In recent years, the Atlantic slave trade, the infamous "Middle Passage" has received extensive attention from scholars. However, far less is known about the internal movements of slaves within geographical and political units, even though this trade involved millions of involuntary workers. Our conference will seek to sketch the broad comparative outlines of this neglected phenomenon, as well as to acquaint scholars and students of slavery with the key issues and controversies specific to each geographic region.

The Conference will bring together specialists in the history of these three regions to explore common themes and contrasts in the migration of slaves, along with the demographic, economic, and political aspects of these internal slave trades. Two particular subjects we are concerned with are the impact of patterns of slave migration on the viability of the institution, and the response of abolitionists to such involuntary movements of labor. For example, British abolitionists succeeded in limiting the flow of slaves from the older Caribbean colonies to new frontier zones such as Trinidad and Guiana. Some American abolitionists contended that the Constitution allowed Congress to regulate or stop the interstate trade in slaves. In various societies, the slave trader became a symbol of the worst evils of the institution. Recently much public and scholarly attention has been given to the saga of the schooner La Amistad. Since the famous revolt dramatized the illegal commerce in Africans across the Atlantic, but took place on a "domestic" or internal voyage from Havana to Puerto Principe, the trials which ultimately freed the African captives underscored the connections between the African and internal New World slave trades. A principal goal of the Conference will be to explore themes that cross boundaries of specializations, e.g., that are of importance to scholars of different geographical regions, and of different historical subspecialties such as slavery and abolitionism, economic, legal, and social history.

Seven sessions are scheduled, for discussion of papers by:

• Steven Deyle, University of California, Davis
• Seymour Drescher, University of Pittsburgh
• Richard Graham, University of Texas, Austin
• Walter Johnson, New York University
• Adam Rothman, Columbia University
• Robert Slenes, Universidade Estadual do Campinas, Barae Geraldo, Brazil
• Michael Tadman, University of Liverpool

• Hilary Beckles, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados
• Ira Berlin, University of Maryland
• Herbert Klein, Columbia University
• Steven Mintz, University of Houston
• Philip Morgan, College of William and Mary
• James Brewer Stewart, Macalester College
• Mary Turner, University of London