Lapidus Center Announces David Wheat's "Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean" as 2017 Harriet Tubman Book Prize Winner

Wheat to be awarded prize at Lapidus Center's inaugural conference on November 16 at the Schomburg Center

OCTOBER 25, 2017 - The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery, at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is delighted to announce that David Wheat’s Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570-1640 is the winner of its second annual Harriet Tubman Prize. The $7,500 prize is awarded to the best nonfiction book published in the United States on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery in the Atlantic World. Wheat will receive the award on November 16 during the Lapidus Center’s inaugural conference, “Reckoning with Slavery: New Directions in the History, Memory, Legacy, and Popular Representations of Enslavement.”

A jury of three historians—Howard Dodson, Director Emeritus of the Schomburg Center; Anthony Bogues, Asa Messer Professor of Humanities and Critical Theory and Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University; and Stephanie Smallwood, Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington and Lapidus Center Advisor—selected the winner among three finalists chosen by a committee of scholars and librarians from various parts of the country. The other finalists were Matthew Karp for This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders At The Helm of American Foreign Policy and Wendy Warren for New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America.

In Atlantic Africa, published by the University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute, Wheat, an Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University resituates the Spanish Caribbean as an extension of the Luso-African Atlantic world when the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns facilitated a surge in the transatlantic slave trade. After the catastrophic decline of Amerindian populations on the islands, men, women and children from Upper Guinea and then Angola, brought distinct experiences to the Caribbean. They played a dynamic role in the social formation of early Spanish colonial society in the fortified port cities of Cartagena de Indias, Havana, Santo Domingo, and Panama City and their semi-rural hinterlands.

“Prior to the 1770’s, African peoples, enslaved and free, constituted the majority of the people involved in the European colonization of the Americas,” noted the jury. “Wheat’s exploration of the impact of this demographic fact in the Spanish Caribbean is innovative. This is a meticulously researched and documented account of the early African presence, which is well written and suggestive of new ways in which we should think of Atlantic slavery.”

“I am deeply grateful to the Lapidus Center,” Wheat said upon learning of the prize, “and to the reading and selection committees for this tremendous honor.”

For more information on the Harriet Tubman Book Prize and the upcoming Lapidus Center conference, visit www.LapidusCenter.org.

Media Contact: Ayofemi Kirby | ayofemikirby@nypl.org

About the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery

The mission of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center is to generate and disseminate scholarly knowledge on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery in the Atlantic World. The Lapidus Center - – funded by a generous $2.5 million gift from Ruth and Sid Lapidus – offers fellowships, public programs, and has a collection of over 470 rare books and other print items related to slavery, donated by Sid Lapidus, who continues to add to the collection. More information on the Center can be found at www.lapiduscenter.org.

About the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research unit of The New York Public Library, is generally recognized as one of the leading institutions of its kind in the world. For over 90 years the Center has collected, preserved, and provided access to materials documenting black life, and promoted the study and interpretation of the history and culture of peoples of African descent. Educational and Cultural Programs at the Schomburg Center complement its research services and interpret its collections. Seminars, forums, workshops, staged readings, film screenings, performing arts programs, and special events are presented year-round. More information about Schomburg’s collections and programs can be found at www.schomburgcenter.org.

About the New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With 92 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The New York Public Library serves more than 18 million patrons who come through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at www.nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.