The Royal Society and Slavery in Jamaica, 1660-1713

该项目将以牙买加为例，探讨皇家学会生产自然知识和建立奴隶社会之间的联系。该项目将由剑桥大学的Nuala Zahedieh和皇家学会的Keith Moore共同监督。博士将通过研究英国皇家学会及其自然哲学家在早期英语牙买加发展中所起的作用，来调查英国政府及其机构在促进其海外领土使用奴役劳工方面所扮演的角色。主要目的是加强对以奴役为中心的复辟帝国政策如何塑造新的自然和医学知识的产生，以及科学如何反过来可能提高不列颠帝国企业的盈利能力的理解。该学会与牙买加的关系很少被探索，牙买加是18世纪最有价值的英国殖民地，通过将这项关于科学和奴隶制的研究限制在其所在地，应该会产生一个易于管理但具有高度原创性的学生项目。这将为皇家学会和科学博物馆未来的活动提供背景，并为其提供信息，而且鉴于公众日益意识到，早就应该对英国历史进行更广泛的评估，这是及时的。

The project will use the case of Jamaica to explore links between the Royal Society's production of natural knowledgeand the creation of a slave society. The project will be jointly supervised by Nuala Zahedieh, University of Cambridge andKeith Moore, the Royal Society. The PhD will investigate the role of the British state and its institutions in promoting theuse of enslaved labour in its overseas territories through an examination of the part played by the Royal Society and itsnatural philosophers in the development of early English Jamaica. The prime aim is to strengthen understanding of howRestoration imperial policy, with enslavement at its centre, shaped the production of new natural and medical knowledgeand how, in turn, science might have enhanced the profitability of Britain's imperial enterprise. The Society's relationshipwith Jamaica, the most valuable British colony in the eighteenth century, is little explored and by limiting this study ofscience and slavery to its locale a manageable but highly original student project should ensue. This will give context to,and inform, future Royal Society and Science Museum activity and is timely given rising public consciousness that abroader assessment of British history is overdue.