I received the announcement below a bit late (just today) but if you’re interested and free tomorrow there will be a live broadcast of the event.
Details:
“Discovering an Unpublished Eric Williams’ Manuscript: ‘The Blackest Thing in Slavery Was Not the Black Man’”
Dr. Brinsley Samaroo, Professor of History, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine
Wednesday, March 7
10am to 12pm
The Institute of Caribbean Studies, of the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras (UPR-RP), invites the academic community and the general public to the lecture “Discovering an Unpublished Eric Williams’ Manuscript: ‘The Blackest Thing in Slavery Was Not the Black Man’” by Dr. Brinsley Samaroo, Professor of History, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine;
Research Fellow, University of Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Humberto García Muñíz, Institute of Caribbean Studies, UPR-RP, will comment the lecture. The activity will be held on Wednesday, March 7, from 10:00 to 12:00 p.m. in Amphitheatre Manuel Maldonado Denis (CRA 108) of Carmen Rivera de Alvarado (CRA) Building, Faculty of the Social Sciences, UPR-RP.
Comments and suggestions on this presentation will be very welcome at: iec.ics@upr.edu
Dr. Eric Williams (1911-1981) has a long and distinguished career as a writer and a politician. Torn between politics and academics, he sought relief from the turbulent political world in his considerable collection of books. During the last decade of his life, he produced a final comprehensive volume in last testament, completed by 1973, focused on slavery, his lifelong commitment. He called this last tome “the blackest thing in slavery was not the black man,” meaning that there were other shadier dealings in slavery than the African slave. After completion of the manuscript he abandoned it, pending his inclusion of a section on Asian bonded labour worldwide. By 1976 he completed this self-imposed assignment, by writing two chapters under the heading “Cooliesm”. The presentation critically examines the two versions of the work, outlining the major themes and suggesting reasons for the non-publication of this valuable text. In this centenary year of ! Dr. Williams’ birth it is important to recognize his scholarship at a time when the interpretation of our Caribbean past was mainly through foreign lenses.
