Name: Lucio Antonio Bianchi
Year in program: 3
ABD Y/N: N
Primary supervisor: Dr. Walter Hawthorne
Major field: Transatlantic trade in enslaved people, West Africa, Caribbean
Minor fields: Ancient Slavery, Modern European History
Link to your personal page or profile:
I am a historian of West Africa and the African Diaspora, specializing in the seventeenth-century Akan region (present-day Ghana), Atlantic slavery, and the Caribbean My current dissertation project builds on three years of advanced Akan Twi study and extensive oral history interviews with members of the Denkyira. The research follows the connections between honor and the forming of bonds among enslaved communities, from the Akan region to Antiguan plantations.
My research is driven by three central questions: How did individuals in the seventeenth-century Akan region gain or reclaim honor after enslavement? In what ways did enslavers construct the Coromantee ethnic identity, and how did this shape communal bonds during the Middle Passage? Finally, how did the infrastructure of slavery in Antigua shape the physical and social spaces where enslaved people formed connections?