Abstract
Abstract This essay dialogs with David Eltis’s article in this issue of Almanack and highlights Eltis’s contributions to Brazilian studies of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. It focuses on the historical relationship between “capitalism” and “slavery”, particularly the “second slavery” of the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on changing Anglo-American and Luso-Brazilian “political economies”. Like Eltis’s article, it is especially concerned with the synergy, or lack thereof, between “external” and “internal” factors in determining regional and national economic growth. In the spirit of the forum at the Universidade Federal Fluminense in which Eltis’s article was originally presented and debated, this essay emphasizes a historiographical approach particularly aimed at undergraduate and graduate students in History, the main audience at the original seminar.
Highlights
This essay dialogs with David Eltis’s article in this issue of Almanack and highlights Eltis’s contributions to Brazilian studies of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. It focuses on the historical relationship between “capitalism” and “slavery”, the “second slavery” of the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on changing Anglo-American and Luso-Brazilian “political economies”
I call attention to this work because of its careful use of both quantitative and qualitative sources, as well as its constant effort to place micro-history within a macro, “global”, context. His new study in this issue of Almanack shares these qualities. Like his earlier book, it offers a lesson in how to go about writing a political economy of the diverse ways in which systems linking capitalism and slavery have evolved in the modern world
David Eltis’s essay and his contributions to brazilian historiography term referred to the idea that chattel slavery in the New World was distinct from earlier forms of bonded labor, its “laws of motion” generated not just by local “factors and relations of production” and by its linkages to the economies and polities of imperial Europe, as they projected outward into the Atlantic basin
Summary
This essay dialogs with David Eltis’s article in this issue of Almanack and highlights Eltis’s contributions to Brazilian studies of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. In a career dedicated to the intensive study of the Atlantic slave trade and New World slavery, David Eltis has made major contributions to the history of Brazil.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
