Freedom Burning

by Huzzey, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780801451089
• ISBN10: 0801451086
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-08-28
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

After Britain abolished slavery throughout most of its empire in 1834, Victorians adopted a creed of "anti-slavery" as a vital part of their national identity and sense of moral superiority to other civilizations. The British government used diplomacy, pressure, and violence to suppress the slave trade, while the Royal Navy enforced abolition worldwide and an anxious public debated the true responsibilities of an anti-slavery nation. This crusade was far from altruistic or compassionate, but Richard Huzzey argues that it forged national debates and political culture long after the famous abolitionist campaigns of William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson had faded into memory. These anti-slavery passions shaped racist and imperialist prejudices, new forms of coerced labor, and the expansion of colonial possessions. In a sweeping narrative that spans the globe, Freedom Burning explores the intersection of philanthropic, imperial, and economic interests that underlay Britain's anti-slavery zeal- from London to Liberia, the Sudan to South Africa, Canada to the Caribbean, and the British East India Company to the Confederate States of America. Through careful attention to popular culture, official records, and private papers, Huzzey rewrites the history of the British Empire and a century-long effort to end the global trade in human lives.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Prologue: Freedom Burning	p. 1
An Anti-Slavery Nation	p. 5
Division and Diversity	p. 9
Abolitionists and Anti-Slavery	p. 16
Uncle Tom's Britain	p. 21
Geologies of Emancipation	p. 24
A Great, Unseen, Gigantic Power	p. 30
The Anti-Slavery State	p. 40
Anti-Slavers in Disguise	p. 42
Britain's Anti-Slavery World System	p. 51
Consensus, Conflict, and Partisanship	p. 65
Britons' Unreal Freedom	p. 75
Slavery and British Society	p. 77
Wage Slavery	p. 84
Sweetening the Condition of England	p. 93
Power, Prosperity, and Liberty	p. 98
Cheap Sugar Means Cheap Slaves?	p. 99
Moral Economies	p. 106
The Benevolent Crotchet	p. 113
Free Labor and World Power	p. 124
Africa Burning	p. 132
Improvement and the Slave Trade	p. 134
Anti-Slavery Imperialism	p. 141
Decoy Elephants	p. 147
Anti-Slavery and the Scramble for Africa	p. 160
Imperial Motives	p. 174
The Anti-Slavery Empire	p. 177
From Bombay to Morant Bay	p. 178
The Road to Hell	p. 186
Race, Free Labor, and Seeing Too Far	p. 198
Ideologies of Freedom	p. 203
Elite and Popular Anti-Slaveries	p. 204
Anti-Slavery as Ideology	p. 206
Anti-Slavery Ends and Means	p. 210
List of Abbreviations	p. 215
Notes	p. 217
Bibliography	p. 267
Index	p. 289
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