History 1931: Slavery, Disease, and Race: Brazil in the Atlantic World
Semester:
Fall
|
Year offered:
2020
Professor Sidney Chalhoub. Of the estimated 12.5 million people taken from Africa to be enslaved in the Americas, 4.9 million went to Brazil alone (in contrast to about 450 thousand who arrived in the United States). The black population in the country today is the second largest worldwide, inferior only to Nigeria. In this seminar we will explore slavery and emancipation in Brazil in its connections with Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. The relation between disease (especially yellow fever epidemics), labor struggles, and the making of racial ideologies in the Atlantic world in the age of slave emancipation and in the post-emancipation period will be emphasized.