you certainly can expect to see some of these on book tv schedule as well as we were looking for author events what we are in the midst of a coronavirus. thank you for spending a few minutes with us on book tv. >> guest: happy to talk to you. thank you. stay back well, i am scott stevenson i'm ceo of the museum american revolution it's wonderful to see so many familiar faces in the audience. please were live streaming the program this evening and we will be on book tv. we will live on forever and ever at 3:00 a.m. when you can't sleep. [laughter] i will get a text or my father the following mornings it said you were on television again. i am just curious, show up hands i'd like to ask how many of you are visiting for the first time this evening to the museum? sabbatical welcome to all of you you are surrounded by members of our founding members of the museum, members

of the revolution society this is a wonderful fellowship of people who are great supporters of the museum. we are very pleased to partner with haverford trust you'll see them up on the screen here. i know tim glaspie but i can see is darkness out there, let's thank them for making read the revolutionary possible. [applause] now it is a real pleasure to be welcoming doctor vincent of brown evening. as is sometimes the case are also welcoming a good friend to the museum here this evening. vince was one of the group of scholars who consulted with us during the development of the exhibition interactions for the museum here so long before the shovel was in the ground in the steel began rising here at third and chestnut in

philadelphia, we were tapping vincent's brain for exciting stories of the american revolution, some which really turn it a great personal stories in our core exhibition here. this is a charles worn professor of american history and african-american history at harvard university. he is the author of their reapers and garden which won the james a raleigh prize, merle kirksey award in another prize. if you have an opportunity to go online, don't do it right now and your phones, when you get home, he has developed and on live interactive map called slave revolt in jamaica and it is a cartographic and narratives you can go online see a lot of the themes and he may be speaking about this a little bit during your talk this evening. it is a great online resource and hopefully will begin to be

used by educators in classrooms. he has received guggenheim, fellowships, his documentary in the heart of blackness was broadcast nationally on pbs and it received the john e o'connell film award is chosen as the best documentary at the hollywood black film festival you want to check that out. down 2017, for those of you were here and april 19 of may open the museum of the american revolution vincent brown is one of our absolutely stunning keynote speakers. we went back and read your transcript of comments that day and they continue to inspire us. more recently you might've seen him interviewed on the cbs sunday morning piece on the museum all of them are available on the museum's website if you search for it museum of the american revolution you will be able to find all of that information.

we've got a little sizzle reel to introduce vincent brown, because wanting had one we thought you ought to at least get that same treatment. then were going to warm lead welcome vincent brown. so legends of power they can motivate people loyalty to a cause, high ideals and encouraged to carry them out. but we appreciate the efforts of common women, men and children of all sorts. their losses as well as their victories and the determination to turn those losses into lessons. this revolution is and should be a living history. as a live in the aspirations of the present, as it was in the dream and deeds of the past. this kind of history is messy and contradictory. tragic and ironic. as often as it is heroic. it also has a virtual being close to the truth.

so i am grateful, deeply grateful to the curators of this exhibit for having the courage to tell that truth. to show us not only a proud story of national origin, but a multifaceted account of how one might have experienced the time of such turmoil. how about some applause. [applause] >> i did not expect this is a real, thought i was going to have to provide the sizzle myself but not can lay back and relax, thank you so much, scott, for that lovely lovely introduction paved may be an over generous introduction but is fantastic. thank you for the fantastic work you do here at the museum. and for inviting me to it speak this evening. i also want to thank haner and alex for arranging my appearance here. brian and david for holding

down the attack, and thanks to all of you for coming out tonight, it's very much appreciate you and your interest in history. especially her interest in history that you don't know, history that you would like to. i really appreciate that. it is kind of a homecoming for me in a way because i consulted early on the museum and i was at the opening but also because phil mead is one of the curators here he is a graduate student of ours at harvard university he's doing amazing work and i'm so proud of him it's nice to be here to help support him. [applause] and i'm extremely honored to have. [inaudible] in the audience with us tonight. [applause] it's one the leading lights of early american and american revolution history in the country but also special at harvard university who was instrumental in hiring me.

[laughter] i feel grateful i'm not sure why you did it but i am still grateful that you did. thanks for coming. i'm so honored to be here hope we can all catch up spirit of revolution together before it is too late. 71776, great britain's most important colony was on the verge of insurrection. colonists perceive the government in britain was conspiring against the rights of imperial subjects. they were against the civil liberties they long enjoyed but at their dinner tables they discussed -- like those with imperial governments was on the topic of american rebellion. as these jamaican colonists debated liberty, their slaves saw an opportunity. the island was at a critical

junction with the british entry into yet another imperial war. colonists traded exaggerated counts of french and spanish build up in the caribbean and calculated there are 30 slaves to every white person, ready to join they sit in the attempts of any enemy and general massacre. a regiment of troops rhonda butte import royal scheduled to depart the island to north america for the end of the month rate throughout that parish, and slay people gathered frequent lien houses, grounds and open fields to hold very serious conversations a stop suddenly upon the approach of anyone they did not trust. they are strategizing, now or never they thought was the time to make themselves masters of the country. the moment seemed like a successful uprising but this american revolution was not to be. what often happens with labor billing the plot was betrayed

in the plot unraveled. when the british in jamaica considered the gravity of the predicament in 1776, rather than looking ahead to the lost of the 13 colonies on the north american continent they look to the past back to the slave insurrection of 1760. which had been the most dangerous threat to the british empire to vapor they reflected on the unrest of 17601776, mostly in terms of a warfare with their own slaves 1776 was the declaration of independence had the independence of the colonies and great britain proven origin of the nation the date apes skewers the broader context of the times. it deflects attention from the fact that britain helped 26 colonies in america, not just the 13 that broke away.

and then by far the most profitable militarily significant and politically connected of them were in the caribbean. this chart compares private wealth in various regions of great britain's empire in 1774. it divides the territories with whales, british america as a whole and then the 13 north american colonies that became the united states that is the british caribbean and divisive 13 colonies into three regions, southern, mid-atlantic and new england. as you can see, call us on the consonant held nearly 70% of the wealth and british america because the population of property holders was much larger than in the caribbean. when you break north america down by region, you see that wealth increased as you move south. that is, according to the degree of the colonial economy depended upon enslaved labor. examine the average amount of

property held there is a disparaging equality there. for some 90% of population was made up of enslaved black people, free white people were stupendously rich, toasting more than 17 times the wealth of those in the 13 colonies. indeed, the average private wealth of a free white colonists in jamaica, the single most lucrative colony with nearly 58 times greater than that of a similar settler in new england. military deployments were distributed to protect that wealth. often, there are nearly as many warships assigned to jamaica as to the whole of the north american continent. jamaica's plan for merchants had greater influence on the metropolis and the american peers. this might go some way for port governor thomas hutchinson could not do much help as he needed from british policy makers when they rose up in massachusetts the 1770s but before that

american revolution, the british were well aware is what we know is package result is the peak of crisis and slavery was a source of overwhelming concern. taking advantage of britain's seven year war, more than 1000 enslaved black people on jamaica launched a series of uprising that began on 1760 and continued into the next year. over the course of 18 months the rebels managed to kill 60 whites and destroyed tens of thousands of pounds were the property. during the oppression of the result and the oppression that followed over 500 black men and women were killed in battle, executed, or driven to suicide. another 500 were transported from the island for life. one planter, who would live to the people wrote when we consider the extent of secrecy of the plan, the multitude of the conspirator and the difficulty of opposing variety

places at once, this revolt was more formidable than any other known in the west indies. according to two slaveholders that wrote histories one of the ming edward long, pictured here the rebellion arose at the instigation of an african man named taft who'd been in new guinea he is organized and executed by people called core of monty's from the gold coast. the west african region stretching between the volta rivers that established reputation for military roundness. displacement, forced migration and rebellion shows how the slave trade matched what i call the warfare that convulsed the 18th century atlantic world. the slave trade spread, people from atlantic and afro throughout america. some who had been leaders or

soldiers suddenly found themselves uprooted from sustaining landscapes, scattered by trade winning currents and replanted in unfamiliar territories where they labored to rebuild their social lives. inevitably, some of them determined only war that ended their bondage. most common people he found themselves caught up in expansionary wars set down in alien lands were slaveholders brutalize them. renewed conflicts raise them or offered rewards for serving their masters, slaves might take up arms and whatever faction presented a prospect of a better life. this process of dispersed buying land transportation and adaptation to strange new and is familiar to students of cultural change to examine transformations in african religion, expression, identity by viewing african american atlantic history and a common

frame. a similar approach, my approach here daily hostilities of life generate a militant response to group and sprouted and rebellions that reverberated across the americas and back to europe. that it would happen when those so called cora monty's broke out in a series of revolts and conspiracies in the 17th and 18th centuries. most directly india, st. john, new york, and tighe, and jamaica. doesn't insurrection going throughout the north american and lantus. 1760 to 61 followed by further uprising in 65 and six to six, they were among the largest and most consequential of these. from what observers could glean, the aims and tactics of the rebels it was clear many had been soldiers in africa.

perhaps whole cadres of people arrived with military training and discipline or at least some knowledge of defensive and evasive tactics learned in africa. indeed some scholars suggest, america's savior volta my be seen in respects as extensions of wars. this perspective reveals a complex network of migration, belonging, trans regional power and conflict they gave the political history the 18th century 18th century some of its most distinctive contours. inflatable as warfare is but the first step to envisioning a map of atlantic slavery. shows how political and military practices travel, take root and grow in desperate environments they force people they disperse africans across the atlantic scattered conflicts throughout the americas. the story of the cora monty's, shows how african warfare was

reconstituted not as the direct continuation of struggles, but as an outgrowth of immigrant experience. british slaveholders valued cora monty's highly, planter said they're the best for agricultural labor but at the same time there's a dangerous disposition and disturbances. they were dangerous people keep in bondage perhaps in part by the same reasons slave traders folded gold coast of potential workers for in the 17h and 18th century they witness the transformation of major empires dozens of smaller politics that via for each other in the region. fueled by arm to sail some european traders the wars that attended these contacts had great quantities of captive for sales to europeans on the coast. they also produced a turbulent environment in which complex

military campaigns involved both european and african rivalry. multiple alliances, negotiations and treachery that in context is highly suspect to notice the people from the gold coast when a single act to an ethnic group in africa. they're not a discernible group and africa who were the cora monty's customer according to the best research on the subject it was a member of a loosely structured coat nationals who socialize with and aided one another. forming what contemporary skull a nation in the americas. this was a phenomenon. a creative category comprising people who shared or could understand a con,. [inaudible] recognizably from practices and broaden similar strategies for political incorporation. there is no direct antecedent to that on the gold coast which shared languages were not enough to supersede local

division. heaven taken its name an important coastal town the century the core monthly nation in the americas of both social glue and religious institution. functioning as a mutual aid society, burial group, and a place to enjoy entertainment. as a base of social communion and environment were militarism and brutality was a common experience, national gatherings could also provide a forum for people to plan, organize and stage revolts. when they did so, they drew on their previous military experiences. however, as a category of belonging, was crosscut by many other actions. they spoke more than one language and showed from many differentials in kingdom. just as importantly, once in jamaica has difficulty go see

initiative multiple interests even with their compatriots enslaved people made friends and foes through politics of belonging but had the debate about what it meant to be that with the forging of the identity itself or in the face of continual assault on their personal and collective dignity, slaves distinguish themselves by their political commitment as well as describe classification. among them are different ideas on how to destroy it altogether. even as they recalled their prior experiences in africa. in the turbulent world of warfare nothing was more important to form alliances and coalitions and superior power. they had one wisdom their

experience on the gold coast before coming to africa where they learned that a new and with different particulars in order to make war on their masters. the former slave and military veterans were, famously define slavery as a perpetual state of war. this was not war in the conventional sense but between distinct armies by the rulers of state but rather mastery was by its nature a forceful assault to be met with simmering violence ignited by the resentment against fraud, repeating and cruelty of slaveholders. two of the slaveholders asked are you not hourly in dread of an insurrection? it was not a rhetorical question. since the early days

slaveholders had considered being enslaved as irreconcilable and yet enemies. made subject to the colonists only by the rule of the whip. rebellion by slave was a perennial anxiety award, always the more terrible one by how much there is no quarter given in it. he had been in jamaica in 1772 with the islands still reeling in the uprisings of the previous decade. there he had seen how an entire world could be organized around violence and counterattack on a continuous scale he held this new with black people and times and places were hit the enslaved often characterize their bondage as a permanent state of low intensity war, talking regularly how they might wage that war is never been more

apparent in the era when the violence of expansion and enslaved transforms europe and the americas as they interacted across the atlantic ocean. european imperial conflicts extend the addict entrant agricultural transit lenox-trades masters and new properties argued with each other continuously. these clashes amounted to a borderless slave war. war two enslaved, or to expand slavery in war against slaves precipitating wars raged against slaveholders. in this sense, package revolt was a war within other wars. which had diverging and overlapping provocations, political alliances and enemy combatants. in fact it combined for conflicts at once. as an extension of wars on the african continent, it was a race war between black slaves and white slaveholders.

it was a struggle among white people over the terms of their communal belonging for effective control of local territories and the establishment of their own political legacies and it was most immediately where the hardest fought battles of the seven year war. between great britain and its european rivals. each of these four struggles emerge from different currents that converged with the jamaican insurrection of the 60s. charting their course, suggested new stories of place, territory, and movements. again a new part that brings together the histories of europe, africa and america. as an example, one of the most principled leaders one who called wager also no mice african name fought in each kinds of these campaigns he was an elite official on the gold coast engaging in combat

with with political rivals. captured and enslaved the thought and naval battles against the french. he was a driver on that captain sugar plantation helping to keep other workers in subjection for a time before he came to lead an uprising that the british could fairly call a race war. as he engage in these struggles, he connected with small-scale everyday violence of enslavement to the grand scale of imperial geopolitics. the atmosphere of these conflicts masks interlocking conflicts. across vast differences these wars within wars connected the restrictions of war and insurrection. such as integrated history of slave takes is far from the plantations, beyond relations between masters and slaves and outside conventions of

watching violence. it had an intertwined identity of soldiers who fought in europe, north america and africa. sailors who crisscross the atlantic world for merchants and empires. and slaves were slept on just swept up in many parts of the atlantic ocean tracking the movements of profiteers, warlords, captives, workers and ordinary fighters exposes the shape of the peaks of a great volcanic network constituting a world history from below. now, i'm going to let you read my account of the revolts by yourselves hopefully? [laughter] knows oilers here. they lost. [laughter] you can get a glimpse of the way it unfolded on these maps and you probably can't read the text is too small you can get a general sense of how complicated this result was even over these few months

across several parishes of the island. for now, let me sketch it without his why i think it's important, and how i think the book can model the kinds of connections across long spans of time revolution by decade and a half in the haitian revolution by three deck decades. the age of revolution yet it's hardly known outside of jamaica to people who aren't historians of the british empire or atlantic slavery. despite the fact the influence two of the signal moments of the era. the reorganization of british imperial government that's irritated : in early america and the early beginning of the movement to abolish the slave

trade paired we talk about each of those in turn. in the aftermath of the result, jamaica's house passed new poll taxes and commercial duties, the colonial government to attacks on vellum, parchment and paper ascertained by stamps. something reformers would attempt a few years later for all of america. the jamaica stamp act of 1760 was made explicitly to address the cost of the revolts. that duty continues to force until 1763 minus replace two great of burden. as a model with the marking tinge is acts that would rile the colonists of north america the 1760 tax was a local instance of a far larger reform efforts stimulated by the seven years war. policymakers celebrated military victories in north america, africa and the caribbean for they contemplated the threat to

their most vital columnist for it on november 7, 1760, 2 weeks after king george the second the board of trade considered official accounts of the jamaican insurrection which raise the urban question of how expanding empire might with the antagonist in this pivotal moment for the management and new policy would take place the colonies demographic and strategic value and the complexity of administering them had grown in tandem. british members of parliament were spurred because of the behavior of north american columnist for the seven-year war. in the mid- said that conflict they flouted the authority of government. elected officials allowed slavery violation of the navigation acts against

trading with the enemy. and congress, failed to supply enough local troops and resources to the war effort. as historian, jack p green explained this coincide with a dramatic shift from the permissive to a fundamentally restricted philosophy of colonial administration in london. amplifying the widespread conviction the colonies had too many privileges and those privileges ought to be reduced. : : the lives and property of you loyal subjects would in all

likelihood have been a prick to their slaves. they've ordered in jamaica rejected the influence of the metropolitan intervention and imo'situation of new taxes. however, up like so many in north america their recent experience encouraged them to remain duly subject to imperial command. even passing the stamp act to finance their own security. they did not like many imperial reforms but acquiesced to them after the seven years war with jamaica the model for assertion of empire koleol, policymakers preferred new legislation for the north american christians, yet unline colony jamaica's sub mission, these policies inspired the backlash that would split the british empire in 1776. if the jamaican insurrection helped to shake the -- they offed a rationale for at the

reform of colony slavery. fearing for the rebellion, concern brittons put forth pragmatic plans for -- limit depep deng on the slave trade. ironically, perhaps perversely, the work of the historian edward long had a significant impact on a budding antislavery discourse. in argument of the principle threat to colonial slavery were fridayan and insurgents, long promoted the idea that a native born slave population would be more tractable, they could avoid working their slaves to death. establish better conditions for child rearing and encourage the progress of christianity. might bet mow secure anywhere possession and save money. raising up nate it born

populations would facilitate what reformerred constantly referred to as the improvement of the plantation and would lead to a kinder and gentler and less menacing slavery. through the beginning of the 19th century, people who campaigned against the slave trade would invoke long's tax to argue that ending the traffic would enhance internal security of the british empire inch this way jamaica's turbulence indirectly helped to under sure the antislave trade movement. and fear of africans inspired the first efforts to restrict the transatlantic slave trade. responding to a 1712 uprising in new york city, the pennsylvania assembly imposed a prohibitive 20-pound duty, citing insure rex. after the resolute in 1739, that colony enacted a ten year

moratorium on the importation of africans but planters found that could do not without them. amid news of jamaica troubles other christians tried again. virginia's legislator attempted to levy increased duties inported slaves in 1767, 17. and 1772. s a virginia's governor explain. colonialist has just paused to an prepared the most dangerous consequence of imposer african some should prevent their increase and lessen their number. he believed that the interest of the country would rare to total expulsion of them. influenced more by merchant interests than bin colonial concerns london disallowed all of these virginia duty acts. restrictions were more successful in pennsylvania. in 1761, with news of jamaica's slave war appearing regularly in the pennsylvania gazette, that

colonial's assembly noted the mischief obvious consequences attending the practice of importing slaves into the province. with their security at stake may hoped to prohibit the trade entirely. in 1761, the colony passed a law to increase import duties on slave and extended its enforce independent perpetuity. in 1773, pennsylvania double heed the imposed and in 1780 the colony passed an act for to gradual abolition of slave rhythm as much these laws in -- they were also aimed at discovery couraging the arrival of potentially insurgent africans. if most white colonist feared the prepares of africans , many others empathized with the i plight enemy abolition movement early beginnings, african rebels drew sympathetic responses from people in places that held fewer

number of slaves than the caribbean. many british and north american readers were more hollywood by the brutality of their british conationals than by the violence of the rebels. account of execution sicker late more widely with the growing popularity of sentimental literature, which helped he british to imagine their nation as a moral community, founded in persecution, death religious virtue. for some, this imagined commune extended to include the enslaved, tenuously, and reasonables were looked at as victims. one pamphlet that circulated during the 1760 revolt, the two tie logs on man man trade, argue that begin the terrors of enslavement, nature's high are law authorized violence against enslavers and i'm quoting. all the black men now on our plantations who are by unjust

force deprived of their liberty and held in slavery as they have up in upon us to appeal to may lawfully repel that force with force, and to recover their liberty, destroy their oppressors, and not only so, but it is the duty of others, white as well as black, to assist those miserable creatures if they income their attempts to deliver themselves another of slavery some to rescue them out of the hands of their cruel tire rants. -- tyrants. a few us go this far, at fleece present but the pamphlet influenced the pennsylvania quaker who hailed the intellectual foundation for slave trade abolition in the british empire. although he avoided the top county if a slave re volt he invoked higher law doctrine against the trade of human beings, among his fellow quakers a fervent opposition to war induced them to see the violence system bittedly slave trading as

an uncon softball eel ventilator. they believe -- uncon shawn unconscionable. even some who could -- in 1764, boston writer asserted that west indian planters were used to an arbitrary and cruel government over slaves, having for so long tasted the sweets of oppressing their fellow creatures. that sentiments reverberated strongly in james otis' rights of the british colonies asserted and proved, published the same year. his defense of the rights of american settlers from the intimidation of imperial administration declared that, quote, colonists are by the law of nature free born as indeed all men are, white or black. now in england people marked american colonists pre -- by voting their brutality to the enslaved. antislavery rhetoric featuredded

in a 1768 london parliamentary campaign. in the early years american revolution, the literary celebrity samuel john sane ratessed a toast to the next slave invex in the west endisat an oxnard dinner party. i by the end of the sister, story 00 revolts again slaver holder and execution 0 slave rebels promoted an antislavery consciousness which enabled the campaign that's turned the british public against the slave trade and slavery in the 19th 19th century. but this all happened to lite for the rebels. like most insurrection, the par end badly, insurgents were killed or captured. vanished from the island, along with bystan erreds. looking ban on historians

privilege one can seal the outcome was never in doubt. the balance of forces doomed the protest. they would not win the colony from the british as the north americans would do two and a half day las itself and the haitians by 1804. but the rebel inside jamaica did not know they would fail. they acted with the hope of success. even amid the business of war and enslavement in a colony garrisoned for battle withforeign and domestic enemies they could fined fissures in the planter power and challenge the come find forces of the british empire and find an enduring place in popular memories. tacky row vote represented a watershed in the course of atlantic history. if regional political map has been drawn by the wars that opened new territory ford

cultivation, stimulated the slave trade and enhanced state power, the slave they channeled people interest new solidarities and gave meaning to categories of belongings, partition friends from foes and bi-staners and redistricted the priority of givenning authorities. since jamaica wag the commercial and military hub of the british american empire the most profitable settlement, what happen there was bound to reverberate widely. yes, the legacy over the 1760s is ambiguous. at the close thereof seven years war britain kept is colony. if the jamaican revolt anticipated the haitian revolution, offer a beacon of hope to enslaved they left black people on the island divide. marined from free black people from africans.

the -- helping to cast doug on the wisdom of continue thing translet thick slave trade and strengthening the association between blackness and social danger. anyone the united states, as late as the mid-19th under, anxious slave holders referred to potential troublemakers as tackies among us. perhaps the am big gun nature of the legacies help to explain why che register to faintly in the imagination today. the wars that shaped the era don't fit neatly into the prevailing narrative thereof rise and progress of liberal freedom. even though such mother differenty wart i epep matessed the relationship between labor, commerce, and global power. secured by the more obvious consequences of the men and haitian revolution would speak more than to the western history of liberty. the relative obscurity of these events is also due, i think, to

the reluctance to acknowledge slave revolt as an act of war. few things terrify the wealthy and powerful more than the prospect of losses to the poor and weak, which would signature enough fie a world turned upside down. dominant peoples peoples and nan states develop elaborate convening, maintaining their honor in victory and defeat and recognizing violence as a regular if unfortunate feature of political struggle but between the powerful and those they dominate by daily habit, there is no limit to the lengths they ma go to maintain their supremacy. they will commit atrocities and massacres to be sure and disavow them, too. refuse to admit their combatants are legitimate enemies and dep greats the past and powerful struggles of less powerful people but a slave herold wrote the first draft of history, subsequent history has strained to escape their point of view.

if from the par ins, package re -- tacky revolt had a fresh perspective in the study of slavery the explore asia of politics has taken the horizon to be the coming of general emancipation which points to the pose revolutionary era in atlantic history. the 19th century, when the process of emancipation involved states from tate haiti to brazil, which threw freedom into sharp relief as an animate source of historical change. that era did bring a world historical transform make, emancipation is the master sign of freedom, night ultimate aids of -- to the 19th century. when those efforts reach their -- throughout the atlantic world, the hopeful years following the emancipation were followed in most cases by the reassertion of dominance by former slave holders. the social antagonisms

established in slavery governed the tensions that shaped very tenuous liberties. legacy of slavery persists through the 19th and 20th 20th century reign of white power with manifestations in the present. yet troubles against white power were continuous, too, during and after slavery. slaves and the descendents constantly fought for the space to develop their own notion of belonging, stat tuesday and fairness beyond the masters reach. the slave invex of 1760s and jake can just by be narrated astores of heroism and defeat. most of the rebels were killed, executed or fors back into slavery. the member of their their -- they, too, would be fighting slave herolds against the longest odds. however, in their courage and ingenuity, these insure generals chart the landscape of force and its him take that maps of the powerful never meant to show.

these counter-mappings reveal geography of hope and honest in the making, fugitive territory carved out through political struggle, that were difficult to maintain, paradoxical in their alliances and most cases yet to be won. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> whatever way you bend. i'm just actually there to provide symmetry. beautiful georgian symmetry up there. so we do have other microphone that went around for the audience, so we have time for a come of questions so if jujus

want to raid your hand bit manage surely you he the mic when you're speaking. we're another point on the seats when you're sitting you had a survey and we would love it if you would give feedback on the program, discussions for future talks to leave that with a member of staff in the back. we also have just a few books there was a run on the book store but we're actually going to have some signed book plates available for those, if you would like to have one of those to take on and affection to a book you'll be -- affection to a book you can come up. i'd like to point out our next read the revolution speak is is kaitlin fitz, i speaking but temperature book, our sister republics and we'll shift our gaze to the relationship of the young american republic to lattin american revolutionaries. so please, --

>> prefer, thank you so much for that excellent presentation and pardon my rudeness for holding a glass of wine here along with my question. but this was a sort of electric presentation of the theme that i became familiar with reading the slaves cause, which you have probably are very familiar with, which for those who are unfamiliar with that, it spoke about the lack of appreciation of the comprehensive efforts over the centuries to abolish slavery that were participated in by many, many, many peoples and we don't really appreciate that in our study of american

history, that this was such an international effort. specifically for your work, you pinpointed a very interesting opinion. in america, quakers were at the forefront of the abolition incarcerate movement. their efforts led mostly to discussion. they were nonviolent. it led to discussion and yet the baptists in jamaica did a different thing. they were led more by violence, revolution, and revolt, and that effort seems to have prompted the response of the british government to eliminate and

abolish slavery and he more peaceful approach did not. do you have any comment as to that difference? >> a dozen thoughts. ryan, are we go? let me go back to the way i think we approach history. sometimes we're looking for heroes and first causes and the things we really want to say. this is what mattered rather than all these other things so we separate out all the cause to find the thing that really mattered. you're talking about tries to pit the religious reformers the 18-inch century, beginning with the quaker and moving thank you dissenting evangelicals who left the moth against the slave trade against the enslaved and their continuous efforts and

antislavery over centuries, and i don't really approach history kind of looking to give stickers to people i like or don't like. what i'm trying to figure out is how complex causes interrelate. hough is that those religious reformers responding to the efforts over the enslaved when they see them and how does that then stimulate they're movements and organization for the abolition of the slave trade. how do these factor in consideration of policymaker, not choosing one or the other but how does that predicament that reformers find themselves in faced we religious reformers on the one side building plate cat collections and enslaved workers on the other who are refusing to do what theirmasters want them to do. how does that then compel them to make those kinds of choices. that what i'm trying to do here. one of the problems is we have spent so much time idealizing

and valorizing that religious reform tradition, begin thing quaker, we have not spent as much time considering what the enslaved have been doing themselves. i don't seem to matter. so i'm trying rebalance the picture and get a complete sense of the prediction. of people who are thinking maybe slavery won't work for much longer, because as you mentioned in 1831 the baptists lead what become the largest slave re volt in the british empire. the largest in the 18-inch century. that was the largest of all in 1831 and that's when they give thin gym but had already been conditioned by decorate slant slavery he forms in britain trying to convince policymaker that slavery was not in the only game in up to, not the only way to make money. so trying to develop that much more comprehensive picture of how those decisions were made and whose struggled matter i what i'm of here remember does that make sense?

>> first and then we'll go back. please. gentleman in the glasses. >> first of all, i'm not an academic, i'm -- but i was fascinated by your presentation in terms of what goes on in the world today. learning from history is to provide a perspective of what goes on today. and the issue of looking to more docile, more manageable people that you can -- that the business interests can dominate and utilize, i was curious -- and those enslavers, certainly were rational people locking at the world as a business person, and with that in mind, why were

the kuramontans the target in the gold coast for importing slaves rather than -- because it appears that their history of being unmanageable, aggressive, militaristic, and not subject to being controlled, why would these importers good to the felled coast and try toll bring in that group of people? >> a great question. so, planters have all kind of stereotypes but the people they enslaved. and they're often based on the exaggeration of something that they can see. so they're wrong ultimately about native born populations being more docile as we just said, the 1831 rebellion, the

large nest the british empire, is all led by people -- native people, nate termty born to the island, not by africans at all. the problem with slavery is slavery itself. people resist slavery. but more specifically, why they felt the coarn missouri tests were particularly good agricultural lab years, they had a long relationship with the gold coast. the -- had been trading on the gold coles for some time and had trading relationships develop over generations. so they kind of knew how things operated. had a network in place there and they were familiar with how things would work, and that facilitated the trade. so they didn't necessarily have all the choices they wanted to kind of go wherever they did. they were responding as much to supply as to their own demand. right? so that's one thing. the second thing is, they had a certain kind of admiration because they recognized these marshal people as being familiar

in some ways. the british had by the late 17 knowledge in century and early 20 -- 18th century, become quite militaristic themselves, and so they reknitsed in the marshal cast of people, something they could admire and something that conferred honor upon them by having mastered them,, and it's crude and i apologize if it's offensive but almost lick at the people want domesticate wild horses and that's mastery of those who one to domesticate them. that's at the sense of this continues on with other people. the british, other peopleses well, have ideas who marshal races are. so, in the 19th century, punjab byes byes and zekes becoa marshal race and draft them into specialized military unit is within the british empire. they do the same thing in the

20th century with the zulus. not so much draft san antonio the army but valorizing them as particularly tough people who they can admire especially bus they can now subjugate them. there's love-hate relationship or desire-fear is better. they desire to master the coramon tests because they're such challenge. gets interest a psychology. but you can see that playing out over the court over the 17th 17th and 18th century. >> could outcome talk but the very area stage mechanics of the slave rebellion? i'm thinking if slavery is well understood and known to be this constant state of war, within the plantation, how do the slaves get the knives they used

to kill their masters or to attack the armory? are these -- do they start with knives or start with guns? are the knives things they are working with in their slave occupation? but if so, why are they've allowed to take them home, so to speak, if the whites fear'ing killed? and then between plantations, how too these things spread? do they turn to -- there was that quote pout 400 people knew it and kept it quiet. do they tend to have a signal that at such a such a time many plantations are going to rise or do plantations see one neighboring plantation succeed and it spreads like that? i'm very interested in how it even begins in the situation where the slave owners know this can happen and presumably are doing everything they took stop it and prevent it. >> a great question. i could go into a lot of details in the become so let me just say something much more general

about this. this izzo site in which 90% of the population is is enslaved so if -- that means that you are depending summon end slaved people to keep control of other enslaved people, which newspapers have the instruments of that kole. the main mentioned is in fact a driver on that royal navy sea captain's plantation and as driver he has a possession of authority over other slaves on behalf of the overseer and the planter, and yet if he decides to turn on the overseer and the planter using the authority granted by them to actually organize the rebellion, that plantation might be quickly lost. and so there's got be a kind of careful negotiation between the owner or the overseer and that person of authority who is enslaved. there's a -- have to give special favors, an independent house, access to the implements

and tools for hunting. so knives and sometimes even guns. and so you're trusting they're so keen to protect their access to those special favors that they'll continue to remain aaligned with you rather aligned with the enslaved population. in that lease linguistic divisions,th inning divisions help. you would like to keep that 90% of the enslaved population divided among themselves and offer some special favors to the people who are going to help you keep control of that so you can kind of manage your situation. more directly, yes, lot of over them happen cane knives and don't collect all the cane knives at the end of the day. when they do there are not that many people guarding them and you only have to let one person let you he the cane knives. that picture this represent tags of the initial storming of the fort where they collected

muskets and powder to lead the next parts of the rebellion. so they moved point to point, gathering what weapons they and can trying to gather other people into the revolt. among the signals that the revolt is succeeding is fire. they set these plantations alight so that everybody who has been told -- sorry -- everybody who has been told around the area that the revolt is going happen knows when the fire goes up that enough is the time and that's when they overwhelm the one person who might be didding the cane knives or weapons on that plantation. that's how it works by the signals and by the fact if they have done their organizing work probably -- i identified freds from foes, carefullyover a long period of time, when thing goes off, things can happen quite quickly. spend much more time going into the mechanic of the relevant in the but that should give you a general sense. >> early an you under presentation you had a slide

that said 1661 to 1765 and the most frequent destinations and talk about the various island. how is it determine -- some cases you had tens of thousands of people other, case outside had hundreds of thousands of peoples how much is is determined that some went to barbados, some went to jamaica? how were this destinations determined? >> okay. so that depends on the kind of merchant that works and it's largely demand. and also what kind of particular merchant networks connect to what kind of places. so, the trade at the gold coast, every european power is involved to some degree, but the british, the dutch, and the danish are taking more -- great are numbers of people from that particular region of coast than other european slave trading powers. and so those people that the british, the danish and dutch are taking are coming to their

biggest, most productive, most profitable colonies. so jamaica gets the lion's sayre hoff this because they have so many planters demanding so many workers that -- and they have a network to the gold coles, a lot of the planter haven't invest evidence in shapes trading to the gold coast because they prize people from that particular region because the know people who trade in that particular region regularly, have lon contacts and get great are numbers of people than people in those marginal colonies. if you have a region that is favored by merchants, then the number of people coming, the percentage of people coming, the scale of the trade is probably going to be determined then by who in the colonies has the business relationship to connect to that sores -- source of supply. does that make sense? one of best ways to look at how this plays out over time this transatlantic slave trade databases where i drew the

numbers from. that is a database that has at the record of 35,000, 40,000 ships and trying to couple if we an accurate estimate of regional departures and destinations across the atlantic for the entire four centuries of the trade. front here and then there. >> thank you. i wanted to see if you could speak to how you view this history in a contemporary context, when we look at the persistence of white supremacy over centuries and centuries, and the reality of it still today. what is your view of all of this history and how it has evolved and what we today can learn from it to address these incredible inequities that still persist along racial lines.

great question and a question that take me away from the work as a historian but i'll speak to you as a citizen and why i am particularly engaged with this kind of history. in part because of the -- some of the troubles i see in our society. i think a couple of things. one, there are continuous pattern that endure over very, very long periods of time. right? so, the origin of the word "slave" is derived from slav because slav, slavic peoples were traded across the baltic sea slave trade for a very long time before what we called the fall of constantinople and the movement of european traders across the mediterranean, and the atlanta ickic where they -- atlantic where the began to rely on enslaved africans but the word is still with us, the

pattern, slav as slave is still there in our language. i do think but that with the expectations that come with social relationships as well. over centuries, africa typical features cam to signify low social status and even after the end of legal slavery, those features still came to signature my fie, dissent from low social status. even in places where the laws worked radically different. in different pars of la tip america where the lauds weren't the same you still find associations between black features and low social status bass of the centuries of slavery and the expectations take different forms in at the tway the laws, and the way culture works and the way society is organized. now, that's a kind of abstract way of saying, we are still contending with those enduring patterns, and yet one over

things that's important to me is people were fighting against those kind discrimination even at it height, the most extreme, even during slavery. those struggles are as continuous as white supremacy itself. right? or white mother itself and racism itself and it's mostly those struggles which help to change thing are nos the better. that's my engagement with this history in terms of the present, understanding that the situation we find ourselves in today has historical origins, that the patterned maybe started a long time ago but the struggles against those discriminatory patterns are continuous, too, and i want to identify with this. not just to give a sticker but because we're still living that history. >> if i can just -- a quick final question before we go in

the -- i want to ask you about your engagement with landscape, the museum of the american revolution here at third and chestnut street, the kind of history of american slavery and american liberty. woven into the neighborhood that we're sitting in. i'm just curious, as a transatlantic story you have told how much of the landscape of your story have you billion able to travel to and how that that affected your perspective and work. >> thanks for that question. one of the driving ideas behind this become is that we can remap the way the history looks and reshape our conventional expectations for who matters, what matters and where things matter. so i'm really trying to kind of integrate the map of the atlantic world so we can see our thing that happened in west africa reverberate through themers, things that happen in jake reverberate back to europe.

so that's the kind of geographic process and i don't just want to see that an distinguish two-dismentional map from 30,000 feed. so we can see the connections between what happened in west africa, what happens in a particular parish on a turk plantation in jamaica and what might have in london or boston or philadelphia later. so, your question was, did i spend time in those landscape inside some certainfully west africa i spent quite a bit of time on m-ghana on the gold coast going to many of those slave forts, castles, and some of them now ike unesco world heritage sites and almost like touris traps, they're impresssive but they don't have the feeling of really the horror and the terror that i imagine must have had in 18th century. it's only when you get out to

some of the smaller forts and there's a fort called anamabo which was in the mid-18th mid-18th century the most heavily trafficked fort on the gold coast but has not become a world heritage site, not redone and dressed up and there are not a lot of tourist but when with another history yap or two or three, one early morning, just before sunrise, and driving out, and there i was on the beach, at this fort and there my imagination and some ways, knowing what i knew but the history and being in the place could give me a sense of engagement with that history that what much deeper than i found in the well touristed forts. and that was quite powerful. again, nothing that was conveyed directly by the history but by my investment oft imagination and being in that place and the same thing is happened in various places in jamaica as i

thought about this history. but it's a history of hough itself is that one czechs up different landscapes so we can tell a story that looks quite different than the national histories we generally know. >> thank you for that. and can we thank vince for a fabulous presentation. [applause] >> thank you for being here. if you want to have a become signed or a chance to speak with vincent, we'll adjourn now to the hallway. thank you for being here. [inaudible conversations] >> environmentat lawyer and off author spoke at the savannah book festival where the discuss. this legal battle against dupont. here's portion of his talk. >> when that data came out, i

thought, certainly things will move forward. we'll have federal standards now. after all you have more data than you could ever want on any chemical. no. at that point epa sass we have to determine whether this chemical exists anywhere else, whether this is really a federal problem so testing began for the first time in this country, 2013-2014. public water supplies were required to start testing. sure enough it's been found everywhere but still in federal guideline. then a dramatic thing happened in 2016. a "new york times" magazine article came out that summarized the history of this. and it basically went through the history and it pointed out the fact that this testing was occur across the country and this was found in other places. within just a couple months after that, us epa came out with the first didline ever for the chemicals in drinking water. no more than 70 parts per

trillion. now, that triggered massive sampling all over the country because the department of defense realized that these chemicals had been used in firefighting foams which we talk but, outside military bases and airports across the country. they started systemically going down the list and sampling for those chemicals and it was being found everywhere. during 2016-2017, almost every day some new communication -- community across the united states and worldwide, started realizing these chemicals were in their water, too. and under our settlement, one thing that happened epps once the link's found, everybody in the community got medical testing paid for by dupont and the people who had a linked disease, they were able to go forward and pursue damage claims against dupont and dupont would not dispute drinking that water at those levels can cause

those diseases. we had 3500 people in that community that had one of to the six diseases. they brought their claims. the first one went to trial in 2015. so the first time ever, all of this information was laid out to the jury to the public, verdict against dupont for having cautioned the woman residents kidney cancer. two more tropicals, both verdicts against dupont, ever increasing verdict amounts, including juries saying, dupont act with conscious disregard of the risks in what they did. >> to watch the rest of this program visit our website, booktv.org, and search for robert bilott or the tightful off his book "exposure" using the search box at the on of the payment. next on booktv, journalist janice kaplan discusses the discoveries of women geniuses today and throughout history. then american enterprise

institute scholar mightam strain argues the future is bright force those who want to become successful in the u.s., and later booktv looks at programmed from our archives with award winning historian david mccullough. gets underway now. >> well, thank you, janice and thank you everyone for beg here. the weather has been difficult. sorry about that. we have parking challenges, but appreciate you all being here. tonight we are featuring a acclaimed journalist and "new york times" best selling author, janice kaplan and her fascinating book "the genius of woman, from overlooked to change egg the world" she will we in conversation with the ceo of the women's fund of central ohio and this will be an illuminating evening if want to thank our venue, partner, the --