TY - JOUR
T1 - A full knowledge of the subject of slavery
T2 - The Amistad, expert testimony, and the origins of Atlantic studies
AU - Lawrance, Benjamin N.
N1 - Funding Information:
This article was originally written for a 2011 conference held at Emory University entitled, ‘Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies’. The author thanks the anonymous reviewers and the editors of Slavery & Abolition, as well as Gad Heuman, Walter Hawthorne, James Campbell, Al Brophy, Leslie Harris, Joseph Yan-nielli, Christopher Harter, and Tucker Childs, all of whom provided research assistance and/or helpful feedback.
Funding Information:
Research for this article was made possible with support of the Gilder Lehrman Center the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University, the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2015/4/3
Y1 - 2015/4/3
N2 - This article explores the role of testimony, expertise, and the academy in the production of knowledge about slavery in the context of the trials of the Africans aboard the slave ship La Amistad, 1839-1841. Testimony provided by enlisted self-professed experts formed the intellectual architecture to the legal argument as it advanced to the Supreme Court. When considered separately from the trials, and distinctly as a question of the production of knowledge, the role of expert testimony provides crucial insight into the function of the university in antebellum anti-slavery thought and action, the marginalization of the lived African slave experience, and the emergence of Atlantic studies in the contemporary present. Examining the relationship between the university and the marshalling of expertise - broadly understood as linguistic, political and cultural knowledge of slavery and the slave trade - suggests that the early use of expert testimony had an important albeit neglected role in the birth of Atlantic studies.
AB - This article explores the role of testimony, expertise, and the academy in the production of knowledge about slavery in the context of the trials of the Africans aboard the slave ship La Amistad, 1839-1841. Testimony provided by enlisted self-professed experts formed the intellectual architecture to the legal argument as it advanced to the Supreme Court. When considered separately from the trials, and distinctly as a question of the production of knowledge, the role of expert testimony provides crucial insight into the function of the university in antebellum anti-slavery thought and action, the marginalization of the lived African slave experience, and the emergence of Atlantic studies in the contemporary present. Examining the relationship between the university and the marshalling of expertise - broadly understood as linguistic, political and cultural knowledge of slavery and the slave trade - suggests that the early use of expert testimony had an important albeit neglected role in the birth of Atlantic studies.
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U2 - 10.1080/0144039X.2014.947091
DO - 10.1080/0144039X.2014.947091
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85027923333
VL - 36
SP - 298
EP - 318
JO - Slavery and Abolition
JF - Slavery and Abolition
SN - 0144-039X
IS - 2
ER -