Janet J. Ewald
Associate Professor Emerita of History

Office Location: 224 Classroom Bldg, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone: (919) 684-3014
Email Address: jewald@duke.edu

Specialties:
Comparative Colonial Studies
Labor and Working Class History
Medieval and Early Modern History
African, Middle East and Asia
Global and Comparative

Education:
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1982
M.A., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1975
B.A., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1973

Current projects: I enjoy reading novels and discussing them; following Carolina Hurricanes hockey and Duke women's basketball; walking; swimming; communing with my cats; cooking, especially vegetarian and my own versions of Asian cuisine; traveling.

Research Description: My specialty in the history of Africa has led me, in both my teaching and research, to explore how Africans participated in the major currents of world history since about 1700. My first book Soldiers, Traders, and Slaves: State Formation and Economic Transformation in the Greater Nile Valley, 1700-1885 uses oral traditions as well as written sources to reconstruct how people in a dangerous frontier zone responded to predatory empires, commercial capitalism, slave raiding, and militant Islam. The book, as well as several articles, analyzes not only how people constructed a small kingdom but also how they continually reconstructed their memories of that kingdom. Following the paths of slaves from the Nile valley led me to the shores of the Indian Ocean and beyond. I have now embarked on a second major project, "Motley Crews: Indian and African Seafarers on English Vessels in the Indian Ocean, c. 1600-1900." The project analyzes two forms of labor control--indentures and slavery--in a maritime setting. Not only Africans, but also Asians and Europeans, are the main actors; center stage is the Indian Ocean bounded by the crescent of shore from Bombay through the Arabian coast to the African Swahili coast; the action takes lace in the tumultuous centuries, especially after 1750, when a system of slavery rose and fell; Asian and African autonomy gave way to European dominance; and steam engines replaced sailing vessels on the ocean.

Recent Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

1. Ewald, JJ, Slavery in Africa and the slave trades from Africa, in The Atlantic Slave Trade: Volume I Origins-1600 (December, 2022), pp. 119-139 .
2. Ewald, JJ, Slavery in Africa and the Slave Trades from Africa, in The Atlantic Slave Trade: Volume I Origins-1600 (January, 2017), pp. 119-139 [doi]  [abs].
3. Ewald, JJ, The Nile Valley system and the Red Sea slave trade 1820-1880, in The Economics of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century (December, 2013), pp. 71-92 [doi] .
4. Ewald, JJ, African Bondsmen, Freedmen, and the Maritime Proletariats of the Northwestern Indian Ocean World, c1500-1900, in INDIAN OCEAN SLAVERY IN THE AGE OF ABOLITION, edited by Harms, R; Freamon, BK; Blight, DW (October, 2013), pp. 200-222, Yale University Press .
5. J.J. Ewald, Roundtable Review of G. Balachandran, GLOBALIZING LAROUR? INDIAN SEAFARERS AND WORLD SHIPPING, c1870-1945, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MARITIME HISTORY, vol. XXV no. 1 (June, 2013), pp. 275-282 .

Curriculum Vitae

Highlight:
My specialty in the history of Africa has led me, in both my teaching and research, to explore how Africans participated in the major currents of world history since about 1700. My first book Soldiers, Traders, and Slaves: State Formation and Economic Transformation in the Greater Nile Valley, 1700-1885 uses oral traditions as well as written sources to reconstruct how people in a dangerous frontier zone responded to predatory empires, commercial capitalism, slave raiding, and militant Islam. The book, as well as several articles, analyzes not only how people constructed a small kingdom but also how they continually reconstructed their memories of that kingdom. Following the paths of slaves from the Nile valley led me to the shores of the Indian Ocean and beyond. I have now embarked on a second major project, "Motley Crews: Indian and African Seafarers on English Vessels in the Indian Ocean, c. 1600-1900." The project analyzes two forms of labor control--indentures and slavery--in a maritime setting. Not only Africans, but also Asians and Europeans, are the main actors; center stage is the Indian Ocean bounded by the crescent of shore from Bombay through the Arabian coast to the African Swahili coast; the action takes lace in the tumultuous centuries, especially after 1750, when a system of slavery rose and fell; Asian and African autonomy gave way to European dominance; and steam engines replaced sailing vessels on the ocean.

Bio/Profile
American Council for Learned Societies; Carter G. Woodson Institute Fellow; Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow; National Humanities Center Fellow; American Institutes for Yemeni Studies fellowship for research in Yemen; Trent Foundation; American Philosophical Society; various awards for developing courses in Atlantic and Indian Ocean history.

Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)