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This is the thread dedicated to the British slave trade and abolition:

A very interesting subject, a new book on the market that may interest people who study this subject/period is:

by Sian Rees

I have a copy but have not had the chance to read it yet (the story of my life!) but it looks very good but be mindful it is really an account of two British ships involved in stopping the Slave Trade:

"When the abolitionist Granville Sharpe bought land in Sierra Leone to 'repatriate' freed slaves, one former slave living in London foresaw trouble. 'Is it possible', asked Ottobah Cugoano, biblically, 'that a fountain should send forth both sweet water and bitter?' Could the slave trade be abolished from West Africa when West Africa was its source? The answer was no..."Sweet Water and Bitter" is the extraordinary sequel to Britain's abolition of the slave trade in 1807. The last legal British slave-ship left Africa that year, but other countries and illegal slavers continued to trade. When the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, British diplomats negotiated anti-slave-trade treaties and a 'Preventive Squadron' was formed to cruise the West African coast. In six decades, this small fleet liberated 150,000 Africans and lost 17,000 of its own men in doing so. This is the tale of their exciting and arduous campaign. It is also a story of unforeseen consequences.What to do with the freed slaves? How to manipulate international law so that you could board the ships of other nations? How to fight the intense hostility of African leaders to abolition? In tracing these complex questions, Sian Rees shows how the campaign was linked to British imperial and commercial ambition as well as to philanthropy: the colonising of West Africa was a direct, though unintended result. Above all, however, this is a swashbuckling naval adventure, full of sensational, first-hand accounts of life at sea, of the grim 'barracoons' where slaves are held, of the luxurious compounds of the slave-brokers and the lonely garrisons dotting the coast. Sailors speak of the boredom of patrol, the terror of 'detached service' in small boats upriver, the sudden, violent battles and the horror of seeing, close up, the cruelties of slaving. Combining flawless research with an intimate and dramatic narrative, this is a voyage that no one will forget."

Another book that may be of interest is:

by Tom Pocock

Thank you so much for getting this thread started.

One more book that I can think of that should be considered on any reading list covering this topic:


by Hugh Thomas

Thank you once again...Aussie Rick

I know we focus mainly on non-fiction, but a member of one of my other groups wrote a meticulously researched novel focusing on the British slave trade that some might be interested in.Ama A Story of the Atlantic Slave TradeManu Herbstein

Thank you Andrea for pointing out that we do not primarily focus on fiction and pointing out that this work is historical fiction and a novel. I am certain that some of the group may find this book interesting and will take a closer look.

You should also recommend it on the historical fiction nomination thread.

Eric Metaxas

I found this account to end the slave trade quite readable. A biography of the man who led the fight to end the slave trade.

Last week in Sydney I came across a Folio Society book that was first published in 1796 and re-printed in 1963 titled; "Expedition to Surinam: Being the narrative of a five years expedition against the revolted negroes of Surinam in Guiana on the wild coast of South America from the year 1772 to 1777, elucidating that country and describing its productions with an account of Indians of Guiana and negroes of Guinea" by Captain John Stedman.

Journal of John Gabriel Stedman, 1744-1797, Soldier and Author: Including an Authentic Account of His Expedition to Surinam in 1772 (no cover) by John Gabriel Stedman

This BBC history web site offers a very good synopsis of the British slave trade and the eventual abolition of that onerous practice. I found it very informative.

Here is a book that may also interest folks here:

by Alastair Hazel
Description:
The African slave trade did not end when Britain passed its landmark law in 1807: on the continent's east coast, Arab slavers were still shipping tens of thousands of Africans to the Middle East. Slavery was ingrained in Arab culture, considered indispensable to their societies and condoned by religious texts. The hub of this industry was the island of Zanzibar, part of Oman's empire, and the British consul there faced a hard task. John Kirk was a Scottish doctor who wound up as Zanzibar's acting consul at a time when British political pressures were mounting to end the Arab slave trade - although the East India Company found it advantagious to ignore it.

John Kirk was the only companion of David Livingstone to emerge untainted from the disastrous, often fatal expedition up the Zambezi River between 1859 and 1863. Three years later, Kirk returned to Africa, to the notorious island of Zanzibar, ancient source of slave trafficking from Africa to the Middle East. Half a century after the abolition of slave trading had been passed into British law, this commerce continued to exist on Africa's east coast, tolerated and even connived at by Britain's empire on the Indian Ocean. But Kirk, appointed as medical officer to the British Consulate in Zanzibar, could do nothing.

This extraordinary - and controversial - book brings Kirk's years in Zanzibar to life. The horrors of the overland passage from the interior, and the Zanzibar slave market itself are vividly described. The final bitter conflict with Livingstone, who blamed Kirk for his own disasters, is retold. But it was Kirk's own success in closing down the slave trade on the island which made him internationally famous. Using private diaries and papers, a long forgotten Victorian hero and an extraordinary chapter in British history are revived in detail.

An in-depth look at the abolition of slavery by one of my favorite historians.

Bury The Chains

by Adam Hochschild

Synopsis
From the author of the widely acclaimed King Leopold's Ghost comes the taut, gripping account of one of the most brilliantly organized social justice campaigns in history - the fight to free the slaves of the British Empire. In early 1787, twelve men - a printer, a lawyer, a clergyman, and others united by their hatred of slavery - came together in a London printing shop and began the world's first grass-roots movement, battling for the rights of people on another continent. Masterfully stoking public opinion, the movement's leaders pioneered a variety of techniques that have been adopted by citizens' movements ever since, from consumer boycotts to wall posters and lapel buttons to celebrity endorsements. A deft chronicle of this groundbreaking antislavery crusade and its powerful enemies, Bury the Chains gives a little-celebrated human rights watershed its due at last.

by Adam Hochschild

It sounds like a very interesting book Jill, will have to check it out I think :)

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "It sounds like a very interesting book Jill, will have to check it out I think :)"

I think we both like this author's work!

I have not yet read this book but it should shed some light on the horrific practice of slave trading.

Sir John Hawkins: Queen Elizabeth's Slave Trader

by Harry Kelsey

Synopsis
In this riveting book, Kelsey, biographer of Sir Francis Drake, tells the story of Drake's cousin Hawkins, who was a successful seaman and played a pivotal role in the history of England and the emergence of the global slave trade. Complete with illustrations.

This book has caused much controversy since it was first published in 1944. This controversy is discussed in a new forward to this seminal book.

Capitalism and Slavery

by Eric Williams

Synopsis

Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide.

Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in "Capitalism and Slavery," published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, Williams's study of the role of slavery in financing the Industrial Revolution refuted traditional ideas of economic and moral progress and firmly established the centrality of the African slave trade in European economic development. He also showed that mature industrial capitalism in turn helped destroy the slave system. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that set the tone for future studies. In a new introduction, Colin Palmer assesses the lasting impact of Williams's groundbreaking work and analyzes the heated scholarly debates it generated when it first appeared.

The link below provides some very interesting information about the slave trade in Britain before its abolition on 1807.

Jill wrote: "This book has caused much controversy since it was first published in 1944. This controversy is discussed in a new forward to this seminal book.

Capitalism and Slavery

[bookcover:Capitalism and S..."

This an ideal book for the topic. I remember using it when I covered slavery for certain courses.

Maarren.....please don't forget to properly cite the book....book cover, author photo (if available) and author link. Thanks.

by Hilary Beckles

Marren just go back and use the edit button and try to keep going back in until you add two more parts or in this case - just the author's link is available.

Here's a little different take on British slave trade and its abolition.


British Slave Trade and Public Memory

by Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace

Synopsis
How does a contemporary society restore to its public memory a momentous event like its own participation in transatlantic slavery? What are the stakes of once more restoring the slave trade to public memory? What can be learned from this history? Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace explores these questions in her study of depictions and remembrances of British involvement in the slave trade. Skillfully incorporating a range of material, Wallace discusses and analyzes how museum exhibits, novels, television shows, movies, and a play created and produced in Britain from 1990 to 2000 grappled with the subject of slavery.

Topics discussed include a walking tour in the former slave-trading port of Bristol; novels by Caryl Phillips and Barry Unsworth; a television adaptation of Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park"; and a revival of Aphra Behn's "Oroonoko" for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In each case, Wallace reveals how these works and performances illuminate and obscure the history of the slave trade and its legacy. While Wallace focuses on Britain, her work also speaks to questions of how the United States and other nations remember inglorious chapters from their past.

Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation

Gerald Horne

Synopsis

While it is well known that more Africans fought on behalf of the British than with the successful patriots of the American Revolution, Gerald Horne reveals in his latest work of historical recovery that after 1776, Africans and African-Americans continued to collaborate with Great Britain against the United States in battles big and small until the Civil War.

Many African Americans viewed Britain, an early advocate of abolitionism and emancipator of its own slaves, as a powerful ally in their resistance to slavery in the Americas. This allegiance was far-reaching, from the Caribbean to outposts in North America to Canada. In turn, the British welcomed and actively recruited both fugitive and free African Americans, arming them and employing them in military engagements throughout the Atlantic World, as the British sought to maintain a foothold in the Americas following the Revolution.

In this path-breaking book, Horne rewrites the history of slave resistance by placing it for the first time in the context of military and diplomatic wrangling between Britain and the United States. Painstakingly researched and full of revelations, Negro Comrades of the Crown is among the first book-length studies to highlight the Atlantic origins of the Civil War, and the active role played by African Americans within these external factors that led to it.

Looks really interesting, Bryan. Thanks.

This is a little bit of a twist on slavery and England since it involves the fate of Britain's convicts after the American Revolution.

A Merciless Place

by Emma Christopher

Synopsis

Since Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore, the fate of British convicts has burned brightly in the popular imagination. Incredibly, their larger story is even more dramatic--the saga of forgotten men and women scattered to the farthest corners of the British empire, driven by the winds of the American Revolution and the currents of the African slave trade. In A Merciless Place, Emma Christopher brilliantly captures this previously unknown story of poverty, punishment, and transportation. The story begins with the American War of Independence, until which many British convicts were shipped across the Atlantic. The Revolution interrupted this flow and inspired two entrepreneurs to organize the criminals into military units to fight for the crown. The felon soldiers went to West Africa's slave-trading posts just as the war ended; these forts became the new destination for England's rapidly multiplying convicts. The move was a disaster. Christopher writes that "before the scheme was abandoned, it would have run the gamut of piracy, treachery, mutiny, starvation, poisonings, allegations of white women forced to prostitute themselves to African men, and not least several cases of murder." To end the scandal, the British government chose a new destination, as far away as possible: Australia. Christopher here captures the gritty lives of Britain's convicts: victims of London's underworld, rife with brutal crime and sometimes even more brutal punishments. Equally fascinating are the portraits of Fante people of West Africa, forced to undergo dramatic changes in their role as intermediaries with Europeans in the slave trade. Here, too, are the aboriginal Australians, coping with the transformation of their native land. They all inhabit A Merciless Place: a tour de force and historical narrative at its finest.

Looks good Jill, just ordered a hardback edition, thanks for the 'heads-up' :)


by Emma Christopher

This book offers no synopsis on the GR data base but I think the title says it all. These were the instructions to the officers of the Royal Navy who were engaged on the high seas to suppress the slave trade and the ships that were carrying slaves to the New World. It would be an interesting historical reference for any British history buff.

Instructions for the Guidance of Her Majesty's Naval Officers Employed in the Suppression of the Slave Trade

by Great Britain Admiraltygreat Britain T. (no photo)

This book looks at the reason(s) for the decision to abolish slavery in Britain.

The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor versus Slavery in British Emancipation

by Seymour Drescher(no photo)

Synopsis:

By the mid-eighteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade was considered to be a necessary and stabilizing factor in the capitalist economies of Europe and the expanding Americas. Britain was the most influential power in this system which seemed to have the potential for unbounded growth. In 1833, the British empire became the first to liberate its slaves and then to become a driving force toward global emancipation. There has been endless debate over the reasons behind this decision. This has been portrayed on the one hand as a rational disinvestment in a foundering overseas system, and on the other as the most expensive per capita expenditure for colonial reform in modern history. In this work, Seymour Drescher argues that the plan to end British slavery, rather than being a timely escape from a failing system, was, on the contrary, the crucial element in the greatest humanitarian achievement of all time. The Mighty Experiment explores how politicians, colonial bureaucrats, pamphleteers, and scholars taking anti-slavery positions validated their claims through rational scientific arguments going beyond moral and polemical rhetoric, and how the infiltration of the social sciences into this political debate was designed to minimize agitation on both sides and provide common ground. Those at the inception of the social sciences, such as Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus, helped to develop these tools to create an argument that touched on issues of demography, racism, and political economy. By the time British emancipation became legislation, it was being treated as a massive social experiment, whose designs, many thought, had the potential to change the world. This study outlines the relationship of economic growth to moral issues in regard to slavery, and will appeal to scholars of British history, nineteenth century imperial history, the history of slavery, and those interested in the history of human rights

Interesting look at Britain's efforts across the Empire to end human trafficking.

Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain

by Richard Huzzey (no photo)

Synopsis

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.

The Anti-Slavery Trade Act of 1807 did away with the practice in England but what about the Empire. This book deals with that problem.

Abolition: The Struggle to Abolish Slavery in the British Colonies

by Richard Reddie (no photo)

Synopsis

Detailing the Anti-Slave Trade Act, which became a law in 1807 and made the capture and transport of slaves by British subjects illegal, this study examines the story of the slave trade in the British Empire and investigates the movement to bring it to an end. Subjects covered include the history of slavery, the brutality of the slave trade, resistance by slaves, importance of slave trade to the British economy, the roots of the anti-slave trade society, the strategies of the movement, the push for abolition, and the legacies of the slave trade.

The British thought that the black man was an exotic creature and he became one of the images of Empire. This book gives us an insider look at how British society was shaped by the black population

Faces of Perfect Ebony: Encountering Atlantic Slavery in Imperial Britain

by Catherine Molineux(no photo)

Synopsis:

Though blacks were not often seen on the streets of seventeenth-century London, they were already capturing the British imagination. For two hundred years, as Britain shipped over three million Africans to the New World, popular images of blacks as slaves and servants proliferated in London art, both highbrow and low. Catherine Molineux assembles a surprising array of sources in her exploration of this emerging black presence, from shop signs, tea trays, trading cards, board games, playing cards, and song ballads to more familiar objects such as William Hogarth s graphic satires. By idealizing black servitude and obscuring the brutalities of slavery, these images of black people became symbols of empire to a general populace that had little contact with the realities of slave life in the distant Americas and Caribbean.

The earliest images advertised the opulence of the British Empire by depicting black slaves and servants as minor, exotic characters who gazed adoringly at their masters. Later images showed Britons and Africans in friendly gatherings, smoking tobacco together, for example. By 1807, when Britain abolished the slave trade and thousands of people of African descent were living in London as free men and women, depictions of black laborers in local coffee houses, taverns, or kitchens took center stage.

Molineux s well-crafted account provides rich evidence for the role that human traffic played in the popular consciousness and culture of Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and deepens our understanding of how Britons imagined their burgeoning empire.

Book recommendation (forgive me if it's already been recommended. I'm new.)

The book was nominated for the National Book Award, and it's not only meticulous in detail but compelling in story.

The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832

And thanks for being here. I'm eager to see what you recommend and discuss.

Andi....thanks so much for the recommendation. Since it does involve the British attitude toward slavery, it fits nicely in this category.

You need to work on your book citations. The book you mentioned should look like this:

by Alan Taylor

For guidance on how to cite a book, go to this thread in the History Book Club

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...

Once you get the hang of it, it becomes second nature.

Thanks, Jill. I think I have it down now.

Just FYI, that thread doesn't have the information on how to post the images anywhere near the top of the conversation. It took me about 15 minutes of looking to find it. Maybe the moderator of that thread could repost the basic directions?

thanks again.

Andi......are you sure you went to the address I gave you. It is the first thing in that thread and very detailed. I even checked the address that I gave you to be sure I didn't have a typo but there it was. The thread is called "Mechanics of the Board" I'm not sure where you ended up, but you can try it again.

Yep, Jill, I followed the link and saw lots of people posting but no directions until later in the thread. It's okay though. I got it

Maybe you have your computer set to show the newest posts first. Mine is set for the oldest first and that's where it is. We're good now.

This book explores the slavery of Imperialism in Africa as practiced by those countries who "owned" African territories.

A Civilised Savagery

by Kevin Grant(no photo)

Synopsis:

In the two decades before World War One, Great Britain witnessed the largest revival of anti-slavery protest since the legendary age of emancipation in the mid-nineteenth century. Rather than campaigning against the trans-Atlantic slave trade, these latter-day abolitionists focused on the so-called 'new slaveries' of European imperialism in Africa, condemning coercive systems of labor taxation and indentured servitude, as well as evidence of atrocities.

A Civilized Savagery illuminates the multifaceted nature of British humanitarianism by juxtaposing campaigns against different forms of imperial labor exploitation in three separate areas: the Congo Free State, South Africa, and Portuguese West Africa. In doing so, Kevin Grant points out how this new type of humanitarianism influenced the transition from Empire to international government and the advent of universal human rights in subsequent decades.(

Women did not have the vote but they made their voices heard regarding the slave trade in both Britain and America.

Women: Dissent and Anti-Slavery in Britain and America

by Elizabeth J Clapp(no photo)

Synopsis:

As historians have gradually come to recognize, the involvement of women was central to the anti-slavery cause in both Britain and the United States. Like their male counterparts, women abolitionists did not all speak with one voice. Among the major differences between women were their religious affiliations, an aspect of their commitment that has not been studied in detail. Yet it is clear that the desire to live out and practice their religious beliefs inspired many of the women who participated in anti-slavery activities in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
This book examines the part that the traditions, practices, and beliefs of English Protestant dissent and the American Puritan and evangelical traditions played in women's anti-slavery activism. Focusing particularly on Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian and Unitarian women, the essays in this volume move from accounts of individual women's participation in the movement as printers and writers, to assessments of the negotiations and the occasional conflicts between different denominational groups and their anti-slavery impulses. Together the essays in this volume explore how the tradition of English Protestant Dissent shaped the American abolitionist movement, and the various ways in which women belonging to the different denominations on both sides of the Atlantic drew on their religious beliefs to influence the direction of their anti-slavery movements. The collection provides a nuanced understanding of why these women felt compelled to fight for the end of slavery in their respective countries.

A little different take on slavery in Britain as this book follow the lives of four African slaves who become free men and went on to carve out good lives for themselves and their families.

Voices from Slavery: The Life and Beliefs of African Slaves in Britain

by Chigor, Chike (no photo)

Synopsis:

"The book tells the true stories of four Africans, drawing as far as possible on their own writings. The four individuals lived at different times and in different circumstances but their stories have a common central theme because each one was a victim of what is one of the greatest human rights abuses of all time, the African slave trade. Each became a free man, received an education and had the rare opportunity of recording and reflecting on their experiences for the wider world to read. We hear their stories unfold through their own narratives, although the sources of their words vary from comprehensive biography to collection of letters.
Through the telling of their stories and helpful commentary by the author, himself an African, we can read ""first hand accounts"" of life as a slave and freed man in the 18th century. All had strong religious beliefs and we are able to hear their personal views and reflections on a range of topics including Christianity, God, humanity and the slave trade itself. Though the four men Sancho, Gronniosaw, Equiano and Cugoano all had a sense of God working in their lives and trials, their understanding of the nature of faith and their relationship with the spiritual varies considerably.
The book reveals the black Africans as visionaries, and highlights their often underestimated contribution toward the abolition of slavery. Their stories resonate with contemporary issues in our world, posing questions about identity and culture in multi-ethnic communities in Britain today, how Christian faith enlightens debates about the place of religion in national life, and invites the exploration of the similarities between slavery and modern racism. In a Postscript written with researchers in mind, the author describes his own findings regarding the precise location of Equiano's origin in present day Nigeria."(less)

Thank you Jill.

Royal Navy Versus the Slave Traders: Enforcing Abolition at Sea 1808-1898

by Bernard Edwards (no photo)

Synopsis:

On March 16, 1807, the British Parliament passed The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. In the following year the Royal Navy's African Squadron was formed, its mission to stop and search ships at sea suspected of carrying slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Middle East.

Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery

by Steven M. Wise (no photo)

Synopsis:

The case of James Somerset, an escaped slave, in June of 1772 in London's Westminster Hall was a decisive turning point in human history. Steven Wise has uncovered fascinating new revelations in this case, which statesmen of the time threatened would bring the economy of the British Empire to a crashing halt. In a gripping, hour-by-hour narrative of the trial and the inflamed participants, Wise leads the reader to the extraordinary and unexpected decision by the great conservative judge, Lord Mansfield, which led to the United States' own abolition movement. As the case drew to a close, and defenders of slavery pleaded with him to maintain the system, Mansfield's reply has resounded down through more than two centuries: "Let Justice be done, though the Heavens may fall."

The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery

by James Walvin (no photo)

Synopsis:

On November 29, 1781, Captain Collingwood of the British ship Zong commanded his crew to throw overboard one-third of his cargo: a shipment of Africans bound for slavery in America. The captain believed his ship was off course, and he feared there was not enough drinking water to last until landfall. This book is the first to examine in detail the deplorable killings on the Zong, the lawsuit that ensued, how the murder of 132 slaves affected debates about slavery, and the way we remember the infamous Zong today.

Historian James Walvin explores all aspects of the Zong's voyage and the subsequent trial—a case brought to court not for the murder of the slaves but as a suit against the insurers who denied the owners� claim that their “cargo� had been necessarily jettisoned. The scandalous case prompted wide debate and fueled Britain’s awakening abolition movement. Without the episode of the Zong, Walvin contends, the process of ending the slave trade would have taken an entirely different moral and political trajectory. He concludes with a fascinating discussion of how the case of the Zong, though unique in the history of slave ships, has come to be understood as typical of life on all such ships.

Thanks for the great adds, Jerome.

Blind Memory: Visual Representations of Slavery in England and America

by Marcus Wood (no photo)

Synopsis:

Throughout this important volume, the author underscores two vital themes: one, that visual presentation of slavery in England and America has been utterly dishonest to its subject, and the other a meditation on whether the ruptures of the slave experience - middle passage, bondage, and torture -- can be adequately represented and remembered.

Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire: Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, 1807-1975

by Keith Hamilton (no photo)

Synopsis:

Throughout 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.

Thanks for that add, Jerome.

Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery: The Mobilisatition of Public Opinion Against the Slave Trade, 1787-1807

by J.R. Oldfield (no photo)

Synopsis:

In 1792, 400,000 people put their signature to petitions calling for the abolition of the slaves trade. This work explains how this remarkable expression of support for black people was organized and orchestrated, and how it contributed to the growth of popular politics in Britain.

The Culture of English Antislavery

by David Turley (no photo)

Synopsis:

This book provides a fresh overall account of organised antislavery by focusing on the active minority of abolutionists throughout the country. The analysis of their culture of reform demonstrates the way in which alliances of diverse religious groups roused public opinion and influenced political leaders. The resulting definition of the distinctive reform mentality' links antislavery to other efforts at moral and social improvement and highlights its contradictory relations to the social effects of industrialization and the growth of liberalism.