Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Item

The Atlantic Mind: Zephaniah Kingsley, Slavery, and the Politics of Race in the Atlantic World

Fleszar, Mark J.
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract

Enlightenment philosophers had long feared the effects of crisscrossing boundaries, both real and imagined. Such fears were based on what they considered a brutal ocean space frequented by protean shape-shifters with a dogma of ruthless exploitation and profit. This intellectual study outlines the formation and fragmentation of a fluctuating worldview as experienced through the circum-Atlantic life and travels of merchant, slaveowner, and slave trader Zephaniah Kingsley during the Era of Revolution. It argues that the process began from experiencing the costs of loyalty to the idea of the British Crown and was tempered by the pervasiveness of violence, mobility, anxiety, and adaptation found in the booming Atlantic markets of the Caribbean during the Haitian Revolution. Tracing Kingsley’s manipulations of identity and race through his peripatetic journey serves to go beyond the infinite masks of his self-invention and exposes the deeply imbedded transatlantic dimensions of power.

Description
Date
2009-02-10
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Collections
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Enlightenment, Atlantic world, Caribbean, Haiti, East Florida, Slavery, Race, Protean, Identity, Colonization
Citation
Embedded videos