Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic

249 Pages·2010·1.204 MB·English

by  Derek R. Peterson, Christopher Leslie Brown, Seymour Drescher, Jonathon Glassman, Boyd Hilton, Robin Law, Phillip D. Morgan, John K. Thornton

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
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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