GLOBAL EXAM 2 PART 2

Matthew Kruer, Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and Critiques of Colonialism in Early America

In Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and Critiques of Colonialism in Early America, Matthew Kruer argues that Native peoples were powerful political actors who shaped the aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion, not just its victims. While the king's royal commissioners and the Virginia assembly clashed over Indian policy, the Pamunkey leader Cockacoeske used the split to win the 1677 Treaty of Middle Plantation, which protected tributary Indians as subjects of the king.

Marian Leech, "Indigenous Histories in the Rijksmuseum: Material Culture and the Seventeenth Century Fur Trade"

In "Indigenous Histories in the Rijksmuseum," Marian Leech argues that Dutch art and wealth were built on the Indigenous fur trade. She points to objects like the beaver hats in the painting Sampling Officials by Rembrandt and shows that the Dutch West India Company depended on Native exchange systems like wampum.

Stephanie Smallwood, "Turning Atlantic Commodities into American Slaves"

In “Turning Atlantic Commodities into American Slaves,” Stephanie Smallwood uses Royal African Company sales records to argue that every captive, down to the weakest and sickest, was turned into a commodity and sold. She shows agents rubbing captives with palm oil or even lard before sales, serving buyers wine aboard ship, and selling the leftover “refuse” cheaply to speculators, such as 51 people from the Speedwell sold to one buyer in Barbados for 200 pounds.

Sven Beckert, "Building War Capitalism"

In “Building War Capitalism,” Sven Beckert argues that Europe took control of the global cotton trade from India through violence and slavery, not better technology. For example, the East India Company replaced the banias with its own paid agents, who forced Bengali weavers to sell only to the company, and when one weaver was caught working for a private merchant, he was flogged and marched through town as a warning.

William H. Sewell Jr., "The Empire of Fashion and the Rise of Capitalism in Eighteenth Century France"

In "The Empire of Fashion and the Rise of Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France," William Sewell argues that fashion and consumer desire, drove the rise of capitalism in France. Using the Lyon silk industry as an example, he shows how merchants released new designs every year so that consumers chasing fashion raised the value of the cloth, which he calls the "subsumption of desire under capital."