Entangled Histories, Entangled Worlds: The English-Speaking Atlantic as a Spanish Periphery
2007; Oxford University Press; Volume: 112; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1086/ahr.112.3.764
ISSN1937-5239
Autores Tópico(s)Cuban History and Society
Resumowho had served in Menendez's company, were also freemen. Exploiting inconsistencies in the testimony, Vezian insisted that neither witness was to be believed. Instead, he invoked the indisputable evidence of skin color. Does not their Complexion and features, Vezian asked the Bahamian court, tell the world that they are of the blood of Negroes and have suckt Slavery and Cruelty from their Infancy? Vezian also reminded his listeners of the barbarous Action[s] allegedly committed by Menendez's soldiers during the siege of St. Augustine - a record, he maintained, which showed that their perpetrators knew nothing of either Liberty or Christianity. On this basis alone, Vezian hoped that the judge would accept Menendez's status as a slave, and he urged the court to follow the old Law of Nations in sentencing the others, whereby all Prisoners of War, nay Even their posterity are Slaves.1 Stories such as those of Menendez and his fellow prisoners have long served as an example of the rich potential in comparative history, especially histories that take as their subject the inhabitants of the Spanish and British empires. Whether we consider John Elliott's magisterial new history of Britain and Spain in America or the continued interest in Herbert Eugene Bolton's classic essay The Epic of Greater I presented an earlier version of this article as a plenary lecture for the conference Rethinking the
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