Black Lives and Thought in Early Modern Europe

This event is for UCL students and staff. Please sign up with your UCL email address. Staff and students from other universities welcome - please email.

As part of the lead-up to the IAS Book Launch of Slavery and Freedom in Black Thought in the Early Spanish Atlantic, Chloe L. Ireton will lead a session of the [Black Europe] Reading Group titled Black Lives and Thought in Early Modern Europe: Exploring Research Methods and Archives on 7th May 2025. This session will explore the research methods and archival work behind Ireton's Slavery and Freedom in Black Thought in the Early Spanish Atlantic (Cambridge, 2025), focusing on how the meanings of slavery and freedom were claimed and contested in the early Spanish Atlantic.

About the session

Join us for an engaging [Black Europe] Reading Group session as we dive deep into Slavery and Freedom in Black Thought in the Early Spanish Atlantic by Chloe L. Ireton. This intellectual history brings to light the fierce contestations of freedom and slavery in the Black Atlantic world during the early modern period. Ireton’s work intricately weaves together archival fragments that trace the intellectual development of Black thought on slavery and freedom. From personal letters to legal petitions, Ireton explores the lives of individuals navigating the complex legal, social, and theological systems that defined their existence.

In the session, we'll discuss key ideas from the book, reflect on its historical context, and engage in thoughtful conversation around its central themes: the contested meanings of slavery and freedom; the intellectual work of Africans and their descendants in the Spanish Atlantic world; and methodology and engagement with archival sources.

Our discussions will centre around two private letters penned by an enslaved Black woman named Felipa de la Cruz and a map of her world that are printed in the book’s CODA.

Reading material

Everyone is welcome to join the discussion; no prior reading is required. Copies of the CODA will be distributed in the session for those who were unable to read in advance.

For discussion in the session:

• CODA: Felipa de la Cruz’s World and Letters,” in Ireton Chloe L., Slavery and Freedom in Black Thought in the Early Spanish Atlantic. Cambridge University Press; 2025: 252-264. (Feel free to read ahead or join even if you haven’t finished the book!)

Further Reading:

• “The Question of Recovery: Slavery, Freedom, and the Archive,” Social Text, 2015, Volume 33, Number 4 (125)
• Karen Graubart, "Pesa más la libertad: Slavery, Legal Claims, and the History of Afro-Latin American Ideas," William and Mary Quarterly 78:3 (July 2021), 427-458.

Further info

For more information and an overview of sessions/resources, please keep checking back to our webpage and/or email Olivia at olivia.clarkson.23@ucl.ac.uk.

With a shout-out to the UCL Grand Challenge Cultural Understanding for making this series possible.