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You are invited to the next International Slavery Seminar, which will be on Friday 5 December: [Please note that this seminar will take place in the International Slavery Museum] Speaker is: Manuel Barcia (University of Leeds): Title: 'Disguised and Nonviolent Forms of Slave Resistance on Cuban Plantations, 1790-1850' ABSTRACT: In Cuba, as elsewhere, slaves found ways to express their ideas and to reproduce their traditions and inherited knowledge about the world. Even today, African-derived religions and cosmologies constitute an important part of Cuban culture. These cultural traditions and knowledge were transmitted from generation to generation despite the harsh character of the Spanish slave system in the New World. Slaves often reproduced forbidden habits, customs, religious beliefs, and the autochthonous elements of their native cultures. Those who were warriors maintained their military pride and, not surprisingly, started numerous movements of resistance. But revolts and marronage were not safe ways to oppose slavery. Day-to-day life was full of imperceptible incidents and events that in one way or another constituted safer forms of resistance. On Cuban plantations slaves were well aware of the limits of their private and public actions. Consequently, rather than to give up easily, they accepted some elements of their oppressors' culture by integrating them into their own cultural and religious practices. The best known example of this phenomenon, though not the only one, is slaves' acceptance of the saints and virgins of the Catholic pantheon and their merging of these figures with the various African deities they worshipped. This process, known under the terms "syncretism" and "transculturation," is a fashionable subject of study among scholars today, inspiring prolific research not only in Cuba but also across the world. In this paper I look at the wide range of the 19th Century Hidden Transcript practiced by slaves on Cuban plantation and how these apparently harmless actions helped to transform their lives and the lives of their oppressors. Manuel Barcia is lecturer in Latin American Studies at the University of Leeds. His recent publications include his book Seeds of Insurrection': Domination and Resistance on Western Cuban Plantations, 1808-1848 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008). http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/bookPages/9780807133651.html Time and date: 5 December 2008, 5pm Location: the seminar will be in Anthony Walker Education Centre, International Slavery Museum, Albert Dock, Liverpool. This seminar is organised by the Study of International Slavery (CSIS), a partnership between the University of Liverpool and National Museums Liverpool. For more information on this or other events organised by the Centre for the Study of International Slavery, please contact Dmitri van den Bersselaar on [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Dr Dmitri van den Bersselaar School of History University of Liverpool 9 Abercromby Square Liverpool L69 7WZ [log in to unmask] Tel. +44 (0) 151 794 2420 Fax. +44 (0) 151 794 2366 Website School of History: www.liv.ac.uk/history <http://www.liv.ac.uk/history> Webpage Centre for the Study of International Slavery: www.liv.ac.uk/csis <http://www.liv.ac.uk/csis>