Black African Political Thought and its Impact on British and Spanish Imperial Foreign Policy (1725-1743)

该项目以18世纪早期被奴役的非洲人逃离南卡罗来纳州前往佛罗里达州为中心，调查了非洲人迄今为止未被探索的塑造英国和西班牙国际关系的能力。1693年11月7日，西班牙王室颁布法令，从卡罗来纳逃到佛罗里达驻军圣奥古斯丁的奴隶将从奴隶制中解放出来，鼓励被奴役的非洲人抛弃他们的英国主人。这段黑人跨帝国逃亡的历史对英国和西班牙的外交政策以及詹金斯耳朵战争（1739-1742/48）的爆发产生了重大影响。该项目以非洲逃亡者的思想史为中心，探讨了支持他们逃亡决定的政治、宗教和意识形态动机。它调查了逃亡者的刚果和安哥拉血统和基督教背景，以及西班牙与刚果和安哥拉（1580年至1640-68年间并入西班牙）的关系如何导致卡罗来纳的非洲奴隶事先知道西班牙的庇护政策。该项目考察了非洲人与西班牙决策者的接触，以及他们的逃亡对英国内阁决策的影响，运用外交政策分析的新古典现实主义理论，探索被奴役的非洲人如何将自己变成英西关系中的关键角色。

Centred around enslaved Africans deserting South Carolina to reach Florida in the early eighteenth century, this project investigates the Africans' hitherto unexplored ability to shape Britain and Spain's international relations. On 7 November 1693, the Spanish Crown decreed that runaway enslaved people from the Carolinas arriving in the Floridian garrison of St. Augustine would be freed from slavery, encouraging enslaved Africans to desert their English masters. This history of Black trans-imperial desertions significantly influenced Britain and Spain's foreign policy and the outbreak of the War of Jenkins' Ear (1739-1742/48). Centring on the African runaways' intellectual histories, the project explores the political, religious and ideological motivations underpinning their decision to flee. It investigates how runaways' Kongolese and Angolan origins and Christian background, and Spain's ties with Kongo and Angola (incorporated into Spain between 1580 and 1640-68) led to enslaved Africans in Carolina having prior knowledge of Spain's asylum policy. Scrutinising the Africans' engagement with Spanish policy-makers, and their desertions' impact on the British cabinet's decisions, the project applies a Neoclassical Realist Theory of Foreign Policy Analysis to explore how enslaved Africans turned themselves into pivotal actors in British-Spanish relations.