Assumed Identities: The Meanings of Race in the Atlantic World

165 Pages·2010·1.457 MB·English

by  John D. Garrigus (editor), Christopher Morris (editor)

ASSUMED IDENTITIES
NUMBER FORTY- ONE:
The Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures
ASSUMED IDENTITIES
The Meanings of Race in the Atlantic World
Edited by
John D. Garrigus and Christopher Morris
INTRODUCTION BY FRANKLIN W. KNIGHT
Contributors:
John D. Garrigus
Rebecca Goetz
Trevor Burnard
Sidney Chalhoub
Rebecca J. Scott
Jean M. Hébrard
Published for the University of Texas at Arlington by
Texas A&M University Press
Copyright ©  by the University of Texas at Arlington
Manufactured in the United States of America
All rights reserved
First edition
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/ NISO Z.– 
(Permanence of Paper).
Binding materials have been chosen for durability.
o
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Assumed identities : the meanings of race in the Atlantic world / edited by John D. Garrigus
and Christopher Morris ; introduction by Franklin W. Knight ; contributors: John D.
Garrigus . . . [et al.]. — st ed.
p. cm. — (Th e Walter Prescott Webb memorial lectures ; no. )
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN- : ---- (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN- : --- (cloth : alk. paper) . America—Race relations—History. . Group
identity—America—History. . Eurocentrism—America—History. . Nationalism—
America—History. . Haiti—Ethnic relations—History—th century. . Haiti—
History—Revolution, –. . Virginia—Ethnic relations—History—th century.
. Ethnic relations—Religious aspects—History—th century. . West Indies, British—
Ethnic relations—History—th century. . Slave trade—Brazil—History—th century.
I. Garrigus, John D. II. Morris, Christopher (Christopher Charles) III. Series: Walter Prescott
Webb memorial lectures ; .
E.AA 
.—dc

In memory of our colleague Evan (Buzz) Anders
– 

Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Race and Identity in the New World
FRANKLIN W. KNIGHT 1
“Thy Coming Fame, Ogé! Is Sure”: New Evidence on Ogé’s  Revolt
and the Beginnings of the Haitian Revolution
JOHN D. GARRIGUS 19
“The Child Should Be Made a Christian”: Baptism, Race, and Identity in
the Seventeenth- century Chesapeake
REBECCA GOETZ 46
West Indian Identity in the Eighteenth Century
TREVOR BURNARD 71
Illegal Enslavement and the Precariousness of Freedom in
Nineteenth- century Brazil
SIDNEY CHALHOUB 88
Rosalie of the Poulard Nation: Freedom, Law, and Dignity in
the Era of the Haitian Revolution
REBECCA J. SCOTT AND JEAN M. HÉBRARD 116
In Memoriam, Evan Anders 145
About the Contributors 147
Index 149

Preface and Acknowledgments
Identity is a slippery concept. Everyone knows it exists. Everyone has it. But what
is it? And—a question of special importance for historians—how does one docu-
ment its existence? It presents a moving and shadowy target, always transforming,
never fi xed, never just one thing. As an object, it is seen diff erently depending on the
subject’s vantage point. Put another way, identity exists both as an object and as some-
thing subjectively understood within historical context, that is, within a social and
political universe that moves through time. Identity is assumed.
Each of the essays in this volume assumes at least three identities: one taken by
the subject, one given the subject by his or her contemporaries, one given to all by the
historian. In the fi rst and last essays, the subjects are individuals: Ogé and Rosalie.
They bookend essays on groups and group identities: British West Indian planters,
Chesapeake Anglicans, Africans in Brazil. Whether individual or group, the subjects
of these essays, however they saw themselves and however they were seen by others,
are assumed by the authors to have had racial identities forged within the early mod-
ern Atlantic world. That point is expressed in the volume’s subtitle and discussed in
the introduction.
The essays originated as lectures given during the  Annual Webb Lectures,
presented by the University of Texas at Arlington Department of History and, on this
occasion, by the History Department’s Graduate Program in Trans-A tlantic History.
Trans- Atlantic history, which assumes a trans- Atlantic community and identity and
projects it upon the past, has institutionalized an identity for our graduate program.
The Trans-A tlantic fi eld itself has been a way for scholars to escape some of the limits
imposed by national histories. Yet with the election of Barack Obama, national con-
ix