"The story of slavery in the United States is told in stark and often chilling documents in the records in the National Archives. This workshop will focus on Federal court cases related to the slave trade and Slave Manifests which document the transportation of slaves between American ports."

University of Pittsburgh professor Marcus Rediker will discuss his book "The Slave Ship: A Human History," which explores life and relationships, for and between both crew and slaves, on slave ships traveling between Africa and the Americas.

"Between ca. 1500 and ca. 1800, the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean saw the creation, destruction, and re-creation of communities as a result of the movement of peoples, commodities, institutions, social practices, and cultural values. This seminar will explore the pan-Atlantic webs of association linking people, objects, and beliefs across and within the region. The best Atlantic history is interactive and crosses borders. The hope is that participants will enlarge their horizons by placing the standard early North American story in a larger framework."

This seminar will "enhance participants' knowledge of Africa, the Middle Passage, and the people who arrived here in North America in slavery. They will do so by developing projects of their own choosing involving early Atlantic history, literature, or culture up to and including the early nineteenth century." Topics, week by week, will include "Organization: African Understandings," "More African Meanings," "Embarkation, Exile," "Remembering Africa in America," and "Research Results and Teaching Applications."

"The role of St. Augustine and Florida is often overlooked in the study of US colonial history, a study that often begins with the founding of Jamestown. Participants in this seminar explore the history and the cultures that created this fascinating colonial city. They examine the role the sea played in the city’s founding and development; the nature of the relationship between Spanish colonists and Native Americans; the role of the military in the founding, development, and everyday life of colonial Spanish St. Augustine; the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in shaping the colonial experience of the Spanish settlement; how women, native peoples, and people of color fit within the colonial social hierarchy. They reflect on the question of who writes history and how it is disseminated and the larger role that Spanish exploration and colonization played in America’s development."