Marxism in Culture Seminar
Marcus Rediker, ‘The Amistad Rebellion in American Popular Culture, 1839-1841’
Friday, 15 November 2013
17:30-19:30, The Court Room, Senate House, Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU
FREE – ALL WELCOME
Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh. His books, including, recently, The Slave Ship: A Human History (2007) and The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom (2012), have been translated into a dozen languages. His new book Outlaws of Atlantic: Sailors. Pirates, and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail, will be published by Beacon Press/Verso next year.
This paper asks, how did it happen that in the United States – the world’s leading slave society, in which there was widespread racism and fear of slave revolts in both the north and the south – that the successful Amistad slave rebellion of 1839 became a popular cause and the leader of the rebellion, a Mende warrior named Cinqué, became a celebrity?