Transimperial Blackness: Slavery & Freedom in Jamaica & New Granada, 1655-1810

Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship

British slave traders trafficked thousands of ‘rebellious’ Jamaican enslaved creoles to Spanish America, yet little is known about their fate after their sale. While most scholars focus on the trans-Atlantic crossing, Transimperial Blackness considers the significance of the intra-American slave trade across imperial and linguistic borders. This project examines the movement of black people between Jamaica to colonial Colombia from 1655 to 1810, from the British capture of Jamaica from Spain until the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, to reveal the importance of smaller scale forced migrations in shaping the political culture of the African diaspora.