The Intellectual Origins of American Slavery

Name: The Intellectual Origins of American Slavery
Start: 2026-02-28T15:00:00-06:00
Location: 1900 NW Expy Ste 135, Oklahoma City, OK, United States, Oklahoma 73118

Schedule

Sat, 28 Feb, 2026 at 03:00 pm

UTC-06:00

Location

1900 NW Expy Ste 135, Oklahoma City, OK, United States, Oklahoma 73118 | Oklahoma City, OK

The period from 1550 to 1700 was critical in the spread of slavery across the English Atlantic world. During this time, the discourse revolved around one question: How could free persons be made into slaves? English authors found answers to this question in a tradition of ideas that stretched back to the ancient world, where they were most powerfully expressed in Roman law. These ideas, in turn, became the basis for the earliest defenses of American slavery. This is an eloquent account of the moral logic that propelled the development of an immoral institution.
Mr. Harpham is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics and Letters and Wick Cary Assistant Professor in the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage at the University of Oklahoma. His research focuses on how ideas about slavery, freedom, and race relate to enslavement and resistance across the Atlantic world.