Articles by Christine Sears
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Book chapters by Christine Sears
New Directions in Slavery Studies: Commodification, Community and Comparison, 2015
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In Slavery in the Islamic World, Mary Ann Fay (ed.), Palgrave Macmillan., 2018
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Piracy and Captivity in the Mediterranean, 1550-1810 , 2018
In Mario Klarer, editor, Piracy in the Mediterranean 1500-1810, Routledge, November 2018.
Chr... more In Mario Klarer, editor, Piracy in the Mediterranean 1500-1810, Routledge, November 2018.
Christine Sears' chapter on the fate of the American Capt. James Riley and his fellow crew members in Sub-Saharan Africa in 1815 widens the scope of this section of the volume, geographically as well as temporally. Although Sears investigates larger economic and trade-related aspects of captivity and ransoming strategies that are not directly concerned with Barbary Coast or Mediterranean captivity and ransom activities per se, her chapter pinpoints the diverse nature of redeeming mechanisms in North Africa. The case of Capt. Riley and his crew illustrates the mechanisms that govern the trade of captives in a region outside the sphere of influence of the kingdom of Morocco. Sears minutely retraces the well-documented steps of Capt. Riley and his men from the initial shipwreck off the coast of Africa, their fall into the hands of local tribes, the systematic exchange of the captives between several owners, and their final ransom in Mogador. The chapter elucidates a larger logic that involves several structural agents in this economy of captivity and ransom--a procedure that was fundamentally different from the state-governed ransom process in the so-called Barbary States. The Sub-Saharan economy of exchange was based on individual initiatives on both sides, i.e., the African captors as well as European captives were individually vested in the ransoming process. Sears provides valuable insights into a slave economy that did not follow the well-known North African piracy or corsair trajectory, but rather relied on locals who salvaged shipwrecks off the coast of Sub-Saharan Africa as well as traded or bartered the stranded sailors. This mutual cooperation of captors and captives guaranteed their respective goals--economic gain on the captors' and redemption on the captives' sides. The Riley case thus exemplified a hitherto neglected form of North African captivity and redeeming practice outside of the Mediterranean basin.
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Books by Christine Sears
In this landmark essay collection, twelve contributors chart the contours of current scholarship... more In this landmark essay collection, twelve contributors chart the contours of current scholarship in the field of slavery studies, highlighting three of the discipline’s major themes—commodification, community, and comparison—and indicating paths for future inquiry.
New Directions in Slavery Studies addresses the various ways in which the institution of slavery reduced human beings to a form of property. From the coastwise domestic slave trade in international context to the practice of slave mortgaging to the issuing of insurance policies on slaves, several essays reveal how southern whites treated slaves as a form of capital to be transferred or protected. An additional piece in this section contemplates the historian’s role in translating the fraught history of slavery into film.
Other essays examine the idea of the “slave community,” an increasingly embattled concept born of revisionist scholarship in the 1970s. This section’s contributors examine the process of community formation for black foreigners, the crucial role of violence in the negotiation of slaves’ sense of community, and the effect of the Civil War on slave society. A final essay asks readers to reassess the long-standing revisionist emphasis on slave agency and the ideological burdens it carries with it.
Essays in the final section discuss scholarship on comparative slavery, contrasting American slavery with similar, less restrictive practices in Brazil and North Africa. One essay negotiates a complicated tripartite comparison of secession in the United States, Brazil, and Cuba, while another uncovers subtle differences in slavery in separate regions of the American South, demonstrating that comparative slavery studies need not be transnational.
New Directions in Slavery Studies provides relevant and distinct examinations of the lives and histories of enslaved people in the United States.
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"Sears presents a highly readable history of the 140 American captives of corsairs in Algiers or ... more "Sears presents a highly readable history of the 140 American captives of corsairs in Algiers or from shipwrecks. Recommended." - CHOICE
Whether by falling prey to Algerian corsairs or crashing onto the desert shores of Western Sahara, a handful of Americans in the first years of the Republic found themselves enslaved in a system that differed so markedly from nineteenth century U.S. slavery that some contemporaries and modern scholars hesitate to categorize their experiences as 'slavery.' Sears uses a comparative approach, placing African enslavement of Americans and Europeans in the context of Mediterranean and Ottoman slaveries, while individually investigating the system of slavery in Algiers and Western Sahara. This work illuminates the commonalities and peculiarities of these slaveries, while contributing to a growing body of literature that showcases the flexibility of slavery as an institution.
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Book Reviews by Christine Sears
Journal of the Early Republic, 2017
Winter 2017, pp. 796-798
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The Journal of American History , 2015
Vol. 2, no. 2, p552-553
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Encyclopedia entry by Christine Sears
America in the World, 1776 to the Present: A Supplement to the Dictionary of American History, 2016
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Articles by Christine Sears
Book chapters by Christine Sears
Christine Sears' chapter on the fate of the American Capt. James Riley and his fellow crew members in Sub-Saharan Africa in 1815 widens the scope of this section of the volume, geographically as well as temporally. Although Sears investigates larger economic and trade-related aspects of captivity and ransoming strategies that are not directly concerned with Barbary Coast or Mediterranean captivity and ransom activities per se, her chapter pinpoints the diverse nature of redeeming mechanisms in North Africa. The case of Capt. Riley and his crew illustrates the mechanisms that govern the trade of captives in a region outside the sphere of influence of the kingdom of Morocco. Sears minutely retraces the well-documented steps of Capt. Riley and his men from the initial shipwreck off the coast of Africa, their fall into the hands of local tribes, the systematic exchange of the captives between several owners, and their final ransom in Mogador. The chapter elucidates a larger logic that involves several structural agents in this economy of captivity and ransom--a procedure that was fundamentally different from the state-governed ransom process in the so-called Barbary States. The Sub-Saharan economy of exchange was based on individual initiatives on both sides, i.e., the African captors as well as European captives were individually vested in the ransoming process. Sears provides valuable insights into a slave economy that did not follow the well-known North African piracy or corsair trajectory, but rather relied on locals who salvaged shipwrecks off the coast of Sub-Saharan Africa as well as traded or bartered the stranded sailors. This mutual cooperation of captors and captives guaranteed their respective goals--economic gain on the captors' and redemption on the captives' sides. The Riley case thus exemplified a hitherto neglected form of North African captivity and redeeming practice outside of the Mediterranean basin.
Books by Christine Sears
New Directions in Slavery Studies addresses the various ways in which the institution of slavery reduced human beings to a form of property. From the coastwise domestic slave trade in international context to the practice of slave mortgaging to the issuing of insurance policies on slaves, several essays reveal how southern whites treated slaves as a form of capital to be transferred or protected. An additional piece in this section contemplates the historian’s role in translating the fraught history of slavery into film.
Other essays examine the idea of the “slave community,” an increasingly embattled concept born of revisionist scholarship in the 1970s. This section’s contributors examine the process of community formation for black foreigners, the crucial role of violence in the negotiation of slaves’ sense of community, and the effect of the Civil War on slave society. A final essay asks readers to reassess the long-standing revisionist emphasis on slave agency and the ideological burdens it carries with it.
Essays in the final section discuss scholarship on comparative slavery, contrasting American slavery with similar, less restrictive practices in Brazil and North Africa. One essay negotiates a complicated tripartite comparison of secession in the United States, Brazil, and Cuba, while another uncovers subtle differences in slavery in separate regions of the American South, demonstrating that comparative slavery studies need not be transnational.
New Directions in Slavery Studies provides relevant and distinct examinations of the lives and histories of enslaved people in the United States.
Whether by falling prey to Algerian corsairs or crashing onto the desert shores of Western Sahara, a handful of Americans in the first years of the Republic found themselves enslaved in a system that differed so markedly from nineteenth century U.S. slavery that some contemporaries and modern scholars hesitate to categorize their experiences as 'slavery.' Sears uses a comparative approach, placing African enslavement of Americans and Europeans in the context of Mediterranean and Ottoman slaveries, while individually investigating the system of slavery in Algiers and Western Sahara. This work illuminates the commonalities and peculiarities of these slaveries, while contributing to a growing body of literature that showcases the flexibility of slavery as an institution.
Book Reviews by Christine Sears
Encyclopedia entry by Christine Sears
Christine Sears' chapter on the fate of the American Capt. James Riley and his fellow crew members in Sub-Saharan Africa in 1815 widens the scope of this section of the volume, geographically as well as temporally. Although Sears investigates larger economic and trade-related aspects of captivity and ransoming strategies that are not directly concerned with Barbary Coast or Mediterranean captivity and ransom activities per se, her chapter pinpoints the diverse nature of redeeming mechanisms in North Africa. The case of Capt. Riley and his crew illustrates the mechanisms that govern the trade of captives in a region outside the sphere of influence of the kingdom of Morocco. Sears minutely retraces the well-documented steps of Capt. Riley and his men from the initial shipwreck off the coast of Africa, their fall into the hands of local tribes, the systematic exchange of the captives between several owners, and their final ransom in Mogador. The chapter elucidates a larger logic that involves several structural agents in this economy of captivity and ransom--a procedure that was fundamentally different from the state-governed ransom process in the so-called Barbary States. The Sub-Saharan economy of exchange was based on individual initiatives on both sides, i.e., the African captors as well as European captives were individually vested in the ransoming process. Sears provides valuable insights into a slave economy that did not follow the well-known North African piracy or corsair trajectory, but rather relied on locals who salvaged shipwrecks off the coast of Sub-Saharan Africa as well as traded or bartered the stranded sailors. This mutual cooperation of captors and captives guaranteed their respective goals--economic gain on the captors' and redemption on the captives' sides. The Riley case thus exemplified a hitherto neglected form of North African captivity and redeeming practice outside of the Mediterranean basin.
New Directions in Slavery Studies addresses the various ways in which the institution of slavery reduced human beings to a form of property. From the coastwise domestic slave trade in international context to the practice of slave mortgaging to the issuing of insurance policies on slaves, several essays reveal how southern whites treated slaves as a form of capital to be transferred or protected. An additional piece in this section contemplates the historian’s role in translating the fraught history of slavery into film.
Other essays examine the idea of the “slave community,” an increasingly embattled concept born of revisionist scholarship in the 1970s. This section’s contributors examine the process of community formation for black foreigners, the crucial role of violence in the negotiation of slaves’ sense of community, and the effect of the Civil War on slave society. A final essay asks readers to reassess the long-standing revisionist emphasis on slave agency and the ideological burdens it carries with it.
Essays in the final section discuss scholarship on comparative slavery, contrasting American slavery with similar, less restrictive practices in Brazil and North Africa. One essay negotiates a complicated tripartite comparison of secession in the United States, Brazil, and Cuba, while another uncovers subtle differences in slavery in separate regions of the American South, demonstrating that comparative slavery studies need not be transnational.
New Directions in Slavery Studies provides relevant and distinct examinations of the lives and histories of enslaved people in the United States.
Whether by falling prey to Algerian corsairs or crashing onto the desert shores of Western Sahara, a handful of Americans in the first years of the Republic found themselves enslaved in a system that differed so markedly from nineteenth century U.S. slavery that some contemporaries and modern scholars hesitate to categorize their experiences as 'slavery.' Sears uses a comparative approach, placing African enslavement of Americans and Europeans in the context of Mediterranean and Ottoman slaveries, while individually investigating the system of slavery in Algiers and Western Sahara. This work illuminates the commonalities and peculiarities of these slaveries, while contributing to a growing body of literature that showcases the flexibility of slavery as an institution.