Walter Hawthorne
Biographic Data
| ID | 170279 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Walter Hawthorne |
| GIVEN NAMES | Walter |
| FAMILY NAME | Hawthorne |
| SIGNATURE | HAWTHORNE W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1637-8468 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 101 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Introduction: The Politics and Ethics of Naming the Names of Enslaved People in Digital Humanities Projects
This introduction provides a broad overview to the context of digital humanities projects dealing with enslaved people and frames the debate over the ethics and politics of using the names of enslaved people. For some descendant communities, listing the names of enslaved people contributes to searches for genealogical connections; for other communities where the stigma of enslaved descent still prevails, such projects may do harm. This introducti…
Descendants and Ethical Considerations when Documenting the Names of Enslaved People in Datasets on the Internet
This paper examines the ethical implications of public, internet-based history projects that list enslaved people by name. It does so by considering the appropriateness of the ethics statement written by the Principal Investigators at Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade (or Enslaved.org). Enslaved.org directly addresses the urgent call to document the history of people of African descent more fully. Housed at Michigan State University…
New Data Historians and the Study of Slavery in Vast Early America
This Companion Forum is a collaboration between the William and Mary Quarterly and the Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation to highlight new approaches to datasets about enslaved people. The Companion Forum includes articles in the WMQ by Nicholas Radburn, Tessa Murphy, and Stuart M. McManus. Radburn, Murphy, and McManus published their datasets and data articles in the JSDP
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (1929-2022)
Obituary| July 05 2023 Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (1929–2022) Walter Hawthorne Walter Hawthorne Michigan State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Hispanic American Historical Review 10797858. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-10797858 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation Walter Hawthorne; Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (1929–2022). Hispanic American Historical Review 20…
Defining Regions of Pre-Colonial Africa: A Controlled Vocabulary for Linking Open-Source Data in Digital History Projects
Regionalizing pre-colonial Africa aids in the collection and interpretation of primary sources as data for further analysis. This article includes a map with six broad regions and 34 sub-regions, which form a controlled vocabulary within which researchers may geographically organize and classify disparate pieces of information related to Africa’s past. In computational terms, the proposed African regions serve as data containers in order to conso…
Emma Christopher. Freedom in White and Black: A Lost Story of the Illegal Slave Trade and Its Global Legacy
Redefining African Regions for Linking Open-Source Data
In recent years, an increasing number of online archival databases of primary sources related to the history of the African diaspora and slavery have become freely and readily accessible for scholarly and public consumption. This proliferation of digital projects and databases presents a number of challenges related to aggregating data geographically according to the movement of people in and out of Africa across time and space. As a requirement …
Sacred rice: An ethnography of identity, environment, and development in rural West Africa
Much of my academic research has focused on the history of the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. In my studies, I have stressed the extent to which rice has long dominated the working lives of
The historical roots of multicultural unity along the Upper Guinea Coast and in Guinea-Bissau
Lusofonia or lusophony is often defined as an identity shared by people in areas that were once colonised by Portugal, which in Africa include Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Lusofonia assumes that in these places people share something – a language, certainly, but also a history and culture rooted in the Iberian Peninsula. In some ways it is a re-articulation of Gilberto Freyre’s lusotropicalismo, the ide…
Comparing slavery in Brazil and Cuba
These three remarkable books represent a new direction for a long-standing historiographical tradition that began with Frank Tannenbaum's 1946 Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas. Tannenba
ANDREW SLUYTER. Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500-1900
When I glanced at the title of this book, I assumed that Andrew Sluyter's goal was to apply the black rice thesis to cattle. That thesis, which was the subject of an AHR Exchange (February 2010), posits that rice farmers from Africa introduced technology crucial for the development of rice plantations in the Americas. So was African knowledge important in New World cattle herding? Sluyter answers yes, but he does so with great nuance. In this rem…
States and Statelessness
This chapter examines the history of state-based and stateless societies in Africa, focusing on how local political and economic processes have mediated broader regional and global processes. It considers the factors which distinguish states from stateless societies, evaluates the shifting historiography, and charts the entangled histories of states and stateless peoples from the early modern era to the nineteenth century and on to the era of col…
Sendo agora, como se fôssemos, uma família: Laços entre companheiros de viagem no navio negreiro Emília, no Rio de Janeiro e através do Mundo Atlântico
Este artigo analisa a vida dos africanos num navio negreiro, o Emília. O navio foi capturado pelafragata inglesa Morgiana em 1821 e levado ao Rio de Janeiro. No Rio, a comissão mista anglo-portuguesacondenou o navio pelo crime de comércio ilícito de escravos. Os africanos do Emília ficaram na condição de"africanos livres" sob a custódia do governo local por um período de quatorze anos. Foram distribuídos entreinstituições públicas e concessionári…
From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1830
From Africa to Brazil traces the flows of enslaved Africans from the broad region of Africa called Upper Guinea to Amazonia, Brazil. These two regions, though separated by an ocean, were made one by a slave route. Walter Hawthorne considers why planters in Amazonia wanted African slaves, why and how those sent to Amazonia were enslaved, and what their Middle Passage experience was like. The book is also concerned with how Africans in diaspora sha…
From “Black Rice” to “Brown”: Rethinking the History of Risiculture in the Seventeenth‐ and Eighteenth‐Century Atlantic
Gorge: An African Seaman and his Flights from ‘Freedom’ back to ‘Slavery’ in the Early Nineteenth Century
This essay uses records from one slave's testimony before the Mixed Commission in Rio de Janeiro, along with supporting documents from archives in Lisbon and London, to trace a slave seaman's Atlantic adventures. Two ships upon which the seaman - Gorge - labored were captured by British anti-slaving squadrons. British officials presented Gorge with chances to obtain legal ‘freedom’, first in Freetown and then in Rio. Both times he chose to remain…
Being now, as it were, one family: Shipmate bonding on the slave vessel Emilia, in Rio de Janeiro and throughout the Atlantic World
Este artigo analisa a vida dos africanos num navio negreiro, o Emilia. O navio foi capturado pela fragata inglesa Morgiana em 1821 e levado ao Rio de Janeiro. No Rio, a comissão mista anglo-portuguesa condenou o navio pelo crime de comércio ilícito de escravos. Os africanos do Emilia ficaram na condição de “escravos livres” sob a custódia do governo local por um período de quatorze anos. Foram distribuídos entre instituições públicas e concession…
History and Identity in Senegambia and on the Upper Guinea Coast
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
History and Identity in Senegambia and on the Upper Guinea Coast
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400-1900
Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400-1900. By Walter Hawthorne. Portsmouth, N. H.: Heinemann, 2003. Pp. xvi, 259, illustrations. $24.95 paper. In Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves, Walter Hawthorne examines the social and economic effects of the Atlantic trade system on the coastal communities of Guinea-Bissau, with special attention to the Balanta ethnic group. He begins with a macro analysis…
Nourishing a Stateless Society During the Slave Trade: The Rise of Balanta Paddy-Rice Production in Guinea-Bissau
This essay examines the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on stateless societies, focusing on Balanta populations of present-day Guinea-Bissau. It demonstrates that some decentralized groups located on the ‘slaving frontiers’ of states managed not only to survive but also to thrive. In so doing, it shows how Balanta changed their settlement patterns and crop production techniques in response to threats posed by the slave raiding armies of Kaabu.…
The production of slaves where there was no state: The Guinea‐Bissau region, 1450–1815
(1999). The production of slaves where there was no state: The Guinea‐Bissau region, 1450–1815. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 97-124
Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400-1900
Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400-1900. By Walter Hawthorne. Portsmouth, N. H.: Heinemann, 2003. Pp. xvi, 259, illustrations. $24.95 paper. In Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves, Walter Hawthorne examines the social and economic effects of the Atlantic trade system on the coastal communities of Guinea-Bissau, with special attention to the Balanta ethnic group. He begins with a macro analysis…
Being now, as it were, one family: Shipmate bonding on the slave vessel Emilia, in Rio de Janeiro and throughout the Atlantic World
Este artigo analisa a vida dos africanos num navio negreiro, o Emilia. O navio foi capturado pela fragata inglesa Morgiana em 1821 e levado ao Rio de Janeiro. No Rio, a comissão mista anglo-portuguesa condenou o navio pelo crime de comércio ilícito de escravos. Os africanos do Emilia ficaram na condição de “escravos livres” sob a custódia do governo local por um período de quatorze anos. Foram distribuídos entre instituições públicas e concession…
From “Black Rice” to “Brown”: Rethinking the History of Risiculture in the Seventeenth‐ and Eighteenth‐Century Atlantic
Nourishing a Stateless Society During the Slave Trade: The Rise of Balanta Paddy-Rice Production in Guinea-Bissau
This essay examines the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on stateless societies, focusing on Balanta populations of present-day Guinea-Bissau. It demonstrates that some decentralized groups located on the ‘slaving frontiers’ of states managed not only to survive but also to thrive. In so doing, it shows how Balanta changed their settlement patterns and crop production techniques in response to threats posed by the slave raiding armies of Kaabu.…
The production of slaves where there was no state: The Guinea‐Bissau region, 1450–1815
(1999). The production of slaves where there was no state: The Guinea‐Bissau region, 1450–1815. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 97-124
Sacred rice: An ethnography of identity, environment, and development in rural West Africa
Much of my academic research has focused on the history of the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. In my studies, I have stressed the extent to which rice has long dominated the working lives of
The historical roots of multicultural unity along the Upper Guinea Coast and in Guinea-Bissau
Lusofonia or lusophony is often defined as an identity shared by people in areas that were once colonised by Portugal, which in Africa include Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Lusofonia assumes that in these places people share something – a language, certainly, but also a history and culture rooted in the Iberian Peninsula. In some ways it is a re-articulation of Gilberto Freyre’s lusotropicalismo, the ide…
Gorge: An African Seaman and his Flights from ‘Freedom’ back to ‘Slavery’ in the Early Nineteenth Century
This essay uses records from one slave's testimony before the Mixed Commission in Rio de Janeiro, along with supporting documents from archives in Lisbon and London, to trace a slave seaman's Atlantic adventures. Two ships upon which the seaman - Gorge - labored were captured by British anti-slaving squadrons. British officials presented Gorge with chances to obtain legal ‘freedom’, first in Freetown and then in Rio. Both times he chose to remain…
Redefining African Regions for Linking Open-Source Data
In recent years, an increasing number of online archival databases of primary sources related to the history of the African diaspora and slavery have become freely and readily accessible for scholarly and public consumption. This proliferation of digital projects and databases presents a number of challenges related to aggregating data geographically according to the movement of people in and out of Africa across time and space. As a requirement …
States and Statelessness
This chapter examines the history of state-based and stateless societies in Africa, focusing on how local political and economic processes have mediated broader regional and global processes. It considers the factors which distinguish states from stateless societies, evaluates the shifting historiography, and charts the entangled histories of states and stateless peoples from the early modern era to the nineteenth century and on to the era of col…
Defining Regions of Pre-Colonial Africa: A Controlled Vocabulary for Linking Open-Source Data in Digital History Projects
Regionalizing pre-colonial Africa aids in the collection and interpretation of primary sources as data for further analysis. This article includes a map with six broad regions and 34 sub-regions, which form a controlled vocabulary within which researchers may geographically organize and classify disparate pieces of information related to Africa’s past. In computational terms, the proposed African regions serve as data containers in order to conso…
The production of slaves where there was no state: The Guinea‐Bissau region, 1450–1815
(1999). The production of slaves where there was no state: The Guinea‐Bissau region, 1450–1815. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 97-124
Nourishing a Stateless Society During the Slave Trade: The Rise of Balanta Paddy-Rice Production in Guinea-Bissau
This essay examines the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on stateless societies, focusing on Balanta populations of present-day Guinea-Bissau. It demonstrates that some decentralized groups located on the ‘slaving frontiers’ of states managed not only to survive but also to thrive. In so doing, it shows how Balanta changed their settlement patterns and crop production techniques in response to threats posed by the slave raiding armies of Kaabu.…
History and Identity in Senegambia and on the Upper Guinea Coast
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
History and Identity in Senegambia and on the Upper Guinea Coast
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400-1900
Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast, 1400-1900. By Walter Hawthorne. Portsmouth, N. H.: Heinemann, 2003. Pp. xvi, 259, illustrations. $24.95 paper. In Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves, Walter Hawthorne examines the social and economic effects of the Atlantic trade system on the coastal communities of Guinea-Bissau, with special attention to the Balanta ethnic group. He begins with a macro analysis…
Being now, as it were, one family: Shipmate bonding on the slave vessel Emilia, in Rio de Janeiro and throughout the Atlantic World
Este artigo analisa a vida dos africanos num navio negreiro, o Emilia. O navio foi capturado pela fragata inglesa Morgiana em 1821 e levado ao Rio de Janeiro. No Rio, a comissão mista anglo-portuguesa condenou o navio pelo crime de comércio ilícito de escravos. Os africanos do Emilia ficaram na condição de “escravos livres” sob a custódia do governo local por um período de quatorze anos. Foram distribuídos entre instituições públicas e concession…
From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1830
From Africa to Brazil traces the flows of enslaved Africans from the broad region of Africa called Upper Guinea to Amazonia, Brazil. These two regions, though separated by an ocean, were made one by a slave route. Walter Hawthorne considers why planters in Amazonia wanted African slaves, why and how those sent to Amazonia were enslaved, and what their Middle Passage experience was like. The book is also concerned with how Africans in diaspora sha…
From “Black Rice” to “Brown”: Rethinking the History of Risiculture in the Seventeenth‐ and Eighteenth‐Century Atlantic
Gorge: An African Seaman and his Flights from ‘Freedom’ back to ‘Slavery’ in the Early Nineteenth Century
This essay uses records from one slave's testimony before the Mixed Commission in Rio de Janeiro, along with supporting documents from archives in Lisbon and London, to trace a slave seaman's Atlantic adventures. Two ships upon which the seaman - Gorge - labored were captured by British anti-slaving squadrons. British officials presented Gorge with chances to obtain legal ‘freedom’, first in Freetown and then in Rio. Both times he chose to remain…
Sendo agora, como se fôssemos, uma família: Laços entre companheiros de viagem no navio negreiro Emília, no Rio de Janeiro e através do Mundo Atlântico
Este artigo analisa a vida dos africanos num navio negreiro, o Emília. O navio foi capturado pelafragata inglesa Morgiana em 1821 e levado ao Rio de Janeiro. No Rio, a comissão mista anglo-portuguesacondenou o navio pelo crime de comércio ilícito de escravos. Os africanos do Emília ficaram na condição de"africanos livres" sob a custódia do governo local por um período de quatorze anos. Foram distribuídos entreinstituições públicas e concessionári…
ANDREW SLUYTER. Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500-1900
When I glanced at the title of this book, I assumed that Andrew Sluyter's goal was to apply the black rice thesis to cattle. That thesis, which was the subject of an AHR Exchange (February 2010), posits that rice farmers from Africa introduced technology crucial for the development of rice plantations in the Americas. So was African knowledge important in New World cattle herding? Sluyter answers yes, but he does so with great nuance. In this rem…
States and Statelessness
This chapter examines the history of state-based and stateless societies in Africa, focusing on how local political and economic processes have mediated broader regional and global processes. It considers the factors which distinguish states from stateless societies, evaluates the shifting historiography, and charts the entangled histories of states and stateless peoples from the early modern era to the nineteenth century and on to the era of col…
Comparing slavery in Brazil and Cuba
These three remarkable books represent a new direction for a long-standing historiographical tradition that began with Frank Tannenbaum's 1946 Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas. Tannenba
The historical roots of multicultural unity along the Upper Guinea Coast and in Guinea-Bissau
Lusofonia or lusophony is often defined as an identity shared by people in areas that were once colonised by Portugal, which in Africa include Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Lusofonia assumes that in these places people share something – a language, certainly, but also a history and culture rooted in the Iberian Peninsula. In some ways it is a re-articulation of Gilberto Freyre’s lusotropicalismo, the ide…
Sacred rice: An ethnography of identity, environment, and development in rural West Africa
Much of my academic research has focused on the history of the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. In my studies, I have stressed the extent to which rice has long dominated the working lives of
Redefining African Regions for Linking Open-Source Data
In recent years, an increasing number of online archival databases of primary sources related to the history of the African diaspora and slavery have become freely and readily accessible for scholarly and public consumption. This proliferation of digital projects and databases presents a number of challenges related to aggregating data geographically according to the movement of people in and out of Africa across time and space. As a requirement …
Emma Christopher. Freedom in White and Black: A Lost Story of the Illegal Slave Trade and Its Global Legacy
Defining Regions of Pre-Colonial Africa: A Controlled Vocabulary for Linking Open-Source Data in Digital History Projects
Regionalizing pre-colonial Africa aids in the collection and interpretation of primary sources as data for further analysis. This article includes a map with six broad regions and 34 sub-regions, which form a controlled vocabulary within which researchers may geographically organize and classify disparate pieces of information related to Africa’s past. In computational terms, the proposed African regions serve as data containers in order to conso…
Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (1929-2022)
Obituary| July 05 2023 Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (1929–2022) Walter Hawthorne Walter Hawthorne Michigan State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Hispanic American Historical Review 10797858. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-10797858 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation Walter Hawthorne; Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (1929–2022). Hispanic American Historical Review 20…
New Data Historians and the Study of Slavery in Vast Early America
This Companion Forum is a collaboration between the William and Mary Quarterly and the Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation to highlight new approaches to datasets about enslaved people. The Companion Forum includes articles in the WMQ by Nicholas Radburn, Tessa Murphy, and Stuart M. McManus. Radburn, Murphy, and McManus published their datasets and data articles in the JSDP
Introduction: The Politics and Ethics of Naming the Names of Enslaved People in Digital Humanities Projects
This introduction provides a broad overview to the context of digital humanities projects dealing with enslaved people and frames the debate over the ethics and politics of using the names of enslaved people. For some descendant communities, listing the names of enslaved people contributes to searches for genealogical connections; for other communities where the stigma of enslaved descent still prevails, such projects may do harm. This introducti…
Descendants and Ethical Considerations when Documenting the Names of Enslaved People in Datasets on the Internet
This paper examines the ethical implications of public, internet-based history projects that list enslaved people by name. It does so by considering the appropriateness of the ethics statement written by the Principal Investigators at Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade (or Enslaved.org). Enslaved.org directly addresses the urgent call to document the history of people of African descent more fully. Housed at Michigan State University…
History (17 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (14 works) · Geography (12 works) · Ethnology (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · History (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · African history and culture studies (7 works) · Ancient history (7 works) · Art (7 works)