Andrew Pearson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781382837
- eISBN:
- 9781781383957
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781382837.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, African Studies
This book is an examination of the South Atlantic island of St Helena’s involvement in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. In the decades after 1807, British anti-slavery revolved around ...
More
This book is an examination of the South Atlantic island of St Helena’s involvement in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. In the decades after 1807, British anti-slavery revolved around Sierra Leone, but following the establishment of a British Vice-Admiralty court at St Helena in 1840, this dynamic radically changed. The island became a new hub of naval activity in the region, acting as a base for the West Africa Squadron and a principal receiving depot for captured slave ships and their human cargo. During the middle decades of the nineteenth century over 25,000 ‘recaptive’ or liberated Africans were landed at St Helena. This book provides an account and evaluation of this episode. It begins by considering the geo-political events that brought St Helena into the fray of abolition, and the manner in which colonial policy set in London meshed with practical reality in the distant South Atlantic. The greater part of the book focuses closely on St Helena. It examines the relationship between the Royal Navy and the island during this period of slave-tradesuppression, the operation of the ‘depots’ that were set up to receive the liberated Africans, and the medical treatment that was afforded to them. The lives of the survivors, both in the immediate and longer-term, is also considered, from the limited settlement that occurred on St Helena, to their wider diaspora across the Atlantic world.Less
This book is an examination of the South Atlantic island of St Helena’s involvement in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. In the decades after 1807, British anti-slavery revolved around Sierra Leone, but following the establishment of a British Vice-Admiralty court at St Helena in 1840, this dynamic radically changed. The island became a new hub of naval activity in the region, acting as a base for the West Africa Squadron and a principal receiving depot for captured slave ships and their human cargo. During the middle decades of the nineteenth century over 25,000 ‘recaptive’ or liberated Africans were landed at St Helena. This book provides an account and evaluation of this episode. It begins by considering the geo-political events that brought St Helena into the fray of abolition, and the manner in which colonial policy set in London meshed with practical reality in the distant South Atlantic. The greater part of the book focuses closely on St Helena. It examines the relationship between the Royal Navy and the island during this period of slave-tradesuppression, the operation of the ‘depots’ that were set up to receive the liberated Africans, and the medical treatment that was afforded to them. The lives of the survivors, both in the immediate and longer-term, is also considered, from the limited settlement that occurred on St Helena, to their wider diaspora across the Atlantic world.
Lacy K. Ford, Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195118094
- eISBN:
- 9780199870936
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195118094.003.0017
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter details the broader southern reaction to the abolition mail and petition campaigns crafted by the American Anti-slavery Society. Spreading alarm and producing a call for unity and ...
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This chapter details the broader southern reaction to the abolition mail and petition campaigns crafted by the American Anti-slavery Society. Spreading alarm and producing a call for unity and action, particularly in the lower South, the abolition mail campaign struck many whites in the South as nothing short of a terrorist attack on the region, and the mail and petition campaigns together left more white southerners than ever convinced that, at least on the point of abolition, the South had to meet its critics with one voice.Less
This chapter details the broader southern reaction to the abolition mail and petition campaigns crafted by the American Anti-slavery Society. Spreading alarm and producing a call for unity and action, particularly in the lower South, the abolition mail campaign struck many whites in the South as nothing short of a terrorist attack on the region, and the mail and petition campaigns together left more white southerners than ever convinced that, at least on the point of abolition, the South had to meet its critics with one voice.
Barry Crosbie and Mark Hampton (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097898
- eISBN:
- 9781526104403
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097898.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This book collects eleven original essays in the cultural history of the British Empire since the eighteenth century. It is geographically capacious, taking in the United Kingdom, India, West Africa, ...
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This book collects eleven original essays in the cultural history of the British Empire since the eighteenth century. It is geographically capacious, taking in the United Kingdom, India, West Africa, Hong Kong, and Australia, as well as sites of informal British influence such as the Ottoman Empire and southern China. The book considers the ways in which British culture circulated within what John Darwin has called the British “world system”. In this, the book builds on existing imperial scholarship while innovating in several ways: it focuses on the movement of ideas and cultural praxis, whereas Darwin has focused mostly on imperial structures —financial, demographic, and military. The book examines the transmission, reception, and adaptation of British culture in the Metropole, the empire and informal colonial spaces, whereas many recent scholars have considered British imperial influence on the Metropole alone. It examines Britain's Atlantic and Asian imperial experiences from the eighteenth to the twentieth century together. Through focusing on political ideology, literary movements, material culture, marriage, and the construction of national identities, the essays demonstrate the salience of culture in making a “British World”.Less
This book collects eleven original essays in the cultural history of the British Empire since the eighteenth century. It is geographically capacious, taking in the United Kingdom, India, West Africa, Hong Kong, and Australia, as well as sites of informal British influence such as the Ottoman Empire and southern China. The book considers the ways in which British culture circulated within what John Darwin has called the British “world system”. In this, the book builds on existing imperial scholarship while innovating in several ways: it focuses on the movement of ideas and cultural praxis, whereas Darwin has focused mostly on imperial structures —financial, demographic, and military. The book examines the transmission, reception, and adaptation of British culture in the Metropole, the empire and informal colonial spaces, whereas many recent scholars have considered British imperial influence on the Metropole alone. It examines Britain's Atlantic and Asian imperial experiences from the eighteenth to the twentieth century together. Through focusing on political ideology, literary movements, material culture, marriage, and the construction of national identities, the essays demonstrate the salience of culture in making a “British World”.
Ashley Baggett
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496815217
- eISBN:
- 9781496815255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496815217.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
Before the Civil War, southern society defined manhood in part by maintaining control of the family. Neither the courts nor society recognized women’s personhood, but rather defined women under ...
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Before the Civil War, southern society defined manhood in part by maintaining control of the family. Neither the courts nor society recognized women’s personhood, but rather defined women under coverture as dependents of men. As such, men could employ corporal punishment to family members who did not fulfill their roles. With anti-slavery advocates on the rise, criticisms of the brutality of slave owners were met with the idea of paternal benevolence, which sought to soften the institution of slavery, and this carried over into gender expectations. The temperance movement also drew attention to alcoholic husbands who abused their wives and children. Despite the emergence of some legal challenges to intimate partner violence, abuse remained poorly prosecuted, often ending without conviction. Manhood required the submission of dependents, and womanhood required obedience. These constructs stalled any social or legal challenge to the male privilege of chastisement.Less
Before the Civil War, southern society defined manhood in part by maintaining control of the family. Neither the courts nor society recognized women’s personhood, but rather defined women under coverture as dependents of men. As such, men could employ corporal punishment to family members who did not fulfill their roles. With anti-slavery advocates on the rise, criticisms of the brutality of slave owners were met with the idea of paternal benevolence, which sought to soften the institution of slavery, and this carried over into gender expectations. The temperance movement also drew attention to alcoholic husbands who abused their wives and children. Despite the emergence of some legal challenges to intimate partner violence, abuse remained poorly prosecuted, often ending without conviction. Manhood required the submission of dependents, and womanhood required obedience. These constructs stalled any social or legal challenge to the male privilege of chastisement.
James Heartfield
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190491673
- eISBN:
- 9780190662981
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190491673.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
This is the first comprehensive history of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), from its founding in 1838. The Society, set up by Quaker Joseph Sturge and Lord Henry Brougham after ...
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This is the first comprehensive history of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), from its founding in 1838. The Society, set up by Quaker Joseph Sturge and Lord Henry Brougham after the abolition of slavery in the Empire, married the campaigning anti-slavery movement with the British mission to civilize the world. The BFASS took up the cause of slavery practiced by other countries, often rivals, like the United States, France, Spain and Portugal, creating a new model of human rights diplomacy. Championing British rule, though often being critical of government policy, put the society into difficult controversies. The BFASS was so hostile to America that it initially welcomed the secession and then later took up the cause of Morant Bay rebels in Jamaica, pressing for Governor Eyre’s prosecution. With the closing of the Atlantic slave trade the Society turned to East Africa and the Arab slave traders working out of Zanzibar. It was a turn that led the BFASS to lobby for colonial rule in Africa as a remedy to slave-trading, so that the Society helped to prepare for, and publicize the 1890 Brussels Conference that carved up Africa. Allied with the colonial project, the Society was severely tested in its humanitarian goals, by the growing knowledge of atrocities committed against native peoples in the colonies.Less
This is the first comprehensive history of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), from its founding in 1838. The Society, set up by Quaker Joseph Sturge and Lord Henry Brougham after the abolition of slavery in the Empire, married the campaigning anti-slavery movement with the British mission to civilize the world. The BFASS took up the cause of slavery practiced by other countries, often rivals, like the United States, France, Spain and Portugal, creating a new model of human rights diplomacy. Championing British rule, though often being critical of government policy, put the society into difficult controversies. The BFASS was so hostile to America that it initially welcomed the secession and then later took up the cause of Morant Bay rebels in Jamaica, pressing for Governor Eyre’s prosecution. With the closing of the Atlantic slave trade the Society turned to East Africa and the Arab slave traders working out of Zanzibar. It was a turn that led the BFASS to lobby for colonial rule in Africa as a remedy to slave-trading, so that the Society helped to prepare for, and publicize the 1890 Brussels Conference that carved up Africa. Allied with the colonial project, the Society was severely tested in its humanitarian goals, by the growing knowledge of atrocities committed against native peoples in the colonies.
Philip Harling
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097898
- eISBN:
- 9781526104403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097898.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This is the story of a culture war that pitted two mid-Victorian shibboleths against each other. By the 1840s, Britons prided themselves on their opposition to slavery, and were quickly coming to ...
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This is the story of a culture war that pitted two mid-Victorian shibboleths against each other. By the 1840s, Britons prided themselves on their opposition to slavery, and were quickly coming to pride themselves no less on their commitment to free trade. Their insatiable appetite for sugar brought these peculiar British values into tension. Thanks to tariff protection, colonial sugar – “free” sugar after Emancipation in the British West Indies in 1833 – enjoyed a near monopoly on the British market. It lost that protection with the 1846 Sugar Duties Act, which opened the British market to Cuban and Brazilian sugar produced by slaves. Slave sugar poured into Britain while fresh slaves poured into Brazil and Cuba, and the British Caribbean fell into socio-economic turmoil. The plantocracy bitterly charged the imperial government of having abandoned not only them, but the freed slaves as well. Rather than being a simple story of how free trade (and the British consumer) beat abolitionism (and the purported interests of former slaves), this is instead a story of how the free trade v. abolition struggle intersected with several other cultural struggles. One is the struggle between planters and sugar monoculture on the one hand and peasant proprietorship and West Indian freedmen on the other. Another is the struggle between planters' socio-economic paternalism and the Whig-liberal government's doctrinaire commitment to “liberating” the consumer. Yet another is a struggle fought out within metropolitan political ranks: one that pitted those who felt abolition could be reconciled with free trade through armed suppression of the slave trade against those who were committed to pacifism and free trade. These struggles ended in a broad stalemate. Free trade's victory over abolition was not as decisive as it might have first seemed. Rather, a balance emerged between them – the sort of uncomfortable truce that ended so many culture wars in the “Age of Equipoise.”Less
This is the story of a culture war that pitted two mid-Victorian shibboleths against each other. By the 1840s, Britons prided themselves on their opposition to slavery, and were quickly coming to pride themselves no less on their commitment to free trade. Their insatiable appetite for sugar brought these peculiar British values into tension. Thanks to tariff protection, colonial sugar – “free” sugar after Emancipation in the British West Indies in 1833 – enjoyed a near monopoly on the British market. It lost that protection with the 1846 Sugar Duties Act, which opened the British market to Cuban and Brazilian sugar produced by slaves. Slave sugar poured into Britain while fresh slaves poured into Brazil and Cuba, and the British Caribbean fell into socio-economic turmoil. The plantocracy bitterly charged the imperial government of having abandoned not only them, but the freed slaves as well. Rather than being a simple story of how free trade (and the British consumer) beat abolitionism (and the purported interests of former slaves), this is instead a story of how the free trade v. abolition struggle intersected with several other cultural struggles. One is the struggle between planters and sugar monoculture on the one hand and peasant proprietorship and West Indian freedmen on the other. Another is the struggle between planters' socio-economic paternalism and the Whig-liberal government's doctrinaire commitment to “liberating” the consumer. Yet another is a struggle fought out within metropolitan political ranks: one that pitted those who felt abolition could be reconciled with free trade through armed suppression of the slave trade against those who were committed to pacifism and free trade. These struggles ended in a broad stalemate. Free trade's victory over abolition was not as decisive as it might have first seemed. Rather, a balance emerged between them – the sort of uncomfortable truce that ended so many culture wars in the “Age of Equipoise.”
Andrew Pearson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781382837
- eISBN:
- 9781781383957
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781382837.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, African Studies
Chapter 2 moves between Britain and the South Atlantic. It investigates the articulations between the Metropolitangovernment and St Helena, and in so doing addresses the balance between text and ...
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Chapter 2 moves between Britain and the South Atlantic. It investigates the articulations between the Metropolitangovernment and St Helena, and in so doing addresses the balance between text and context, and between the island’s Liberated African Establishment and the world outside. It begins by considering the extent to which events on the island were a matter of public and parliamentary knowledge, finding, in fact, that they largely passed without notice. Interest from the media, parliament and the anti-slavery lobby was limited, enabling governance to be almost entirely conducted behind closed doors in Whitehall. It was nevertheless an acrimonious matter for the various departments involved in this small aspect of colonial governance. Their unresolved debate about whether the island was a fit place to receive liberated Africans led to naval instructions that were continuously in flux, and was in large part responsible for the Establishment’s underlying sense of impermanence.Less
Chapter 2 moves between Britain and the South Atlantic. It investigates the articulations between the Metropolitangovernment and St Helena, and in so doing addresses the balance between text and context, and between the island’s Liberated African Establishment and the world outside. It begins by considering the extent to which events on the island were a matter of public and parliamentary knowledge, finding, in fact, that they largely passed without notice. Interest from the media, parliament and the anti-slavery lobby was limited, enabling governance to be almost entirely conducted behind closed doors in Whitehall. It was nevertheless an acrimonious matter for the various departments involved in this small aspect of colonial governance. Their unresolved debate about whether the island was a fit place to receive liberated Africans led to naval instructions that were continuously in flux, and was in large part responsible for the Establishment’s underlying sense of impermanence.
Ismael M. Montana
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813044828
- eISBN:
- 9780813046419
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044828.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
Chapter 5 explores the political background of the prohibition of the slave trade in 1841 and the process of ending slavery in the Regency. It assesses the interaction between the slave trade and ...
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Chapter 5 explores the political background of the prohibition of the slave trade in 1841 and the process of ending slavery in the Regency. It assesses the interaction between the slave trade and European domination after 1816 when Lord Exmouth liberated the western Mediterranean from corsairing activities and abolished Christian slavery in Tunis and Algiers. By the mid-1830s, the traffic in black slaves from Tunis across the Mediterranean rose in tandem with the establishment of European maritime domination in the Mediterranean, prompting Great Britain to pressure Tunis to abolish both the Saharan slave trade and black slavery. Moreover, the political disequilibrium arising from the 1830 French occupation of Algiers also altered the status quo in Tripoli and Tunis and shaped the abolition process in the Regency. On 24 January 1846 slavery was finally abolished in Tunisia.Less
Chapter 5 explores the political background of the prohibition of the slave trade in 1841 and the process of ending slavery in the Regency. It assesses the interaction between the slave trade and European domination after 1816 when Lord Exmouth liberated the western Mediterranean from corsairing activities and abolished Christian slavery in Tunis and Algiers. By the mid-1830s, the traffic in black slaves from Tunis across the Mediterranean rose in tandem with the establishment of European maritime domination in the Mediterranean, prompting Great Britain to pressure Tunis to abolish both the Saharan slave trade and black slavery. Moreover, the political disequilibrium arising from the 1830 French occupation of Algiers also altered the status quo in Tripoli and Tunis and shaped the abolition process in the Regency. On 24 January 1846 slavery was finally abolished in Tunisia.
Millington W. Bergeson-Lockwood
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469640419
- eISBN:
- 9781469640433
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469640419.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter describes the demographic and social landscape of Boston after the Civil War. It explores the Black community’s traditions of political activism and roots in the anti-slavery movement. ...
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This chapter describes the demographic and social landscape of Boston after the Civil War. It explores the Black community’s traditions of political activism and roots in the anti-slavery movement. It highlights the importance of voting to African American conceptions of citizenship and early fights for suffrage.Less
This chapter describes the demographic and social landscape of Boston after the Civil War. It explores the Black community’s traditions of political activism and roots in the anti-slavery movement. It highlights the importance of voting to African American conceptions of citizenship and early fights for suffrage.
James Heartfield
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190491673
- eISBN:
- 9780190662981
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190491673.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
The abolition of slavery in 1833 was half-hearted: former slaves were still forced to work as “apprentices” for their former owners. The anti-slavery movement was divided between the moderate Members ...
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The abolition of slavery in 1833 was half-hearted: former slaves were still forced to work as “apprentices” for their former owners. The anti-slavery movement was divided between the moderate Members of Parliament, William Wilberforce and Thomas Fowell Buxton, and the more radical out-of-doors movement led by Thomas Clarkson and Joseph Sturge. Sturge revived the out-of-doors movement, allied with Jamaican Baptist minister William Knibb, to overthrow apprenticeship. Out of that struggle the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was born, and this chapter gives pen portraits of its founders and early officers, Sturge, Lord Henry Brougham, John Scoble, Samuel Gurney and Louis Chamerovzow.Less
The abolition of slavery in 1833 was half-hearted: former slaves were still forced to work as “apprentices” for their former owners. The anti-slavery movement was divided between the moderate Members of Parliament, William Wilberforce and Thomas Fowell Buxton, and the more radical out-of-doors movement led by Thomas Clarkson and Joseph Sturge. Sturge revived the out-of-doors movement, allied with Jamaican Baptist minister William Knibb, to overthrow apprenticeship. Out of that struggle the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was born, and this chapter gives pen portraits of its founders and early officers, Sturge, Lord Henry Brougham, John Scoble, Samuel Gurney and Louis Chamerovzow.
