"War, Revolution, and the Abolition of Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean"
October 24, 2025
Yesenia Barragan, Associate Professor, Department of History, Rutgers University
The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed the destruction of the centuries’-old institution of African slavery in the Americas, forever altering the lives of its enslaved and free inhabitants. This seminar explores the bloody and contentious process of the abolition of slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean during three key moments and places: the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804); the Wars of Independence in Spanish South America (1810-1825); and Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, the last bastions of slavery in the hemisphere. We will discuss how and why abolition was enacted in these distinct places and the differences between the immediate, gradual, and final abolition of slavery.