be explored in major conference
Confederate General Howell Cobb once said, "If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong."
This conviction, some scholars believe, may have cost the South the Civil War.
The practice of arming slaves for national and imperial defense will be the focus of a major conference that will take place Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 16-18, sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition.
For centuries, nations have chosen to defend themselves, often as a last resort, by arming their slaves, according to the conference organizers, adding that, at times, the practice has challenged the most deeply held ideals of the society.
The Yale conference -- titled "The Arming of Slaves from the Classical Era to the American Civil War" -- will examine the custom of turning slaves into soldiers across the boundaries of time and geography. It will also consider examples of the failure to arm slaves even at the peril of military defeat, such as in the Confederate States during the Civil War.
The event, to be held at the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale, will bring together an international array of scholars. Participants include such renowned historians as David Brion Davis, director of the Gilder Lehrman Center and Sterling Professor at Yale; Thomas Wiedemann, director of the International Centre for the History of Slavery at Nottingham University; Philip Morgan, editor of the William and Mary Quarterly and co-winner of the 1999 Frederick Douglass Book Prize; and Leslie Rowland, director of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project of the University of Maryland, among many others.
The panels will include "The Arming of Slaves in Classical and Islamic Societies," "The Arming of Slaves in the Caribbean," "Slavery and Defense in Colonial Borderlands," "Military Uses of Slaves in New World Revolutions" and "The American Civil War."
For further information and a registration form, visit www.yale.edu/glc/arming.
The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition promotes the study of all aspects of the Atlantic slave system, including African resistance to enslavement, abolitionist movements, and the ways in which slavery finally came to an end. In addition, the center is dedicated to the dissemination of this knowledge, through publications, conferences, educational outreach and other activities.
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