Yale Bulletin and Calendar

November 11, 2005|Volume 34, Number 11

'A Colony of Citizens' wins Douglass Prize
for work on slavery

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition has awarded the seventh annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize to Laurent Dubois for his study of the trans-cultural struggle over slavery and citizenship in the revolutionary French Caribbean.

Dubois, associate professor at Michigan State University, is being honored for "A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804" (University of North Carolina Press). Focusing on the island of Guadeloupe, Dubois explores the slave revolts there that brought about the 1794 abolition of slavery. His historical account sheds new light on the contradictory ways this emancipation developed, leading to its ultimate reversal in the early 19th century. On a broader scale, he examines how slaves-turned-citizens both experienced and shaped the transformations of the age.

The $25,000 annual award for the year's best non-fiction book on slavery, resistance and/or abolition is the most generous history prize in the field. It will be awarded at a dinner at the Yale Club of New York on Feb. 23 during Black History Month.

David W. Blight, director of the Gilder Lehrman Center, says, "Laurent Dubois's 'Colony of Citizens' is a complex, fascinating story of slave resistance in the Caribbean. ... With a focus on how the Haitian Revolution spread to Guadaloupe, Dubois transforms a seemingly local story into a much larger one -- about how the French Revolution itself was in part rooted in the slave systems of the West Indies. Dubois convincingly shows that slaves and free persons of color interpreted and converted republicanism to their own ends -- the claim of citizenship in the French empire -- only to have their freedom crushed again in re-enslavement."

John David Smith, the Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and chair of the Frederick Douglass Prize jury, says, "'A Colony of Citizens' is a decidedly original, path-breaking and incredibly well-researched work that positions slavery, emancipation, re-enslavement and then eventual re-emancipation in Guadeloupe within an international framework and suggests the complex fruits of emancipation in the French Caribbean and the Atlantic World. ... [The] book has important implications that transcend the time period Dubois examines and the specific events he analyzes."

This year's winning book was selected from a field of nearly 70 entries by a jury of scholars that also included Colin Palmer of Princeton University and Deborah White of Rutgers University.

The Frederick Douglass Prize was established in 1999 to stimulate scholarship in the field by honoring outstanding accomplishments. The award is named for Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), the one-time slave who escaped bondage to emerge as one of the most renowned American abolitionists, reformers, writers and orators of the 19th century.

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition is part of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. Its mission is to promote the study of all aspects of slavery, in particular the Atlantic slave system. For information on events and programs, call (203) 432-3339 or send e-mail to gilder.lehrman.center@yale.edu.

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