‘A Full Knowledge of the Subject of Slavery’: TheAmistad, Expert Testimony, and the Origins of Atlantic Studies

What is it about?

I explore the role of testimony, expertise, and the academy’s role in the production of knowledge about slavery, in the context of the trial of La Amistad, 1839-41. Expertise provided by enlisted self-professed experts formed the intellectual architecture, about which the legal argument would hang, all the way to the Supreme Court. I examine the relationship between the university and slavery by focusing on the marshalling of expertise – broadly understood as linguistic, political and cultural knowledge – as it pertained to slavery and the slave trade.

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Why is it important?

Scholars have been paid little attention to the marshalling of evidence in slavery-related trials. When considered separately from the trials, and distinctly as a question of the production of knowledge, the role of expert testimony provides crucial insight into the function of the university in antebellum anti-slavery thought and action, and the emergence of Atlantic studies in the contemporary present.

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