Talking about Slavery

Jane G. Landers' Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions is a wide ranging work that uncovers the life histories of numerous extraordinary individuals throughout the Atlantic World. The emphasis on the exceptional, however is thorny and highlights the importance of how we talk about slavery and especially enslaved and formerly-enslaved people who stray beyond the bounds of a "typical" slave experience.

Landers work is problematic in two regards. First, her language when discussing those who attained some degree of meaningful freedom casts a troubling shadow on those who did not. Second, Landers assumes a quite easy and seamless process of acculturation and cultural fluency.

When discussing one "atypical experience," that of Juan Bautista Whitten, Landers notes that Whitten "did not let slavery define him." (16) Later in the conclusion of the work, Landers sums up the lives of those who "by their wits and their courage... read shifting political landscapes" and made "daring choices" to strike for freedom. (235). There is no reason to doubt that the people Landers studies were courageous and possessed great wit. However, while reading her work one is left with the troubling impression that those who remained chained in slavery were someone lacking in some regard. Why didn't more enslave people make the choices Whitten made? Was it lack of Wit? Daring? A resignation to "let" slavery define one's life. Landers' emphasis on black agency has perhaps created a false image of opportunity. The political landscape was shifting, and these seismic shifts opened up new spaces for the meaningful realization of freedom or a few. But for the many, such opportunities remain at best a dream.

My second point of contention with Landers is the shocking ease and inevitability with which she surmises cultural exchange occurred. When discussing the free black militia corporal Benjamin Wiggins, Landers suggests that his English father and Senegalese wife alongside his upbringing among the Seminoles and occasional journeys through Spanish America made him "at home in the English, Senegalese, Spanish, and Seminole cultures." (112) While Atlantic Creoles did show a remarkable degree of cultural knowledge, I am skeptical that there mere fact of a British planter father or occasional boat trips through Spanish America could make one "at home" in four separate cultures. Likewise Landers claims that the Black Seminole Abraham "would have been familiar with Spanish law and society" because he was once owned by a Spanish physician in Pensacola. (175) For Landers, contact implies acculturation and a depth of cultural interchange that could make one "at home" in that culture. This seems like quite a lot to infer from the mere fact of contact.