Shades of Black · The Darker Shades of Black. The Value of Skin Colour in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Slave and Labour Markets, 1750-1886

The Darker Shades of Black. The Value of Skin Colour in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Slave and Labour Markets, 1750-1886

At the beginning, the objective of my project was to examine how the skin colour (as described by the sources) of captives, slaves and people under other forms of serfdom affected their value in economic transactions before and after the legal abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century. In particular, I have analysed slaves, captives, serfs and workers on galleys in the period 1750–1886. The value of captives and slaves in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic changed according to the qualities they were attributed to. My initial hypothesis was that skin colour and shades thereof were a major factor in influencing both the slaves’ exchange value (monetary or barter) and the salary level of free workers. Thanks to the sources consulted, the initial hypothesis must be specified to the effect that not only skin colour but also age, gender, health condition, physical qualities, working skills and ethnicity are fundamental to understand not only the price of an enslaved person and the salary of a free one, but also the general working and living conditions of people of colour. Specific objectives (SO) SO1) The links between buyers’ expectations of the economic worth of a slave as a worker (as determined by age, strength, gender, ethnicity etc.) and his or her skin colour: I could achieve this SO thanks to many archival sources on slaves’ qualities and skin colour, see the article published in open access for the journal Slaveries & Post-Slaveries. SO2) How skin colour affected the price of slaves and the salary of free workers: Given the documentation, this SO partly changed in favour of a comparison between slaves’ prices in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean, and between forms of remuneration of slaves and free workers of colour. SO3) Categorisation of the types of work and working conditions assigned to slaves based on skin colour: This objective has been achieved, and extended beyond skin colour to include other slaves’ qualities (working skills, gender, age, health condition); see the article published for the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi). SO4) Understanding the role of phenotype in sources, determining if a taxonomy of colour can be established: This objective has been achieved, as I have gathered enough archival material to expound this point in my future book. SO5) How the colour black and its shades are attributed to groups of people: This objective has been achieved, as I have gathered enough archival material to answer the question and extend it to how ethnicity was attributed to groups of people of colour (and not just colour) in my future book.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз