The fifteen original essays in this collection focus on the global impact of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. Based on primary research by specialists in African oral history, West Indian historical demography, European class and intellectual history, and Latin American cultural development, these essays collectively explore the ironies and dilemmas arising from the attempt to abolish an institution that was so broadly accepted and firmly entrenched in the world economy.
The essays are grouped geographically. The first section examines the genesis of abolition in England against the background of major contemporary intellectual and social trends. Here, the essays embody the newer ideological approach to abolition which, with its emphasis on antislavery as a part of new attitudes to property and as a popular movement, is in the process of transcending the older debate on the relative importance of humanitarian and economic factors in bringing about abolition.
The next group of essays relates the slave traffic to a number of internal African developments. New insights into the adverse effect of the slave trade are provided, although some of the contributors suggest that relative to the complex indigenous economies that existed, the slave trade and therefore abolition were of slight importance in some areas. In other areas, abolition actually encouraged indigenous forced labor by forcing down slave prices and encouraging trade in produce. It also resulted in political instability and thereby, for the British at least, brought into conflict abolition and imperial goals.
The third section examines the mechanics of the illegal slave trade and the effects of the British, Dutch, and French attempts to suppress it. The authors suggest that national rivalries and the emerging international law meant that prohibition became effective only when the importing and exporting countries themselves enforced abolition or were prepared to cede the necessary enforcement powers to others. Meanwhile, European countries in the vanguard of the industrialization-modernization process, with its emphasis on free labor, found that not only was their power to suppress the traffic limited by their own ideology, but that their own capital and trade goods as well as their demands for plantation produce were forming the basis of the slave trade they wished to suppress.
The last group of essays is devoted to one of the central themes in the debate about abolition—the relation between the slave trade and New World demographic and cultural trends.
The range of subjects in this volume illustrates the continuing interest in the study of slavery and abolition. The new work on these topics reveals unsettling ironies, making it difficult to assume easy positions on issues which at first sight would seem to be ethically clear cut.
David Eltis, Instructor in the Department of Economics at Algonquin College, Canada, has had several articles published in scholarly journals and anthologies. James Walvin is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of York, England. He has written several books on British social history and is the coeditor of Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation (1977). Svend E. Green-Pedersen is a lecturer at Aarhus University, Denmark, and has published a number of articles on the Danish slave trade.
Author(s): David Eltis, James Walvin, Svend E. Green-Pedersen, Stanley L. Engerman
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Year: 1981
Language: English
Commentary: scantailor + ocrmypdf
Pages: 336
City: Madison
Tags: atlantic slave trade;history;capitalism
The Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Contributors and Conference Participants
Contents
Maps
5.1 Senegambian Trading Towns ca. 1820
5.2 Senegambian States ca. 1800
7.1 The Western Indian Ocean in the Nineteenth Century
10.1 Regions Involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade after 1820
Figures and Tables
Figures
6.1 Social Saving Resulting from the Substitution of Fiat Money for Commodity Money
6.2 Social Saving in West African Money Acquisition Resulting from the Abolition of the Slave Trade
6.3 Social Saving in West African Money Acquisition Resulting from the Substitution of Commodity Trade for the Slave Trade
11.1 Annual Average Value of French Commerce with Africa
13.1 The Slave Population of the Danish West Indies, 1755-1804
13.2 Percentile Proportions of Plantation Slaves and ‘Town Slaves on Saint Croix, 1755-1804
13.3 Percentile Proportions of Plantation Slaves, Town Slaves, and Slaves of Free Negroes on Saint Thomas, 1755-1804
13.4 White and Slave Populations of the Danish West Indies, 1755-1804
13.5 Mortality and Birth Rates of Saint Croix, 1780—1804
Tables
5.1 Senegambian Slave Exports, 1740s through 1840s
5.2 Value of Principal Senegambian Exports, 1730s to 1830s
5.3 Senegambian Gum Exports, 1780s through 1830s
7.A1 General African Slave Population of Arabia and the Persian Gulf
7.A2 Black Slaves in the Labor Force of Arabia, India, and the Persian Gulf
7.A3 Global Slave Trade out of Africa
9.1 Tonnages of Slave Ships in Selected Branches of the Trade, 1763-1843
9.2 Tons per Crewman for Slave and General Shipping, 1700s and 1800s
9.3 Middle Passage Voyage Times of Slave Ships, Selected Years, 1791-1843
9.4 Middle Passage Voyage Times of Slave Ships Arriving at Rio de Janeiro, 1821—43
9.5 Slaves per ton Embarked in Africa, Selected Branches of the Trade, 1711-1843
9.6 Round Trip Voyage Times for Slave Ships
10.A1 Ships Declared Legal Prizes by the Anglo-Dutch Courts
11.A1 Squadron Strength, France and Great Britain, 1818—50
12.1 Number of Slaves in the Danish West Indies, 1761-1846
12.2 Census of Plantation Slaves, Danish West Indies, 1804
13.1 Free Negroes of the Danish West Indies, 1783 and 1786-1804
13.2 Annual Rate of Natural Reproduction of Slave Population
13.A1 Negro Population of the Danish West Indies, 1755-1804
14.A1 The Slave Trade to Jamaica, 1701-1808
14.A2 Annual Jamaican Slave Trade, 1789-1808, and Poll Tax Returns on Slaves, 1800-1815
14.A3 Slave Population and Slave Imports, Jamaica, Selected Years, 1703-1800
14.A4 Slave Imports by Sex, Jamaica, 1764-74, 1779-84
14.A5 Average Sterling Prices of African Slaves Sold in Jamaica, Selected Years, 1723—99
14.A6 Slave Population on York Sugar Plantation, Jamaica, 1777-1801
14.A7 Slave Population on Worthy Park Plantation, Jamaica, 1783—96
14.A8 Slave Imports and Poll Tax Returns on Slaves, Barbados, 1764-81
14.A9 Annual Barbados Slave Trade and Poll Tax Returns on Slaves, 1788—1804
14.A10 Births and Deaths on John Brathwaite’s Windward Estate, Barbados, January 1754 to December 1786
14.A11 Slave Population on Codrington Plantations, Barbados, 1767—93
14.A12 Estimated Annual Rate of Population Decline, Barbados and Jamaica, 1676-1800
Preface
Introduction
1. Some Implications of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (Stanley L. Engerman)
Part I: Abolition and the European Metropolis
2. The Ideology of Antislavery (Howard Temperley)
3. Religion and British Slave Emancipation (Roger T. Anstey)
4. The Public Campaign in England against Slavery, 1787—1834 (James Walvin)
Part II: The Impact of Abolition on Africa
5. The Abolition of the Slave Trade from Senegambia (Philip D. Curtin)
6. Abolition and Its Impact on Monies Imported To West Africa (Jan S. Hogendorn and Henry A. Gemery)
7. From the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean: European Abolition, the African Slave Trade, and Asian Economic Structures (Ralph A. Austen)
8. Abolition and Economic Change on the Gold Coast (Edward E. Reynolds)
Part III: The Illegal Slave Trade
9. The Impact of Abolition on the Atlantic Slave Trade (David Eltis)
10. Abolition of the Abolished: The Illegal Dutch Slave Trade and the Mixed Courts (Pieter C. Emmer)
11. France, Suppression of the Illegal Trade, and England, 1817—1850 (Serge Daget)
Part IV: American Demographic and Cultural Responses
12. The Reality behind the Demographic Arguments to Abolish the Danish Slave Trade (Hans Christian Johansen)
13. Slave Demography in the Danish West Indies and the Abolition of the Danish Slave Trade (Svend E. Green-Pedersen)
14. Slave Demography in the British West Indies and the Abolition of the Slave Trade (Richard B. Sheridan)
15. The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Development of an Afro-American Culture (Franklin W. Knight)
Selected Bibliography
Index
