Escapando da escravidão pelo mar na véspera da Guerra Civil Americana: uma história do trabalho

This article explores a relatively neglected topic in the histories of slavery and abolitionism in the antebellum United States: how enslaved people escaped by sea and more specifically how the waterfront was a zone of struggle over slavery from roughly 1820 to 1865. The article treats four main themes: ships, trade, and port cities within the rise of Atlantic capitalism; life and work on the waterfront; efforts to control the docks from above; and the routes and destinations devised by escapees and their allies. Sailors, dockworkers, artisans, porters, market women, and seagoing fugitives cooperated and conspired in an alternative “public sphere,” using connections within the maritime working class to unleash a powerful though little understood force of abolitionism from below.Este artigo explora um tópico relativamente negligenciado nas histórias da escravidão e do abolicionismo nos Estados Unidos às vésperas da Guerra Civil. Como as pessoas escravizadas escapavam por mar e, mais especificamente, como o litoral era uma faixa de luta sobre a escravidão, entre aproximadamente 1820 e 1865. O artigo trata de quatro temas centrais: navios, comércio e cidades portuárias em meio à ascensão do capitalismo atlântico; vida e trabalho no litoral; esforços para controlar as docas a partir de cima; e as rotas e destinos traçados pelos fugitivos e seus aliados. Marinheiros, trabalhadores portuários, artesãos, carregadores, quitandeiras e fugitivos do mar cooperaram e conspiraram em uma “esfera pública” alternativa, usando conexões dentro da classe trabalhadora marítima para liberar uma força poderosa, embora pouco compreendida, do abolicionismo dos de baixo

Wielogłowa hydra

The presented text is the first Polish translation of Peter Linebaugh’s and Markus Rediker’s well-acclaimed book, The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. The authors offer a transcontinental and transcultural collective subject of resistance against the rising capitalist system. Our translation provides an overview of proletariat structure, discusses its vital role in constructing the infrastructure that was necessary for the reproduction of capitalism and also investigates the fright and the hopes that were aroused from England to the Caribbean by a crew of sailors, fleeing slaves, heretics and female-defenders of the commons.Przetłumaczył ŁUKASZ MOLLPrezentujemy pierwsze tłumaczenie na język polski fragmentu głośnej książki Petera Linebaugha i Markusa Redikera The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of Revolutionary Atlantic. Autorzy przedstawiają w niej transkontynentalny i transkulturowy zbiorowy podmiot oporu wobec rodzącego się systemu kapitalistycznego. Przetłumaczony fragment dostarcza przeglądu struktury atlantyckiego proletariatu, zdaje sprawę z kluczowej roli, jaką odgrywał on przy konstrukcji infrastruktury niezbędnej dla reprodukcji kapitalizmu, a także omawia jednocześnie popłoch i nadzieje, jaki zgraja żeglarzy, zbiegłych niewolników, heretyków i obrończyń dóbr wspólnych wzbudzała od Anglii po Karaiby