Freedom Fighting: Race, Slavery and War in the Revolutionary Caribbean, 1790-1812 (HI2H6-15)
Module Leader
Office: Room H3.33, third floor of the Humanities Building
Office hours:
- Wednesday, 1.00-2.00 (via Teams; Warwick students please book in advance here: https://davidlambert.youcanbook.me)
- Thursday, 1.30-2.30 (face-to-face in FAB 3.07; no need to book);
Quick links
Module overview
Lecture times: Wednesday, 9-10 in OC0.02
Seminar times: Wednesday, 11-12 in OC1.09 and 12-1 in OC1.08
"I want Liberty and Equality to reign…Unite yourselves to us, and fight with us for the same cause" (Toussaint Louverture, August 1793).
This 15 CATS second-year module option introduces students to the tumultuous years across the European colonies of the Caribbean that followed the French Revolution and the subsequent outbreak of warfare between imperial powers. The birth of Haiti, the first black-led republic, from the ashes of French Saint-Domingue in 1804 was the most significant historical occurrence in this period, but this module offers a wider perspective. It examines how various social groups, most notably free and enslaved people of African descent, sought to survive in and shape the region by drawing on established beliefs, traditions of authority and practices of warfare, as well as by seeking to mobilise, or suppress, new ideas of liberty.