Slavery, enslaved persons and abolition of slavery Books

Book SynopsisThe forgotten history of women slaves and their struggle for liberation.Enslaved West Indian women had few opportunities to record their stories for posterity. In this riveting work of historical reclamation, Stella Dadzie recovers the lives of women who played a vital role in developing a culture of slave resistance across the Caribbean.Dadzie follows a savage trail from Elmina Castle in Ghana and the horrors of the Middle Passage, as slaves were transported across the Atlantic, to the sugar plantations of Jamaica and beyond. She reveals women who were central to slave rebellions and liberation. There are African queens, such as Amina, who led a 20,000-strong army. There is Mary Prince, sold at twelve years old, never to see her sisters or mother again. Asante Nanny the Maroon, the legendary obeah sorceress, who guided the rebel forces in the Blue Mountains during the First Maroon War.Whether responding to the horrendous conditions of plantation life, the sadistic vagaries of their captors or the 'peculiar burdens of their sex', their collective sanity relied on a highly subversive adaptation of the values and cultures they smuggled from their lost homes. By sustaining or adapting remembered cultural practices, they ensured that the lives of chattel slaves retained both meaning and purpose. A Kick in the Belly makes clear that subtle acts of insubordination and conscious acts of rebellion came to undermine the very fabric of West Indian slavery.Trade ReviewShocking, enlightening, fascinating, challenging, A Kick in the Belly reframes the overwhelmingly male perspective on the transatlantic slave trade through female experiences and acts of resistance. It is a essential corrective to centuries of sublimation and the presentation of black women who lived through this history as passive victims. I cannot recommend it highly enough. -- Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, OtherIn clear, accessible prose, this book upturns versions of the past that privilege his-story, revealing a more complex and many-layered past, one in which enslaved women were central to the struggle for freedom. -- Suzanne Scafe, co-author of The Heart of the RaceStella Dadzie has given us another chapter in women's history by uncovering resistance that is uniquely rooted in controlling reproduction. This is a meticulously researched narrative that privileges the people who were so brutally treated that it was easy to assume they had no agency. We now know that such an assumption would be mistaken. This is an essential addition to the corpus of historical study into the nature, legacy and impacts of the period of African enslavement. It's finally a work that allows us to better understand and recognise how women disrupted the principal economic principles supporting the enslavement of generations of people. -- Arike Oke, Director of The Black Cultural ArchivesWhat has become distinctive of Dadzie's scholarship is the way she centres black women in their own stories and this continues in A Kick in the Belly...After being fed narratives that 'the material doesn't exist', A Kick in the Belly shows that it is really a matter of knowing where to look and how to listen. -- Sarah Lusack * Black Ballad *Amplifies and honours the innovative ways women fought for freedom and kept their cultures alive despite the brutality they faced...When filmmaker Ava DuVernay says she is her ancestor's wildest dreams, these are the women she's talking about. -- Sharmaine Lovegrove * Red *Highlighting the experiences of enslaved women in the Anglo-Caribbean, Dadzie gives primacy, as she did in her seminal book Heart of the Race (with Beverley Bryan and Suzanne Scafe), to Black women's voices. In doing so, she puts a narrative of empowerment and hope at the centre of the brutal history of slavery. -- Meleisa Ono-George * Times Literary Supplement *

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn enduring history of how race and class came together to mark the course of the antebellum US and our present crisis. Roediger shows that in a nation pledged to independence, but less and less able to avoid the harsh realities of wage labor, the identity of "white" came to allow many Northern workers to see themselves as having something in common with their bosses. Projecting onto enslaved people and free Blacks the preindustrial closeness to pleasure that regimented labor denied them, "white workers" consumed blackface popular culture, reshaped languages of class, and embraced racist practices on and off the job. Far from simply preserving economic advantage, white working-class racism derived its terrible force from a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforced stereotypes and helped to forge the very identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks. Full of insight regarding the precarious positions of not-quite-white Irish immigrants to the US and the fate of working class abolitionism, Wages of Whiteness contributes mightily and soberly to debates over the 1619 Project and critical race theory.Trade ReviewThe Celestine Prophecy of whiteness studies. * SPIN *An extremely important and insightful book. * The Nation *A brilliant account of how white workers in antebellum America constructed a social identity fundamentally premised on their 'whiteness.' -- Steve Fraser * American Historical Review *Compelling. -- John White * Times Higher Education Supplement *Delivers powerful insights into the collective psyche of the U.S. working class. Striking. -- Chris Searle * Morning Star *An important contribution to our understanding of what has often been called 'American exceptionalism.' Sensitive and detailed handling of a wide range of original sources. -- Louis Kushnick * Race and Class *Brilliant. Remarkable for its subtlety, its penetrating and honest analysis. -- Fred Whitehead * People's Culture *Scholarly and thoroughly documented, The Wages of Whiteness is nonetheless a highly readable, compact and compelling narrative. A provocative illumination of the long and tortuous history of racism in the U.S. -- Franklin Rosemont * Heartland Journal *Casts a new light on a broad social, cultural and political landscape. -- Iver Bernstein * Journal of American History *Far and away the best treatment of white working-class racial attitudes in the nineteenth century that I have seen. -- George M. FredricksonAn indispensable addition to our knowledge of American working class formation. -- Joe W. Trotter * Journal of Social History *In this penetrating study of the origins of white working-class racial attitudes, Roediger profoundly illuminates the new labor history. A distinctive extension of the scholarly studies that locate the nexus of American society in race and labor. -- Joseph Boskin * Choice *A timely and important intervention in the current debates over 'race' and ethnicity. Roediger has opened up the question of white identity. -- Catherine Hall * New Left Review *Interesting and useful. Reconstructs how labor in America made racism part of its very being. -- John DeBrizzi * Telos *A brilliant, authoritative, carefully researched study of major importance. -- Michael Rogin * Radical History Review *A real contribution to the study of the dynamic relationship that exists between the variables of race and class. A very engaging and compelling book. Wages of Whiteness will have a broad appeal to students and researchers across a wide array of disciplines. -- Lisa Reilly and Cameron McCarthy * European Journal of Intercultural Studies *A welcome challenge to the old and new mythmakers. -- Noel Ignatiev * Labor [Le Travail] *A significant contribution, particularly necessary for those who want to see the struggle for labor unity across racial lines move forward. -- Paul Mishler * Science and Society *Roediger's lasting contribution ensures that the history of race and class can no longer be written from the perspective of romantic working class heroes, nor can it be written in a spirit of self-righteous 'anger.' -- Barry Goldberg * New Politics *Subtle, serious, commands our attention -- J. Milton Yinger * Ethnic and Racial Studies *Roediger's excellent book is must reading for those interested in American working-class formation. -- Andrew Kim * Critical Sociology *In The Wages of Whiteness David Roediger takes a courageous look at the development of white working-class racism and attempts to unravel its complex skein of economic, cultural, and psycho-political issues. -- Soledad Santiago * Foundation News *Of great originality and yet firmly grounded in a rich and diverse scholarship. There is no denying the enormous achievement of this book. Henceforth there will be no evading the question of racism in our contemplation of working-class formation in America. -- David Brody * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *Offers a compelling understanding of working-class racism. A rich and detailed history that traces notions of whiteness from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth. -- Rhonda Levine * Contemporary Sociology *Much has been written about the sources of racism and the wellsprings of racial conflict but few historians have shown David Roediger's sensitivity to the process by which race figured in defining the very nature of American society. The author's most important contribution is to elucidate how racial identity was critical to the formation of the working class during the nineteenth century. Roediger's central argument is most compelling. -- Ronald Mendel * Labour History Review *David Roediger's fascinating and vital study will satisfy even the most jaded intellectual palate and deserves the widest circulation. -- Martin Crawford * History *The book speaks so clearly to what historians know about the American working class, but with enormous originality. Broadly accessible to a wide audience, it connects the histories of slave labor and free labor thus providing a more profound understanding of American working class formation. Theoretically sophisticated, pulling together subtle but significant connections among race, class and gender. Blindingly revealing and of lasting scholarly value. * Organization of American Historians Prize Committee on awarding Wages the 1992 Merle Curti Prize *At last an American labor historian realizes that white workers have a racial identity that matters as race matters to those who are not white. -- Neil Irvin PainterPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Although long dismissed as irrelevant or biased, African American views on whiteness are in fact crucial to any intelligent discussion on race. By documenting the history of these views, David Roediger is not only addressing a compelling need, he is enriching the ?eld of Race Studies. -- Toni MorrisonPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Black on White is a brilliantly disturbing collection of work by black authors who are the often unappreciated foreparents of contemporary debates about the fallacies and functions of whiteness. These writings throw generous light on Fannie Lou Hamer's deliciously cryptic claim: the mistake that whites made with blacks is that they put us behind them leaving blacks little choice, for survival's sake, but to learn and master white culture. Black on White is proof that not only was Hamer right, but that if white Americans are to survive the madness of whiteness, they must now listen to and learn from those who made a glorious art out of a painful necessity. -- Michael Eric Dyson author of Race RulesPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Brilliant, wide-ranging and beautifully executed, Black on White puts to rest any claims that 'whiteness' is a passing fad meant to put white folks at the center again. -- Robin D.G. KelleyPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Yet another ?ash of brilliance illuminates and largely defines a vital subject area. Black on White deserves the widest reading. -- Sterling Stuckey, Presidential Chair, University of California Riverside and author of Slave CulturePraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:This valuable collection provides a new and badly-needed perspective on America's deep seated problems of racial inequality and antagonism. Much has been written and anthologized to show what whites thought and felt about blacks. This is the ?rst effort to present a range of black opinion on the meaning of whiteness, and it is a notably successful one. -- George M. Fredrickson, Edgar E. Robinson Professor of United States History, Stanford UniversityPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Black on White is a superb collection of writings by African Americans about the nature of White identity in the United States. David Roediger's informed and inspired introduction and the eloquent and insightful works he has collected expose the ideas, attitudes, and actions that transform the ?ction of white racial identity into an all too real social fact. At a time when white politicians, pundits, and private citizens base many public policies and even more private decisions in the knowledge they claim to have about black people, whiteness seems to disappear. Black on White redirects our focus to the way white people appear to blacks, to the insights, analyses, and interpretations emanating from people who became experts on whiteness out of dire necessity. -- George Lipsitz, University of California, San DiegoPraise for The Sinking Middle Class:An incisive, timely, clear-eyed analysis of race and class in America. -- Robin D.G. KelleyPraise for The Sinking Middle Class:Brilliant and Insightful [it] explores the ways in which appeals to save the middle class in electoral politics harm the very constituencies they purport to help. -- George LipsitzPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:No contemporary intellectual has better illuminated the interwoven social histories and conceptual dimensions of race and class domination. With this stunning new collection of essays, David Roediger once again demonstrates that he is a vital thinker for all of us seeking to bridge the imperatives of economic and social justice. -- Nikhil Singh, New York UniversityPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:David Roediger's work is always as learned as it is profoundly engaged with the pursuit of social justice. From his signature study of the 'wages of whiteness,' to the analysis of links between settler colonial dispossession, gendered social reproduction, plantation management, and immigrant labor in the making of modern racial capitalism-Roediger's bold commitments to demonstrating the historical and ongoing implications of race and class in the United States are timely, and more necessary than ever. -- Lisa Lowe, Tufts UniversityPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:These bracing essays express hard truths and grounded hopes as they help us to rethink a past too much with us still. Portraying a history of oppression and resistance made at the intersections of social identities, Roediger makes sophisticated analyses of culture and political economy accessible to scholars and to activists. -- Kimberlé Crenshaw, Columbia University School of LawPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:When it comes to thinking about the history of racism, anti-racism and the US working class, David Roediger has no peer. Incisive, provocative, and uncannily timely, Class, Race, and Marxism reckons honestly with the challenges of building class solidarity across the fissures of race, the difficulties of writing about it, and the ways in which the two are entwined. If there is a single lesson here, it is that solidarity is not forever-it is elusive, fragile, and hard as hell. -- Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great DepressionPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:David Roediger wades into the fray with refreshing nuance and generosity. * In These Times *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Roediger's book couldn't have appeared at a more timely moment. * Brooklyn Rail *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:A scintillating compilation . Roediger's book explains exactly why even the most sickening atavisms of racism are fully compatible with the capitalist order, with ramifications into the 21st century. -- Alan Wald * Against the Current *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Roediger addresses the challenges that class and race continue to present for U.S. radicals . should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the era of Trumpian politics. This is an important book, with lessons that some way wish to ignore, but at their peril. * Working Class Studies Association C.L.R. James Award *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Studying, understanding, struggling against, and ultimately replacing this centuries-old, foundational, and deep societal reality remains essential, as Roediger, a consistently pathbreaking historian, makes clear in these insightful essays. * Monthly Review *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Amid the cacophony of competing perspectives, David Roediger's Class, Race and Marxism not only expertly evaluates the historical, theoretical, and political stakes of contemporary debates on race and class, but also significantly contributes to scholarship that 'refus[es] to place race outside of the logic of capital.' * Black Scholar Journal *Praise for Seizing Freedom:Seizing Freedom persuasively documents the self-emancipation of the enslaved Black folk of the American South. A meticulously researched book, it offers close readings of verbal and visual texts, unfailingly attentive to issues of race, gender, and labor coming together and falling apart. It brilliantly brings together disability studies, race in the Civil War, and the disappearance of the gold standard. A worthy supplement to Du Bois's Black Reconstruction. -- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia UniversityPraise for Seizing Freedom:This sparkling book does more than merely restore and underscore the agency of bold worker-slaves in attempts to make the US democratic and free. It aims artfully at the underlying mechanisms of revolutionary transformation: imagination and solidarity, time, labor and the human body, gender, class and race. In Roediger's hands, these are neither dry nor overly abstract categories. The insurgent history of abolition gets resuscitated and used vividly to address a host of stalled contemporary debates and ossified styles of thought. -- Paul Gilroy, King's College LondonPraise for Seizing Freedom:Sweeping in its scope and filled with brilliant and original insights, this book reminds us of how little still is our appreciation both for what slaves accomplished between 1860 and 1865 and how beholden the national labor movement and the woman suffrage campaigns were to the 'general strike' they won...Evocative and inspiring, Seizing Freedom represents a landmark study by one of the foremost scholars of the history of race and labor in our time that will fundamentally challenge the way we understand the moral and practical power of emancipation. -- Thavolia Glymph, Duke UniversityPraise for Seizing Freedom:Seizing Freedom, David Roediger's spellbinding account of black self-emancipation and the array of movements accelerated by this 'general strike of the slaves' as DuBois put it, reminds us that it is never too late to take up the democratic promise of Radical Reconstruction. -- Angela Y. Davis, University of California, Santa CruzPraise for How Race Survived US History:Sometime in the US of the past quarter-century, calling policies and the people who dream them up racist became a worse offense than for them to be racist. This inversion, always dressed in self-righteous indignation, is actually part of the social evolution of white supremacy. David Roediger's book details in sharp and readable prose how race survived US history. It is a must-read for all who strive to understand-and abolish-what underlies the strangely strident rhetoric enveloping everything from presidential contests to prison expansion. -- Ruth Wilson GilmorePraise for How Race Survived US History:In a trenchant, broad-ranging analysis, the leading US historian of racism, David Roediger, demonstrates white supremacy's incredible staying power against major societal forces that should long ago have dismantled it. Not capitalism, not emancipation, not labor movements, not mass immigration, not the civil rights movement, not colorblind liberalism, and not the Barack Obama presidential campaign-not one of these forces separately, and not all of them together-have been able to destroy the deep structures of white racism in the United States. -- Joe R. FeaginPraise for How Race Survived US History:David Roediger's bold and brilliant book presents an extraordinary new framework for understanding the persistence of racism in the history of the United States. This book is a wake-up call and a warning, an appeal for understanding and action. It offers a clear and convincing demonstration that white supremacy is not merely a relic of the past but rather a perpetually renewed and infinitely renewable resource for inequality and injustice in the present. -- George LipsitzPraise for How Race Survived US History:A staggering re-interpretation of the whole course of American history in which the skeletons in the closet walk again. From genocide and massacre to lynching to the coded tongue of liberalism, the bankruptcy of white supremacy is found in the racialized structures maintained by the enclosures of incarceration and the foreclosures of impignoration -- Peter LinebaughPraise for How Race Survived US History:An extremely timely argument about the enduring significance of 'race' in American society, as well as a sophisticated polemic against the complacent assumption that the Obama phenomenon spells the end of American racism. -- Richard SeymourPraise for Colored White:David Roediger has been showing us all for years how whiteness is a marked and not a neutral color in the history of the United States. Colored White . . . marks yet another advance. In the burgeoning literature on whiteness this book stands out for its groundedness, its analytic clarity, and its scope. -- Michael RoginPraise for Colored White:No other writer on whiteness can match Roediger's historical breadth and depth; his grasp of the formative role played by race in the making of the nineteenth-century working class, in defining the contours of twentieth-century US citizenship, and in shaping the meaning of emerging social identities and cultural practices in the twenty-first century. -- George LipsitzPraise for Working toward Whiteness:Whiteness Studies can enable us to see American history in a wholly new light, and for the development of the field we must thank Roediger . . . full of thought-provoking observations. * Boston Globe *Praise for Working toward Whiteness:A tour de force. Roediger marshals vast knowledge extending from social and labor history to popular culture and the role of the state. This book will be the point of departure for future studies of whiteness. -- Rudolph J. VecoliPraise for Working toward Whiteness:This book is a major achievement by all standard. A more than worthy successor to Roediger's groundbreaking The Wages of Whiteness, this new book tells in rich detail how the 'new immigrants' from eastern and southern Europe . . . went from being an 'in-between' racial group to to one that was unequivocally white. -- George FredricksonPraise for Working toward Whiteness:Roediger has given us another of our most compelling, incisive, and elegant analyses of racial subjugation and privilege-in-the-making in the US. A brilliant investigation of that historical zone where institutions, ideas, and street-level experiences meet and give form to one another. It may be Roediger's most powerful contribution yet. -- Matthew Frye JacobsonPraise for History against Misery:This wonderful collection of essays is not only a powerful indictment of late capitalism . . . but also a fascinating survey of resistance voices, from the IWW to the Surrealists, from the Chicago Idea Anarchists to Black Liberation. -- Michael LöwyPraise for History against Misery:It is to the summer of our discontent that the surrealist brings us a wintry elation: humor, a poetics of resistance, purposeful deviance motivated by genuine compassion and a love of truth. -- Blake Schwarzenbach

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1805, naval officer Captain Philip Beaver (1766–1813) published his African Memoranda: Relative to an Attempt to Establish a British Settlement on the Island of Bulama, on the Western Coast of Africa, in the Year 1792. Beaver’s text in this modern scholarly edition provides an absorbing testimony of his efforts to assist British colonisers in establishing their African settlement. Despite the colonial ambitions of this project, the ‘Bulama Committee’ members were reformists at heart. Their high-minded intentions in purchasing the island and settling it were to demonstrate the anti-slavery principle that propagation by ‘free natives’ would bring ‘cultivation and commerce’ to the region and ultimately introduce ‘civilization’ among them. Beaver’s journal tells the extraordinary account of how the colonists’ ambitions to benefit the African economy and set a precedent of humanitarian labour for the slave-owning lobby in Britain led to the extraordinary emigration of 275 men, women and children in order to put their humanitarian ideals into practice.Trade Review‘Captain Philip Beaver’s utopian ambition was to end Britain’s slave trade by growing tropical pro-duce on a West African island. This excellent edition of his journal, a key document for understand-ing abolitionism, describes the outcasts who signed up for his radical republic, as well as the tragic idealism of this Romantic-era colonising enterprise.’ — Deirdre Coleman, author of Romantic Colo-nization and British Anti-Slavery‘A fascinating account of a disastrous attempt to establish a colony of freed former slaves and poor white folk on an island off the African coast, superbly annotated and introduced by Carol Bolton. A must for anyone studying or teaching the anti-slavery movement and the history of African colonisation.’ — Tim Fulford, Professor of Eng-lish, De Montfort UniversityTable of ContentsList of figures; Acknowledgements; Notes on the Text; Table of Weights and Measures; Introduction; Preface; Author’s Introduction; Part I; Part II; Part III; Appendices; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisA history of the many different British Empires –the Old Colonial System (1600–1776), the Empire of Free Trade (1776–1870), the New Imperialism (1870–1945), Decolonisation (1945–1990) and the era of humanitarian intervention (1990–2020). Britain’s Empires aims to tell the story of the colonial past as one marked by change and reinvention.Trade Review"There are few single volume histories of the British Empire that match this book’s temporal and geographical span. Well illustrated and balanced across political, economic and cultural approaches, it serves as an excellent overview of a vast, dynamic and enduring phenomenon that reconfigured Britain and the world" — Professor Alan Lester, FRHistS, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, UK."Heartfield goes beyond the teleological, moralistic and one-size-fits-all approach to the understanding of history that has become so common in contemporary debates about the past. This book takes history and human agency seriously, revealing the complexities, contradictions and competing motives of the different periods of Britain’s Empire, thus bringing forth new insights. This makes for a knowledge-rich, refreshing and challenging read" — Inaya Folarin Iman."James Heartfield is without a doubt one of Britain's most original and insightful living historians. His skill in tracing the roots of Britain's imperial history and relating it to wider debates in social science is wonderfully displayed in this book. Read it and be prepared to have your thinking challenged" — Philip Cunliffe, Associate Professor in International Relations, University College London."This excellent text offers a deft periodisation; vivid illustrations of key processes and moments of the different times and places of British empire and its discontents; illuminating interconnections between change in Britain and global change; a rich use of contemporary sources; and the author’s nuanced judgements “ —Henry Bernstein, Professor Emeritus of Development Studies, SOAS, University of London.“Heartfield goes beyond the teleological, moralistic and one-size-fits-all approach to the understanding of history that has become so common in contemporary debates about the past. This book takes history and human agency seriously, revealing the complexities, contradictions and competing motives of the different periods of Britain’s Empire, thus bringing forth new insights. This makes for a knowledge-rich, refreshing and challenging read”— Inaya Folarin Iman, The Equiano Project."In this wide-ranging and fascinating book, James Heartfield takes a critical approach to the past, observing the many changes and continuities in Britain’s imperial relationships and shedding light on the various economic, political, and ideological factors that drove those changes. Anyone seeking to understand the (uneven) development of British colonialism over the course of more than four centuries, should read this book”— Dr Cheryl Hudson, Lecturer in U.S. Political History, University of Liverpool.Table of ContentsIntroduction; PART ONE THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM, 1600–1760; PART TWO EMPIRE OF FREE TRADE, 1760–1870; PART THREE MODERN IMPERIALISM, 1870–1947; PART FOUR COMMONWEALTH, 1947–89; PART FIVE EMPIRE OF HUMAN RIGHTS? 1990–2020; Notes; Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis'Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' is perhaps the most famous phrase of all in the American Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson's momentous words are closely related to the French concept of 'liberte, egalite, fraternite'; and both ideas incarnate a notion of freedom as inalienable human right that in the modern world we expect to take for granted. In the ancient world, by contrast, the concepts of freedom and equality had little purchase. Athenians, Spartans and Romans all possessed slaves or helots (unfree bondsmen), and society was unequal at every stratum. Why, then, if modern society abominates slavery, does what antiquity thought about serfdom matter today? Page duBois shows that slavery, far from being extinct, is alive and well in the contemporary era. Slaves are associated not just with the Colosseum of ancient Rome but also with Californian labour factories and south Asian sweatshops, while young women and children appear increasingly vulnerable to sexual trafficking. Applying such modern experiences of bondage (economic or sexual) to slavery in antiquity, the author explores the writings on the subject of Aristotle, Plautus, Terence and Aristophanes. She also examines the case of Spartacus, famous leader of a Roman slave rebellion, and relates ancient notions of liberation to the all-too-common immigrant experience of enslavement to a globalized world of rampant corporatism and exploitative capitalism.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThroughout the nineteenth century British governments engaged in a global campaign against the slave trade. They sought through coercion and diplomacy to suppress the trade on the high seas and in Africa and Asia. But, despite the Royal Navy's success in eradicating the transatlantic commerce in captive Africans, the forced migration of labour and other forms of people trafficking persisted. This collection of essays by specialist international, naval and slave trade historians examines the role played by individuals and institutions in the diplomacy of suppression, particularly the personnel of the Slave Trade Department of the Foreign Office and of the Mixed Commission Courts; the changing socio-religious character and methods of anti-slavery activists and the lobbyists; and the problems faced by the navy and those who served with its so-called 'Preventive Squadron' in seeking to combat the trade. Other contributions explore the difficulties confronting British diplomats in their efforts to reconcile their moral objections to slavery and the slave trade with Britain's imperial and strategic interests in Ottoman Turkey, Persia and the Arabian Peninsula; British reactions to the continued exploitation of forced labour in Portugal's African colonies; and the apparent reluctance of the Colonial Office to attempt any systematic reform of the 'master and servant' legislation in force in Britain's Caribbean possessions. The final chapter brings the story through the twentieth century, showing how the interests of the Foreign Office sometimes diverged from those of the Colonial Office, and considering how the changing face of slavery has made it the world-wide issue that it is today.Table of ContentsForeword; Introduction; Zealots & Helots: the slave trade department of the nineteenth-century Foreign Office; Judicial Diplomacy: British officials & the mixed commission courts; Slavery, free trade & naval strategy, 1840-1860; Anti-slavery activists & officials: "influence", lobbying & the slave trade, 1807-1850; "A course of unceasing remonstrance": British diplomacy & the suppression of the slave trade in the East; The British "official mind" & nineteenth-century Islamic debates over the abolition of slavery; The "taint of slavery": the Colonial Office & the regulation of free labour; The Foreign Office & slavery & forced labour in Portuguese west Africa, 1894-1914; The anti-slavery game: Britain & the suppression of slavery in Africa & Arabia, 1890-1975; Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThroughout the nineteenth century British governments engaged in a global campaign against the slave trade. They sought through coercion and diplomacy to suppress the trade on the high seas and in Africa and Asia. But, despite the Royal Navy's success in eradicating the transatlantic commerce in captive Africans, the forced migration of labour and other forms of people trafficking persisted. This collection of essays by specialist international, naval and slave trade historians examines the role played by individuals and institutions in the diplomacy of suppression, particularly the personnel of the Slave Trade Department of the Foreign Office and of the Mixed Commission Courts; the changing socio-religious character and methods of anti-slavery activists and the lobbyists; and the problems faced by the navy and those who served with its so-called 'Preventive Squadron' in seeking to combat the trade. Other contributions explore the difficulties confronting British diplomats in their efforts to reconcile their moral objections to slavery and the slave trade with Britain's imperial and strategic interests in Ottoman Turkey, Persia and the Arabian Peninsula; British reactions to the continued exploitation of forced labour in Portugal's African colonies; and the apparent reluctance of the Colonial Office to attempt any systematic reform of the 'master and servant' legislation in force in Britain's Caribbean possessions. The final chapter brings the story through the twentieth century, showing how the interests of the Foreign Office sometimes diverged from those of the Colonial Office, and considering how the changing face of slavery has made it the world-wide issue that it is today.Table of ContentsForeword; Introduction; Zealots & Helots: the slave trade department of the nineteenth-century Foreign Office; Judicial Diplomacy: British officials & the mixed commission courts; Slavery, free trade & naval strategy, 1840-1860; Anti-slavery activists & officials: "influence", lobbying & the slave trade, 1807-1850; "A course of unceasing remonstrance": British diplomacy & the suppression of the slave trade in the East; The British "official mind" & nineteenth-century Islamic debates over the abolition of slavery; The "taint of slavery": the Colonial Office & the regulation of free labour; The Foreign Office & slavery & forced labour in Portuguese west Africa, 1894-1914; The anti-slavery game: Britain & the suppression of slavery in Africa & Arabia, 1890-1975; Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn musical, evocative language, her poems imagine the what-if-that-almost-was of Scotland’s best-loved Bard, following Robert Burns into the life he might have lived as a plantation overseer in Jamaica—then seeing his enslaved granddaughter come back to Scotland to claim a life reserved for white women. Evie Shockley This collection is timely and timeless as it reframes the complicated genealogies created by colonialism. Erasure is one of the colonizer’s most insidious tools and McCallum’s gorgeous monologues serve to reclaim the voices ignored, unsaid, and unclaimed because of colonialism. Adrian Matejka A subtle, multi-layered verse narrative… The worlds it vividly presents beget reflections on creativity, history, slavery, race and many other issues. It is an exceptional work, a memorable achievement. Mervyn Morris Seemingly controlled words surge with echoes; poems keep double-entry accounts, striping the page, laddering like stockings. McCallum achieves an un-haunting. Characters are realer than real, less imaginary than re-storied. Like the returning dead, whom nothing ‘will quench or unhunger’, this work wants you, wants us, ‘to begin again’. Vahni Capildeo

Read more less

Book Synopsis Why do the people of the French Caribbean still continue to be haunted by the memory of their slave past more than one hundred and fifty years after the abolition of slavery? What process led to the divorce of their collective memory of slavery and emancipation from France's portrayal of these historical phenomena? How are Martinicans and Guadeloupeans today transforming the silences of the past into historical and cultural manifestations rooted in the Caribbean? This book answers these questions by relating the 1998 controversy surrounding the 150th anniversary of France's abolition of slavery to the period of the slave regime spanning the late Enlightenment and the French Revolution. By comparing a diversity of documents—including letters by slaves, free people of color, and planters, as well as writings by the philosophes, royal decrees, and court cases—the author untangles the complex forces of the slave regime that have shaped collective memory. The current nationalization of the memory of slavery in France has turned these once peripheral claims into passionate political and cultural debates.Trade Review “Reinhardt’s astute, well –researched, and historically contextualized literary analyses yield much interesting commentary as well as some original insights.” • American Historical Review “Claims to Memory is illuminating, thought-provoking, and even elegant. All students and scholars with an interest in France’s islands in the Caribbean need to read it.” • Island Studies Journal “Claims to Memory is an engaging and in many ways unique book…that sets out to dismantle the delusions of republican France as the birthplace of liberty and slave emancipation… Reinhardt’s book is a great challenge to francophone literary studies and a brilliant response to Glissant's call for a 'prophetic vision of the past.'” • H-France Review “The complexities and controversies of commemorating slavery provide Claims to Memory with a fascinating subject matter… a valuable addition to debates on slavery commemoration that serves as a counterpoint to ‘the overpowering narrative of the French abolitionist movement’.” • Francophone Studies “Reinhardt does not fail in her ambitions. Using the theoretical antecedent of rhizomatic memory and reading across the multiple sources this method entails, Reinhardt succeeds in challenging our simplification of historical narratives of abolition in the Caribbean, and our assumptions about the interrelationship between abolition and the Enlightenment… In her reading across genres and realms of memory, this text offers an excellent actualization of rhizome memory… [and] an historical account of slavery in the French Caribbean from a variety of sources ideal for scholars in the area of the history of slavery. Claims to Memory is also engaging reading for scholars in the more general areas of public memory and representation.” • The Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie “What is distinctive about Catherine Reinhardt's book is the highly visible place that it gives to the decolonizing of memory in a larger theory of Caribbean postcolonial subjectivity. This makes it a vital contribution to the theory of the postcolonial subject.” • Paget Henry, the Fanon Prize Committee, Caribbean Philosophical AssociationTable of Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Memories of Slavery Chapter 1. Realms of the Enlightenment Chapter 2. Realms of the Maroon Chapter 3. Realms of Freedom Chapter 4. Realms of Assimilation Chapter 5. Realms of Memory Conclusion: Beyond Slavery Postscript Appendix Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis Why do the people of the French Caribbean still continue to be haunted by the memory of their slave past more than one hundred and fifty years after the abolition of slavery? What process led to the divorce of their collective memory of slavery and emancipation from France's portrayal of these historical phenomena? How are Martinicans and Guadeloupeans today transforming the silences of the past into historical and cultural manifestations rooted in the Caribbean? This book answers these questions by relating the 1998 controversy surrounding the 150th anniversary of France's abolition of slavery to the period of the slave regime spanning the late Enlightenment and the French Revolution. By comparing a diversity of documents—including letters by slaves, free people of color, and planters, as well as writings by the philosophes, royal decrees, and court cases—the author untangles the complex forces of the slave regime that have shaped collective memory. The current nationalization of the memory of slavery in France has turned these once peripheral claims into passionate political and cultural debates.Trade Review “Reinhardt’s astute, well –researched, and historically contextualized literary analyses yield much interesting commentary as well as some original insights.” • American Historical Review “Claims to Memory is illuminating, thought-provoking, and even elegant. All students and scholars with an interest in France’s islands in the Caribbean need to read it.” • Island Studies Journal “Claims to Memory is an engaging and in many ways unique book…that sets out to dismantle the delusions of republican France as the birthplace of liberty and slave emancipation… Reinhardt’s book is a great challenge to francophone literary studies and a brilliant response to Glissant's call for a 'prophetic vision of the past.'” • H-France Review “The complexities and controversies of commemorating slavery provide Claims to Memory with a fascinating subject matter… a valuable addition to debates on slavery commemoration that serves as a counterpoint to ‘the overpowering narrative of the French abolitionist movement’.” • Francophone Studies “Reinhardt does not fail in her ambitions. Using the theoretical antecedent of rhizomatic memory and reading across the multiple sources this method entails, Reinhardt succeeds in challenging our simplification of historical narratives of abolition in the Caribbean, and our assumptions about the interrelationship between abolition and the Enlightenment… In her reading across genres and realms of memory, this text offers an excellent actualization of rhizome memory… [and] an historical account of slavery in the French Caribbean from a variety of sources ideal for scholars in the area of the history of slavery. Claims to Memory is also engaging reading for scholars in the more general areas of public memory and representation.” • The Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie “What is distinctive about Catherine Reinhardt's book is the highly visible place that it gives to the decolonizing of memory in a larger theory of Caribbean postcolonial subjectivity. This makes it a vital contribution to the theory of the postcolonial subject.” • Paget Henry, the Fanon Prize Committee, Caribbean Philosophical AssociationTable of Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Memories of Slavery Chapter 1. Realms of the Enlightenment Chapter 2. Realms of the Maroon Chapter 3. Realms of Freedom Chapter 4. Realms of Assimilation Chapter 5. Realms of Memory Conclusion: Beyond Slavery Postscript Appendix Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis The past half-century has produced a mass of information regarding slave resistance, ranging from individual acts of disobedience to massive uprisings. Many of these acts of rebellion have been studied extensively, yet the ultimate goals of the insurgents remain open for discussion. Recently, several historians have suggested that slaves achieved their own freedom by resisting slavery, which counters the predominant argument that abolitionist pressure groups, parliamentarians, and the governmental and anti-governmental armies of the various slaveholding empires were the prime movers behind emancipation. Marques, one of the leading historians of slavery and abolition, argues that, in most cases, it is impossible to establish a direct relation between slaves’ uprisings and the emancipation laws that would be approved in the western countries. Following this presentation, his arguments are taken up by a dozen of the most outstanding historians in this field. In a concluding chapter, Marques responds briefly to their comments and evaluates the degree to which they challenge or enhance his view.Trade Review "These differing opinions and the fact that Marques is invited to add Part three, ‘Afterthoughts’, with which the book concludes, make for a lively and comprehensive debate which remains, however, open to further expansion and development" · Ethnicity and Race in a Changing WorldTable of Contents Preface Pieter C. Emmer and Seymour Drescher PART I Introduction: Slave Revolts and the Abolition of Slavery: An Overinterpretation João Pedro Marques PART II Chapter 1. Africa and Abolitionism John Thornton Chapter 2. Who Abolished Slavery in the Dutch Caribbean? Pieter C. Emmer Chapter 3. Slave Resistance and Emancipation: The Case of Saint-Domingue David Geggus Chapter 4. Civilizing Insurgency. Two Variants of Slave Revolts in the Age of Revolution Seymour Drescher Chapter 5. The Wars of Independence, Slave Soldiers, and the Issue of Abolition in Spanish South America Peter Blanchard Chapter 6. Shipboard Slave Revolts and Abolition David Eltis and Stanley L. Engerman Chapter 7. Slave Resistance and Abolitionis: A Multifaceteted Issue Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau Chapter 8. Slave Revolts and Abolitionism David Brion Davis Chapter 9. The Role of Slave Resistance in Slave Emancipation Robin Blackburn Chapter 10. Slave Revolts and the Abolition of Slavery: A Misinterpretation Hilary Beckles PART III Afterthoughts João Pedro Marques Notes on Contributors Bibliography from the Commentaries Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisReconfiguring Slavery focuses on the range of trajectories followed by slavery as an institution since the various abolitions of the nineteenth century. It also considers the continuing and multi-faceted strategies that descendants of both owners and slaves have developed to make what use they can of their forebears’ social positions, or to distance themselves from them. Reconfiguring Slavery contains both anthropological and historical contributions that present new empirical evidence on contemporary manifestations of slavery and related phenomena in Mauritania, Benin, Niger, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, and the Gambia. As a whole, the volume advances a renewed conceptual framework for understanding slavery in West Africa today: instead of retracing the end of West African slavery, this work highlights the preliminary contours of its recent reconfigurations.Trade ReviewReviews 'This stimulating collection for West African scholars provides an abundance of examples of the transformations in traditional forms of slavery covering the range of possibilities, from formerly subjugated groups that now have the upper hand over their former masters to situations where traditional forms of symbolic and financial domination still prevail.' * Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 5 *'This is an exceptionally interesting book. It breaks new ground and makes a significant contribution to slavery and, more particularly, post-slavery studies.' Suzanne Miers'An important contribution to Africanist scholarship ... it has every chance of achieving the reconfiguration prefigured in its title.' P. F. Moraes Farias, University of Birmingham * University of Birmingham *'Reconfiguring Slavery has broad academic and non-academic appeal.' * African Affairs, vol 110, no 440 *'Benedetta Rossi’s analysis bridges an important gap in the conceptualisation of slavery in the history and contemporary politics of West Africa.' Paul Lovejoy, Slavery and Abolition, vol. 31, no. 4 * Slavery and Abolition, vol. 31, no. 4 *'In a varied but coherent collection of case studies to which Benedetta Rossi’s stimulating introduction does full justice, the red thread is that of the multitude of ways in which the descendants of slaves attempt to evade the heritage of the past, how they negotiate the vestiges of the stigma in their contemporary lives, often in paradoxical and ambiguous ways.' Roger Botte, Africa, Vol. 80, No, 3 * Africa, Vol. 80, No, 3 *'Reconfiguring Slavery is an important book that provides rich insight into processes of emancipation and the legacies of slavery in West Africa. Most chapters draw heavily on the testimony of former slaves or slave descendants, which gives special liveliness to the difficult conceptual issues under consideration. The book has much to offer for comparisons between slavery in West Africa and in other world regions, in particular perhaps in Asian settings. Many chapters in the volume also shed light on the impact and reach of Western imperialism in Africa. Reconfiguring Slavery will find its readers mainly among scholars specializing in African studies and slave studies, but teachers of world history courses interested in Africa will also find the book rewarding and stimulating even though the chapters do not make for suitable readings in undergraduate college courses.' Claus K. Meyer, World History ConnectedTable of Contents Contents List of Figures Notes on Contributors Preface A note on Language 1. Introduction: Rethinking Slavery in West Africa - Benedetta Rossi 2. Slave descent and Social Status in Sahara and Sudan - Martin A. Klein 3. African American psychologists, the atlantic Slave trade and Ghana: a History of the present - Tom McCaskie 4. After abolition: Metaphors of Slavery in the political History of the Gambia - Alice Bellagamba 5. Islamic patronage and republican emancipation: The Slaves of the Almaami in the Senegal river valley - Jean Schmitz 6. Curse and Blessing: on post-slavery Modes of perception and agency in Benin - Christine Hardung 7. Contemporary trajectories of Slavery in Haalpulaar Society (Mauritania) - Olivier Leservoisier 8. Slavery and politics: Stigma, decentralisation and political representation in Niger and Benin - Eric Komlavi Hahonou 9. Slavery and Migration: Social and physical Mobility in ader (Niger) - Benedetta Rossi 10. Discourses on Slavery: reflections on forty years of research - Philip Burnham Glossary of Foreign Words Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisNewly available in paperback, this edition is an important volume of international significance, drawing together contributions from some of the leading scholars in the field and edited by a team headed by the acclaimed historian David Richardson. The book sets Liverpool in the wider context of transatlantic slavery and addresses issues in the scholarship of transatlantic slavery, including African agency and trade experience. Emphasis is placed on the human characteristics and impacts of transatlantic slavery. It also opens up new areas of debate on Liverpool’s participation in the slave trade and helps to frame the research agenda for the future.Trade ReviewAnyone seeking a clear, balanced and thoughtful presentation of the issues surrounding one of the most shameful episodes of human history could not do better than to arm themselves with a copy of this absorbing and well-edited book. * Urban History Journal *Undoubtedly of use to anyone who has more than a passing interest in the role the African slave trade played in developing one of the Atlantic World’s most prominent ports. * Journal of African History *This book is an important addition to the rapidly growing literature on the Atlantic slave trade. * American Historical Review *The volume is recommended to researchers and students interested in better understanding Liverpool's place in the history of British slavery and the slave trade. * The Journal of African American History *.. anyone seeking a clear, balanced and thoughtful presentation of the issues surrounding one of the most shameful episodes of human history could not do better than to arm themselves with a copy of this absorbing and well-edited book. * Urban History Volume 35/3 *What Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery offers is a close, careful and highly quantitative analysis of the multiple factors that contributed to Liverpool's ascendancy in turn shaped attitudes and aspirations both abroad and at home. * International Journal of African Historical Studies, Volume 41, Number 2 *This is a book of substance that offers both new insights and information, and which, at its best, contextualizes the city in its regional and its global context. As such, it enriches our understanding both of Liverpool's and Britain's involvement in the transatlantic slave system. * H-Net Reviews *Liverpool and the Transatlantic Slave Trade will be undoubtedly of use to anyone who has more than a passing interest in the role the African slave trade played in developing one of the Atlantic World's most prominent ports. * African History, Volume 49 *The essays in this volume stem from a 2005 conference on Liverpool and slavery held at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. The resulting collection often essays seeks to provide a current understanding of the relationship between Liverpool and slavery in the eighteenth century by building upon, and revising, the 1976 collection of essays, Liverpool, the African Slave Trade, and Abolition, edited by Roger Anstey and Paul Hair. The biggest difference between these two collections of essays can be found in their titles as we see an evolution from the African Slave Trade to transatlantic slavery. It is this Atlanticization of Liverpool's participation in the slave trade that marks the divergence between the two volumes and that brings focus, and some tension, to the present volume. By viewing Liverpool's participation in an Atlantic context, the reader gains a fuller understanding of the larger consequences of this within Liverpool and its hinterland, West Africa and the Americas. In its attempt to explore the role of Liverpool in transatlantic slavery this work succeeds while demonstrating how the rise of Atlantic history as a field of inquiry has changed the questions being asked and the research being conducted on the eighteenth century. Within this volume are essays that build upon the traditional approach to the subject. These essays seek to explain why, after 1740, Liverpool came to dominate the British slave trade, the role that human capital, captains and crews, played in this, and, through several essays, a better understanding of the connections and consequences of Liverpool's participation in the slave trade upon the city and the region. The regional approach of several essays i\1ustrates the factors that contributed to Liverpool's continued growth and the importance of the slave trade in integrating this regional economy. These included the geographic advantages of Liverpool, such as its ability to acquire goods from Ho\1and critical for the slave trade, its relationship with not only the sea but also its hinterland, the availability of experienced captains and crews and a wi\1ingness of Liverpool slave traders to work to open new markets, both in West Africa and, as one essay shows, the Chesapeake, and to adapt to the customs and systems of the West African trading environment. This regional approach is then supplemented by three essays that take the co\1ection in a more Atlantic direction as they provide insight into the role of trust and credit in creating successful coastal transactions in West Africa, the growing stress on African ethnicities within studies of slavery, and the role of minor, rather than major, disembarkation points within Liverpool's se\1ing of slaves in the Americas. The final two essays, while strong in various ways, do not fit in as we\1 with the others. They do, in their examination of the Sierra Leone Company and abolition within Liverpool, mark an end to Liverpool's relationship to transatlantic slavery yet they do not bring any finality to the larger themes and issues developed within the work. The essays in the co\1ection provide a broad overview of the subject with some having a strong maritime focus and others not. What the essays do provide is a thorough introduction to the causes and consequences of Liverpool's participation in Transatlantic slavery. The essays by Kenneth Morgan, Stephen D. Behrendt, Melinda Elder, David Pope and Jane Longmore provide the reader with a clear and insightful understanding of the reasons why Liverpool became involved in the slave trade, the organization of Liverpool's slave trade and the consequences, both positive and negative, upon Liverpool and its environs. The other essays, by Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson, Lorena S. Walsh, Trevor Burnard, Suzanne Schwartz and Brian Howman, illustrate the larger Atlantic consequences of Liverpool's participation in transatlantic slavery. Read together, the essays provide the reader with an introduction to the ways in which historians are exploring Liverpool's role in transatlantic slavery. * Internatioanl Journal of Maritime History, Volume XXIII, no. 1 *Table of Contents Foreword DAVID FLEMING Advisory Committee and Curators Foreword to First Edition SIR PETER MOORES Introduction ANTHONY TIBBLES The Rise of the Atlantic Empires DAVID RICHARDSON Human Cargoes: Enslavement and the Middle Passage EDWARD REYNOLDS ‘Guineamen’: Some Technical Aspects of Slave Ships M. K. STAMMERS African Resistance to Enslavement STEPHEN SMALL AND JAMES WALVIN Caribbean Slave Society ALISSANDRA CUMMINS Women in Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade JENNIFER LYLE MORGAN Liverpool and the English Slave Trade DAVID RICHARDSON Oil not Slaves: Liverpool and West Africa after 1807 ANTHONYTIBBLES Black People in Britain JAMES WALVIN British Abolitionism 1787–1838 JAMES WALVIN The Impact of the Slave Trade on the Societies of West and Central Africa PATRICK MANNING An African View of Transatlantic Slavery and the Role of Oral Testimony in Creating a New Legacy MARY E. MODUPE KOLAWOLE Racist Ideologies STEPHEN SMALL On the Meaning and History of Slavery PRESTON KING The General Legacy of the Atlantic Slave Trade STEPHEN SMALL The Challenge of Remembering Slavery LONNIE G. BUNCH Interpreting Transatlantic Slavery: The Role of Museums ANTHONY TIBBLES Catalogue Select Bibliography Photographic Credits Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Haitian Revolution has generated responses from commentators in fields ranging from philosophy to historiography to twentieth-century literary and artistic studies. But what about the written work produced at the time, by Haitians? This book is the first to present an account of a specifically Haitian literary tradition in the Revolutionary era. Beyond the Slave Narrative shows the emergence of two strands of textual innovation, both evolving from the new revolutionary consciousness: the remarkable political texts produced by Haitian revolutionary leaders Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and popular Creole poetry from anonymous courtesans in Saint-Domingue's libertine culture. These textual forms, though they differ from each other, both demonstrate the increasing cultural autonomy and literary voice of non-white populations in the colony at the time of revolution. Unschooled generals and courtesans, long presented as voiceless, are at last revealed to be legitimate speakers and authors. These Haitian French and Creole texts have been neglected as a foundation of Afro-diasporic literature by former slaves in the Atlantic world for two reasons: because they do not fit the generic criteria of the slave narrative (which is rooted in the autobiographical experience of enslavement); and because they are mediated texts, relayed to the print-cultural Atlantic domain not by the speakers themselves, but by secretaries or refugee colonists. These texts challenge how we think about authorial voice, writing, print culture, and cultural autonomy in the context of the formerly enslaved, and demand that we reassess our historical understanding of the Haitian Independence and its relationship to an international world of contemporary readers.Trade ReviewColonial and postcolonial studies will gain significant new breadth and depth with the publication of Deborah Jenson’s Beyond the Slave Narrative: Sex, Politics, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution. This pathbreaking book brings to light the rich but largely neglected Francophone record of black literacy from the late eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Rectifying the anglocentric view that slave narratives were the only or most authentic form of black voices from the past, Jenson provides probing analyses of Creole poetry, political discourse, and other materials. Deeply committed to improving present-day conditions in Haiti, Jenson finds in the cultural heritage of the past the basis for a fuller understanding of current problems and for hope in the future. Doris Y. KadishTable of ContentsIntroduction Race and Voice in the Archives: Mediated Testimony and Interracial Commerce in Saint-Domingue PART ONE: Voicing the Political Sphere Chapter 1 Toussaint Louverture, “Spin Doctor”? The Politics of Media in the Haitian Revolution Chapter 2 Dessalines’ American Proclamations of the Haitian Independence Chapter 3 Before Malcolm X, Dessalines: A French-Language Tradition of Black Atlantic Radicalism Chapter 4 Dessalines’ Anticolonial Imperialism: Santo Domingo, Trinidad, Venezuela Chapter 5 Kidnapped Narratives: The Lost Heir of Henry Christophe and the Imagined Communities of the African Diaspora PART TWO: Voicing the Libertine Sphere Chapter 6 Traumatic Indigeneity: The (Anti)Colonial Politics of “Having” A Creole Literary Culture Chapter 7 Mimetic Mastery and Colonial Mimicry: The Candio in the Popular Creole Literary Tradition Chapter 8 Dissing Rivals, Love for Sale: The Cocotte’s Rap and the Not-So Tragic Mulatta

Read more less

Book SynopsisBetween 1500 and 1870, millions of Africans were transported across the Atlantic by European traders to work as slaves in the Americas. They were shipped in conditions of great cruelty to lead lives of hard, unremitting labour, subject to degradation and violence. The products of their labour – primarily sugar, coffee and tobacco – were sent back to Europe and the profits derived from slavery helped fuel European economic development in the 18th and 19th centuries. The cost in lives and human suffering was enormous. First published to accompany a permanent gallery in the Merseyside Maritime Museum, this reissue of Transatlantic Slavery with new material documents this era through essays on women in slavery, the impact on West and Central Africa, and the African view of the slave trade. Richly illustrated, it reveals how the slave trade shaped the history of three continents—Africa, the Americas, and Europe—and how all of us continue to live with its consequences.Trade Review…very readable collection of articles from leading experts in the field of slavery studies. Walvin’s account of the move towards abolition makes particularly pertinent reading as we approach the 2007 bicentenary of the ending of the slave trade in Britain, but perhaps most relevant are the essays on how, and why, we should commemorate this difficult aspect of our history. David Musgrove, BBC History magazineThe essays consistently challenge the lay reader to reconsider received wisdom about slavery and its consequences, and cause the specialist to rethink approaches to primary sources, the categories we use, and the meaning of our research… a good introduction to the questions and themes that drive scholarship about the waxing and waning of the international enslavement of Africans. Anna S. Agbe-Davies, Department of Anthropology, DePaul UniversityTable of Contents Contents Foreword – Reverend Jesse Jackson What is slavery? A history of transatlantic slavery African pasts Why Africans? Why slavery? Operation of the slave trade Liverpool: Capital of the transatlantic slave trade Reasons for Liverpool’s success Economic benefits of slavery Tropical goods and the rise of the consumer society Enslavement and the Middle Passage The Middle Passage: voyage through death Impact on Africa Life and death in the Americas Sale and ‘seasoning’ Chattel slavery Plantation life Pioneers of the Americas Resistance Maroons Pro-slavery arguments The end of slavery Abolition of the British slave trade Freedom in the Americas The legacy of slavery Racism The fight for civil rights Global inequalities Since colonisation Reparations Cultural transformations ‘The sun never sets on the children of Africa’ An unquenchable spirit The International Slavery Musuem Further Reading Museums and websites to visit Acknowledgements

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1833 Thomas Fowell Buxton, the parliamentary successor to William Wilberforce, proposed a toast to ‘the anti-slavery tutor of us all. - Mr. Macaulay.’ Yet Zachary Macaulay’s considerable contribution to the ending of slavery in the British Empire has received scant recognition by historians. This book seeks to fill that gap, focussing on his involvement with slavery and anti-slavery but also examining the people and events that influenced him in his life’s work. It traces his Scottish roots and his torrid account of years as a young overseer on a Jamaican plantation. His accidental stumbling into the anti-slavery circle through a family marriage led to formative years in the government of the free colony of Sierra Leone dealing with settlers, slave traders, local chiefs and a French invasion. His return to Britain in 1799 began nearly forty years of research, writing, and reporting in the long campaign to get rid of what he described as ‘this foul stain on the nation.’ James Stephen rated him as the most feared and hated foe of slave interests. His weaknesses and failures are explored alongside his unswerving commitment to the cause to which he gave his energy, sacrificed his business interests, and saw as a natural result of his strong religious faith. This book is a result of extensive research of Macaulay’s own prolific writings and seeks to illustrate the man behind them, his passions and his prejudices, his steely resolve and his personal shyness, above all his willingness to work unremittingly in the background, generating the power to drive the engine of anti-slavery to victory.Trade ReviewA solidly researched and well written book that provides a much needed modern critical biographical study on the forgotten abolitionist, Zachary Macaulay. Catherine Hall, University College LondonThis is an overdue, fascinating and carefully researched account of one of Scotland’s unsung heroes.Lord David Steel, former Presiding Officer of the Scottish ParliamentTable of Contents Foreword Acknowledgements Abbreviations List of Illustrations Chronology Introduction 1. From Inverary to the Sierra Leone River 2. Slave Traders and French Invaders 3. Captive in Love--to Selina Mills 4. The Trials of the Governor 5. Caught in a Multitude of Tasks 6. Clapham, Family and Friends 7. Attempting to Win France for Abolition 8. 'Let Us Look it Up in Macaulay'--The Anti-Slavery Arms Manufacturer 9. Commerce and Conflict 10. Triumph and Tragedy on the Path to Glory 11. As Others Saw Him--As We Might Assess Him Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisApparently innocuous, sugar is a substance which brings with it a profound disquiet, not least because of its direct links with the histories of slavery in the New World. These links have long been a source of critical fascination, generating several landmark analyses, ranging from Fernando Ortis’s Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar (1940) and Noël Deerr’s monumental two-volume The History of Sugar (1949-50) to Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (1985). Unlike previous texts, Plasa’s meticulously researched book not only examines the traditional classic studies but also the hitherto largely ignored work produced by a number of expatriate Caribbean authors, both male and female, from the 1980s onwards. As a result Slaves to Sweetness provides the most comprehensive account to date of the historical transformations which sugar’s representation has undergone, providing a rich resource for scholars in Slavery, Caribbean, Black Atlantic, Postcolonial and Literary Studies.Trade ReviewSlaves to Sweetness is an important addition to the fields of postcolonial studies and of contemporary black writing: indeed, one of the most important connections it makes is to link them. Rich in perceptive close reading and razor-sharp insight, this is an important addition to the reading of all these texts, but also to the ‘reading’ of sugar.The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 61, No. 249Elegantly written and informative with many new insights.Charlotte Sussman, Duke UniversityCarla Plasa’s Slaves to Sweetness: British and Caribbean Literatures of Sugar offers a more refined (excuse the pun) and refreshing take on movement and migration within a Caribbean and black British context.Year's Work in Critical and Cultural TheoryTable of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1. ‘Muse Suppress the tale’: James Grainger’s The Sugar-Cane and the poetry of refinement 2. ‘Stained with Spots of Human Blood’: Sugar, abolition and cannibalism 3. ‘Conveying away the Trash’: Sweetening Slavery in Matthew Lewis’s Journal of a West India Proprietor, kept during a residence in the Island of Jamaica 4. ‘Sugared almonds and pink Lozenges’: George Eliot’s ‘Brother Jacob’ as Literary Confection 5. ‘Cane is a Slaver’: Sugar Men and Sugar Women in postcolonial Caribbean poetry 6. ‘Daughters Sacrificed to Strangers’: Interracial desires and intertextual memories in Caryl Phillips’s Cambridge 7. ‘Somebody Kill Somebody, Then?’: The sweet revenge of Austin Clarke’s The Polished Hoe Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis‘There are no two things in the world more different from each other than East-Indian and West Indian-slavery’ (Robert Inglis, House of Commons Debate, 1833). In Slavery, Abolitionism and Empire in India, 1772–1843, Andrea Major asks why, at a time when East India Company expansion in India, British abolitionism and the missionary movement were all at their height, was the existence of slavery in India so often ignored, denied or excused? By exploring Britain's ambivalent relationship with both real and imagined slaveries in India, and the official, evangelical and popular discourses which surrounded them, she seeks to uncover the various political, economic and ideological agendas that allowed East Indian slavery to be represented as qualitatively different from its trans-Atlantic counterpart. In doing so, she uncovers tensions in the relationship between colonial policy and the so-called 'civilising mission', elucidating the intricate interactions between humanitarian movements, colonial ideologies and imperial imperatives in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The work draws on a range of sources from Britain and India to provide a trans-national perspective on this little known facet of the story of slavery and abolition in the British Empire, uncovering the complex ways in which Indian slavery was encountered, discussed, utilised, rationalised, and reconciled with the economic, political and moral imperatives of an empire whose focus was shifting to the East.Trade ReviewReviews 'A most impressive work of scholarship which will come to occupy a major and important niche in this area.' Stanley Engerman'This will remain the standard history of British abolitionism and Indian slavery for years to come.' Enrico Dal Lago, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol 55, 4'This will remain the standard history of British abolitionism and Indian slavery for years to come.'Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol 55, Issue 4Table of Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Glossary Some Prominent Figures in the British Parliament, the Abolitionist Movement and the East India Company Part I. Other Slaveries Introduction 1. ‘To Call a Slave a Slave’: Recovering Indian Slavery Part II. European Slaveries Introduction: Slavery and Colonial Expansion in India 2. ‘A Shameful and Ruinous Trade’: European Slave-trafficking and the East India Company 3. Bengalis, Caffrees and Malays: European Slave-holding and Early Colonial Society Part III. Indian Slaveries Introduction: Locating Indian Slaveries 4. ‘This Household Servitude’: Domestic Slavery and Immoral Commerce 5. ‘Open and Professed Stealers of Children’: Slave-trafficking and the Boundaries of the Colonial State Part IV. Imagined Slaveries Introduction: Evangelical Connections 7. ‘Satan’s Wretched Slaves’: Indian Society and the Evangelical Imagination 8. ‘The Produce of the East by Free Men’: Indian Sugar and Indian Slavery in British Abolitionist Debates, 1793–1833 Conclusion: ‘Do Justice to India’: Abolitionists and Indian Slavery, 1839–1843 Select Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Haitian Revolution has generated responses from commentators in fields ranging from philosophy to historiography to twentieth-century literary and artistic studies. But what about the written work produced at the time, by Haitians? This book is the first to present an account of a specifically Haitian literary tradition in the Revolutionary era. Beyond the Slave Narrative shows the emergence of two strands of textual innovation, both evolving from the new revolutionary consciousness: the remarkable political texts produced by Haitian revolutionary leaders Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and popular Creole poetry from anonymous courtesans in Saint-Domingue's libertine culture. These textual forms, though they differ from each other, both demonstrate the increasing cultural autonomy and literary voice of non-white populations in the colony at the time of revolution. Unschooled generals and courtesans, long presented as voiceless, are at last revealed to be legitimate speakers and authors. These Haitian French and Creole texts have been neglected as a foundation of Afro-diasporic literature by former slaves in the Atlantic world for two reasons: because they do not fit the generic criteria of the slave narrative (which is rooted in the autobiographical experience of enslavement); and because they are mediated texts, relayed to the print-cultural Atlantic domain not by the speakers themselves, but by secretaries or refugee colonists. These texts challenge how we think about authorial voice, writing, print culture, and cultural autonomy in the context of the formerly enslaved, and demand that we reassess our historical understanding of the Haitian Independence and its relationship to an international world of contemporary readers.Trade ReviewColonial and postcolonial studies will gain significant new breadth and depth with the publication of Deborah Jenson’s Beyond the Slave Narrative: Sex, Politics, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution. This pathbreaking book brings to light the rich but largely neglected Francophone record of black literacy from the late eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Rectifying the anglocentric view that slave narratives were the only or most authentic form of black voices from the past, Jenson provides probing analyses of Creole poetry, political discourse, and other materials. Deeply committed to improving present-day conditions in Haiti, Jenson finds in the cultural heritage of the past the basis for a fuller understanding of current problems and for hope in the future. Doris Y. KadishTable of ContentsIntroduction Race and Voice in the Archives: Mediated Testimony and Interracial Commerce in Saint-Domingue PART ONE: Voicing the Political Sphere Chapter 1 Toussaint Louverture, “Spin Doctor”? The Politics of Media in the Haitian Revolution Chapter 2 Dessalines’ American Proclamations of the Haitian Independence Chapter 3 Before Malcolm X, Dessalines: A French-Language Tradition of Black Atlantic Radicalism Chapter 4 Dessalines’ Anticolonial Imperialism: Santo Domingo, Trinidad, Venezuela Chapter 5 Kidnapped Narratives: The Lost Heir of Henry Christophe and the Imagined Communities of the African Diaspora PART TWO: Voicing the Libertine Sphere Chapter 6 Traumatic Indigeneity: The (Anti)Colonial Politics of “Having” A Creole Literary Culture Chapter 7 Mimetic Mastery and Colonial Mimicry: The Candio in the Popular Creole Literary Tradition Chapter 8 Dissing Rivals, Love for Sale: The Cocotte’s Rap and the Not-So Tragic Mulatta

Read more less

Book SynopsisFathers, Daughters, and Slaves brings to life the unique contribution by French women during the early nineteenth century, a key period in the history of colonialism and slavery. The book enriches our understanding of French and Atlantic history in the revolutionary and postrevolutionary years when Haiti was menaced with the re-establishment of slavery and when class, race, and gender identities were being renegotiated. It offers in-depth readings of works by Germaine de Staël, Claire de Duras, and Marceline Desbordes-Valmore. In addition to these now canonical French authors, it calls attention to the lives and works of two lesser-known but important figures—Charlotte Dard and Sophie Doin. Approaching these five women through the prism of paternal authority, Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves explores the empathy that daughters show toward blacks as well as their resistance against the oppression exercised by male colonists and other authority figures. The works by these French women antislavery writers bear significant similarities, which the book explores, with twentieth and twenty-first century Francophone texts. These women’s contributions allow us to move beyond the traditional boundaries of exclusively male accounts by missionaries, explorers, functionaries, and military or political figures. They remind us of the imperative for ever-renewed gender research in the colonial archive and the need to expand conceptions of French women’s writing in the nineteenth century as being a small minority corpus. Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves contributes to an understanding of colonial fiction, Caribbean writing, romanticism, and feminism. It undercuts neat distinctions between the cultures of France and its colonies and between nineteenth and twentieth-century Francophone writing.Trade ReviewReviews'Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves explores a fascinating corpus of texts that straddle French and colonial history. It contains many wonderfully narrated passages that convey Kadish’s commitment to telling the story of empire “from below".' H-France Review Vol. 13, No. 192'Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves is a valuable contribution to scholars committed to illuminating the gender issues at play in the understanding of white and black women in the French and Francophone colonial and postcolonial world.' New West Indian Guide, 88Table of Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Patriarchy and Abolition: Germaine de Stael 2. Fathers and Colonization: Charlotte Dard 3. Daughters and Paternalism: Marceline Desbordes-Valmore 4. Voices of Daughters and Slaves: Claire de Duras 5. Uniting Black and White Families: Sophie Doin Postscript Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisFrom Ireland, England, France, Austria, Greece, Turkey and Italy to America and the West Indies, overflowing with historic events, from the French Revolution to the Great Irish Famine, with a cast of the famous and infamous, Howe Peter Browne, 2nd Marquess of Sligo, lived life to the absolute limits. Privileged yet compassionate, charismatic yet flawed, Regency Buck, Irish landlord, West Indian plantation owner, Knight of St Patrick, Privy Counsellor, intrepid traveller, intimate of kings, emperors and despots, favoured guest in the fashionable salons of London and Paris, patron of artists and pugilists, founder of the Irish Turf Club, friend and fellow traveller of Lord Byron, treasure-seeker, spy, sailor and jailbird, as well as the father of fifteen children, the astonishing range and diversity of Sligo’s life is breathtaking. From a youth of hedonistic self-indulgence in Regency England to a reforming, responsible, well-intentioned legislator and landlord, Sligo became enshrined in the history of Jamaica as ‘Emancipator of the Slaves’ and in Ireland as ‘The Poor Man’s Friend’ during the most difficult of times. Eight years in the writing and sourced from over 15,000 primary contemporary manuscripts located by the author in private and public archives around the world, From Rake to Radical sheds new light on significant historical events and on the people who shaped them in Ireland, England, Europe and the West Indies during a period of momentous political turbulence and change.Trade ReviewAnne Chambers [has] that rare quality of seeing feeling and understanding the period she writes about as if she were a contemporary. * Irish Independent *A vivid and picturesque study. -- The Irish Times

Read more less

Book Synopsis`When we strove to blot out the stain of slavery and advance the rights of man,’ President Obama declared in Dublin in 2011, `we found common cause with your struggle against oppression. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and our great abolitionist, forged an unlikely friendship right here in Dublin with your great liberator, Daniel O’Connell.’ Frederick Douglass arrived in Ireland in the summer of 1845, the start of a two-year lecture tour of Britain and Ireland to champion freedom from slavery. He had been advised to leave America after the publication of his incendiary attack on slavery, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Douglass spent four transformative months in Ireland, filling halls with eloquent denunciations of slavery and causing controversy with graphic descriptions of slaves being tortured. He also shared a stage with Daniel O’Connell and took the pledge from the `apostle of temperance’ Fr Mathew. Douglass delighted in the openness with which he was received, but was shocked at the poverty he encountered. This compelling account of the celebrated escaped slave’s tour of Ireland combines a unique insight into the formative years of one of the great figures of nineteenth-century America with a vivid portrait of a country on the brink of famine.Trade ReviewFenton's style is informative and refreshingly unfussy. * The Irish Times *Compelling. * Ireland's Own *In this study Laurence Fenton provides both a splendid portrait of "the Black O'Connell" and a fascinating account of the interplay of events in the US and Ireland at that time. * The Irish Catholic *In Fenton's scholarly but immensely readable new book Douglass's travels in Ireland are reproduced with a novelistic eye for the telling detail. * Irish Voice *Well-written and researched. * Reviews in History *

Read more less

Book SynopsisAfter West Indian slavery was abolished in 1833, the campaign turned to the wider world and the goal of Universal Emancipation. Veteran agitators Joseph Sturge, Lord Brougham and John Scoble launched the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society at a world convention in 1840.Throughout its long history the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was instrumental in framing Britain's diplomatic policy of promoting anti-slavery -- a policy that projected moral authority over allies and rivals, through naval power and international tribunals.The BFASS pushed for, and prepared the 1890 Brussels conference that divided Africa between the European powers, on the grounds of fighting Arab slavers. The Society was torn between its belief in the civilising mission of Europeans, and its brief to protect Africans. Rubber slavery in the Belgian Congo, indentured 'coolies' in the Empire, and forced labour in British Africa tested the Society's goals of civilising the world.This first comprehensive history of the Society draws on 120 years of anti-slavery publications, like the Anti-Slavery Reporter, to explain its unique status as the first international human rights organisation; and explains the Society's surprising attitudes to the Confederate secession, the 'Coolies', and the colonisation of Africa.Trade ReviewA very readable book by an accomplished author who handles narrative, argument and analysis with admirable clarity. The work of the Society and the zeitgeist which powered it is a remarkable story and Heartfield’s is a significant contribution to our understanding of an important strand of British social and intellectual history. * Richard Rathbone, emeritus professor and professorial research associate at SOAS, London; co-author of African History: A Very Short Introduction *The most comprehensive history yet of an organisation that laid foundations for Britain’s philanthropic interventions overseas. Heartfield enables us to see how antislavery activists saw themselves reforming the world, while also hinting at their often unintended effects. This is a vital resource for anyone grappling with the complicated legacies of Britain’s Empire. * Alan Lester, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Sussex *This is an excellent book which narrates for the first time, and in fine-grain detail, the works, ideals, tensions and shifts of the Anti-Slavery Society – as the author rightly suggests, the first and longest standing “civil society organisation”. Enthusiastically recommended. * Robbie Shilliam, Reader in International Relations, Queen Mary University of London; author of The Black Pacific: Anticolonial Struggles and Oceanic Connections *Heartfield’s important and meticulously-documented account shows clearly how the intertwining of ideals and interests in the original abolitionist movement produced the convergence of liberal anti-slavery and British imperialism in the following century. * Nicholas Draper, University College London, author of Legacies of British Slave-ownership: Colonial Slavery and the Formation of Victorian Britain *A landmark study . . . that is impressive in its scale and ambition. His detailed analysis . . . is a model of clarity . . . impressive in its grasp of detail. Heartfield's thoughtful and illuminating study will be of obvious interest to students and scholars alike. Readable and accessible, The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1838-1956 is an important book that is likely to become the standard history of what is rightly regarded as the first international human rights organization in the world. -- Professor Oldfield

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Slave Coast, situated in what is now the West African state of Benin, was the epicentre of the Atlantic Slave Trade. But it was also an inhospitable, surf-ridden coastline, subject to crashing breakers and devoid of permanent human settlement. Nor was it easily accessible from the interior due to a lagoon which ran parallel to the coast. The local inhabitants were not only sheltered against incursions from the sea, but were also locked off from it. Yet, paradoxically, it was this coastline that witnessed a thriving long-term commercial relation-ship between Europeans and Africans, based on the trans-Atlantic slave trade. How did it come about? How was it all organised? And how did the locals react to the opportunities these new trading relations offered them? The Kingdom of Dahomey is usually cited as the Slave Coast's archetypical slave raiding and slave trading polity. An inland realm, it was a latecomer to the slave trade, and simply incorporated a pre-existing system by dint of military prowess, which ultimately was to prove radically counterproductive. Fuglestad's book seeks to explain the Dahomean 'anomaly' and its impact on the Slave Coast's societies and polities.Trade Review'A well-paced narrative that is grounded in rich archives, attention to technical and infrastructural details, and rich secondary literature. The book successfully stresses the agency of Africans, those invited to participate in selling their fellow citizens, and connects its core issues to larger debates on commerce and profit, motivation and morality, activities and outcomes' -- Toyin Falola'This study obliges us to rethink many assumptions about the Atlantic slave trade and precolonial African societies. Reminding us how limited our historical knowledge of the Slave Coast is, Fuglestad nevertheless succeeds in presenting a plausible account of why so many Africans chose to participate in the "South Atlantic system".' -- Professor Adam Jones'Fuglestad confronts the uncomfortable fact that the abhorrent Atlantic slave trade was, in many respects, a series of transactions as well as a sequence of atrocities. This is a major contribution to African and Atlantic history based on painstaking archival research and a long-term scholarly engagement with the history of the region.' -- Richard Rathbone

Read more less

Book SynopsisAt the height of the debate about the slave trade and its abolition in the 1780s and ’90s, each side issued pamphlets in support of its position. This publication reproduces a selection of representative pamphlets encompassing the arguments put forward by each side. The pamphlets discuss many of the issues including humanitarianism and the Rights of Man, the economic well-being of Britain’s colonial territories in the aftermath of the loss of the American colonies, the state of the British merchant marine and the Royal Navy, the condition of the poor in England, and, not least, the economic and moral condition of the slaves themselves, not only in the West Indies but also in Africa. Both sides drew freely on scriptural sources to support their case, thus providing a fascinating sidelight on theological debate of the time. The book includes pamphlets written by the Duke of Clarence, later King William IV, and by Sir John Gladstone (father of the Prime Minister) in support of the trade, and sets these against the leading abolitionists such as Wilberforce. It also includes a transcript of part of the unpublished journal of James Ramsay, a well-known abolitionist, in which he provides model answers for abolitionists asked to testify before a committee of enquiry. The introduction explains the background to each pamphlet and sets them in their collective historical and social context. Illustrated by the well-known engraving of the slaver Brookes, and by plans of Cape Coast slave castles, this book is a culturally fascinating read and will become a valuable source-book for students and scholars alike.Trade Review"On the 200th anniversary of the act of the British Parliament abolishing the slave trade, Oxford University's Bodleian Library has reprinted 14 pamphlets from its collection of abolition materials. . . . Of particular interest are the two pamphlets taking contradictory positions based on biblical evidence. . . . Recommended."—R. T. Brown, ChoiceTable of ContentsIntroduction The Case of our Fellow-Creatures, the Oppressed Africans, Respetfully Recommended to the Serious Consideration of the Legislature of Great-Britain, by the People called Quakers. London, 1784. An Inquiry into the Effects of Putting a Stop to the African Slave Trade, and of Granting Liberty to the Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies. By the Author of the Essay on the Treatment and Conversation of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies. London, 1784. The Substance of the Evidence of Sundry Persons on the Slave-Trade Collected in the Course of a Tour made in the autumn of the year 1788. [by Thomas Clarkson] London, 1789. Notebook of the Rev. James Ramsay Scriptural Researches on the Licitness of the Slave-Trade, Shewing its Conformity with the Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, delineated in the Sacred Writings of the Word of God. By the Rev. R. Harris. Liverpool, 1788. Examinations of The Rev. Mr. Harris's Scriptural Researches on the Licitness of the Slave Trade. By the Rev. James Ramsay. London, 1788. The Abolition of the Slave Trade Considered in a Religious Point of View. A Sermon Preached Before the Corporation of the City of Oxford, at St. Martin's Church, on Sunday, February 3, 1788. By William Agutter, M.A. of St. Mary Magdalen College. London, 1788. An Appeal to Candour and Common Sense, Respectfully Addressed, to the Members of both Houses of Parliament, and the Community at Large. By an Individual of Little Note. [n.p,] 1789. The True State of the Question, Addressed to the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. By a plain man, who signed the petition at Derby, London, 1792. An Address to the Inhabitants of Glasgow, Paisley, and the Neighbourhood, Concerning the African Slave Trade. By a Society in Glasgow, Glasgow, 1791. Substance of the Speech of his Royal Highness The Duke of Clarence, in the House of Lords, on the Motion for the Recommitment of the Slave Trade Limitation Bill, on the fifth day of July, 1799. London, 1799. 4th edition. Letters Concerning the Abolition of the Slave-Trade and other West-India Affairs. By Mercator, London, 1807. List of illustrations.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWritten by the world's leading experts and campaigners, Modern Slavery: A Beginner's Guide blends original research with shocking first-hand accounts from slaves themselves around the world to reveal the truth behind one of the worst humanitarian crises facing us today. Only a handful of slaves are reached and freed each year, but the authors offer hope for the future with a global blueprint that proposes to end slavery in our lifetime All royalties will go to Free the Slaves.Trade Review"What is needed is nothing less than a new abolition movement, led by campaigners as determined as Douglass or Wilberforce. This timely and important book is its rallying call." * The Times *

Read more less

Book SynopsisStowe's second anti-slavery novel is a primary text for students of literature and history - less well-known but now more pertinent than Uncle Tom's Cabin. This vigorous and compulsive read combines thought-provoking themes, rich characterisation, satire and sentiment.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis is the true story of Louisa Carolina Colleton, whose tale could have flown from the pages of a gothic novel. In 1777, at the age of fourteen, after many adventures, the beautiful heiress inherited valuable estates on two sides of the Atlantic. As in every good gothic novel, Louisa's father died, and having been deserted by her mother, she went to live with her maternal uncle in his early Tudor manor in the depths of the Devon countryside. Eight years later she left England to salvage her inheritance, a journey which took her to the Bahamas, and then to South Carolina. On her return to England she married a dashing naval officer, with whom she had ten children. Her affairs were much commented on at the time by relations and friends: we can occasionally be privy to the chaos around her dining table, or her distress at the death of one of her children. She had another traumatic adventure on the Atlantic at the age of thirty-five, when her ship was captured by French privateers. Over the years, despite her best endeavours, her fortune was demolished by the American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, corrupt lawyers, fraudulent deeds, a spendthrift husband and profligate son.Table of Contents1. The Sovereign Lords Proprietors 2. Tell Mamma 3. Spurious Issue 4. Blue Gold 5. Mournful Event 6. It is all Over 7. Perfectly Fruitless 8. Hands of Kings 9. Our Little Queen 10. A Stranger in My Native Land 11. A Poor Match 12. Disallowed 13. 'Artillery of tears' 14. Cargo of Rice 15. Captured 16. Joy to Agony 17. Dark Scene 18. Upon Velvet 19. Corrupt Jobs 20. Trammels of Debt 21. Impossible 22. Forgery 23. Verses on the Cat 24. Heap of Dust Epilogue Postscript - The Yellow Portrait Acknowledgments Family Trees Select Bibliography

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis new collection of essays based upon a conference at the University of Huddersfield, generously supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, explores the links between Richard Oastlers extraordinarily influential campaign against child labour in Yorkshire after 1830 and the remarkably successful campaign to abolish the transatlantic slave trade led by Yorkshire MP William Wilberforce before 1807. With contributions from D. Colin Dews, Dr John Halstead, Dr John A. Hargreaves, Dr Janette Martin, Professor Edward Royle and Professor James Walvin, it evaluates the distinctively Yorkshire context of both movements and offers a re-assessment of Oastlers contribution to their success. It reveals how Oastlers associations with both evangelical Anglicanism and Nonconformity, especially Methodism, stimulated and sustained his involvement in the ten-hour factory movement and examines the role of the regional press, local grass-roots organisation and Oastlers powerful oratory in helping to secure a successful outcome to the campaign. In a foreword, the Revd Dr Inderjit Bhogal, a leading figure in both the regional and national commemoration of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 2007, commends this wide-ranging historical study with its broad perspective as an important contribution to making us all more informed on the whole theme of slavery today.Table of ContentsForeword; Preface; Acknowledgements; List of illustrations; Introduction: 'Victims of slavery even on the threshold of our homes'; William Wilberforce, Yorkshire and the campaign to end transatlantic slavery 1787-1838; Richard Oastler: the Methodist background, 1789-1838; The Huddersfield Short Time Committee and its radical associations, c.1820-1876; Oastler's Yorkshire Slavery campaign in 1830-32; 'Oastler is welcome': Richard Oastler's triumphant return to Huddersfield, 1844; Treading on the edge of revolution?' Richard Oastler (1789-1861): a reassessment; Notes on contributors; Index.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis is an account of the years 1820 to 1865 in the life of Malindy, a freeborn Cherokee who was unlawfully enslaved as a child by a Franklin County, Missouri, farmer. Married to a freedman, Malindy gave birth to five children in slavery - creating a family she would fight her whole life to keep together. As a testament to Malindy's iron will, her great-granddaughters Mildred Johnson and Theresa Delsoin have lived to share the story passed on through their family for generations - a story of courage, conviction, and love. In Malindy's Freedom: A Slave Narrative, Johnson and Delsoin construct a narrative that realistically re-creates Malindy's world - the individuals she encountered, the crucibles she faced, the battles she won. The authors relied principally on census records, along with other primary and secondary sources, to document their great-grandmother's experience as told to them by their grandmother. Malindy's story of the ""peculiar institution"" of slavery is unique: It makes clear that the African American experience derives from Native American and European, as well as African, roots. The beauty of Malindy's Freedom is the authors' appreciation of their ancestors as human beings who did the best they could for their families under inhuman conditions. Edited by Stuart Symington, Jr., Malindy's Freedom brings truth and humanity to one of American history's darkest hours. Yet, as a tale of abiding faith and steadfast love for one's family, Malindy's story is the story of every family that has ever struggled to survive and has ultimately been the stronger for it.

Read more less

Book SynopsisJohn R. Jewitt''s story of being captured and enslaved by Maquinna, the great chief of the Mowachaht people, is both an adventure tale of survival and an unusual perspective on the First Nations of the northwest coast of Vancouver Island. On March 22, 1803, while anchored in Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the Boston was attacked by a group of Mowachaht warriors. Twenty-five of her 27 crewmen were massacred, their heads "arranged in a line" for survivor John R. Jewitt to identify. Jewitt and another survivor, John Thompson, became 2 of some 50 slaves owned by the chief known as Maquinna. Among other duties, they were forced to carry wood for three miles and fight for Maquinna when he slaughtered a neighbouring tribe. But their worst fear came from knowing that slaves could be killed whenever their master chose. Since most of the Mowachaht wanted the two whites dead, they never knew what would come first--freedom or death. After Jewitt was rescued, following 28 months in captivity, he wrote a book of his experiences. It appeared in 1815 and became known as Jewitt''s Narrative. It proved so popular that it is still being reprinted today.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisJoaquim Nabuco, for more than three decades a dominant figure in the literary, intellectual and political life of Brazil, was born in Recife in the country's Northeast in 1849 and died in Washington in 1910. He was what we would now call a public intellectual, indeed given that he spent half his adult life in Europe and the United States a trans-national public intellectual and from a country on the periphery of the world system. Nabuco is best known as the inspirational leader of the campaign in the 1880s for the abolition of slavery in Brazil, which after abolition in the United States and Cuba was the last remaining slave state in the Americas. Eighteen months after slavery was finally ended in 1888 the Brazilian Empire was overthrown and Nabuco, a committed monarchist, believing--wrongly--that his public career was over (from 1899 until his death he was to serve the Republic with distinction as Brazilian minister in London and Brazil's first ambassador to the Washington), devoted himself in 'internal exile' to writing, including a series of newspaper articles on his education, his early intellectual development, his discovery of the world outside Brazil and his life as a young diplomat and politician. These articles, together with some later additions, were published as Minha Formacao (My Formative Years) in 1900. In twenty six chapters Nabuco examines (though not in chronological order): the first eight years of his life in Massangana, a sugar plantation in Pernambuco worked by slaves and his return there, as a student aged twenty, which he claimed determined his decision to devote himself to the abolition of slavery in Brazil; his education in the Law Faculties in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo; the influence of Walter Bagehot s The English Constitution (1867) on his political thinking; his introduction to French literature and history (besides Portuguese he wrote his first poems and plays in French); his first visit to Europe in 1873-4, primarily a Grand Tour of Italy and France but ending in London where, he wrote, he was touched by the beginnings of anglomania (he was to visit and reside in London on seven separate occasions during the next 20 year before his six years as Brazilian minister there); his two years (1876-8) as attache in the Brazilian legations in Washington and London; the beginning of his political career in Pernambuco, contesting and winning election to the Chamber of Deputies in 1878 at the age of 29 and becoming a self-styled 'English liberal in the Brazilian Parliament'; the influence of English and North American abolitionists on his thinking about slavery and abolition; and the eventually successful parliamentary struggle to end slavery. A concluding chapter ('The last ten years 1889-1899') briefly considers his life after the abolition of slavery and the fall of the Empire.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less