History Professor Lou Roper pens article on 17th century colonial slave trade
Lou Roper, professor in the Department of History and a SUNY Distinguished Professor, is the author of a new article expanding his body of research and publication on the Atlantic slave trade between Europe, the Americas and Africa in the 17th century.
In “Reorienting the ‘origins debate’: Anglo-American trafficking in enslaved people, c. 1615-1660“, published for Atlantic Studies, positions African enslavement at the center of this period of European colonial expansion.
“The managers of this commerce seamlessly translated Atlantic slavery into the Anglophone world,” he writes. “Accordingly, there was never a transition in planter labor preferences from indentured servitude to slavery. Only access to supplies of enslaved Africans determined the number of Africans in Anglo-America while the act of trafficking in human beings automatically relegated those enslaved to inferior status.”
Read more here about Roper’s being named New Paltz’s 15th SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest academic honor in the SUNY system, and visit the Department of History for info about their programs and courses.