Slavery and the Culture of Abolition: Essays Marking the British
Abolition Act of 1807, edited by Peter J. Kitson (University of Dundee)
and Brycchan Carey (University of Kingston)
On 25 March 1807, the bill for the abolition of the Slave Trade within
the British colonies was passed by an overwhelming majority in the House
of Commons, becoming law from 1 May 1807. That same year the African
Institution was formed to seek the enforcement of the Abolition Act and
to further the market for trade with Africa in commodities other than
that of human beings. In the same year the United States Slave Trade Act
prohibited American citizens from participating in the African Slave
Trade. Yet Rio de Janeiro recorded its largest annual import of African
Slaves (18, 677) in 1810 and total slave imports to the Americas rose
again in the 1820s.
After the Emancipation Act, British abolitionists were sorely
discomfited to learn that, by 1840, there were more slaves in British
India than had been emancipated in the British colonies of the
Caribbean. The British Abolition Act (and the later Emancipation Act)
has since been subject to intense scrutiny from revisionist historians
who have debated its importance and significance.
The 2007 issue of Essays and Studies is devoted to essays addressing
the literature, language and culture of Abolitionism and Slavery to mark
the bicentennial of the Act. The volume is edited by Peter Kitson and
Brycchan Carey and contains eight essays of 8,000 words which address a
subject relevant to the culture of abolitionism and the legacy of 1807.
Leading scholars and critics in the field were invited to contribute to
the volume. The volume is intended to address the moment of the Act
itself but also its conflicting and ambiguous meanings and legacy over a
wider historical and cultural field; issues such as the literature of
slavery and abolition, remembering slavery, consumerism and
commoditisation (sugar, cotton and other trades), the impact of
abolition, slave narratives, women, gender and slavery, race and
slavery, slavery outside the British context, religion and abolitionism,
the politics of abolitionism; slave resistance and revolt; forms of
slavery and the global context etc might be addressed.
Contents
Introduction
Emancipation Art, Fanon and the 'Butchery of Freedom' - Marcus Wood
The Afterlives of Three-fingered Jack - Diana Paton
Putting Down Rebellion. Witnessing the Body of the Condemned in
Abolition-era Narratives - Sarah Salih
The Horror of Hybridity: Enlightenment, Anti-slavery and Racial Disgust
in Charlotte Smith's Story of Henrietta (1800) - George Boulukos
"To Rivet and to Record": Conversion and Collective Memory in Equiano's
'Interesting Narrative' - Lincoln Shlensky
Henry Smeathman and the Natural Economy of Slavery - Deidre Coleman
Slavery, Blackness and Islam: The Arabian Nights in the Eighteenth
Century - Felicity Nussbaum
Slavery and Sensibility: A Historical Dilemma - Gerald Maclean
'Go West Old Woman': The Radical Re-visioning of Slave History in Caryl
Phillips's Crossing the River - Mary Joannou
Publication date: 16 August 2007 £30.00 / US$ 60.00
Hardback, 18 b/w illustrations, 256 pages
10 digit ISBN: 1843841207 / 13 digit ISBN: 9781843841203
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