Slave Leviathan: The RI Slave Industry and Black Formations of Resistance

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Letters in Liberation II

Slave Leviathan: The Rhode Island Slave Industry and Black Formations of R

Join us for an eye-opening event at Bidon Community Print * Design Studio on 3 Acorn Street in Providence, RI, USA. Dive into the history of the Rhode Island slave industry and explore black formations of resistance. This in-person event promises to be enlightening and thought-provoking. Don't miss out!

Instructors: Scholar Marco McWilliams of Providence Black Studies Syllabus and

Master Printer Jacques Bidon founder of Bidon Community Print & Design Studio

Course Description:

Beginning in the eighteenth century, the small colony of Rhode Island would become a slave-trading monolith with no serious competitors on either side of the American Revolution. At its peak, Rhode Island-based merchants commanded an astounding 90 percent of the trade.

Rhode Islanders have been reluctant to acknowledge their foremost role in the North American trans-Atlantic slave trade. With the exception of a handful of thoughtful and committed educators, attempts at a broader public reckoning have been thoroughly insufficient.

What was the nature and extent of Rhode Islanders’ leadership in the trans-Atlantic slave trade? How did the lived resistance of black people, both enslaved and free, shape concepts of freedom and the evolution of democratic processes in Rhode Island?

Rooted in Black Studies and the art of offset and letterpress print design, this summer course will critically examine three central components of Rhode Island’s control of the slave trading industry: commerce, antiblack institution-building, and black formations of resistance.

As tactile print design and documentation are fundamental to this course, students will engage hands-on with the rich history of offset lithography and letterpress printing in the shop. Each student will develop an individual print through close literary and visual design analysis. Ultimately, this course aims to raise consciousness around conceptualizations of freedom and liberation in a modern society.

Host or Publisher Raynold Jacques Bidon and Marco A. McWilliams