Acknowledgments
Many people contributed directly or indirectly to the completion of this book. I am indebted to my graduate and undergraduate students at Howard University who since 2008 have been my best interlocutors in discussing the history of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade by always challenging me to see the central role of Black men and women in the construction of the various societies of Americas and Europe.
I also benefited from the contribution of the participants of the monthly seminar “Slavery, Memory, and African Diasporas,” which I have convened at Howard University since 2012. This seminar has created a fruitful dialogue among scholars in the Washington, DC, area, and after the rise of the COVID-19 global pandemic, it expanded its outreach to scholars in other parts of the United States as well as in the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, and Brazil.I am grateful to then chair of the Department of History, Nikki M. Taylor, who has always supported this project, by officially and unofficially recognizing that I needed extra time to complete it. I wrote most chapters of this book between March 2020 and January 2022, when the pandemic led us to endless months of confinement and online teaching. During this period, along with cohosts Jessica Marie Johnson, Vanessa Holden, and Alex Gil, I created the #Slaveryarchive Book Club to foster debates about newly published books on the history of slavery and the Atlantic world. The readings and the conversations we had during 2020–21 have shaped several chapters of this book, and authors who presented their work in the book club will certainly recognize how their works helped me to rethink this book.
While finishing the last chapters of this manuscript, I was a member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.
While working on another project, my time at IAS gave me the space and time I needed in those very difficult final days to finish the manuscript. At IAS, Karen Downing helped me gain access to books and dissertations that were difficult to obtain otherwise. I am especially grateful to Marcia Tucker, who assisted me in getting books as well as locating and digitizing some of the images examined here. A special thanks go to Tsering Wangyal Shawa, geographic information systems (GIS) and map librarian and head of the Map and Geospatial Information Center at Peter B. Lewis Library at Princeton University, who kindly produced the two maps presented at the beginning of this book. A Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society that funded research in the French archives for another project gave me the opportunity to fill some gaps to complete this book manuscript.In 2023, I revised the final manuscript while on sabbatical leave and in a residential fellowship at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. I am grateful for the time, resources, structure, and intellectual exchanges at the Getty that allowed me to finish this project in the most beautiful and stimulating setting a scholar can dream of. Several photographs in this book are housed at the Jean Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute Special Collections. I am grateful for the permission to use them to illustrate the book. I thank Alexa Sekyra, Nancy Ulm, Sabine Schlosser, and Virginia Mokslaveskas for their support during my stay at the Getty. I am particularly grateful to the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University, especially to Dean Rubin Patterson and Associate Deans Thomas A. Foster and Kim D. Lewis, who made possible a research leave in Spring 2022 and then a sabbatical leave in Spring 2023.
This book could not have been written without the support from librarians, archivists, and museum curators in Brazil, France, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada, the United States, and the Republic of Benin, where most of the archival research and fieldwork for this book was conducted either in person or remotely over the past twenty years.
Most of this work was solely supported by Howard University through funds from the Provost Office, the Graduate School, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of History. At Howard University, the role of librarians and archivists was crucial, especially during the pandemic, when access to libraries was limited. My special thanks go to Alliah Humber, Angelique Carson, and Lopez Matthews, who responded to all my demands to obtain articles and books to complete this project. Many other colleagues and friends helped during this journey, providing me with additional sources, suggesting me specific readings, and offering words of support. Among them are Edward Baptist, Alex Borucki, Mariana P. Candido, Lisa Earl Castillo, Mariana Dantas, Daniel Domingues da Silva, Natanya Duncan, Rebecca Goetz, Robin Law, Paul E. Lovejoy, Christina Mobley, J. Cameron Monroe, Anna More, Brooke Newman, Mariana Dias Paes, Nicholas Radburn, Carlos da Silva Jr., Mariza de Carvalho Soares, Nikki M. Taylor, and Jennie Williams. Becky Goetz, Lisa Earl Castillo, and Brooke Newman also supported me when I needed it the most. Suzanne Preston Blier provided me with words of wisdom during several difficult moments. Asking colleagues to read your work became more difficult than usual during the pandemic. João JosĂ© Reis kindly read chapter 15, “Rebellions across Borders,” and if there are any mistakes left behind, they are only mine. Historian Toby Green was a patient interlocutor in the past four years when I was writing and revising the manuscript. He always provided me with generous advice and kind words of support; I am deeply grateful to him, and I hope he knows how much his own scholarly work inspired this book.Priya Nelson, then senior editor at the University of Chicago Press and now senior editor at Princeton University Press, commissioned this book. I am indebted to her for believing in my work and for helping me shaping the initial book proposal. Without her initiative and support, this book would not exist.
I am also thankful to the two anonymous reviewers who generously read the book proposal when we were going into lockdown in March 2020 and offered me constructive criticism in their positive reviews. Their comments pushed me to write a book that I hope is much better than the proposal promised. I also thank the two anonymous reviewers who read the final book manuscript. I made all possible efforts to incorporate and to respond to their criticism and to address all their suggestions and corrections. I thank Alan Thomas, editorial director at University of Chicago Press, for his continuous support during these very long four years. I am lucky for having worked with a wonderful editor on this book. Dylan J. Montanari believed in this project and diligently worked with me to overcome the many obstacles that emerged along the way. He patiently read the entire manuscript and provided me with comments and sharp criticism, therefore helping to make my manuscript a better book. I offer him my deepest gratitude. I also thank Fabiola EnrĂquez Flores, who assisted me during the process of submitting the final manuscript and securing the numerous images that are part of this book, and Kristen Raddatz, who took care of all dimensions of this book’s publicity. I am also grateful to Lori Meek Schuldt for meticulously copyediting this manuscript.Our beloved cat Aby (2004–22) remained on duty until I finished the first version of this manuscript. For two years he woke me every single day to force me to start working during the early hours. I tried to keep his cat schedule while I was adding the last words to the first draft of this manuscript during my term at the Institute for Advanced Study. My parents have also supported me during my stays in southern Brazil, and they forgave my absences to conduct research in the archives.
But first and foremost, this book would not exist without my husband Alain BĂ©langer. Not only did he accept seeing me spend the greater part of the day in my office working on this book, but he also supported me with his unconditional love, patience, and care during the entire process, including summers and holidays that I spent in front of my computer. Once again, we did it.
This book is dedicated to Alain, to my students at Howard University, and to the enslaved men, women, and children who crossed the Atlantic Ocean to build the Americas where we are allowed to live. I am grateful to be one among the many historians who attempt to honor their history through our words.