Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions

Beyond Compartmentalized Atlantics: A Case for Embracing the Atlantic from Spanish American Shores

“…Both Landers's Atlantic Creoles and Scott and Hébrard's Freedom Papers are populated by African and African-descended men and women -Francisco Menéndez, Big Prince Whitten, Georges Biassou, Gabriel Dorotea Barba, the Vincents (Michel, Rosalie, and their daughter Elisabeth), and the Tinchants ( Jacques and his sons Joseph and Édouard)whose geographically and socially mobile lives were marked by the "tremendous danger(s)" and opportunities that characterized the geopolitically unstable world of the Age of Revolutions. 27 Based on a wide array of archival sources scattered around three different continents and requiring language skills well beyond those of most historians, Atlantic Creoles and Freedom Papers add "new voices" to a "limited narrative" that portrays African and African-descended characters as lacking in mobility and initiative. In addition, they demonstrate that the coasts of Spanish Americaprimarily Spanish Florida and Cuba in these two bookswere also important loci of transimperial interactions in the early modern Atlantic.…”

Across Oceans and Revolutions: Law and Slavery in French Saint‐Domingue and Beyond

“…They might also be integrated into a wider scholarly conversation about how people moved across linguistic, imperial, and social boundaries during this period. A rapidly growing literature identifies cultural intermediaries such as the formerly enslaved Saint-Domingue rebel and Code Noir interpreter Georges Biassou as a distinctive class that Jane Landers has labeled "Atlantic creoles" (Merrell 1999;Metcalf 2005;Landers 2010). 18 Legal professionals such as the creole Saint-Dominguan magistrate Hilliard d'Auberteuil, however, have been inadequately examined and theorized in this literature.…”

Founding Mothers: Female Rebels in Colonial New Granada and Spanish Florida

“…Many men left substantial property to their common-law wives and natural children, and the community respected the desires of the deceased, as well as the rights of the bereaved. 37 Nansi had to move with her children to the safety of the town of Fernandina, on Amelia Island. Spaniards viewed society as an extension of family structures, as did members of many African nations, and women of African descent developed important connections in St. Augustine, Florida, through marriage, concubinage, and godparent choices that could produce tangible benefits.…”