“Enslavement and Labour in Mediterranean Europe and the Caribbean, 1747-1852”

My book project Enslavement and Labour in Mediterranean Europe and the Caribbean, 1747- 1852, seeks to answer this question: How did the ethnicity, physical characteristics and work skills of enslaved people shape their experiences of labour and freedom across different imperial frames? Looking at the Caribbean and Mediterranean Europe from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century this book analyses slavery and labour in a new way. It shows how judgments about skin colour, age, gender, health status, work competencies, personality traits, ethnicity and religion dictated not just the economic value attached to enslaved people but also affected their working and living conditions, and even influenced possible routes out of enslavement. This work shows how it is possible to compare specific groups of enslaved people (sailors, agricultural workers, artisans, soldiers and domestics) who performed the same job and experienced similar living conditions in different places of the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Comparative analysis of the noirs du domaine ou du roi (State slaves or property of the king) in Martinique with State slaves in Mediterranean Europe can be made because they performed the same tasks. For instance, they were soldiers or specialised craftsman, received a form of remuneration and were divided by class. Furthermore, they followed the same routes to possible freedom before the official abolition of slavery in a variety of contexts. The objective is to show how their “qualities” affected their living and working conditions, and their chances of emancipation. My case studies refer to the Mediterranean European port cities of Leghorn, Genoa, Marseille, Toulon, Cadiz and Spanish Cartagena, as well as the Caribbean port cities of Saint-Pierre and Fort Saint-Louis in Martinique. The comparative methodology employed is used to focus on similar groups of enslaved people. These cases were selected for the following three reasons: 1. During much of the period examined, 1747-1852, State slaves and former State slaves existed in both areas; 2. In Martinique and Southern Europe, State slaves were held in the same system of detention and performed the same type of work; 3. There were commonalities in the impact of the qualities ascribed to slaves on their living-working conditions and on the possibility of them being freed from enslavement in these port cities.

Suggested readings: 

• Paulin Ismard, “Esclavage public”, in Les mondes de l’esclavage : une histoire comparée, ed. Paulin Ismard coord. Benedetta Rossi, Cécil Vidal (Paris, Seuil, 2021), 501-512.
• M’hamed Oualdi, A Slave between Empires. A Transimperial History of North Africa. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020.
• Rebekka von Mallinckrodt, Josef Köstlbauer, and Sarah Lentz eds. Beyond Exceptionalism: Traces of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Early Modern Germany 1650–1850. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021.
• Cécil Vidal “Public Slavery, Racial Formation, and the Struggle over Honor in French New Orleans, 1718-1769”, Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura 43.2 (2016): 155- 183.
• Giulia Bonazza “Slavery in Europe during the Atlantic Slave Trade”, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 15 Sep. 2022; Accessed 1 Nov. 2022. https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-971.