restored on a large scale in certain areas in today's world. the affinity runs deeper. professor davis' life was shaped by the events of world war ii. as he himself has written and

stated quote living in the shadows of the holocaust amid the rubble and roads of the world's greatest war to embark on his kirson is torn with the goal of the superficial facts of propaganda for presentation of an overall conference if you go but people didn't thought and why they did it and finally to make people stop and think before blindly following a row to make the world safer. this was written in 1946 and the only thing i would suggest has changed is the list who endanger democracy has grown longer and wider. as i wrote the book i was drawn to the relationship similarities end differences between the holocaust and the system of slavery that professor davis explores. some brief examples that came to mind with the role of the victims often ignored in the first wave of study for example in dealing with the holocaust, a landmark study.

it dealt fully with the documentation the witnesses from the oppressor side, the nazi side and totally ignored the role and the impact on the victims of the holocaust itself which leads us to the consideration of the need and cost of collaboration which is exemplified by the telling quote from frederick douglass that professor davis twice brings in the new book about quote self-preservation at minimal cost and degradation and loss of self-respect. that in turn is a question much raised in the literature to the holocaust. what is the impact of survival? and is currently examined in the new film the last of the unjust. these issues are of course terms of demonization and again

atomization which professor davis uses in his aspirations and their internalization in the impact they have on the communities. they go a long way to shaping the discourse of human impression. even the role of space angiography is raised which is also reflected in current literature of the holocaust's and timothy steiner's important book or the killing sites of eastern europe and the balkans were nazis slaughtered more victims than they murdered in all the death camps. there are of course differences as well. one fundamental distinction is that while slavery resulted in the economic -- and the holocaust economic needs were coordinated to the pursuit of genocide thus rendering any method of accommodation by the jewish population effectively useless. fundamentally it comes down to the idea that we must learn to have brighter future or is professor davis concludes

history matters and i would add it also helps to have a master teacher who can inspire us to grow for on questions of this professor davis has done for many years. tonight we are to celebrate the launch of the third and final volume of the trilogy "the problem of slavery in the age of emancipation". we have to distinguish speakers who will join professor davis and conversation about the book and anything else they want to talk about. following following that you're all invited downstairs for reception and book signing and you can wander through our museum of tolerance which attempts to deal with a much different matter with some of the same issues that professor davis worked upon. before introduced the speakers i would ask anyone to silence their cell phones or whatever electronics they are holding onto and to remind you we are being filmed by c-span. there will be time for questions afterwards and now i would like to introduce our speakers.

i want to introduce to students, former students of professor davis who are now must -- master scholars and researchers in their own right and the internal introduce will introduce their teacher as they go along with the offense. sitting closest to me is william casey who earned his ph.d. from yale university and was honored to be the final doctoral student. dr. king's work includes a pbs documentary the life and work of the african-american -- coproduced with philadelphia museum of art award-winning children's books that play he wrote and directed on the mother of the american revolution mercy otis warren and a rendition published by yale university press previous written for the "washington post" "the wall street journal" washington times.

executor after the deadbeat deep dubois african-american research. he now lectures at yale and history of ideas while serving as executive director of analytical science for the -- he was the co-recipient of a grant from darpa is part of the white house research and development institute and developing tools to counter money laundering in the department treasury. they collaborate on a young adult book on slavery and anti-slavery. john sofford is professor of english american studies and african-american african-american studies at harvard university. he writes and lectures on the civil war era anti-slavery social justice movements of the data view. he he is the author of aleph books and 60 articles including two books that are national bestsellers. his most recent book co-authored with benjamin's focus is the battle of the republic of the republic of either of the of the summer marches on in the lincoln prize finalist in the best book of 2013. his essays have repaired in

times "wall street journal" neera times "washington post" "huffington post" and numerous scholarly books. the state department's national information program. it's been a consultant into hollywood films quentin turrentine knows janco in a screenplay by david ross jones. he appeared in a pbs documentary and was advisor for the film. without background, those backgrounds i think we are all looking forward to an incredibly exciting discussion and the floor is yours. [applause] >> our goal in this is to have a conversation and we are all part of this conversation. before we launch into this informal discussion you know we often have dinner together at least once a year and meet at the union league café. the professor will, and share a

couple dozen oysters and have a conversation about anything and everything. maybe some oysters might help. and a bottle of wine but i'm going to turn the floor over to john sofford to introduce my friend and mentor. >> we will hopefully allow david to give the summary not only of the slavery and emancipation and his trilogy and briefly his public life. i will start with a very brief summary. as most of you know david is the sterling professor emeritus at yale university. he has won virtually every award that and historian can win including the pulitzer prize, the national book award, the

president of american historians is -- and casey and i wanted to start by having davis elucidated that at this background that led to this trilogy and the introductory remarks, one of the things that was highlighted was you became interested in slavery in the shadow of the holocaust as a world war ii or post-world war ii soldier. i'm wondering if he would be willing to elaborate on the background that led you to become interested in slavery and abolition at a time in which the subject was for the large part unexplored, unwritten. there were a few books let you

to a large degree help to create the field of slavery and abolition. as you know in the preface of the problem of slavery in the age of emancipation stamp was an important influence on you but in terms of abolition studies. >> what a departure from your first book which was a study of homicide and literature. he is at cornell and publishes book and dissertation, he was careful to remind me that he did his dissertation three and a half years as mine went on and on. all of a sudden he turns to slavery and anti-slavery at a time in the 60s when nations were being torn apart bi-racial strife and racial tension. i'm just fascinated by how you would make this paradigm shift or shift in interest.

>> let me start by simply saying it did extend over to slavery in the sense that i was very much interested in the history of ideas. i was hired at cornell in 1955 to teach history which was already beginning to be seen as an elitist brand of study as we have this vast flood of social history taking over the whole field of history. i was interested in finding concrete subjects like homicide or universal subjects like homicide or slavery is the most extreme form of domination. it's a way of looking at changes

and moral perception of these forms of behavior. so there was that connection but i did as i mentioned briefly in the introduction in the 1930s and early 40s my family traveled all over the country. i went to many different schools, five high schools in four years but i never was in a classroom with african-americans. in other words even though i was in the north it was in a segregated society. that all ended when i was drafted into the army in early 1945 and was trained for the invasion of japan, and i was down in georgia for the first time in the south where i saw jim crow america at its worst.

then suddenly the war in japan ended. i was on a cruise ship bound for germany and was ordered to go down into the hole of the ship to keep the they said from gambling. i never had any idea there were any blacks on the ship but it was like a slave ship. this went on until i became security in germany and was called out where there were shooed out conflict between white and black american soldiers partly because there were many german girls who love to date black soldiers and there were many white soldiers who are outraged by this. so my experience in germany where he spent a year in 45 and 46 was an experience that for

the first time introduced me to the racial issues of the country in a very dramatic way. there also was the holocaust of course. i was in the shadow of that and saw many survivors. we protected them going through the stuttgart and so one were called out to protect truckload after truckload of survivors. so i was opened up to a lot of different new things as they very young soldier. as i went with the g.i. bill on to college i was interested in the racial issue even though i fail to take part in the actual civil rights movement. i read a good many works on race

and when i was in graduate school at harvard kenneth m. stamp who was a very distinguished historian from berkeley came for a semester to teach at harvard. he had been near my apartment and we became good friends. the first really great book on slavery in the american south was not based on the assumption that blacks were inferior to whites. it was a very serious book. suddenly talking with him made me realize and might classes at dartmouth as an undergraduate there had been hardly anything said about slavery let alone abolitionism. this opened up a whole new

prospect while i was working on homicide. prospect of slavery and anti-slavery in fields that i would go into a bit later. when i fortunately in 1955 got a professorship at cornell to teach american history i began bringing material on slavery into that. when i was super lucky to get a guggenheim fellowship and 58 and when not to britain because the head of the guggenheim thought i should go abroad given my interests i immersed myself in london on what became the problem of slavery in western culture, what was going to be a background chapter on the

background on slavery became a whole book. i was launched that way on the first of three volumes. >> did you imagine one day you would write a trilogy? >> i did. >> so when you finished what is supposed to be my first chapter? >> i anticipated i would be writing more. in ott. >> i'm not sure exact rate. i'm not positive. >> so just going in the wake of the narrative david, both of his parents were writers, his mom and his dad. his father was in gable's first film after the war. >> yes. >> you was there a time when he thought i would really like to be a writer as well?

>> i very much was interested in writing, yes. though actually when i was an undergraduate i took some summer classes at columbia university and french language and in writing fiction. there was a very well-known woman teacher. she didn't recognize my efforts that summer. >> i was also struck when i remember we had a discussion about the necessity to drop the atomic oman japan and i remember you telling me that they told you to prepare for the invasion of japan that you fully believed you were going to go there and

die and they informed you of that at that moment. >> i don't know about absolutely dying but we knew when we hit those beaches of japan it would make normandy look like nothing. they emphasize that in our training. we were having to use all kinds of weapons. in georgia they had fake japanese villages that we were capturing and so on. i actually having had physics in high school when the atomic bombs were dropped behind her stood what mc squared meant and i thought we would never have any wars after this. it seemed as if without those

bombs we still would have would have been hitting the beaches of japan. >> the other thing i want to circle back to is you said you talked at cornell intellectual history which became the basis for studying slavery and anti-slavery. did you feel it necessary to because you are doing something new and something that worked against american origin myths was that the way you couch it was intellectual cultural history? >> it went way beyond slavery. i was interested in a broad survey of american intellectual and cultural history. i was teaching large lecture class -- classes as well as seminars.

>> was a resistance to teaching slavery and anti-slavery? i mean at the time especially coming to yale and a lot of work looking at attitudes towards anti-slavery in the academy. >> before i ask that question i'm curious if you could just summarize some of the challenges that you face when you are writing "the problem of slavery in the age of emancipation" and the problem of slavery in the age of revolution which were very different periods. one published in 1966 and the published -- second published in 1975 and then the challenges that you faced as you tackle the problem of slavery. >> one beginning point of

importance. i had other works at that time related to the problem of slavery and western culture. that was originally an introductory chapter of a book where i needed to give some background on slavery and western culture so as i worked in britain thanks to this guggenheim fellowship it grew and grew. i go back to antiquity and look at western culture in general and slavery in general. it's somewhat more intellectual history. certainly there's there is not much social history and it but when i moved on to the problem of slavery in the age of

revolution i'm dealing with the industrial revolution as well as the american and french revolutions and political revolutions and so one. so i'm beginning to deal with what the abolition's -- abolitionists were up against. why any given moment in history that a small group of men and women come to see slavery and it's absolutely terrible when it had been accepted pretty much for a millennia going back to aristotle and so on. in the age of revolution i am dealing with the transformation of more perception so quite a few people who feel we have got

to do something about it. but the relationship with that and the need for example to legitimate and free -- with this book i'm able to be much more selective because i have written eight different books on the subject between the age of revolution and the age of emancipation including a broad survey called in human bondage the rise and fall of slavery in the new world which is an overall survey. i didn't want to repeat that survey material here and here i was able to select particular themes and subjects beginning with the dehumanization of the attempt to dehumanize slaves and then going on with the asian revolution and i decode quite a

few chapters to the so-called trauma to station of the broad consensus in the u.s. in the north and the south and no thought of real slave emancipation in a large way unless you somehow deported or moved the freed slaves outside of the u.s.. i felt it had been grossly misunderstood. the crucial role of free blacks in the north and the colonization and launching an immediate abolition movement whites and blacks in the 1830s committed to what they called the immediate emancipation of slaves.

the role of locks themselves whether in haiti or rebels fighting the french and spanish were free blacks as i move on. i'm selecting things here and not trying to repeat. >> is one of the really unique things about this book for me. here he is in his ninth decade in the field of slavery and anti-slavery has caught up with him. there are so many monographs that come out and david turns to the last of the strategies and manages to do something -- and a year and a half by the way. we would have lunch and he would complain about how slow the work was going. this is in the middle of the bad fall where he had broken a hip. a year and a half it took. he would say i don't know what's wrong.

touching on the theme of dehumanization trilogy i was wondering if you could really look to, turn to the haitian revolution chapter and may be read bit from your book. dehumanization and minimal as asian of the slaves and former enslaved humans is really something that you get at quite eloquently. this is in the chapter the first emancipator's. >> do you want me to read there? on january 2, 1893 frederick douglas rose to deliver his speech dedicating the haitian pavilion at the zakat -- chicago world's fair. douglas was intimately involved in planning the pavilion. he took the opportunity of free

speech to navigate the commons area type that haitians were lazy barbarians who devoted their time to voodoo and child sacrifice. what is more significant is douglas use the speech to reflect back on the past century of slavery emancipation. douglas after all was worn a slave and he had won international fame through a service of black emancipation. as the most prominent black spokesmen and statements -- it's spokesmen had no problem of identifying one of those central events and emancipation in the rights we should not forget where he speaks we should not forget that the freedom you and i enjoy today, that the freedom that 800,000 colored people enjoyed in the west indies the freedom that has become of the colored race the world over is largely due to the brave stand

taken by the black sons of haiti 90 years ago when they struck for freedom they struck for the freedom of every black man in the world. he made sure to note that the american and british abolitionists including anti-slavery societies and countries around the world both blacks he noted in, or -- [inaudible] it was haiti that struck first for emancipation and it was quote the original pioneer emancipator of the 19th century. haiti has instructed the world about the dangers of slavery and demonstrated the latent powers and their past capabilities of their race had only to be awakened. ..

in fact, he knew the four whites haiti was a hell of horrors. the very name pronounced with a shudder. and, indeed, the revolution had inevitably had contradictory effects. as an abolitionist from 18411865, douglas had avoided mention of the haitian revolution in his public speeches, debates, and interviews.

the abolitionist knew the perceptions of the event all too well. for some the revolution had been an object lesson. in the inevitable social and economic ruin that would attend any form of emancipation. for others it signaled blood, a veritable like massacre. yet this would not change that the haitian revolution was a watershed event. >> ask a question about colonization. you devote four chapters in your book. so could you summarize why colonization was so attractive to so many different kinds of people. >> well, in the beginning going way back to the 18th century,

the minds of people simply returning africans, those who have been born and brought from africa, recruiting them back to their continent. so for example, samuel hopkins, a descendant, a protege of jonathan edwards who was motivated by disinterested benevolence, when he moved in 1770 to newport, rhode island he wanted to do something about slavery. he tried to make it possible for the black slaves who were freed to return to africa. he is and many of them would want to go. but as you move on into the 19th century, of course, more and more slaves were born into

america. the slave trade had been cut off. so, and also, there's always a great danger of being read enslaved. but police still are, well, as more and more slaves were freed in the north, in 17 a.d. in pennsylvania and so on, there's more and more slaves, you had that tremendous increase in anti-black racism. and blacks were denied virtually all regular rights and privileges. and there was a broadening consensus among whites that the only way you would ever get published opinion behind

abolition would be if the free slaves were moved back to africa or possibly in the 1820 thousands went to a. many returned. and actually, various went along with almost paul coffey and was half black and half indian, cotton and very wealthy, and shipping empire. in in 1816 to sierra leone, the british colony. colony there would be a kind of model showing how free blacks

could achieve various things. he actually was in touch with a british abolitionist. even interviewed president james madison. imagine a black man interview in madison. he would not call impressed -- president madison. he called and james. [laughter] >> and he died unfortunately in 1817. his own influence might have been beneficial on the movement. james, in philadelphia, who had been a great inventor anne l. was before colonization in the beginning.

so richard allen who was the major religious leader in philadelphia, in january 1817 the american colonization society, he had 3,000 african americans, 3,000. put it to a vote. anything to do with composition, so they had to shift, and it took them a little while to change their minds, but they had to go along with the overwhelming views of african-americans in philadelphia. and there were opposing the colonization society, so they got set up in 1817. the colonization society which had been -- well, forgot to say

that jefferson was -- president jefferson was really not for colonization. president lincoln, even after the emancipation proclamation for some time, he still would clang of a bit to some kind of colonization. so i think it's come misunderstood cause. one thing i'd to agree on is that in the basque literature published by the colonization society, there is very, very, very little that even hints at inherent inferiority on the part of blacks. there's the prejudice and lack of price to greeted, infinitely degraded blacks in america, but if they were in africa they could even become missionaries

and so on. so i think we have to look much more carefully. that's why i did of various chapters to the subject. many to look quite carefully at this will colonization concept, which was -- which did promote, as the black realized, but i devote a lot of space to this in the book. >> you also devote an extraordinary amount of space to the role of free blacks in emancipation. in fact, you have a chapter title that, for me, both when i read in manuscript form and again in published form, the title itself i've found revolutionary. free blacks is the key to emancipation. and i said revolutionary because free blacks never constituted more than 13% of the black population, and roughly 1% of

the american population. so given that small number comparatively very small number of free blacks, why were they the key to emancipation? >> i think above all in resisting the hopes of the american colonization society that they could be persuaded to get syllabary. -- to go to liberia. and in the 18 twenties as i show, we began publishing their own newspaper, freedom journal published by samuel cornish. then goes and converts to the colonization side and goes off. so as i stress, by the 1850's of

very large number of black leaders except for douglas have been braced one form or another of colonization. in this comes on down to the 1920's. marcus garvey has the first mass black movement. the back to africa movement. and while he is scorned and all, but marvin to king went to waco wreath on his grave in jamaica and, because the black movement someone, so even as late as the 1920's we have carryovers where kirby actually places they see as committee american colonization society and praises the white. -- but the main issue that

chapter raises is the need to uplift and elevate free blacks and the more so that they will be capable of achievement. and i . out how not only frederick douglass james mckuen smith to goes to scotland and becomes a very successful doctor in new york city, very, very important, but we have various kinds of the 1850's, enormous free black achievements in this effort to uplift the free black

population. this is obscured by the dread scott decision, various things in the 50's. >> and you also place a lot of emphasis on the importance of futures, fugitive slaves in town that contributes to an emancipation. >> oh, yes. >> could you not bring on that? >> of course, the most famous of all the fugitives was fredericton the essence of who escaped in 1838 and then who in 1841 was invited and errors to give a speech or all of the massachusetts liberal society was meeting.

all these people were spellbound by his speech. incorporated into the movement, but with regard to fugitives, there has been a good bit of misunderstanding. i go along with the idea that there are a number of fugitives that was never large enough to endanger the institution and anyway and the south, even though in the south itself huge numbers of slaves were running away. but in the 1850's well over 50 pounds slaves ran away from their owners but did not go far. in the free nor, by 1860 there

were about 45,000 fugitives living in the north, it was an effective system. ideologically it was enormous since the u.s. constitution, of course, of 40 using the word slave. they tried to prevent northern states that were already beginning, to prevent them from giving hey shelter and refuge. and in 93, of course the fugitive slave low. and only about 298 slaves or return to slavery by the end of the 1960, but it was something that, the fugitive slave issue

resurrected, and it's -- so it had a big impact on the coming of the civil war. >> back to the issue of free blacks and the fact you are really highlighting. in the book and also giving a range of experience. as a depiction of the north is this ideal community. and john pointed out that actually did was an accurate of this one community. for the majority of free blacks in america at that time, as you point out one of your chapters, the challenges were far more

significant. freedom from slavery did not mean freedom from racial oppression. and he is wonderful, this really wonderful moment and is really unusual, especially a professor of history, but all of a sudden we are in third person. david demands that you take a tremendous amount of imagination to re imagine what it was to be a free black. the space of a free black in america at that time. i was wondering -- >> to we have time? >> is such a great moment. >> it's got unleaded and i realized. >> to look to questions in the second. this is just -- maybe you can give an abbreviated -- i think this goes back to the fact that

this book, it's really fine history, would also really fine writing. it such a pleasure to read, and he takes most people are afraid to take in stories as writers. >> and currie. i'll skip over some of the things. up to start by saying, the obvious point man for the general public, especially in america, the key issue raised by abolitionism was the condition of free slaves. and while many free blacks over cam formidable barriers to a great achievement, they were still up against his of their incapacity and loss of self-respect and someone. the demand to keep negros in a

place since a one. the complexities of the struggle especially concerning such issues, the special imagine the effect on the author and reader. we must try to start to imagine what would have been like to have been a free black abolitionist in the into the lenore. so ivan's which. and have a different kind of dog . as fellini gross income it 1840's abolitionists and most of the blacks are always conscious that most of our brethren are slaves in the south and that we can easily be kidnapped or officially arrested and sold in the sow. suddenly deprived of our family members and are very names.

but in some ways free blacks are better off in the deep south. free blacks are. new laws have been fast to keep us from entering or settling in states nor of the ohio river. now it times they have passed ordinances requiring us to register or even post bond for good behavior. most states deny us the right to vote, sit on juries, or even testify against whites in court. most free blacks are in a letter , and even her children have little chance of retaining a preschool education. perhaps most important, we are surrounded by white supremacy and are constantly viewed as inferior people in our daily interactions with whites who sometimes verbally careers or ridiculous or even spit up on us

in this tree and his the yen's climb when we bowel or step up the wall to let the bass. no matter how close we might become a to a white friend we cannot accompany him or her to most restaurants, hotels, stores, libraries, lectures, concert, and public places except for a very few radical communities. >> i remember when he was contemplating his departure. i'm sorry that my editor may not -- me bristled of switching of got one word for you. >> you have to keep -- your not allowed to change that. so we open it up for questions. i just want to end by saying that this trilogy, it began 48 years ago.

the problem of slavery in western culture was published in 1966, won the pulitzer prize in 1967. the pulitzer prize reliefer history was perry miller's a posthumous book the life of the mind in america from the revolution to the civil war, who union from harvard. you have great respect. to give you a sense of the significance of the problem, went back to perry miller's life in the mind of america from the revolution to the civil war. there is not a single mention of slavery or abolition in that entire book. >> not one in history. >> up against in cold blood. in slavery and the age of revolution, both of them, many other awards.

the problem with slavery in the age of emancipation. i will bet money that it will win many very prestigious awards throughout this entire time you have also directed, what, over 60, 58 dissertations including mine, cases, many of you in this room, many you are here and a number of others. your graduate students or former graduate students are represented at every major research institution in the united states and many abroad. not just the field of history, but the field has to versus english, law, public health. i mean, it's true the extraordinary. and the conclusion of this trilogy 48 years later is an extraordinary inspiration, not just to historians, but said every writer, to everyone who

writes. and so want to thank you for that inspiration. >> i can't thank you enough for the review you wrote in the wall street journal. [laughter] >> when they asked me, i confessed. david was my student. i would love to do it, but i have to disclose my relationship. they let me write it. i acknowledge my relationship by saying that he directed my dissertation. so it was -- and was a real honor for me. >> it was an honor for me to have you doing. no wonder we opened up for questions, comments, criticisms to bid. >> thank you so very much.

the first time i came, said, the concept in history of slavery. slavery was, of course. in those days there were not many in. >> reporter: the. one always bothered me is the use of the bible, both in defending slavery and fighting for emancipation. of course it is abhorrent to me that the bible would defend. on the other hand there's no question that those who fought for emancipation did use the bible. we mentioned a few individuals to be so on was wondering, i've read your books, in your judgment what is the wake of the bible in that particular balance

of the struggle to defend slavery or to fight against it? what is the role of the bible? i kristine and admirer of the bible. nothing personal it played a very important role. i would very much like to hear your voice. >> sense of very, very important and extremely complicated question. the bible, of course, happens all kinds of conflicting messages. in fact, in the bible study groups we have just been reading parts that call for and justify genocide where it's pretty shocking to see that the lord is calling for no wiping out of an entire people.

and, of course, there are rumors in parts of the bible and a to give justification for slavery. but also, it seems to me the other great actress lynyrd is extremely important in the sense that the a chosen people, the jews, freed from slavery in egypt. and oh lord brings them out of egypt. and this exodus paradigm becomes extremely important for large numbers of african-american slaves whom were in the bible

and read from the bible. so are thing to her it, you know, depends on the way you look at it. that's going to be the most important. >> there was a comparison and possibly made between the economic logic of slavery called successful verses the idea that logic and genocide undermines economic self-interest. d.c. that as part of the anti slavery movement and was connected to an economic logic of slavery was not compatible with the new industrial free-market economy and the new ideology of free labor? and doesn't slavery in the same way that genocide raise the question of the problem of evil

and excessive aggression and society. my final question is, how do you explain the fact that the equivalent of zionism within african-american social movement to not reached the same success that they did within the jewish society after the call costs. >> there were, i guess, three questions. the one that -- on of the confused. well, the problem, and the age and revolution i examined in some detail the issue of free liberal ideology. and i think the that there is no

question the need in britain a special, pioneering industrial revolution, the need to justify the kind of industrial labor in the late 18th century the was really taking hold among contributing to the anti slavery movement and indeed there was a proslavery writer in britain and claimed, in effect, but the old

abolition movement that was rise in the late 18th century was an attempt to divert attention from the terrible and exploits, exploitation of workers in britain. it was much worse. he went on and on about how much worse the and it was, industrial workers in britain and a slave states. and it even said, this famous crimes did in his hand of the launching points of the anti slavery movement. mcgee said, why doesn't cambridge apprises for answers

on the industrial working, the children and women in the mines. and so you begin with the approach slavery argument that is directed in norway. and i think it will be a mistake to point it the abolitionists or consciously trying to, you know, justify bad things in england, but there's of very complex relationship there between the two. is the part of your question? >> it was incredibly profitable. >> as the other thing. actually, one of the things that we probably won't have time to talk about the movie in the books he mumbled one of the things that troubles me a bit

about 12 years has laid, in in the book is that, as you know, the free northern from the york state who was kidnapped and taken to the south for 12 years, he argues that the cruelty is mainly the fault of the system, that you're bound to have people who will exploit slaves if you have a system like this, but he's arguing the system is very uneconomical. and if you take solomon on cribs views on free labor versus labor , you would not appeal to explain why slavery in the south

was so immensely productive and practical and even though they reusing the lash so much to drive this lives on and on and on. and that raises an interesting question. >> the other part of your question, the comparison of dyne is. >> well, there is an article. you thinking of that? well, there's a new article in the israeli left-wing magazine which draws a distinct parallels between the treatment of palestinians today by the israelis and black slavery in the new world qb now, the author

, again and again from trying to draw a complete para. there are very few, you know, between the treatment of palestinians and the treatment of black slaves. so it doesn't stand up as all that convincing have a case. but then we have all kinds of the efforts to compare human trafficking of various sorts and other kinds of oppressions with racial slavery in the past. this gives a very controversial. >> professor davis, about six of seven years ago in london you're the keynote speaker at a conference of historians sponsored by the templeton

foundation on the subject, is their meaning in history. >> is there what? >> meaning in history. it was a somewhat controversial subjects for most professional historians who ducked the question. there were noted historians from pan, oxford, cambridge, and elsewhere. you were the keynote speaker. you deferred answering the question until the final lecture, your presentation. he said, well, i don't know but i can't answer that question. it's not my agent, but i have a hard time explaining how within a short time frame and 60, 70, 80, 90 years the world turned on its head in its attitude towards liberty. i can't explain it. in light of your -- now, you had not read the last of your trilogy. would you care to comment or

extend your remarks? >> on afraid i'd still remember this and all. i think my attempts to explain as well as i can have there was this revolutionary moral regions of the from the 1780's when -- well, 1777 in vermont adopt a constitution all warring slavery in 1780 pennsylvania passes a law for the gradual emancipation of slaves in pennsylvania. a few years later they are in correspondence with london and

pennsylvania. so by the 1780's you've got anti slavery organizations beginning to rise up. and by 1888 even know and 1776 library was legal and thriving from canada to argentina, in 1888 when brazil finally outlawed slavery in the space of 100 years we outlaw slavery throughout the entire hemisphere i think this is a very, very remarkable event which are really conclude by saying we need not to forget that there has been some small progress as possible. >> in fact, in this book and in a human bondage to highlight the importance of the real moral achievement that is extremely

important in history. would you mind reading the very last paragraph of your book? at think it's really rich and profound. >> well, i'm talking and i approach the end of the boat i'm talking about human trafficking fortuity and how the century that brought the end of slavery in the new world, that century depended on all kinds of fortuitous events along the way. if my friends and i'm were suddenly stripped of our 20th century conditioning and plumbing back to mississippi in

1860 hollywood always take for granted non law undersleeves, human nature, and say, does not change. so an astonishing historical achievement likeness since an act really matters. an astonishing historical achievement really matters. the outline of slavery in the new world and in global view represents a crucial to remarkable par rounds of we should never forget.