USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: 1619 project

Have folks read Laila Lalami's novel The Moor's Account? Not her best work, but the book's premise alone is enthralling. In a way, she writes the history the 1619 project overlooks. The novel is framed as the (fictional) memoir of Estebanico, an African slave mentioned in historical records from the 1527 Spanish expedition lead by Cabeza de Vaca through, among other places, present-day Florida. 

I found the novel intriguing for how Lalami interrogates what "slave" entails in the context of the expedition, and how the slave's bondage dissolves as the Spanish masters wander further from everything that once enshrined their authority. The novel also reflects what the wikipedia note mentions about rebellion and falling in with indigenous communities.

Connor

On Sunday, May 30, 2021 at 6:03:30 AM UTC-5 Kenneth Harrow wrote:

could one of you historians explain to me why the 1619 project wants to make the claim that the first slaves brought to the u.s. was in 1619 when the spanish had done so earlier?

here's a piece of the wiki reference on this:

In Spanish Florida and farther north, the first African slaves arrived in 1526 with Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón's establishment of San Miguel de Gualdape on the current Georgia coast.^[38][39] They rebelled and lived with indigenous people, destroying the colony in less than 2 months.^[40] More slaves arrived in Florida in 1539 with Hernando de Soto, and in the 1565 founding of St. Augustine, Florida.^[39][40] Native Americans were also enslaved in Florida by the encomienda system.^[41][42] slaves escaping to Florida from the colony of Georgia were freed by Carlos II's proclamation November 7, 1693 if the slaves were willing to convert to Catholicism,^[43][44] and it became a place of refuge for slaves fleeing the Thirteen Colonies.^[44][45]

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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