Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic PDF
Preview Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic
edited by Derek R. Peterson Abolitionism and camIbmridpgee creinatrlei osfm afr iicnan B struditieas isner,ie s Africa, and the Atlantic Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic CAmBr Idge Centre of Afr ICAn StudIe S Ser Ie S Series editors: Derek R. Peterson, Harri Englund, and Christopher Warnes derek r. Peterson, ed. Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic edited by derek r. Peterson Ohio University Press • Athens ohio university Press, Athens, ohio 45701 www.ohioswallow.com © 2010 by ohio university Press All rights reserved to obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from ohio university Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax). Printed in the united States of America ohio university Press books are printed on acid-free paper ƒ ™ 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data Abolitionism and imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic / edited by derek r. Peterson. p. cm. — (African studies from Cambridge) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBn 978-0-8214-1901-4 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBn 978-0-8214-1902-1 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Slave trade—great Britain—History. 2. Slave trade—great Britain—Colonies— America—History. 3. Slave trade—Africa—History. 4. Antislavery movements— great Britain—History. 5. great Britain—Colonies—History. 6. Imperialism— Social aspects—great Britain. I. Peterson, derek r., 1971– Ht1162.A26 2010 326'.809171241—dc22 2009033389 Series editors’ Preface vii Contents Acknowledgments ix Abolitionism and Political thought in Britain and east Africa IntroduCtIon derek r. PeterSon 1 African Political ethics and the Slave trade one JoHn tHornton 38 1807 and All that Why Britain Outltawweod Her Slave Trade Boyd HILton 63 empire without America British Plans for Africa in tthhe Erreae of the American Revolution CHrIStoPHer LeSLIe Brown 84 ending the Slave trade A Caribbean afnod uArtlantic Context PHILIP d. morgAn 101 v Contents emperors of the world British AbolitionfiIsvme and Imperialism Seymour dreSCHer 129 Abolition and Imperialism International Law and the British SsIuxppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade roBIn LAw 150 racial Violence, universal History, and echoes of Abolition in twensteievthe-nCentury Zanzibar JonAtHon gLASSmAn 175 Bibliography 207 Contributors 229 Index 231 vi the university of Cambridge is home to one of the world’s leading centers of African studies. It organizes conferences, runs a weekly seminar series, series editors’ Preface hosts a specialist library, and coordinates the work of the several dozen Cambridge lecturers whose research concerns Africa. with the generous support of the Leverhulme trust, the center has recently inaugurated the Cambridge/Africa Collaborative research Programme. each year the center announces a fellowship competition organized around a particular theme and invites applications from Africa-based scholars. four or five fel- lows are brought to Cambridge for six months, during which time they pursue research on separate projects while meeting regularly to discuss their work. At the conclusion of their tenure, the visiting fellows present the fruits of their labors at two conferences, one in Cambridge, the other at a partner African institution. this book is the first installment in a new Cambridge Centre of African Studies Series, published by ohio university Press. the series will publish edited volumes arising chiefly out of the body of scholarship generated by the Cambridge/Africa Collaborative research Programme. these books will highlight the work that young, promising African scholars have com- posed and refined over the course of their time in Cambridge. the books will also feature the work of european or American Africanists who have offered papers at conferences and seminars convened in Cambridge. Contributors will have been involved in a yearlong conversation about the themes in which each book is engaged. this long period of incubation will, we hope, allow us to produce books that are both thematically coherent and methodologically innovative, full of fresh, cutting-edge research from scholars who are excited about their work. Academic presses today face growing financial pressures, and it is increas- ingly difficult to find a publisher for the fruit of collaborative research. we thank the editors at ohio for their support in fostering a more dialogical, more democratic approach to the production of knowledge about Africa. derek r. Peterson Harri englund Christopher warnes Cambridge, England vii this book arises out of a series of lectures convened by the Centre of African Studies at the university of Cambridge in 2007. the series was Acknowledgments occasioned by the bicentenary of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave trade, which was then being celebrated with much pomp and circum- stance by tony Blair’s Labour government. the lectures were meant to focus critical scholarly attention on British abolitionism, to illuminate the broader geographic and temporal terrain in which abolitionism took place, and to claim the study of abolitionism as a field for Africa’s historians. the lecture series was supported by the Smuts fund for Commonwealth Studies and the Centre for History and economics, both of the university of Cambridge. Cambridge’s Centre of African Studies subsidized this book’s production. my editorial work has been supported by the Leverhulme trust, whose Philip Leverhulme Prize gave me relief from the demands of teaching. I am most grateful to these organizations for their support. I am a historian of colonial eastern Africa. At a time when historians are separated as much by their bibliographies as by their research fields, I have had a great deal of reading to do. In learning the scholarship on the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, I’ve relied particularly on rebecca Scott, Seymour drescher, and the anonymous reviewer from ohio university Press, all of whom offered welcome guidance on the book’s intellectual architecture. Jonathon glassman and John Lonsdale commented on the introduction. gillian Berchowitz, the press’s senior editor, has been a pleasure to work with. rebecca Peterson has, as ever, been my most lively interlocutor, and I am most grateful to her. ix
The list of books you might like
