Race and Freedom: Africans in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the eve of Modernity

早期的原始全球化极大地促进了人在各大洲之间的流动，包括为强迫劳动而贩运人口，并创造了新的权力结构，其中社会和种族差异往往相互交织在一起。这形成了现代的种族概念，并将种族主义意识形态传播到互动的核心区域之外。这个项目的重点是探索在前现代欧洲，特别是在波兰-立陶宛联邦，一个作为大西洋经济腹地的社会，同时与欧亚大草原和中东互动的种族间的接触及其结果。尽管它对绅士享有特殊的公民和宗教自由，但该社会实行各种形式的不自由，首先是以出口为导向的农奴制，但也奴役与奥斯曼帝国和草原游牧民族作战的俘虏。该国也是来自西方和东方的移民的目的地，这导致了独特的种族、宗教和文化多样性和相对宽容。鲜为人知的是，它还经历了西方种族观念的涌入和具有种族特色的人的涌入。这项研究的目的是调查波兰-立陶宛社会如何处理种族主义的自由思想及其对新来者和非洲裔当地人的实际执行情况。该项目将研究18世纪中期至19世纪初的三个案例研究。第一个案例研究探讨了一个强大的拉齐威尔豪门的非洲主题，他们的贩运路线，在庄园经济中的作用，社会等级制度中的位置，以及波兰-立陶宛意识形态和文化的文化框架。第二个案例研究通过T.Kościuszko的黑人贴身男仆Jan Lapierre的经历，考察了废奴主义和农奴解放之间的交集，以及波兰-立陶宛社会容纳不同种族外国人的能力。第三个案例研究的重点是一名混血波兰贵族和军官，他为国家的独立和公民自由而战，但也参加了法国镇压海地革命的军事远征。对这些案件的审议代表了一种开创性的尝试，即拼凑东欧黑人历史的零散证据，并在全球范围内提供关于区域历史的新视角。它将分析该社会自由和多样性的经历以及关于种族和奴隶制的外国思想在多大程度上影响了其内部话语、世界观和国内外对非洲人的做法。该项目突出了像波兰-立陶宛这样的内陆农业社会如何融入强迫劳动、长途移民、人口贩运和思想交流的全球经济。

Early- Modern proto-globalization facilitated greatly the movement of people across continents, including human trafficking for forced labour, and created new power structures where social and racial differences were often intertwined. That shaped the modern concept of race and spread racist ideologies even beyond the core regions of interaction. This project focuses on exploring interracial encounters and their outcomes in pre-modern Europe, particularly in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a society that was a hinterland of the Atlantic economy and simultaneously interacted with the Eurasian steppe and the Middle East. Despite its exceptional civil and religious liberties for the gentry, the society practised various forms of unfreedom, first of all, export-led serfdom but also slavery of captives from fights with Ottomans and steppe nomads. The country was also a destination for migrations from the West and East which led to unique ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity and relative tolerance. Less known is that it also experienced an influx of Western racial ideas and racially distinctive people. The study aims to investigate how the Polish-Lithuanian society dealt with the racialized idea of liberty and its practical implementation towards newcomers and locals of African descent. The project will examine three case studies from the mid-18th to early 19th century. The first case study explores African subjects of a powerful magnate house of Radziwill, their trafficking routes, roles in the manor economy, places in the social hierarchy, and cultural framework of Polish-Lithuanian ideology and culture. The second case study examines the intersection between abolitionism and serf emancipation and the Polish-Lithuanian society's ability to accommodate a racially different foreigner through the experiences of Jan Lapierre, T. Kościuszko's Black valet. The third case study focuses on a mixed-race Polish aristocrat and military officer who fought for independence and civil liberties for his country but also participated in the French military expedition to suppress the Haitian Revolution. The consideration of these cases represents a pioneering attempt to piece together scattered evidence of East European Black history and provide a novel perspective on regional history in a global context. It will analyze the extent to which the society's experiences of (un)freedom and diversity, as well as foreign ideas about race and slavery, influenced its internal discourse, worldview, and practices towards Africans both at home and abroad. The project highlights how a landlocked agrarian society like Poland-Lithuania was integrated into the global economy of forced labour, long-distance migration, human trafficking, and the exchange of ideas.