Cities and Slavery in the Atlantic World

Although African slavery in the Americas is most often associated with rural life and agricultural production, cities are crucial sites in the history of slavery. This undergraduate seminar explores the
intertwined histories of urbanization and slavery in the Atlantic world from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Readings and discussions will touch on slavery’s impact on such European centers as Nantes,Liverpool, London, and Seville and on such cities on the African continent as Lagos and Luanda. Thecourse will, however, concentrate on the “New World,” eventually coming to focus on the places whereslavery lasted long enough to intersect with the beginnings of urban modernity and industrialization, especially Brazil. We will end the semester reading and reflecting on the lasting legacies of African slavery in the cities of the Atlantic world after abolition, considering both slavery’s memorialization on and its erasure from the urban landscape.