Our members, our revolution society, this is a wonderful people who are great supporters of our music. We are pleased to partner with harvard for trust, you will see him up on the screen here. I know tim but all i can see is darkness out there. So lets thank them for making these possible. [applause] its a real pleasure to be welcoming doctor Vincent Brown this evening as is sometimes the case but not all that often, we are welcoming a good friend to the museum here this evening. Prince was one of the group of scholars who consulted with us during the development of the exhibitions and interactants of the present here. Long before jacques was in the ground and the steel began rising here in philadelphia, we were tapping his brain for stories of the American Revolution. It turned into great personal stories and our core exhibition here. Prince is a Charles Moore professor of africanAmerican History. And Harvard University. If you have an opportunity to go online, dont do it right now on your phones but when you get home, he developed an online interactive map calls slave map, its a narrative so you can go online and share a lot of the themes and you may speak about this this evening but its a great online resource helpfully will begin to be used by educators in classrooms. Hes received guggenheim fellowships, his documentary in the heart of blackness was broadcast nationally on pbs and received the oconnor the award and chosen as the best documentary of the hollywood festival. In 2017, for those of you who were here april 19 when we opened the museum of the American Revolution, Vincent Brown was one of our absolutely stunning key note speakers. We went back and read your transcript and comment that day, they continue to inspire us. More recently might have seen him interviewed on cbs sunday morning piece about the museum. All of these are available on the museums website. Weve got a little sizzle reel to introduce Vincent Brown because we thought you ought to get at least that same treatment. We welcome Vincent Brown. It can motivate people to heroin. Encourage to carry them out. We appreciate the efforts of common, men children of all sorts. Losses as well as pictures. The determination to turn the lawsuit into lessons. The revolution is and should be a living history. The aspirations of the present as he was in the dreams and deeds of the past. This history is contradictory, tragic and ironic as often as it is heroic. It also has a virtue of being closer to the truth. So im grateful, deeply grateful to the exhibit for having the courage to tell the truth. Its not only a proud story of National Origin but an account of how one might have experienced a time of such turmoil. [applause] i did not expect this sizzle reel. Now i can lay back and relax. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for that of the introduction. Maybe over turners introduction but it was fantastic. Also, thank you for the fantastic work you do here at the museum. And for inviting me to speak this evening. I want to think hannah alex for arranging my appearance, ryan and david for holding down the tent and thanks to all of you for coming out tonight. Very much appreciate you and your interest in history. Especially the history you dont know and you would like to explore. I really appreciate that. Its kind of a homecoming for me in a way because i consulted earlier on the museum but also because of one of the curators here, a graduate student of ours at Harvard University. He doing amazing work and im proud of him, its nice to help be here to support. [applause] im honored to have factor in the audience with us tonight. [applause] one of the leading early american and revolution history the country but also Harvard University where she was instrumental in hiring me. [applause] [laughter] im not sure why you did it but i am grateful that you did. Its great to see you. Thanks for coming. Im honored to be with you here im hoping that maybe you can catch a bit of the spirit of revolution together before it too late. In 1776, Great Britains most important american colony was on the verge of this direction. Calmness proceed the government in britain was conspired against the subjects. A plot against the english liberty they long enjoyed. At the dinner table, they discussed americas open sedition, those affected with imperial government and the topic of american rebellion. As the jamaican communist debated liberty, their slaves saw an opportunity. The island was at a critical junction with the british entry into yet another imperial war. Calmness treated graduating account of french and spanish military buildup in the caribbean and calculated the there were 30 slaves to everyone present. Ready to join the attempts of any enemy in a general massacre. July 3, they prepared for royal, scheduled to depart the islands were north america by the end of the month. Throughout that, people gathered frequently in houses, grants and open fields. To hold serious conversations which stopped suddenly upon the approach of anyone they did not trust. Now or never, they thought. The times to make themselves for the country. The moment seems like there was uprising but this was not to be. The trade in the conspiracy unraveled. When the british in jamaica considered the gravity of the predicaments in 1776, often looking ahead to the last of the 13th colony, he looked to the past. The direction of 1760 which had been the most dangerous throughout the British Empire to date. Theres differences between the 1760s and 1776. Mostly in terms of the nature of warfare with their own slaves. 1776 marks a moment in the United States of america. The declaration of independence met 13 colonies from Great Britain, referring to the nati nation, a broader context of the times. The attention for the fact that britain had 26 colonies in america. By far the most military significant and politically connected were in the caribbean. This chart compares private wealth in various regions in 1774. It divides territories in british america as a whole and 13 north american colonies became the United States. They divide 13 colonies into three regions. Seven, bit atlantic and new england. Congress held nearly 70 of the wealth and british america. It is much larger than the caribbean. When you break north america down by region, cutie the growth increase as you move south. That is according to the degree the economy depended upon in slave labor. When you examine the average amount of property held, an astonishing amount dropped. The british for the ring, 90 of the population there. Mostly for then 17 times the wealth in the 13 colonies. The average private wealth of jamaica was the most lucrative american colonies with 58 times greater than new england. Military deployment distributed to protect that wealth. Often, warships assigned to not American Continents. This was explaining why hutchinson couldnt get as much support as he needed as soon as he wanted for british policymakers. Before that American Revolution, the british were well aware that they now know as tax, represented in the crisis and it was generally a source of overwhelming concern. Taking advantage of the work against the opponents from more than 1000 enslaved people on jamaica launched an uprising on april 7 and continued into the next year. Over the course of 18 months, they destroyed tens of thousands of pounds worth of property. During the depression followed, over 500 were killed in battle, executed or driven to suicide. They are transported from the island. The consider the extent of the plan, the multitude of the conspirators and difficulty opposing interruption with a variety of places at once. This was more than there. Jamaican conflict rather than being here, the rebellion instigation of an african man who had been chief there. It is organized by people called for monty from the post. The west african region. They had an established reputation. Their displacement forced migration and rebellion should have the slave trade mast what i call the warfare that convulsed the 18th century Atlantic World. The slave trade spread throughout the americans. Some have been leaders or soldiers. They found themselves uprooted, scattered by great work and current and replanted into unfamiliar territory to rebuild their social lives. Inevitable, some of them determined they could and their bondage. Mostly Common People who found expansionary wars across the ocean sat down in aliens land with a fertilized them. They promise to liberate them and rewards to serve their masters. They presented a better life. This process for transplantation and adaptation to a strange new one, its familiar for cultural change. The transformation in african religion, expression and africanamerican atlantic history and a common frame. A similar approach here showed how the turmoil is placement in the daily hostility implantation society generated a militant response that traveled, took root and started and reverberated across the american and back. Thats what happened when they broke up in conspiracies in the 17th and 18th century. St. John, new york, manteca and jamaica. The jamaican direction of 1760 to 61 followed by further uprising and 65 and 66, among the largest in march consequential of them. From what observers could lean, it was clear many had been soldiers in africa. They arrived the military training, they learned that in africa. Some suggest that american slavery might be seen as extensions as african war. In perspective, the conflict network of migration, trans Regional Power and conflict that gave political history of 18th century and most extinct. The warfare was the first step to envisioning a map of atlantic slavery that shows how political and military practices travel, take root and grow in the environment. Even as they forced people to negotiate, the africans across the atlantic scattered throughout the americas. They show how african warfare reconstituted, not with previous journal but the group of immigrant experience. British slaveholders value this. Planters generate help for Agricultural Labor but at the same time, they are a dangerous rebellious disposition and promote disturbances. There were dangerous people keeping in bondage perhaps in part, for the reasons they traders had an abundant source of potential workers. The 17th and 18th centuries went through the transformation of empires. They had each other in the region. The sales from european traders, the worst produce those on the coast. They also produce the turbulent in which the complex military campaign involved with european and african rivals, multiple alliances, negotiations and directories. The context in the cold course like a single ethnic group in africa, they were the core, according to the subject, there were members of the organization of co nationals. They called them a nation in the america. This was a phenomenon. A created category comprising people who could understand. Those language is. They brought in similar strategies within the corporation. There is no direct ethnicity on the gold coast where they supersede the divisions. Having taken the name, an important coastal town from the 17th century, it was both social groups and religious institutions. Mutual society, and a place to enjoy entertainment. As social community and environment with mentalism and, experience, National Gatherings could have people plan, organize and stage reports. They drew upon their previous experience. However, as a category of belonging, monty was cut by other identifications. He spoke more than one thing which it came from different religions and kingdoms. Just as important, one in jamaica was a role in society. It could resolve all the typical negotiations with interests and experience. Even with their compatriots, people made friends and foes in politics belonging, it was meant to be or want to in jamaica is urgent in itself. Assault on the personal and collective dignity cannot distinguish themselves by the political commitment as much as by described patients. How to live in society, and how to destroy it altogether. Shape the rebelliousness even as they recalled prior expenses in africa. In the atlantic warfare, nothing was more important than learning whether and how to form the unit, alliances and coalitions in superior power. The enslaved with them on the gold coast before coming to africa. With a front new and different particular in order to make war of their masters. Made subject provided by slaves of the perennial anxiety to a slaveholder that says there is no quarter given and it and in 1772 reeling from the uprisings of the previous decade. To see how the entire world could be organized with the counterattack on a continuous Scale Holding that black people other times and places where they characterize a permanent state of low intensity war is never been more apparent to slave would transform america the european imperial conflicts of agriculture african battles the transatlantic trade masters of human property struggled with one another these clashes amount to a borderless slave war to expand slavery and again slaves were against slaveholders. And those had diverging and overlapping provocation of combat zones and political alliances. And to have four conflicts at once. It was a race war between black slaves and right weight placeholders. And that was one of the hardest fought battles of the seven years war with the global conflict between Great Britain and the european rivals. Each of these emerged from the jamaican insurrections of the 17 sixties charting their course to new stories of place in territories and movement and a new cartography the histories of europe and africa and america. One of the principal leaders the elite official on the gold coast to engage combat with political rivals captured and enslaved and fought naval battles against the french and the driver on that sugar plantation and then to be called a race war. And every day violence of enslavement and course labor to the grand scale of geopolitics. Each of this mask interlocking patterns across vast distances to elements of empire and diaspora. And to take us far from the plantations beyond masters and slaves from racial violence. The slave or from those soldiers of europe and africa those empires and slaves that were swept up on both sides of the atlantic ocean. That shapes the our pal ago archipelago from the World History from below. Now, i will let you read the account for yourself. [laughter] no spoilers. You can get a glimpse of the way to have two small but a general sense of how complicated this revolt was even the first few months across the parishes of the island. So for now let me just talk about those underappreciated reverberations why think it was so important and how i hope the book can model the kinds of connections from distant places against her own span of time. To anticipate the American Revolution by a decade of a half in the evolution by three decades. To be considered one of the great events the age of revolution and it is hardly known outside of jamaica with the British Empire or atlantic slavery. This by the fact the signal moments of the era with those colonist of north america and the beginning of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In the aftermath of the revolt jamaicas house of assembly passed new taxes in commercial duties the new government committed to a tax on parchment and paper some that they would attempt a few years later for all americans but the jamaicans damp act was for the direct costs of the revolt and then it was replaced for the wealthiest colonist as a model from the more contentious stanback that would while the colonist in north america the tax was an instance of a larger reform effort stimulated by the seven years war. Policymakers celebrated military victory the diaspora and the caribbean with a threat to the most vital colony. Two weeks after the death of king george the second the border trade consider the jamaican insurrection of how expanding the empire to be contained as an internal antagonist. A new policy would take shape a new statesman had worried for more than a decade for the previous war in 1748 the Strategic Value had increased dramatically in the first half of the 18th century in the complexity has grown in tandem. British members of parliament were spurred to a reform effort by the behavior during the seven years war in the midst of the conflict the governors and elected officials for the navigation act of treating with the enemy and failing to supply enough local troops and resources and as the historian explained this was a dramatic shift from the permissive and restrictive philosophy of Colonial Administration in london amplify the widespread conviction the colonies had too many privileges and they ought to be reduced. News of the slave or in britain the most profitable colony strengthen the problem one policymakers resolve when this would help with the shift in attitude by the colonist in jamaica jamaica colonist had been as independent as the north american counterparts but it reminded slaveholders of the benefits with the gratitude along with a request for the more troops to trade if not the lives and property of the loyal subjects have become a prey to the slaves slaveholders of jamaica are resented the influence as well as new taxes however unlike so many north america the experience curse them to remain subject to imperial command to help finance their own security. They did not like many imperial reforms. After the seven years war with jamaica having served as a mode model, policymakers preferred new legislation for the north american colonies these policies inspire the wellknown backlash of the British Empire 1776. If the jamaican insurrection hope to save the colonies after the rationale of reform of colonial slavery. The rebellion concerned of that pragmatic plan for the security of the colonies by li