Of Human Bondage: The History of Slavery in California Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. Beinecke Library,
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BEINECKE VISITING FELLOW TALK
Of Human Bondage: The History of Slavery in California Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. Beinecke Library, Room 39 The many people seized into forced labor in California—Aleutians Islanders, Native Americans, African Americans, Chinese Americans, sailors, convicts, and hostages of human trafficking—alter our comprehension of the golden state. Many of these stories live at the Beinecke in the public and private words and images of unfree, unpaid, indentured, chattel, "trafficked" and enslaved Aleutian Islanders, Mexican Americans and Californios, Chinese prostitutes, African Americans, indigenous Californians who globalized the state and give voice to enslaved Californians' own perspectives. This talk focuses on three eras of slavery in California: the capture of Aleutian otter hunters by Russian fur traders who sailed into the cold waters with the first slaves transported to California to hunt otters; African Americans transported to the gold fields who faced California’s own Fugitive Slave Law of 1852, and forged a west-coast Underground Railroad; girls kidnapped from the southern coast of China, sold in dens in San Francisco and the gold fields. Unfree and involuntary labor is critical to understanding California’s diverse people, abuse of its fragile ecosystems, competition and coalitions among ethnic minorities, early labor organizations, and successful demands for reparations. These histories alter our readings of modern narratives of slavery--from Django Unchained to invocations of the "3/5th compromise." Jean Pfaelzer is Professor of American Studies, Asian Studies, English and Women’s Studies at the University of Delaware. During Spring, 2011, she was awarded the Senior Fulbright in American Culture at the University of Utrecht, NL. She is the author of Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans (Random House, Hardback & University of California Press, Paperback, 2007, 2008), the author of four other books including The Utopian Novel in America, and Parlor Radical: The Origins of American Social Realism. Jean has an advance contract for forthcoming book Of Human Bondage: Slavery in California (University of California Press). She is currently completing a book, Muted Mutinies: Revolts on Chinese Coolie Ships. Her research at Beinecke is for archival work toward Of Human Bondage: Slavery in California. Jean Pfaelzer Full Bio |
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