Robert Paquette, Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History at Hamilton College, will present the 2005 Mary Young Alumni Lecture at 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24, in the Gamble Room, 361 Rush Rhees Library, on the University of Rochester's River Campus.
Paquette, who received his doctorate from the University of Rochester in 1982, teaches courses and conducts research in the Old South, colonial Cuba, slave societies, the Caribbean, cross-cultural history, Conservative political thought, and colonial Latin America. He will speak on "'A Horde of Brigands:' The Great Louisiana Slave Revolt of 1811."
This lecture, which will outline Paquette's current research, examines the slave revolt that erupted in the sugar-producing region of territorial Louisiana, a few dozen miles upriver from New Orleans, in January 1811. The talk will piece together the surviving evidence to explore the origin of the revolt, its leadership, and the roles of slaves, as well as attempt to answer questions related to this revealing act of collective violence.
Paquette's book, Sugar is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba, earned the 1992 Elsa Goveia Prize from the Association of Caribbean Historians, was selected as a University Press Book for Public Libraries, and was nominated for Columbia University's Bancroft Prize. Among his contributions to numerous other publications, Paquette has edited two works with Stanley Engerman, the John. H. Munro Professor of Economics and History at the University of Rochester: Slavery and The Lesser Antilles on the Age of European Expansion.
The Mary Young Lecture Series in sponsored by the Department of History and recognizes the work of Professor Emerita Mary Young, a specialist in Native American history who joined the faculty as a full professor in 1973 after an 18-year tenure at Ohio State University.