Africa's Sons Under Arms: Race, Military Bodies and the British West India Regiment in the Atlantic world, 1795-1914

这个雄心勃勃的合作研究项目使用英国西印度军团（WIR）作为案例研究，探讨从18世纪末到20世纪初大西洋世界种族思想的演变性质。WIR成立于1795年，由英国在南方战役（1778-82年）期间招募的卡罗莱纳军团的残余黑人士兵组成。革命战争的失败导致约5000名被奴役和以前被奴役的人撤离，其中包括黑人军队。WIR对英属加勒比殖民地的防御至关重要，也在西非服役。这个团的军事历史已经研究过了，我们不打算重新审查。医生、奴隶主、旅行者、摄影师和其他人都在仔细观察西印度群岛的士兵，他们以复杂的、往往是矛盾的方式描绘和解释他们的身体。该项目的组成部分将利用这些观点，同时不忘记士兵本身的作用，他们能够通过自己的行为、着装、能力和行动（在战斗中、游行中和体育运动中）形成种族主义思想。这些互动发生在关于种族能力和文明使命的辩论以及英属加勒比地区奴隶制的结束的背景下。黑人主题的军事化相对而言研究不足，但对于我们将种族作为一个概念的可塑性本质的看法至关重要。害怕武装黑人的白人愿意，当情况需要时，把他们置于武器之下。这个项目旨在探索这种矛盾心理，解释白人如何在18世纪末和19世纪初“重新发现”黑人的身体，以及白色对黑人身体的理解如何从被动的奴隶演变为武装战斗人员，这对维多利亚时期改变种族观念至关重要。该项目的总体范围雄心勃勃，但可以管理。1795年至1914年的时间范围包括法国大革命和拿破仑战争以及1812年战争;废除英国奴隶贸易和奴隶制;英国参与西非;克里米亚和美国内战;以及后来的“争夺非洲”。在此期间，西印度群岛参与了加勒比地区的帝国内部冲突，镇压奴隶起义（巴巴多斯，1816年）和奴隶制后的叛乱（牙买加，1865年），以及在非洲进行殖民战争。该项目更广泛的历史背景是由海地革命提供的;英国和美国关于奴隶制和种族的公开辩论;科学对医学界日益重要;维多利亚时代英雄气概的新兴理想。该项目有意不包括第一次世界大战。相反，在评估“英联邦”对那场战争的贡献时，现在是时候考虑英国军队中黑人士兵的广泛和更多样化的历史了。该项目的地理范围集中在大西洋世界，包括加勒比海，西非和英国，但也包括美国和法兰西帝国。在《世界投资报告》悠久而广泛的历史背景下，该项目包括三个不同但相互关联的组成部分。两个主要组成部分检查1）由军队外科医生和医生关于WIR士兵的医学话语的生产，以及它对美国南部（洛克利）亲奴作家的影响，2）WIR士兵在英国作为流行思想和对种族，男性气质，战争和帝国焦虑的晴雨表的变化形象（兰伯特）。与每一个项目相关的是一个博士项目：一个项目考虑白色对非洲裔男子武装的反应，另一个项目则侧重于《世界IR》的摄影图像及其与当代话语的关系，包括旅游业。第三个重点更突出的部分考虑了《世界独立宣言》在加勒比社会生活中的地位，特别侧重于士兵参加大众体育运动和作为公共空间的驻军（哈特菲尔德）。

This ambitious collaborative research project uses the British West India Regiment (WIR) as a case study to explore the evolving nature of racial thought in the Atlantic world from late 18th to early 20th centuries. The WIR was formed in 1795 from remnants of the Carolina Corps of black soldiers recruited by the British during the southern campaign (1778-82). Defeat in the Revolutionary War led the evacuation of c.5000 enslaved and formerly enslaved people, including black troops. The WIR became vital for the defence of the British Caribbean colonies and also served in West Africa. The military history of the regiment has been studied and we do not propose to re-examine this. The soldiers of the WIR were objects of scrutiny by doctors, slaveholders, travellers, photographers and others, who depicted and interpreted their bodies in complex, often contradictory ways. The project's components will utilize these viewpoints while not forgetting the agency of the soldiers themselves who were able to shape racialised ideas through their behaviour, dress, abilities and actions (in battle, on parade and while playing sport). These interactions took place against a backdrop of debates about racial capacity and the civilising mission, and the end of slavery in the British Caribbean. The militarisation of the black subject is comparatively under-studied, yet is crucial to our perception of the plastic nature of race as a concept. Whites who feared armed black men were willing, when circumstances dictated, to place them under arms. This project aims to explore such ambivalence, explain how whites 'rediscovered' the black body in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and how evolving white understanding of the black body from passive slave to armed combatant was crucial to changing ideas about race in the Victorian period. The overall scope of the project is ambitious but manageable. The time-frame of 1795-1914 encompasses the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812; the abolition of the British slave trade and slavery; British involvement in West Africa; the Crimean and US Civil Wars; and the later 'Scramble for Africa'. This period saw the WIR involved in intra-imperial conflicts in the Caribbean, suppressing slave revolts (Barbados, 1816) and post-slavery rebellions (Jamaica, 1865), as well as fighting colonial wars in Africa. The project's broader historical context is provided by the Haitian Revolution; public debates about slavery and race in Britain and the USA; the growing importance of science to the medical profession; and emerging ideals of Victorian heroic masculinity. Deliberately, the project does not encompass the First World War. Instead, at a time when the 'Commonwealth' (sic) contribution to that War is being assessed, it is timely to consider the extensive and more varied history of black soldiers in the British Army. The geographical scope of the project is focused on the Atlantic world, including the Caribbean, West Africa and Britain, but also the USA and French Empire. Under the umbrella of a long and wide history of the WIR, this project comprises three distinct but interconnected components. Two major components examine 1) the production of medical discourse about the WIR soldiers by army surgeons and physicians, and its influence on proslavery writers in the US South (Lockley) and 2) the changing image of the WIR soldier in Britain as a barometer of popular ideas and anxieties about race, masculinity, warfare and empire (Lambert). Associated with each is a PhD project: one considers white responses to the arming of men of African-descent, while the other focuses on photographic imagery of the WIR and its relation to the contemporary discourses, including tourism. A third, more focused component considers the place of the WIR within the life of Caribbean societies, particularly focusing on soldiers' participation in popular sport and the garrison as a public space (Hatfield).