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Neil M Kennedy

@nmkennedy.bsky.social
5.1K followers 1.9K following 2.7K posts

Historian and archaeologist of the early modern Atlantic World, specializing in Bermuda, slavery and the slave trade, maritime history, maritime emancipation, Caribbean history, sensory history. Dept of History, Memorial University, Newfoundland.

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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 15h
Given where we are, and culture here, more than few students are performers or musicians of various kinds. My older actor student, a great big guy softened a bit in late 50s, told me this afternoon that he’d just been in a short art film. He said he was nude in it, so I thanked him for the warning.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 16h
@drleonj.bsky.social My dinner making supervisor. #Dogs
Photo of a hairy Malamute mix named Yoda, sitting pressed against a kitchen island, eyes fixed on the sdinner preparations, great slab of a tongue lollygagging out the side of his snout.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 18h
Rats, there is a gap in my library's subscription to a journal from which I assigned reading! Any kind soul have access to: Pierre Gervais, “Neither Imperial, nor Atlantic: A Merchant Perspective on International Trade in the Eighteenth Century,” History of European Ideas 34, 4 (Dec 2008): 465–73?
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Twenty-five years ago today, at the Palazzo Vecchio, in Cosimo d’Medici’s bedroom, we were married by the Mayor of Firenze, and we haven’t stopped since. What a time it’s been. #weddinganniversary
Photo of us, in front of Pegasus statue in the Medici gardens, Firenze, this past May.
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Jonas Fossli Gjersø @jonasgjerso.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
In our latest Current Debates essay entitled "The Marine Origins of Contemporary Warfare", Rahul Govind discusses how imperial practices couched in international law and Western notions of the 'right of conquest' derives from prize law. doi.org/10.1080/0308... @jich.bsky.social
doi.org
The Marine Origins of Contemporary Warfare
I would like to draw a genealogy of Donald Trump's rhetoric and military action in Venezuela and Iran, in particular, of how the acquisition of the resources of another country through a military o...
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
@drleonj.bsky.social Ever since he was a pup, big Yoda likes to sleep fully braced against solid objects, like a hungover freshman on a Sunday morning. #Dogs
Photo of large hairy dog sleeping on his side, inconveniently positioned in kitchen doorway, with both front legs stiffly pressed against a doorframe. Safety first! Why is this bed spinning?!?!?!
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
@ruralcolonialns.bsky.social Back on my Italian linen bullshit today, Danny. #AcademicFashion
Photo of man’s white linen shirt, embroidered with large intertwined swirling floral patterns in pink, saffron, scarlet. In background are office bookshelves, some Mardi Gras throws, and a bill of macassar Ebony.
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Andrew Popp @andrewpopp.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This is a fantastic, engaging article. I'm so glad I made the time this morning to read it. Jane Humphries "Microhistory and Women's Time Use," advanced open access in @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social
academic.oup.com
Microhistory and Women’s Time Use*
Abstract. Gender historians have pioneered attention to ‘doing words’ to identify otherwise invisible women’s work. Searches in court records for verbs wit
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Erin L. Thompson @artcrimeprof.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Where did the sacred artifacts smuggled out of Nepal by Mary Slusser end up? One answer is... a flea market. I explain in this video.
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Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh @gianamar97.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
So excited to share that The Tartar Moment is forthcoming with @uchicagopress.bsky.social in June 2027, and is now available for pre-order! press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
press.uchicago.edu
The Tartar Moment
How seventeenth-century Europeans, following Jesuit missionary Martino Martini, saw their continent as historically, environmentally, and culturally intertwined with China.The Tartar Moment focuses on...
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Nina Baker @ninabake2.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This is such a useful resource. I have been able to look up particular days and places to provide weather context for events in my books.
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Carceral Abolition @carceralabolition.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
What is the Register of British Slave Traders and whom does it identify? Three years of research has uncovered 13,000 people who invested in Britain’s trafficking of enslaved Africans www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
What is the Register of British Slave Traders and whom does it identify?
Three years of research has uncovered 13,000 people who invested in Britain’s trafficking of enslaved Africans
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
@drleonj.bsky.social Big Yoda managed to get a bag of 10 fresh bakery bagels off the back of the counter and gorged himself. My fault for forgetting to put them in the cupboard before I left for work. I will regret it again in the morning when I look for some breakfast. He’s passed out now, pleased.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
To my great delight one student in my Seafarers class knew what this object was! Led to a great material history discussion for first day. What a privilege to have this job. #MaritimeHistory
Photo of an office bookshelf, with the usual variety of objects, such as buttons, bits of exotic wood, chinchona bark in a jar, and most importantly in the centre a green glass pyramid on a squared off base.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Only one student knew about Jimothy the Wonder Raccoon. So much for “terminally online” generation.
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Casey Schmitt @csschmitt.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
It's out in the world! This is my first attempt to write through research for my second book project! 🗃️ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Economies of Ransom | Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales | Cambridge Core
Economies of Ransom - Volume 81 Issue 2
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Pale green trousers for the first proper day of teaching, I think.
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Stephanie Porras @periodeye.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Extremely excited to announce an article co-authored by myself and Aaron Hyman on the visual and material cultures of Dutch piracy in the early modern Caribbean is now out in Renaissance quarterly @rsaorg.bsky.social , and open access! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
journals.uchicago.edu
Recasting the Silver Fleet, or The Propaganda of Piracy in the Dutch Caribbean | Renaissance Quarterly: Vol 79, No 3
In 1628, the Dutch West India Company captured a Spanish silver fleet off the shore of Cuba. A broadside by Claes Jansz Visscher (1587–1652) celebrated the event, illustrating the battle and providing...
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
My neighbour is just back from a history and memory conference in Argentina and brought over this extraordinary bottle of infused vermouth she purchased at Mar del Plata. Exquisite hardly seems adequate a term.
Photo of a chilled bottle bearing a slightly pinkish liquid, the Bohemia Vermut label reads Vermouth blanco, with a nice simple pen and ink drawing of citrus and herbs.
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 02/09/2026
🚨 new NL heritage minute alert 🚨
youtube.com
NEW Heritage Minute: Gander and 9/11
YouTube video by Historica Canada
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Alan MacEachern @alanmaceachern.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
In this post, I put out a call for #envhist people, places, or events that Canada should be commemorating. Submit yours: there's a $200 prize at stake. Deadline 14 Sept. Details in post.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Taking my son and his pals down to harbour for axe throwing fest for his birthday. They kept Anthony Bourdain’s and Jason Mamoa’s axes on the wall. youtu.be/9oxal7BdCh0?...
Photo of an axe embedded in a chuck of pine, with Anthony Bourdain’s name stenciled on top.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Lol. Air Canada warning me I have a Tight Connection on a flight that departs two hours before my now much delayed flight lands. You may well be right.
Air Canada app message with Tight Connection warning in red at top.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Same.
Photo of a sign reading “Dead Slow” on wall of a narrow hidden entry to underground parking lot.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I’m stuck at my favourite bar in Bermuda, Devil’s Isle, with awesome healthy food. They won’t let me leave due to the lightning storm. Currently on some ceviche salmon to keep me busy and a Gosling rum barrel aged on 80 transatlantic crossings. One sacrifices.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Ha! Friends tell me I’m blowing up on LinkedIn!! Crazy. I thought LinkedIn was dead and gone. At least the Miss Piggy and her Bermudian creator were mercifully off camera.
Silly photo from LinkedIn about the talk I gave for the Dept of Culture, Bermuda.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Spending my last evening in the garden of a late 18thC Bermuda house, out of the scorching sun, starting in on Colonial Countryside: an anthology of creative and historical responses, coedited by @corinnefowler.bsky.social. I’m now part of a Bermuda project modelled on and inspired by this book.
Photo of the book Colonial Countryside sitting on a white painted wrought iron patio table, with similar chairs, and beyond part of a garden and light blue painted and quoined Bermuda house.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Not unhappy to have an extra day in paradise. Every visit I come to see Chesley Trott’s “We Arrive” sculpture in Barrs Bay, in memory of the 72 Americans who walked off the slaver Enterprise to freedom here in 1835. I wrote about this again in Slavery & Abolition last year. The RBYC is to rear.
Photo of Bart’s Bay Park, on the harbour Hamilton Bermuda, showing abstract bronze sculpture of six individuals blended together, bent together in motion. Along the wharf is the pink Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, designed by Fzl Olmsted while on holiday here in 1880s, once one of the most notoriously segregated clubs in the islands.Photo from harbour front Hamilton Bermuda, with colourful large letters spelling out Bermuda for visitors to take their picture in front of, with deep blue water behind, and the white roofed houses of Paget Parish across the water.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Forgive the travel-limited post here but for me it’s my “William Crashaw’s Bridge: Bermuda and the Origins of the English Atlantic, 1609–1624” in collection English Atlantics Revisited. In his review David Armitage called my piece “elegant”, *swoon*, haha we live on small graves. Some good stuff too
Cover image of McGill-Queens University Press collected essays called English Atlantics Revisited. Shows 18thC painting of navy ships of the line weathering a storm.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Bit if a surprise to discover I booked my usual place for a day shorter than my flight…. Panic stations! Fortunately a place available right around the corner for one night.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
More manumissions today, payment for “the value of her body”, a schoolmaster who took small payments from a man for two years until L66 was paid then took two more years to file the papers, parents buying their child, including a boy named Phoenix just before emancipation. Benign slavery I’m told.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Manumission documents often stop me short for enormity of change and future hope they contain, but often too for present limits. Here Rose Potter receives “one full half of herself and time”, the other half in caring for her owner. Often these will read “entire freedom”, as though in surprise.
Detail from manumission record of Rose Potter, Bermuda, 1800, section reading that she was freed for “one full half of herself and time”, by in this case, Kate Potter, her mother.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Strange to have such unvarying weather, coming from a place where every kind of weather happens before lunchtime and it might snow while you’re in a t-shirt. How can the high and the low be the SAME, day after day?!?!? I know why, but 3rd decade researching/working here and still find it strange.
Screenshot of weather forecast for Bermuda showing steady 28C low and high, day after day…
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Perhaps to clarify, the individual pictured is not one of the "villains of this story", and you do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to them."
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Erika Gaffney @erikagaffney.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
New series announcement! Early Modern Maritime Humanities 1400-1800: Oceans in History & Culture Series Editors: @clairejowitt.bsky.social & John McAleer Publisher: @dgb-mem.bsky.social brill.com/page/forthco... Feel free to DM me with questions, or email me at Erika.Gaffney@degruyterbrill.com
A series announcement designed to look like the front cover of a book. The featured image is a painting in which two storm-tossed ships appear (a small one at left, a larger one at right).
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
One of the pleasures of longevity is being allowed to wander the vaults of the archives, particularly when the catalogue is incomplete. Just came across a box “Customs House Out Letters 1827”, with fantastic new information, including interviews with the two villains of this story. #Archives
Photo of decrepit, aging researcher in the forbidden vault…Photo of open pages of Customs House letterbook, showing 1827 interview with Trinidad merchant Alexander McAlister, for violating the Consolidated Slave Trade Act.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Who knew that Miss Piggy has Bermuda origin?!?! Is there anything not connected to this marvellous place?! Thus is your All Bermuda All the Time channel…
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Always interesting to see the phrase “share and share alike” in a will, the phrase having moved from its literary origins. This will is 1834, the reference here is to two lots of land to be enjoyed equally by two daughters.
Photo of detail of John Wainwright’s will, 31 Dec 1834, Book of Wills 16, Bermuda Archives. Visible is the phrase: “in common share and share alike”
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Finished my govt talk at the Bermuda National Gallery. People are so welcoming here it’s unreal. Great intro by Minister of Culture on history and interpretation. Family of the two educators the lecture is named for seemed happy, which makes me happy. Some new connections with Min of Education peeps
Photo of the Bermuda National Gallery, a beautiful mid-20thC white building in Bermuda vernacular style.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Ok Bluesky sleuths: where am I?? Sound on.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Let it begin!!
View through filtered telescope of the start of partial solar eclipse as seen from Signal Hill, St John’s, Newfoundland, where at 55% coverage the most complete eclipse will be seen in Canada.
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Bruce Buchan @brucealexb.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
A former #Australian PM recently wrote, “[f]rom the outset [1788], Sydney could hardly have been less like a slave colony”, and thus embodied noble aspirations of Europe’s #Enlightenment. A haggard trope, that fabricates myth in service to a facile truism. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Both relieved and slightly unsettled by news the Bermuda Government has insured me for $300k for my talk this month. I guess I can leave the trampoline portion intact now.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
The real reason for their investment in AI systems and robodogs and whatnot. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Anyone near St Luke's Church, at Haslar Hospital, Gosport, Hampshire? Wall tablet there to an RN officer I'm interested in. The text is on the Maritime Monuments Database, which is great, but without a photo of the tablet. Have emailed the Haslar society, but just in case... #MaritimeHistory
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Has anyone seen Anglican officials sign letters with first name and then the place of their office? As in, John Nova Scotia, for Bishop John Inglis. Was it common practice or a limited novelty of early 19thC? #EarlyModern
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Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Do listen to this masterful exposition of the links between trans-Atlantic slavery and Australian settler colonisation from the brilliant & meticulous Zoe Laidlaw (working with @janelydon.bsky.social) www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...
abc.net.au
How British slave money flowed to colonial Australia - ABC listen
In 1833, slavery in the British Empire was abolished, but not without a massive compensation scheme paid out to slave owners. Some of that money flowed to colonial Australia. Two-thirds of Australia's...
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
"Children sell for little." The horrendous arithmetic of the imperial archive. A grim private letter from the governor of Bermuda to the Colonial Office, 1826.
Detail from a letter, this section reads: 3dly A medium of the two foregoing proposals might be adopted vizt by purchasing all the unborn children and those under ten years old, children sell for little.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Sitting reading in my living room, I am so pleased with the way these arches play together in the light. I added them to dull squared trim-framed openings in last year’s kitchen renovation to suit the 1954 age of the house and those on the street that haven’t been altered. @brunotonelli.bsky.social
Evening photo in soft light of three openings with arched tops, leading from living room to hall to basement opening. A table and painting in the foreground anchor the living room entrance. The three arches form a complex yet seamless space.
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Neil M Kennedy @nmkennedy.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
The shake down presidency.
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