Great news arrived last month. Bram Hubbell relaunched his terrific Liberating Narratives site as a subscription newsletter. This means more content for world history teachers and students. I have taken a lot the opening series on teaching the Transatlantic Slave System which brings many insights and narratives to a topic that I have spent a lot of time thinking about as a teacher.
The current issue focuses on teaching and learning about resistance to enslavement. As with imperialism starting with or centering resistance ensures a fuller discussion. Any discussion of resistance will naturally include the system of enslavement. As Bram points out resistance took many forms, including revolutionary violence.
While musing on this a couple of years ago, I mentioned the story of a young enslaved man from Georgia, Titus, who gained freedom by escaping to Florida. The story came from Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions by Jane Landers. She describes the complexities of freedom seeking, including how Florida was a site of grand marronage and a potential refuge for enslaved people from Protestant states or colonies, such Georgia and Jamaica, who converted to Catholicism.
Landers told the story of Titus, a young enslaved man who escaped to freedom in Florida. I use her description as enrichment option when covering the Transatlantic Slave System or the Age of Revolutions. Students read an excerpt from the book which is entry point to considering how Landers constructed historical knowledge from advertisements for runaway slaves and to learning about how some enslaved people sought freedom. The excerpt and guiding questions are here:
