Sue Peabody - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Sue Peabody
This multi-generational history of a family of planters and slaves in Ile Bourbon (Reunion) and I... more This multi-generational history of a family of planters and slaves in Ile Bourbon (Reunion) and Ile de France (Mauritius) explores the role of the physical environment on strategies of slave ownership and both masters’ and slaves’ vulnerability to cyclones and drought. Human settlement in the 1700s rapidly transformed the islands’ ecology through the introduction of alien species and the replacement of indigenous forest with less robust agriculture. Severe weather patterns periodically created famine conditions in the Indian Ocean rim, subjecting the vulnerable to debt peonage and enslavement. Torrential rains and severe droughts also affected the productivity of the islands’ arable land, which affected the capacity to feed the growing population of slaves and the success of Reunion’s experiments in export commodities.
Duke University Press eBooks, Oct 4, 2005
begin their edited collection, of predominantly historical essays on postemancipation societies i... more begin their edited collection, of predominantly historical essays on postemancipation societies in the "Atlantic World," with an introduction that wastes no time in letting us know why they write. "The essays. .. draw on feminist theory which shows that gender involves 'doing' rather than 'being.' Scholars. .. have argued that there are no presocial gendered essences. There are just women and men who have different experiences, only people whose bodily differences are, through social and discursive processes, fixed and categorized into two opposed groups: male and female" (p. 2). While we are, therefore, warned to expect normative bias or at least some rooting for women who are struggling to find agency and space, the authors for the most part, neither lead witnesses nor spin evidence. Offering a work on "Gender and Slave Emancipation in Comparative Perspective," which is the title of their introduction, presents, however, more substantive difficulties. Darlene Clark Hine, in her message to members as the President of the American Association of Historians, invited academics to "cross boundaries" and "engage in more collaborative and comparative work."[1] This volume certainly crosses boundaries as it examines the role of gender in a wide variety of settings including the United States South, Caribbean, Brazil, and Africa. But the authors of the articles do not engage one another in a collective enterprise of comparative analysis. Such an analysis demands some conceptual work in arriving at a coherent approach to comparison and contrast. Northwestern University's African American Studies program offers a graduate course in conceptual methodologies that includes in its description the lament that there is a "neglect of focused discussion on the application of critical concepts in interdisciplinary analysis." Several of the authors in 1 Scully et al.: Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World
Journal of Social History, Oct 3, 2019
Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire, May 1, 2011
... 6-. Principle, a fundamental maxim of the kingdom, guaranteed freedom to all slaves who set f... more ... 6-. Principle, a fundamental maxim of the kingdom, guaranteed freedom to all slaves who set foot on French soil. In a landmark 1759 case, the Parlement of Paris recognized the freedom of Francisque, a slave who had been brought to France by his master Sieur Brignon. ...
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2009
The Americas, 2002
This volume results from a conference on slavery in the Francophone Caribbean World, held at the ... more This volume results from a conference on slavery in the Francophone Caribbean World, held at the University of Georgia in 1997. This is a tantalizing, if uneven, collection of essays on slavery in the French Atlantic embodying a wide range of literary, linguistic and historical approaches. The material as a whole shows how very rich the subject area is and how much room there is for additional research.
Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire, 2017
begin their edited collection, of predominantly historical essays on postemancipation societies i... more begin their edited collection, of predominantly historical essays on postemancipation societies in the "Atlantic World," with an introduction that wastes no time in letting us know why they write. "The essays. .. draw on feminist theory which shows that gender involves 'doing' rather than 'being.' Scholars. .. have argued that there are no presocial gendered essences. There are just women and men who have different experiences, only people whose bodily differences are, through social and discursive processes, fixed and categorized into two opposed groups: male and female" (p. 2). While we are, therefore, warned to expect normative bias or at least some rooting for women who are struggling to find agency and space, the authors for the most part, neither lead witnesses nor spin evidence. Offering a work on "Gender and Slave Emancipation in Comparative Perspective," which is the title of their introduction, presents, however, more substantive difficulties. Darlene Clark Hine, in her message to members as the President of the American Association of Historians, invited academics to "cross boundaries" and "engage in more collaborative and comparative work."[1] This volume certainly crosses boundaries as it examines the role of gender in a wide variety of settings including the United States South, Caribbean, Brazil, and Africa. But the authors of the articles do not engage one another in a collective enterprise of comparative analysis. Such an analysis demands some conceptual work in arriving at a coherent approach to comparison and contrast. Northwestern University's African American Studies program offers a graduate course in conceptual methodologies that includes in its description the lament that there is a "neglect of focused discussion on the application of critical concepts in interdisciplinary analysis." Several of the authors in 1 Scully et al.: Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World
Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets
France incorporated slavery in all of its early modern overseas colonies, including Canada, and w... more France incorporated slavery in all of its early modern overseas colonies, including Canada, and was the first nation-state in the world to issue a general emancipation act (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies articles on French Atlantic World, the Haitian Revolution, Emancipation, and Abolition of Slavery). In fact, France abolished slavery twice, in 1794 and in 1848, each time in the midst of revolutionary turmoil. Yet the historical forces that prompted these two legislative acts were distinct. The 1794 decree (16 Pluviôse, Year 2) by the Constituent Assembly in Paris—which succeeded two decades of antislavery activism in the British and American contexts, but tepid antislavery activism in France itself—was prompted by the unfolding colonial slave revolt, weak colonial control, and incursions by Britain and Spain in Saint-Domingue. However, the resultant 1794 decree was implemented in only Saint Domingue, Guadeloupe, and Guyana; it remained a dead letter in Martinique, Senegal,...
Abolitions as a Global Experience
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 2009
This paper examines French law, specifically in terms of the principle of Free Soil and racial la... more This paper examines French law, specifically in terms of the principle of Free Soil and racial law, on the basis of a unique 19th century case. In a lawsuit that lasted from 1817 to 1843, Furcy, a man from the Island of Bourbon (present-day Reunion), sought to prove his free status against his alleged master, Joseph Lory. His lawyers and attorneys based his claim to freedom on the fact that his mother was Indian rather than black and had resided in France between 1771 and 1773, before traveling with some colonial settlers to Bourbon, where she gave birth to Furcy in 1786. In contrast to the celebrated case of Dred Scott in the United States, the courts of Paris rejected the racial argument in favor of the French principle of Free Soil. This paper is the first attempt to trace the evolution of these two legal arguments for emancipation from the Old Regime to the 19th century.
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2021
New West Indian Guide, 2018
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC license at ... more This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC license at the time of publication.
Revue d’histoire moderne & contemporaine, 2018
This multi-generational history of a family of planters and slaves in Ile Bourbon (Reunion) and I... more This multi-generational history of a family of planters and slaves in Ile Bourbon (Reunion) and Ile de France (Mauritius) explores the role of the physical environment on strategies of slave ownership and both masters’ and slaves’ vulnerability to cyclones and drought. Human settlement in the 1700s rapidly transformed the islands’ ecology through the introduction of alien species and the replacement of indigenous forest with less robust agriculture. Severe weather patterns periodically created famine conditions in the Indian Ocean rim, subjecting the vulnerable to debt peonage and enslavement. Torrential rains and severe droughts also affected the productivity of the islands’ arable land, which affected the capacity to feed the growing population of slaves and the success of Reunion’s experiments in export commodities.
Duke University Press eBooks, Oct 4, 2005
begin their edited collection, of predominantly historical essays on postemancipation societies i... more begin their edited collection, of predominantly historical essays on postemancipation societies in the "Atlantic World," with an introduction that wastes no time in letting us know why they write. "The essays. .. draw on feminist theory which shows that gender involves 'doing' rather than 'being.' Scholars. .. have argued that there are no presocial gendered essences. There are just women and men who have different experiences, only people whose bodily differences are, through social and discursive processes, fixed and categorized into two opposed groups: male and female" (p. 2). While we are, therefore, warned to expect normative bias or at least some rooting for women who are struggling to find agency and space, the authors for the most part, neither lead witnesses nor spin evidence. Offering a work on "Gender and Slave Emancipation in Comparative Perspective," which is the title of their introduction, presents, however, more substantive difficulties. Darlene Clark Hine, in her message to members as the President of the American Association of Historians, invited academics to "cross boundaries" and "engage in more collaborative and comparative work."[1] This volume certainly crosses boundaries as it examines the role of gender in a wide variety of settings including the United States South, Caribbean, Brazil, and Africa. But the authors of the articles do not engage one another in a collective enterprise of comparative analysis. Such an analysis demands some conceptual work in arriving at a coherent approach to comparison and contrast. Northwestern University's African American Studies program offers a graduate course in conceptual methodologies that includes in its description the lament that there is a "neglect of focused discussion on the application of critical concepts in interdisciplinary analysis." Several of the authors in 1 Scully et al.: Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World
Journal of Social History, Oct 3, 2019
Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire, May 1, 2011
... 6-. Principle, a fundamental maxim of the kingdom, guaranteed freedom to all slaves who set f... more ... 6-. Principle, a fundamental maxim of the kingdom, guaranteed freedom to all slaves who set foot on French soil. In a landmark 1759 case, the Parlement of Paris recognized the freedom of Francisque, a slave who had been brought to France by his master Sieur Brignon. ...
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2009
The Americas, 2002
This volume results from a conference on slavery in the Francophone Caribbean World, held at the ... more This volume results from a conference on slavery in the Francophone Caribbean World, held at the University of Georgia in 1997. This is a tantalizing, if uneven, collection of essays on slavery in the French Atlantic embodying a wide range of literary, linguistic and historical approaches. The material as a whole shows how very rich the subject area is and how much room there is for additional research.
Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire, 2017
begin their edited collection, of predominantly historical essays on postemancipation societies i... more begin their edited collection, of predominantly historical essays on postemancipation societies in the "Atlantic World," with an introduction that wastes no time in letting us know why they write. "The essays. .. draw on feminist theory which shows that gender involves 'doing' rather than 'being.' Scholars. .. have argued that there are no presocial gendered essences. There are just women and men who have different experiences, only people whose bodily differences are, through social and discursive processes, fixed and categorized into two opposed groups: male and female" (p. 2). While we are, therefore, warned to expect normative bias or at least some rooting for women who are struggling to find agency and space, the authors for the most part, neither lead witnesses nor spin evidence. Offering a work on "Gender and Slave Emancipation in Comparative Perspective," which is the title of their introduction, presents, however, more substantive difficulties. Darlene Clark Hine, in her message to members as the President of the American Association of Historians, invited academics to "cross boundaries" and "engage in more collaborative and comparative work."[1] This volume certainly crosses boundaries as it examines the role of gender in a wide variety of settings including the United States South, Caribbean, Brazil, and Africa. But the authors of the articles do not engage one another in a collective enterprise of comparative analysis. Such an analysis demands some conceptual work in arriving at a coherent approach to comparison and contrast. Northwestern University's African American Studies program offers a graduate course in conceptual methodologies that includes in its description the lament that there is a "neglect of focused discussion on the application of critical concepts in interdisciplinary analysis." Several of the authors in 1 Scully et al.: Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World
Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets
France incorporated slavery in all of its early modern overseas colonies, including Canada, and w... more France incorporated slavery in all of its early modern overseas colonies, including Canada, and was the first nation-state in the world to issue a general emancipation act (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies articles on French Atlantic World, the Haitian Revolution, Emancipation, and Abolition of Slavery). In fact, France abolished slavery twice, in 1794 and in 1848, each time in the midst of revolutionary turmoil. Yet the historical forces that prompted these two legislative acts were distinct. The 1794 decree (16 Pluviôse, Year 2) by the Constituent Assembly in Paris—which succeeded two decades of antislavery activism in the British and American contexts, but tepid antislavery activism in France itself—was prompted by the unfolding colonial slave revolt, weak colonial control, and incursions by Britain and Spain in Saint-Domingue. However, the resultant 1794 decree was implemented in only Saint Domingue, Guadeloupe, and Guyana; it remained a dead letter in Martinique, Senegal,...
Abolitions as a Global Experience
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 2009
This paper examines French law, specifically in terms of the principle of Free Soil and racial la... more This paper examines French law, specifically in terms of the principle of Free Soil and racial law, on the basis of a unique 19th century case. In a lawsuit that lasted from 1817 to 1843, Furcy, a man from the Island of Bourbon (present-day Reunion), sought to prove his free status against his alleged master, Joseph Lory. His lawyers and attorneys based his claim to freedom on the fact that his mother was Indian rather than black and had resided in France between 1771 and 1773, before traveling with some colonial settlers to Bourbon, where she gave birth to Furcy in 1786. In contrast to the celebrated case of Dred Scott in the United States, the courts of Paris rejected the racial argument in favor of the French principle of Free Soil. This paper is the first attempt to trace the evolution of these two legal arguments for emancipation from the Old Regime to the 19th century.
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2021
New West Indian Guide, 2018
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC license at ... more This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC license at the time of publication.
Revue d’histoire moderne & contemporaine, 2018