Doctoral Dissertation Research: Struggles for Sovereignty: Escaped Slaves, Colonial Governance, and Race in the French Caribbean, 1790-1850

博士论文研究：主权斗争：法属加勒比地区的逃亡奴隶、殖民地治理和种族，1790-1850 年

• 批准号: 1302930
• 负责人: Jamie Winders
• 金额: $ 1.33万
• 依托单位: Syracuse University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-04-01 至 2016-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1302930&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Struggles; Sovereignty

This doctoral dissertation project is about the relationship between resistance practices of maroons, established communities of escaped slaves, and colonial governance practices in the Caribbean at the turn of the nineteenth century. Maroon settlements were typically located in less desirable locations such as swamps and hills surrounding plantations and were endemic to plantation landscapes across the Americas during colonial times. While they played a central role in historical events such as the Haitian Revolution, scholarly research has largely overlooked them. This project will contribute to this understudied field by examining the extent to which colonial responses to marronage, the act of escape among slaves, transformed ideas about race in the Americas and altered strategies for securing political and economic control over colonial territories. Findings from this investigation will advance understandings of how notions of racial difference were produced in the nineteenth century and later, and how forms of colonial governance took shape in the Americas. By focusing on the French Caribbean, it contributes to filling a gap in historical studies that overlook Francophone aspects of the Atlantic world. This project will investigate three questions about the relationship between strategies of French colonial governance and resistance practices of maroons. First, how did colonial authorities understand marronage across the French Caribbean at the turn of the nineteenth century, particularly in relation to its role in daily plantation operations and its effects on colonial ideas about race and sovereignty? Second, what institutional actions, such as new laws or changing military strategies, did French colonial authorities take in response to the real or imagined threat of marronage after the Haitian Revolution, and were these changes implemented in the same way across the French Caribbean? Third, how did maroons in different parts of the French Caribbean respond to such changes in governance practices? Through archival research at key sites in the French colonial archive, this study will analyze historical documents such as correspondence between colonial administrators, military reports, and court proceedings pertaining to escaped or fugitive slaves, in an effort to better understand the geographic complexity of the struggle between maroons and colonial authorities. In the process, new knowledge about the social construction of race and struggles over sovereignty in the Atlantic world will be generated. The struggle between maroons and French colonial administrators played an important role in shaping the economies, social structures, and cultural landscapes of the Caribbean, even into the present. Studying the influence of maroons on such processes can improve our understanding of how the region developed historically and why it looks the way that it does today. The role played by maroons, however, is not merely a relic of the past, as the tensions and legacies of their struggle linger into the present and have implications for the future. In many places across the Caribbean and Latin America today descendants of maroons claim a heritage of resistance to reframe ongoing struggles over cultural, political, and land rights. This project will help reveal the historical roots of contemporary attempts to revise maroon narratives. It will also highlight the broader implications of such efforts for communities of maroon descendants struggling to maintain their cultural identities and access to traditional lands in an age of heritage tourism and resurgent national politics. Findings and results generated by this research will be disseminated through the publication of journal articles, presentations at professional conferences, and public lectures. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.

这篇博士论文项目是关于在十九世纪之交，在加勒比地区的逃亡奴隶，建立社区和殖民治理实践的抵抗实践之间的关系。栗色殖民地通常位于不太理想的地方，如沼泽和种植园周围的山丘，在殖民时期是美洲各地种植园景观的特有物种。虽然他们在海地革命等历史事件中发挥了核心作用，但学术研究在很大程度上忽视了他们。该项目将有助于这一未充分研究的领域，通过研究殖民地对marronage的反应，奴隶逃跑的行为，改变了美洲种族的观念，改变了对殖民地领土的政治和经济控制的战略。这项调查的结果将促进对种族差异概念如何在十九世纪及以后产生以及殖民统治形式如何在美洲形成的理解。通过关注法属加勒比地区，它有助于填补历史研究中忽视大西洋世界法语方面的空白。本研究将探讨法国殖民统治策略与马隆人抵抗行为之间的关系。首先，殖民当局如何理解世纪之交法属加勒比地区的Marronage，特别是它在日常种植园经营中的作用及其对殖民地种族和主权思想的影响？第二，法国殖民当局采取了哪些制度性行动，如新的法律或改变军事战略，以应对海地革命后真实的或想象的Marronage威胁，这些变化是否以同样的方式在整个法属加勒比地区实施？第三，法属加勒比不同地区的马龙人如何应对治理做法的这种变化？通过在法国殖民档案馆的关键地点的档案研究，这项研究将分析历史文件，如殖民地管理人员之间的通信，军事报告，以及有关逃跑或逃亡奴隶的法庭诉讼，以更好地了解马龙人和殖民当局之间的斗争的地理复杂性。在这一过程中，将产生关于大西洋世界种族社会结构和主权斗争的新知识。马龙人和法国殖民地管理者之间的斗争在塑造加勒比地区的经济、社会结构和文化景观方面发挥了重要作用，甚至到现在。研究马龙人对这些过程的影响可以提高我们对该地区历史上如何发展以及为什么它看起来像今天这样的理解。然而，马龙人所发挥的作用不仅仅是过去的遗物，因为他们斗争的紧张局势和遗留问题一直延续到现在，并对未来产生影响。今天，在加勒比海和拉丁美洲的许多地方，马龙人的后代声称他们有抵抗的传统，以重新构建正在进行的文化，政治和土地权利斗争。这个项目将有助于揭示当代试图修改栗色叙事的历史根源。它还将强调这些努力对在遗产旅游和复兴的国家政治时代努力维护其文化身份和获得传统土地的栗色后裔社区的更广泛影响。 本研究产生的发现和结果将通过发表期刊文章、在专业会议上发表演讲和公开讲座进行传播。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。