Claims to Memory

Beyond Slavery and Emancipation in the French Caribbean
1. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-1-84545-412-8
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 10, 216 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 281 g

Reihe: Polygons: Cultural Diversities and Intersections

Why do the people of the French Caribbean still continue to be haunted by the memory of their slave past more than one hundred and fifty years after the abolition of slavery? What process led to the divorce of their collective memory of slavery and emancipation from France's portrayal of these historical phenomena? How are Martinicans and Guadeloupeans today transforming the silences of the past into historical and cultural manifestations rooted in the Caribbean? This book answers these questions by relating the 1998 controversy surrounding the 150th anniversary of France's abolition of slavery to the period of the slave regime spanning the late Enlightenment and the French Revolution. By comparing a diversity of documents—including letters by slaves, free people of color, and planters, as well as writings by the philosophes, royal decrees, and court cases—the author untangles the complex forces of the slave regime that have shaped collective memory. The current nationalization of the memory of slavery in France has turned these once peripheral claims into passionate political and cultural debates.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Reinhardt, Catherine

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Kolonialismus, Imperialismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziale Ungleichheit, Armut, Rassismus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Memories of Slavery

Chapter 1. Realms of the Enlightenment

Chapter 2. Realms of the Maroon

Chapter 3. Realms of Freedom

Chapter 4. Realms of Assimilation

Chapter 5. Realms of Memory

Conclusion: Beyond Slavery

Postscript

Appendix

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Reinhardt, Catherine
Catherine Reinhardt is a lecturer of French at Chapman University. She has given numerous talks and published articles on slavery in the French Caribbean and on French and Caribbean literature.