Elena A. Schneider

Bio: Elena A. Schneider is an academic researcher from University of California, Berkeley. The author has contributed to research in topics: Atlantic World & Ideology. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 4 publications receiving 22 citations.

The Occupation of Havana: War, Trade, and Slavery in the Atlantic World

Abstract: In 1762, British forces mobilized more than 230 ships and 26,000 soldiers, sailors, and enslaved Africans to attack Havana, one of the wealthiest and most populous ports in the Americas. They met fierce resistance. Spanish soldiers and local militias in Cuba, along with enslaved Africans who were promised freedom, held off the enemy for six suspenseful weeks. In the end, the British prevailed, but more lives were lost in the invasion and subsequent eleven-month British occupation of Havana than during the entire Seven Years’ War in North America. The Occupation of Havana offers a nuanced and poignantly human account of the British capture and Spanish recovery of this coveted Caribbean city. The book explores both the interconnected histories of the British and Spanish empires and the crucial role played by free people of color and the enslaved in the creation and defense of Havana. Tragically, these men and women would watch their promise of freedom and greater rights vanish in the face of massive slave importation and increased sugar production upon Cuba's return to Spanish rule. By linking imperial negotiations with events in Cuba and their consequences, Elena Schneider sheds new light on the relationship between slavery and empire at the dawn of the Age of Revolutions.

African Slavery and Spanish Empire: Imperial Imaginings and Bourbon Reform in Eighteenth-Century Cuba and Beyond

Abstract: This article traces a philosophical shift that opened the door to a new departure in eighteenth-century Spanish empire: a newly emerging sense that the slave trade and African slavery were essential to the wealth of nations. Contextualizing this ideological reconfiguration within mid-eighteenth century debates, this article draws upon the works of political economists and royal councilors in Madrid and puts them in conversation with the words and actions of individuals in and from Cuba, including people of African descent themselves. Because of the central place of the island in eighteenth-century imperial rivalry and reform, as well as its particular demographic situation, Cuba served as a catalyst for these debates about the place of African slavery and the transatlantic slave trade in Spanish empire. Ultimately, between the mid-eighteenth century and the turn of the nineteenth, this new mode of thought would lead to dramatic transformations in the institution of racial slavery and Spanish imperial political economy.

Esclavitud y libertad en tiempos de guerra: Respuestas de los negros al sitio británico de La Habana (1762-63)

Abstract: This article evaluates the British siege and occupation of Havana (1762-1763) as an event in the history of the African diaspora and racial slavery in the Atlantic world. People of African descent made up half the population of Cuba at this time, and played a central role in the events of the invasion and occupation. This paper draws upon archival sources in the U.S., Britain, Jamaica, Cuba, and Spain to investigate how the men and women of an interconnected African diaspora responded to this imperial conflict.

Slavery: annual bibliographical supplement (2015)

Abstract: For 2015 the bibliography continues its customary coverage of secondary writings published since 1900 in western European languages on slavery or the slave trade anywhere in the world: monographs, ...

Slavery: annual bibliographical supplement (2018)

Abstract: For 2018 the bibliography continues its coverage of secondary writings published since 1900 in western European languages on slavery or the slave trade anywhere in the world: monographs, notes and ...

Ampliando los significados de Sevicia: Los reclamos de protección corporal de los esclavos en Santiago de Cuba (1810-1870)

Abstract: A traves de varios casos judiciales de Santiago de Cuba, exploramos el modo en que los esclavizados trataron de ampliar el significado de la categoria legal “sevicia”. Notamos que ese proceso socio-legal y semantico implico juzgar moralmente a los esclavizadores y sus acciones y, a traves de ello, incluso a la propia institucion de la esclavitud. Historicamente, los esclavistas habian justificado la violencia como un instrumento necesario para controlar a los esclavos, pero en el siglo XIX un numero cada vez mayor de personas esclavizadas los llevaron a los tribunales por ello. Algunas de estas demandas iban bastante lejos, reclamando la manumision por un bajo costo debido a la vejez y enfermedad del peticionario esclavizado. Se suponia que los anos de trabajo para el propietario y las dolencias sufridas a lo largo de los mismos servian como una forma de credito, una reclamacion humilde, pero real, de cierta reparacion por la esclavitud. Las denuncias de los esclavos a la sevicia culminaron, en ocasiones, en protecciones legislativas adicionales, las mas notables de las cuales se incluyeron en las leyes graduales de emancipacion de 1870.

On the frontlines of slave trade abolition: British consuls combat state capture in Cuba and Mozambique

Abstract: This essay explores the careers of two British consuls on different sides of the globe, David Turnbull in Cuba and Lyons McLeod in Mozambique, both engaged in a long-running battle against the ille...