This online Lunchtime Lecture with Dr Paula Saunders, City University of New York, will explore the lives of enslaved Africans at Waltham estate during slavery. Who were they, what do we know about them, and what was life like for them at Waltham? While we may have limited information on the generations of African-descended people who were forcibly enslaved at Waltham, there is a fair amount of information about them during the last five decades of slavery.
Using a timeline model, this paper will discuss the number of enslaved people at Waltham over time, possible relationships between individuals, their working conditions, diseases and mortality, as well as how events in the Atlantic world impacted their lives.
It will also explore the ways in which these enslaved people resisted their enslavement, including their participation in Fedon’s Rebellion in 1795-1796. In this the first year that Grenada commemorates emancipation from enslavement on August 1st, it is fitting that we remember these forgotten people who not only endured exploitation and violence on plantations across the island, but we should also celebrate their creativity in developing a unique Grenadian culture on the same plantations on which they were confined.
