Interspecies Violence in the Atlantic World - Paper Discussion

History Friday, December 8, 2017 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm Taliaferro Hall, 2110

PRECIS: "The use of highly trained canines for subverting black resistance was a critical feature in preserving white supremacist control in the Caribbean and American South. In fleeing oppressive environments, fugitive slaves used holistic, environmental techniques to creatively evade bloodhounds that were trained to perpetrate racial violence against their bodies. While recent scholarship divulges information on these unique animals and their position in slave societies throughout the Caribbean and US South, we still know very little of how these dogs were conditioned to “sense” race and the many ways black fugitives used environmental knowledge to evade their nonhuman pursuers. An Atlantic network of breeding, training, and sales facilitated the use of slave hounds to subdue human property, actualize legal categories of subjugation, and build efficient economic and state regimes. Drawing upon plantation journals, ex-slave testimonies, and published travel narratives I show that canines were an integral part in facilitating slavery’s expansion and intimidating laborers throughout the Circum-Caribbean and US South. As dogs proliferated throughout Atlantic slave societies in the late-eighteenth century, “slave hunting” was professionalized in the United States through this developing interspecies collaboration. Dogs tracked, subdued, and even terminated runaway slaves. However, black fugitives adapted to their environments using a variety of physical techniques and metaphysical concepts, reimagining spiritual ideas, agricultural innovations, and holistic remedies to survive American bondage and prevent canine brutality. Slaves easily outran their human trackers, but knew specialized knowledge was required to subvert the canine’s heightened olfactory senses and secure their escape. My paper examines this specialized knowledge, and argues that integrating canines into the environmental history of American slavery provides unique approaches to analyzing violence, resistance, and domination."

Add to Calendar 12/08/17 4:00 PM 12/08/17 6:00 PM America/New_York Interspecies Violence in the Atlantic World - Paper Discussion PRECIS: "The use of highly trained canines for subverting black resistance was a critical feature in preserving white supremacist control in the Caribbean and American South. In fleeing oppressive environments, fugitive slaves used holistic, environmental techniques to creatively evade bloodhounds that were trained to perpetrate racial violence against their bodies. While recent scholarship divulges information on these unique animals and their position in slave societies throughout the Caribbean and US South, we still know very little of how these dogs were conditioned to “sense” race and the many ways black fugitives used environmental knowledge to evade their nonhuman pursuers. An Atlantic network of breeding, training, and sales facilitated the use of slave hounds to subdue human property, actualize legal categories of subjugation, and build efficient economic and state regimes. Drawing upon plantation journals, ex-slave testimonies, and published travel narratives I show that canines were an integral part in facilitating slavery’s expansion and intimidating laborers throughout the Circum-Caribbean and US South. As dogs proliferated throughout Atlantic slave societies in the late-eighteenth century, “slave hunting” was professionalized in the United States through this developing interspecies collaboration. Dogs tracked, subdued, and even terminated runaway slaves. However, black fugitives adapted to their environments using a variety of physical techniques and metaphysical concepts, reimagining spiritual ideas, agricultural innovations, and holistic remedies to survive American bondage and prevent canine brutality. Slaves easily outran their human trackers, but knew specialized knowledge was required to subvert the canine’s heightened olfactory senses and secure their escape. My paper examines this specialized knowledge, and argues that integrating canines into the environmental history of American slavery provides unique approaches to analyzing violence, resistance, and domination."

Taliaferro Hall