HIS 563 The Political Economy of Slavery

This course will trace the development of the Atlantic slave trade and examine its impact on the economic, political, social, and demographic development of North America. Students will study: the 'janus-faced nature' of merchant capitalism, the development of tobacco production in the Chesapeake and the patriarchal nature of the planter class, the gendered evolution of the slaves economy within the plantation regime, the Cotton Kingdom in the lower South, the intensely debated relationship between capitalism and the abolition of bonded labor, and the impact of racial discourse on free labor ideology.

Credits

3