This talk explored the struggle for liberation from the perspective of the enslaved, wherever possible in their own words. Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh shines a light on the lives of revolutionaries like Toussaint Louverture, José Antonio Aponte, Nat Turner, and the pregnant rebel Solitude; touching on the stories of the freed writers of narrative accounts like Frederick Douglass and Ottobah Cugoano; and the countless maroons, insurgents and conspirators whose acts of defiance destabilised the slave order in the colonies and galvanized the movement for abolition in France, Britain, and the United States. The talk is based on his recent research for his new book where Hazareesingh gives particular emphasis to the powerful roles of women as campaigners, disruptors and warriors.

Sudhir Hazareesingh won the Wolfson History Prize the American Library in Paris Award with Black Spartacus. He was born in Mauritius. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol College, Oxford. His books include The Legend of Napoleon (winner of the Prix du Mémorial d'Ajaccio and the Prix de la Fondation Napoléon), In the Shadow of the General (winner of the Prix d'Histoire du Sénat).  In 2020, he became a Grand Commander of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean (G.C.S.K.), the highest honour of the Republic of Mauritius.