--- Page 1 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery 1776-1848 --- Page 2 --- movements is described with verve The rich texture of the anti-slavery study is a brilliant evocation Blackburn's authoritative and passion . Mr of New World slavery in the Revolutionary Age. of the diverse nature British Association for American Studies Newsletter of the readable and valuable book. This is an immensely Marxism Today Richard Rathbone, piece of sustained argument . : an absorbing The Spectator Robert Stewart, the last half century's accumulation of research skilful use of - making Blackburn has put every serious student of the into the history of slavery, work. subject in his debt . an admirable Peter Fryer, City Limits Blackburn has a fascinating story to tell . an important book. John Mortimer, Sunday Times about Mr Blackburn is that he really likes to find the agreeable thing happened out what actually Eric Christiansen, The Independent Colonial Slavery is a valuable book for socialists who The Overthrow of through which modern capitalism wish to trace the tortuous paths emerged. Alex Callinicos, Socialist Review of this book and its hard-headed treatment of the I liked the broad sweep colonial governments. European Colin Thubron, BBC2 Cover to Cover author never lets the detail of his European and anti-colonial The his basic commitment to the capacity of the slave narratives fog in furtherance of their own liberation. populations to act Paul Gilroy, New Society --- Page 3 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery 1776-1848 ROBIN BLACKBURN VERSO London New York --- Page 4 --- First published by Verso 1988 Reprinted 1990, 1996 O 1988 Robin Blackburn All rights reserved Verso UK: 6. Meard Street, London W1V 3HR USA: 180 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014-4606 Verso is the imprint of New Left Books British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Blackburn, Robin, 1940The overthrow of Colonial Slavery 17761848. 1. Slavery. Abolitionist movements, ca. 1770-1861 I. Title 322.4'409034 US Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Blackburn, Robin. The overthrow of colonial slavery, 1776-1848 / Robin Blackburn. P. cm. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN: 978-0-86-091-901-8 1.Slavery-America-Anti-slavery movements-History. 2. Slavery -America-Emancipation-History. I. Title. HT1050.B54 1988 326'.0973-dc19 Printed in Great Britain by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd. Typeset by Columns of Caversham, Reading, Berkshire Data Blackburn, Robin. The overthrow of colonial slavery, 1776-1848 / Robin Blackburn. P. cm. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN: 978-0-86-091-901-8 1.Slavery-America-Anti-slavery movements-History. 2. Slavery -America-Emancipation-History. I. Title. HT1050.B54 1988 326'.0973-dc19 Printed in Great Britain by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd. Typeset by Columns of Caversham, Reading, Berkshire --- Page 5 --- For Gemma and Christopher --- Page 6 --- --- Page 7 --- Contents List of Maps viii Acknowledgements 1X Introduction: Colonial Slavery in the New World C. 1770 I The Origins of Anti-Slavery II Hanoverian Britain: Slavery and Empire III Slavery and the American Revolution IV British Abolitionism and the Backlash of the 1790s V The French Revolution and the Antilles: 1789-93 VI Revolutionary Emancipationism and the Birth of Haiti VII Abolition and Empire: The United States VIII British Slave Trade Abolition: 1803-14 IX Spanish America: Independence and Emancipation X Cuba and Brazil: the Abolitionist Impasse XI The Struggle for British Slave Emancipation: 1823-38 XII French Restoration Slavery and 1848 XIII Conclusion: Results and Prospects Index --- Page 8 --- List of Maps The Caribbean in 1770 The Americas in 1770: Slave development and resistance The colony of St Domingue St Domingue and Santo Domingo in April 1794 North America in 1804 The Independence Struggle in Spanish South America --- Page 9 --- Acknowledgements Iwould like to thank Perry Anderson and Mike advice on a draft of this book. The Davis for most helpful portions of the following kindly commented forms manuscript or of earlier drafts of upon a part: Neil Belton, Hugh the project of which it Caroline Fick, Elizabeth Fox Brogan, Paul Buhle, Malcolm Deas, Gareth Stedman Jones, Genovese, Fred Halliday, Winston Octavio Rodriguez, James, Siedentop, Ben Schoendorf, Mary Turner and George Rudé, Larry am grateful to all the foregoing for their Ellen Meiksins Wood. I them from responsibility for help while, of course, absolving also like to thank Alejandro any errors the text may contain. I would Elisabeth Burgos and the staff Galvez, of Lynne Amidon, Gregor Benton, in locating research materials. Canning House Library for their help Without the extraordinary support and New Left Review and Verso the book could patience of my colleagues at I would also like to thank Susan and never have been completed. lan Webber, for their Reg Hicklin, and Barbara and researching. generous hospitality while I was writing and Finally I must thank Margrit Fauland for her tolerating the anti-social behaviour which encouragement and for composition seems to entail. Robin Blackburn, January 1988 --- Page 10 --- --- Page 11 --- Introduction: Colonial Slavery in the New World C. 1770 that's owned by him who feels Behold the peace when he deals He does no wrong, or outrage the gold In human flesh; or yet supplies behold To stir the strife, whose victims you think Perhaps the Cuban merchant too, may link. chain he's but the farthest In guilt's great not all the ills take place, Forsooth, he sees the human chase; Nor goes in person to down himself; He does not hunt the negro Of course he only furnishes the pelf. He does not watch the blazing huts beset, Nor slips the horde at rapine's yell, nor yet Selects the captives from the wretched band the aged with his right hand : . Nor spears brand the for the mart, He does not captives Nor stow the cargo - 'tis the captain's part . His agents simply snare the victims first, make the war and he defrays the cost . They To human suffering, sympathy and shame, His heart is closed, and wealth is all his aim. Merchant (1840), R.R. Madden The Slave-Trade does not watch the blazing huts beset, Nor slips the horde at rapine's yell, nor yet Selects the captives from the wretched band the aged with his right hand : . Nor spears brand the for the mart, He does not captives Nor stow the cargo - 'tis the captain's part . His agents simply snare the victims first, make the war and he defrays the cost . They To human suffering, sympathy and shame, His heart is closed, and wealth is all his aim. Merchant (1840), R.R. Madden The Slave-Trade --- Page 12 --- n a --- Page 13 --- Introduction two and a half million slaves Around the year 1770 there were nearly and households of the New toiling in the fields, mills, mines, workshops the most coveted and important World colonies. Slave labour supplied the sugar, coffee, cotton and items in Atlantic and European commerce: rice and indigo of North America; cacao of the Caribbean; the tobacco, and Spanish South America. These the gold and sugar of Portuguese of the value of European commodities comprised about a third that obliged colonial commerce, a figure inflated by regulations prior to their re-export to products to be brought to the metropolis and European settlement of the other destinations. Atlantic navigation most convenient and practical New World made the Americas Europe's produce. The rate of growth of source of tropical and sub-tropical had outstripped all other Atlantic trade in the eighteenth century created fabulous fortunes. Yet this branches of European commerce and was about to enter a terminal imposing nexus of empire and slavery crisis. witnessed successive challenges to the regimes The period 1776-1848 the destruction either of the colonial of colonial slavery, leading to of in one after another of relationship, or of the slave system, or both, of empire and the all the major New World colonies. The contestation dissimilar and distinct contestation of slavery were, in principle, intertwined, as colonists projects. Yet in this period they became themselves sought to exploit any resisted imperial rule and as the slaves control. All the colonial powers weakening in the apparatus of social within one slavery and all the slave systems were integrated slavery had permitted empires. Large-scale plantation or other of the transatlantic Caribbean as a result of private developed in the seventeenth century after a few decades of virtual enterprise and freelance initiative; the interested protection of autonomy the planters had which acquired had the naval strength to keep England or France, powers and colonial rivals at bay. The new slave marauding pirates, privateers colonial shell and generated large systems developed within a revenues for the imperial metropolis. commercial profits and customs the imperial authorities had to resist But for the plantations to prosper, and over-taxing the plantation the temptation of over-regulating commerce. more vulnerable than The structures of empire were immediately Slaveholder power was those of slave subjugation and exploitation. was strung out across concentrated in the Americas; imperial power less allegiance of sea-lanes and depended on the more or willing oceanic classes in the colonies. As European settler populations the possessing they developed institutions reproduced themselves across generations the By the latter which reduced reliance on metropolis. and resources --- Page 14 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery colonial elites throughout the Americas half of the eighteenth century whether they were involved in were acquiring greater self-confidence, of Atlantic trade was such that the slaveholding or not. The buoyancy at the seams in 1770. În the commercial monopolies were bursting all of the imperial powers aftermath of the Seven Years War (1756-63) and sponsored recognised the pressure for greater colonial autonomy officials and projects of reform. the By the latter which reduced reliance on metropolis. and resources --- Page 14 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery colonial elites throughout the Americas half of the eighteenth century whether they were involved in were acquiring greater self-confidence, of Atlantic trade was such that the slaveholding or not. The buoyancy at the seams in 1770. În the commercial monopolies were bursting all of the imperial powers aftermath of the Seven Years War (1756-63) and sponsored recognised the pressure for greater colonial autonomy officials and projects of reform. The colonial challenge to metropolitan it was at once an aspiration to self-government: merchants represented freedom and an assertion of an embryonic a claim to greater economic civilisation. American demands for liberty new American identity and attacks on oligarchy and arbitrary and self-determination strengthened of the political regimes of the Old rule in the Old World. Yet rejection fundamental changes in social World did not necessarily imply this book is to find out why the crisis in institutions. One of the aims of detonated a crisis of the the mode of political domination sometimes especially the institution of slavery. social regime, a sketch of the colonial slave systems This introduction aims to give their characteristic strengths of the mid-eighteenth century, establishing of Revolution' in which they and weaknesses, on the eve of that *Age role. were to play a highly significant control sought to direct colonial trade, and The systems of mercantilist of officials to this end. Britain permitted a engaged tens of thousands and did not at all respect the colonial species of imperial free trade merchants were allowed to re-export monopolies of its rivals. French a bounty for the slaves plantation produce free of duty and received bureaucracies of sold to the planters in the Antilles. The royal and they asserted direct control of the silver gold Spain and Portugal Colonial monopolies in produced in their American possessions. merchants to skim off a surplus and principle enabled metropolitan trade. But the very vigour of Atlantic commerce impede inter-American boundaries. Smuggling is likely to tended to overspill the prescribed tenth of all trade despite the customs and have accounted for at least a Portugal's excise officials and the regular naval patrols. Notwithstanding extended to Britain, the weakness, and the trading concessions held their own in the Brazil trade, merchants of Lisbon and Oporto for Brazilian gold. By the 1760s even if this meant selling British textiles Dutch islands was as centres for the main raison d'être of the unregulated commerce. development produced the division The different patterns of colonial in 1770 set out in Table by territory of the New World slave population 1 below. --- Page 15 --- Introduction Estimated Slave Populations of the American Colonies 1770 Table 1 Slavés Total Population 878,000 2,600,000 British America (450,000) (2,100,000) (British North America) (428,000) (500,000) (British Caribbean) 700,000 2,000,000 Portuguese America (Brazil) 379,000 430,000 French America (Caribbean) 290,000 12,144,000 Spanish America (50,000) (144,000) (Spanish Caribbean) (240,000) (12,000,000) (Spanish Mainland) 75,000 90,000 Dutch Caribbean 18,000 25,000 Danish Caribbean did not reflect either the The size of the colonial slaveholdings in colonisation. geographical size of the different empires or priority in the New World, Spain, the first and still the largest colonial power Britain and France, which ranked only fourth as a slaveholding power. the most flourishing slave had no slave colonies in 1640, now possessed slave population of Brazil may plantations in the New World. The total colonies, but the estimate is have been larger than that of the French in the export uncertain and slavery was somewhat less concentrated was almost a semisector. Brazil was a colony of Portugal, but Portugal gold came to colony of Britain SO that much of Brazil's slave-produced vigour to create the London. World, Spain, the first and still the largest colonial power Britain and France, which ranked only fourth as a slaveholding power. the most flourishing slave had no slave colonies in 1640, now possessed slave population of Brazil may plantations in the New World. The total colonies, but the estimate is have been larger than that of the French in the export uncertain and slavery was somewhat less concentrated was almost a semisector. Brazil was a colony of Portugal, but Portugal gold came to colony of Britain SO that much of Brazil's slave-produced vigour to create the London. Britain and France had the commercial still held sway slave colonies even if the Iberian powers most productive empires. And, in contrast to the Netherlands, over immense mainland the strength to Britain and France had been able to mobilise requisite capitalist colonial conquests in the New World. Though defend their highly developed in Britain than in France, social relations were more commerce and manufacture in the of French the vigorous development ran Britain a close second. French eighteenth century nevertheless manufactures exceeded those of exports of refined sugar or of cotton under Britain in the 1760s; cheap colonial raw materials, supplied an enclave of and exemptions, helped to make possible special privileges labour. accumulation that employed wage enabled Britain to vault to the premier The use of African slaves had developing its American position as an American colonial power, those of Spanish America. By possessions until their exports overtook French Antilles were bidding to the 1770s the slave colonies of the annual value of colonial exports overtake the British West Indies. The --- Page 16 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery amounted to £5.6 million for the British colonies, in the early 1770s colonies, £1.8 million for Brazil and £4.9 £5.2 million for the French America. British merchants and million for the whole of Spanish colonial markets; their manufacturers held a larger lead in supplying twice as great as those to the Americas as a whole were at least half a exports French. Transatlantic commerce required approximately of the and employed more than a hundred thousand million tons of shipping Britain's profits on the Atlantic trade derived seamen and dock-workers. organisation of marine transport, chiefly from the effective capitalist finance; French commercial manufacturing supply and commercial a half of the colonial export trade, profits, which in gross amounted to on mercantilist monopoly. were more dependent Britain and France were, according to In the mid-eighteenth century the most powerful, the most widespread contemporary testimony, states in the world. In their different splendid and the most dynamic the exemplary governments of ways Versailles and Westminster were and the Netherlands they had the age. Following Portugal, Spain of colonies and trading bases. These established a worldwide network empires in human history. The were the first truly global, trans-oceanic be the crucial testing ground by such New World was thought to and Choiseul. Even the Abbé Raynal, leading statesmen as Pitt the Elder of slavery, believed that who endorsed the new philosophical mines critique as the sinews of empire. In sugar plantations had replaced gold Raynal urged the Spanish his Histoire des Deux Indes (1770) of Cuba SO that it could authorities to promote the plantation economy who supplied all rival the achievements of the Virginian planters, of St Domingue, who with tobacco, or those of the planters supplied Europe half of Europe with sugar. in eighteenth century wars. The Atlantic and Caribbean loomed large with navies that comprised Britain and France protected their empires with a swarm of smaller vessels; of the line' each, sixty to eighty 'ships little smaller and included the effective Spain's naval forces were only a defeated in Brazil in guardacostas of the Caribbean. that it could authorities to promote the plantation economy who supplied all rival the achievements of the Virginian planters, of St Domingue, who with tobacco, or those of the planters supplied Europe half of Europe with sugar. in eighteenth century wars. The Atlantic and Caribbean loomed large with navies that comprised Britain and France protected their empires with a swarm of smaller vessels; of the line' each, sixty to eighty 'ships little smaller and included the effective Spain's naval forces were only a defeated in Brazil in guardacostas of the Caribbean. The Netherlands, British and century, was only a minor American power. the seventeenth were only sustained because of the French conquests in the Caribbean and the availability of a steady deployment of massive naval power of Ryswick in 1697 there had stream of emigrants. After the Treaty but the threat was there. been few territorial changes in the Caribbean point had been reached. However, by 1770 an important Years turning War had enabled her to eject the Britain's victories in the Seven this time forward internal upheavals French from North America. From the to change in the overlaid and displaced imperial rivalry as key in these upheavals, Slaveholders were to play a leading part hemisphere. --- Page 17 --- Introduction colonies of North America in the 1770s, whether in the thirteen English New Granada, in the French Antilles in 1788-93, or in Venezuela, or de la Plata in the 1810s and 1820s. The slaveholders of Peru, and Rio Caribbean, played their cards in a Brazil, and of the British and Spanish but making their avoiding upheaval SO far as possible different way, American slaveholders in this period were presence felt all the same. the and powerful elsewhere; distinctly less conservative than wealthy in Europe. Some whether mine-owners in Mexico or landowners found in the Americas of observations on the character of the slavery this epoch will help explain this. that prevailed in the Americas in the eighteenth The species of slavery relic of the Ancient or medieval world. century should not be seen as a construction and were highly The colonial systems were of very recent ocean and were locked in commercial in character. They spanned an from Africa and the great rivalry. The slaves were drawn exclusively harsh labour regimes. By contrast majority of them were subjected to less far-flung, less commercial and previous forms of slavery had been of the New World were economic more heterogeneous. The slaves for slaveholding was economic property and the main motive nine tenths of American slaves were put exploitation; to this end at least to commodity production.' has had a chameleon-like ability to adapt to In other societies slavery like a social false limb it has extended the surrounding social formation; forms to the given society - the powers of slaveholders in appropriate a trusted core of administraperhaps enlarging a lineage or Americas supplying the use of slaves in agriculture tors. In the eighteenth extend century the scope of mercantile and manufacturing and mining helped to regions with needed inputs and capital and supplied industrialising and Eugene Genovese have identified outlets. Elizabeth Fox Genovese the force behind accumulation as propulsive the impulse to mercantile The New World partnership of the rise of the new slave systems. the creation of an integrated manufacturmerchants and planters led to The slave plantations themselves ing and agricultural enterprise. technique compatible with incorporated those advances in agricultural directing them were co-ordinated gang labour. The entrepreneurs methods and they usually willing to adopt innovations in processing of capitalist industry and had the resources to purchase the products purchasing inputs in commercial farming. The New World planter, could increase output in partial exchange for the commodities supplied, than the feudal lords of to market pressures far more rapidly response --- Page 18 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and on the basis of greater complementarity with Eastern Europe itself embodied a feat of manufacturing capital. compatible with incorporated those advances in agricultural directing them were co-ordinated gang labour. The entrepreneurs methods and they usually willing to adopt innovations in processing of capitalist industry and had the resources to purchase the products purchasing inputs in commercial farming. The New World planter, could increase output in partial exchange for the commodities supplied, than the feudal lords of to market pressures far more rapidly response --- Page 18 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and on the basis of greater complementarity with Eastern Europe itself embodied a feat of manufacturing capital. The plantation The slave gangs in the fields productive organisation and invigilation. mobilised for labour that was and the slave teams in the mills were Moreno Fraginals has coerced, intensive and continuous. Manuel some of the explored the ways in which the sugar mills anticipated with its precise capitalist industrialism, methods of an emergent and subordination to mechanical rhythms. calibration of labour inputs of the late eighteenth century The tightly coordinated labour process of the future." 'plantation' half resembled the industrial "plant' New World sugar these Marxist authors rightly distinguish between Yet commodity production. The slavery and a regime of generalised in so-called 'natural economy' - slaveholding enterprises still had roots 'uncommodified' labour. that is, subsistence cultivation and internal, built their own huts and thus, Slaves grew much of their own food, on labourer, did not chiefly depend on goods purchased unlike the wage could usually survive, if necessary, the market. The slave plantation and manufacture. The fact that from its own subsistence cultivation as Jacob Gorender has planters had this 'reserve' of natural survive economy, times of war, revolution or called it, reinforced their capacity to and unlike the depression." 3 Like the peasant or farmer, commercial could withdraw from the market manufacturer or merchant, the planter in being. But he was not bound, for long periods and keep his enterprise of the estate; with beckoning in phases of expansion, to the resources only by his capacity to buy in slaves, markets his prospects were limited peasant cultivators or supplies and equipment as needed. hemmed European in by 'natural economy' feudal serf-lords, by contrast, size were of the family or estate labour available and constrained by the given meant that the planter was to them. The capital tied up in his plantation Building and maintaining a not prone to relapse into autarchy. costs which acted as a spur to plantation entailed ongoing economic it was and the renewed commodity production as soon as who possible; could not make economic value of slaves was such that the planter who was induced to sell them to someone a profit out of them himself nor the serf-lord was subject to would. Once again neither the peasant Since the slaves covered their subsiscomparable economic pressure. labour each week, including nearly all tence needs in only two days extraction and gross profit their sparse 'free time', the rate of surplus with The slaveholding planter was thus an entrepreneur was very high. and the motive to be responsive to market pressures. both the ability only on the cost of clearing land, of The expansion of supply depended and of paying salaried supervisors. acquiring slaves and equipment, --- Page 19 --- Introduction exotic commodities was such that these costs could Europe's craving for be amply met. 4 offered here refers to the predominant form of The characterisation century. In Spanish America and American slavery in the eighteenth also residues of an earlier, more diffuse Portuguese Brazil there were between the ancillary slavery of pattern. It is necessary to distinguish colonialism and the systemic slavery, linked early Spanish or Portuguese which was dominant by the and commodity production, to plantations of the Spanish did not involve eighteenth century. The "ancillary slavery' of slaves from all colonies with slave majorities or the exclusion attributes to the enslaved. The responsible posts or the denial of human introduction of slaves helped to consolidate an imperial labour. . In Spanish America and American slavery in the eighteenth also residues of an earlier, more diffuse Portuguese Brazil there were between the ancillary slavery of pattern. It is necessary to distinguish colonialism and the systemic slavery, linked early Spanish or Portuguese which was dominant by the and commodity production, to plantations of the Spanish did not involve eighteenth century. The "ancillary slavery' of slaves from all colonies with slave majorities or the exclusion attributes to the enslaved. The responsible posts or the denial of human introduction of slaves helped to consolidate an imperial labour. superstructure Spanish that was not mainly based on slave of exploitation derived from the conquest and exploitation of the wealth and power outright enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the continent; or SO destructive as Amerindians was tried but proved either communities impossible of the sixteenth The Indian to be counter-productive. islands and littoral had been disrupted and century Caribbean and overwork; their peoples were destroyed by demoralised by invasion absorbed as the conquerors took Indian appalling epidemics, or were and marginal swamps, or held out on women. Some fled to inhospitable backlands. But on the mainland the Spanish rocky islands and in jungle themselves for the previous ruling conquerors were able to substitute exploiting Indian communities strata of the Inca and Aztec empires, that were subjugated but not enslaved. America to make Captive Africans had been introduced to Spanish the of the worst-hit areas and to strengthen up for de-population to sustain centres of administration presence of the colonising power; the needs of the and lines of communication and to serve slaves personal in Spanish America conquerors. The cighteenth century use of African slaves worked as retained some of this long-established pattern. barbers, gardeners, domestics, porters, foremen, dockers, seamstresses, New Granada, and on sugar artisans; slaves did toil in gold mines in but these were still estates in Cuba or cacao groves in Venezuela, economy of 1770. Its fairly modest enclaves in the Spanish imperial of Indian extraction but with silver was mined by wage workers, tribute mostly labour from the Indian villages. some blacks or mestizos, or by America directly promoted and COImperial administration in Spanish administrators supervised the supply ordinated economic activity; royal allotted mining concessions, purchased of food and labour to the mines, of the flow of silver back to Europe. There tobacco and took charge but this extensive system of imperial exploitation were leaks, of course, --- Page 20 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery intensive regime of micro-exploitation on the slave contrasted with the It also helped to inhibit the plantations elsewhere in the Americas. the state was a direct and creole elite who were well aware that imperial labour from the underlying crucial factor in their extraction of surplus process of producers. By contrast planters directed a self-contained in to levy taxes, extraction, with the colonial state stepping The surplus regulations and furnish external protection. establish awkward silver mines in the 1770s were yielding fabulous Spanish American value of Spanish colonial exports - but bonanzas - hence the impressive much less interested this left the Spanish American mining proprietors with the planters. in colonial autonomy than was the case with sugar estates in the North The Brazilian slavery of the 1770s, use of slaves in East, gold fields in the South, and widespread reflected households, farms and ranches in every province, first set workshops, history. The Portuguese in Brazil had the variety of the colony's sixteenth century and, with Dutch help, up sugar mills in the late slave estate. In Brazil as in developed crucial features of the commercial were decimated by the Caribbean the indigenous Indian communities merchants had been disease and driven back by conquest. Portuguese slaves cheaply the Atlantic slave trade, supplying the first to develop on the African coast. Newcomers from from their own trading posts difficult and dangerous than did the Africa found escape far more Africans came from societies where Amerindians. Moreover the captive relations of enslavement were all more agriculture, mining and social for the Amerindians of Brazil, the highly developed than was the case littoral. features of the commercial were decimated by the Caribbean the indigenous Indian communities merchants had been disease and driven back by conquest. Portuguese slaves cheaply the Atlantic slave trade, supplying the first to develop on the African coast. Newcomers from from their own trading posts difficult and dangerous than did the Africa found escape far more Africans came from societies where Amerindians. Moreover the captive relations of enslavement were all more agriculture, mining and social for the Amerindians of Brazil, the highly developed than was the case littoral. Brazil attracted a stream of Caribbean or the North American (fazendeiros) found it easier to Portuguese settlers but the landholders all to immigrant servants overwork captive Africans than to deny rights seventeenth century The labour force of the early from Europe. mixed, combining scores of servile Brazilian sugar mill remained immigrants; and Africans and Indians with a dozen or more Portuguese labour as most cane was processing was not integrated with agricultural (lavradores de cana). The term supplied by independent used of farmers the Brazilian sugar estate. plantation was not demonstrated the profitability of sugar The early Brazilian colonists labour force with a growing predominance of cultivation, using a mixed slavery was African slaves. Further advance to a full-blown Dutch systemic invasions and blocked by erratic demand in Europe, by and expensive annual fleet occupation (1624-54) and by a cumbersome the late seventeenth century The discovery of gold in Brazil in the system. monarchy a powerful incentive to retain gave the Portuguese exploitation. The fleets facilitated mechanisms of 'extensive' imperial But while control and taxation as well as offering protection. imperial --- Page 21 --- Introduction convoyed to Europe the sugar trade was gold exports were safely sugar but in this almost choked. Brazilian slaves continued to produce local markets closed economy many were also employed Iberian in supplying obliged merand manufactures. The powers with foodstuffs with the annual fleet down to the 1760s; the spontaneous chants to sail agriculture was inhibited, SO that greater scope growth of commercial and French.5 was given to the Dutch, English plantation production was made by The breakthrough to large-scale Dutch merchants, British and French planters, backed by independent slavery had to be colonial in the Caribbean around 1640-50. Systemic needed naval and military in character because the slave plantations rivals and the threat of slave revolt. guarantees to protect them from empire helped to While ancillary slavery helped to reproduce empire, was run as an integrated reproduce systemic slavery. The plantation markets; soon all menial enterprise with privileged access to European and war retarded the labour was performed by slaves. Instability until the Peace of plantation development ofJamaica and Saint Domingue conditions both for plantaUtrecht in 1713 established more favourable of a large-scale slave traffic. tion development and for the organisation became, like Brazil but unlike The British and French colonies the inhabitants America, colonies of settlement, as original Spanish out. Export agriculture itself helped were killed, marginalised or forced extended free passage to European to finance colonisation, as merchants for three or five years. More servants willing to work on the plantations colonial North America arrived as than half of the white emigrants to British Caribbean also absorbed indentured servants; the French and who could be purchased more tens of thousands of these tied labourers, servants were shipped to cheaply than slaves. Altogether some 1770s. 350,000 The white servants or engagés the British colonies up to the did not offer the planters the could be harshly exploited but work they force. White servants or engagés chances of building up a stable Africans were condemned to a lifetime eventually had to be set free; the the century the tobacco of bondage. In the first decades of eighteenth to rely on of Virginia and Maryland also came increasingly White planters servants from England. slave labour rather than on indentured of finding had defined legal rights and some expectation and servants both from the authorities support within the colonising community, Africans had few rights and virtually from the common people. Captive might evoke pity but not solidarity no ability to enforce them. chances of building up a stable Africans were condemned to a lifetime eventually had to be set free; the the century the tobacco of bondage. In the first decades of eighteenth to rely on of Virginia and Maryland also came increasingly White planters servants from England. slave labour rather than on indentured of finding had defined legal rights and some expectation and servants both from the authorities support within the colonising community, Africans had few rights and virtually from the common people. Captive might evoke pity but not solidarity no ability to enforce them. They White colonists enjoyed a measure of whites. from non-slaveholding, the Old World while blacks were subjected to a freedom unknown in of enslavement than had ever and ferocious system more systematic been seen before. --- Page 22 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery developed in the wake of capitalist New World colonial slavery Europe. By the 1760s some 60,000 advance in seventeenth century the Americas each year, roughly ten times slaves were being brought to and fifty times the number introduced by the annual intake of the 1650s the 1560s or 1570s. Prior to 1580 it is Spain and Portugal each year in outnumbered slave entries to the New likely that European immigrants the number of African captives arriving World; between 1580 and 1650 the number of European in each year was roughly the same as slavery slave 'imports' rose immigrants. With the rise of 'systemic' The first New World colony proportionately as well as absolutely. of the population was the where African slaves comprised the majority followed by the British island of Barbados in about 1645, to be shortly then and French controlled islands of the Lesser Antilles, other British St in the 1690s. African by Jamaica in the 1660s and Domingue America in large numbers in captives only began to be shipped to North The discovery of gold in the first decades of the eighteenth century. more than doubled the Brazil at the end of the seventeenth century The development of the annual import of slaves into that territory. the numbers of African slaves British and French Caribbean meant exceeded that the number of European landed in the New World certainly But it was not until the eighteenth immigrants in the period 1650-1700. with some six million African century that a huge disparity opened World, up five or six times the number of captives arriving in the New slaves died in this century alone in the Europeans. At least a million from Africa to the New World, course of the notorious 'middle passage' the African coast. and untold numbers died before reflected reaching a vast increase in the output of This surge in the slave trade output in 1620 had been only the slave plantations. Brazil's entire sugar until the 1750s; a figure probably not exceeded 15,000 tons annually, alone produced 15,000 tons in the 1670s. the tiny island of Barbados colonies 150,000 tons of By 1760 the British and French slave in produced the 1787-90. The annually, rising to 290,000 tons years raised sugar in Virginia and Maryland construction of slave plantations million lbs in 1700 to 220 million lbs in 1775. tobacco output from 20 slaves in the British colonies and In 1700 there were some 100,000 this time there are unlikely to have 30,000 in the French colonies; at or more than slaves in all of Spanish America, been as many as 100,000 mortality rates, the slave 150,000 in Brazil. Thus, despite appalling six times over from about population of the Americas multiplied with the British and French 400,000 in 1700 to 2,400,000 in 1770, o colonial slave populations expanding most rapidly. expansion and the Americas the site for this phenomenal Why were Capitalist development in Europe generated why did it entail slavery? --- Page 23 --- Introduction that could not be met from European resources. The New new wants climate and soil needed to grow the exotic produce World had the maritime transport was cheap. But the craved by Europeans and cultivators dedicated to commodity Americas were not peopled by coastal regions most suited to production. Indeed the sub-tropical de-populated following the disastrous produce these crops were severely The cultivation of plantation products impact of European conquest. Americas the site for this phenomenal Why were Capitalist development in Europe generated why did it entail slavery? --- Page 23 --- Introduction that could not be met from European resources. The New new wants climate and soil needed to grow the exotic produce World had the maritime transport was cheap. But the craved by Europeans and cultivators dedicated to commodity Americas were not peopled by coastal regions most suited to production. Indeed the sub-tropical de-populated following the disastrous produce these crops were severely The cultivation of plantation products impact of European conquest. which voluntary migrants; the involved the kind of labour land repelled in the New World offered an more SO since the abundance of to labour on the plantations alternative that was widely preferred the indigenous often the case, this meant fighting even if, as was Dutch, British and French inhabitants for possession. Portuguese, the development of merchants found that it paid handsomely to sponsor them by securing a plantations. But they only succeeded in staffing in the Atlantic supply of slaves from the coast of Africa. had Competition about trading in enslaved marketplace submerged any scruples forced they labour on the plantations, or Africans, or putting them to of slaves. Prior to about 1760 there making money out of the produce the mass enslavement of Africans were astonishingly few protests at in the next chapter, slavery had despite the fact that, as will be seen Europe. New World slavery long disappeared from North-western at a time when no other solution solved the colonial labour problem with commercial and It thus proved to be highly congruent was in sight. in the centres of capitalist advance in manufacturing accumulation and foremost those in Britain, the Netherlands Western Europe; first sea-board and its hinterland. and the French Atlantic demand for the slave produce? The plantation What maintained with demand for sugar and tobacco products were popular pleasures, widening circles of the population into often acting as the lure drawing these also supplied a economy; the taxes on products a commodity for the major states. The new pattern of social relations useful revenue earnt in money rather than kind; sweetened led to incomes being both a consolation and spur, while light, beverages and tobacco were and healthy. Europe's washable, bright textiles made life more pleasant to slake, which it seemed impossible thirst for plantation produce, coffee, tobacco or cotton to double in a allowed the supply of sugar, Traders and planters were decade without a collapse in price. of expansion which encouraged to pursue the almost limitless prospects The new culture of attended the construction of slave oblivious plantations. of the human cost that its commercialised consumption was satisfactions entailed." --- Page 24 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery by colonial slavery? In 1770 What were the internal tensions generated most at risk from rebellious the British and French authorities were and their descendants, did not colonists. The British and French settlers, them of rights; this sentiment believe that being colonists should deprive British colonies of North America was, of course, strongest in the older French Antilles. but it was also to be found in the and French colonial slavery was the The specific strength of British for containing the slaves. decentralised, planter-controlled apparatus in centres of of Iberian colonisation was concentrated The administration strength in the colonies themselves. Even Colonial slavery bred its own characteristic social antagonisms. and penalties the wisest of ministers found it difficult to allot privileges of the Atlantic effective and coherent way given the spontaneity in an responses to changing tastes and economy and its unpredictable The tobacco planters of Virginia, the changing methods of production. Antilles and the gold mine concessionaires sugar planters of the French their had achieved a high of Brazil had the disadvantage that products merchants and excise degree of visibility. of Iberian colonisation was concentrated The administration strength in the colonies themselves. Even Colonial slavery bred its own characteristic social antagonisms. and penalties the wisest of ministers found it difficult to allot privileges of the Atlantic effective and coherent way given the spontaneity in an responses to changing tastes and economy and its unpredictable The tobacco planters of Virginia, the changing methods of production. Antilles and the gold mine concessionaires sugar planters of the French their had achieved a high of Brazil had the disadvantage that products merchants and excise degree of visibility. Prone in any case to resent restrictions which made officials they were subjected to mercantilist it, *as miserably oppressed as our them feel, as Washington once of the put British West Indies accepted their own blacks'. The planters knew that the colonial system delivered position more easily since they market, saving them from the to them a protected metropolitan terms with the more efficient French necessity of competing on equal of Spanish America or even of plantations. Likewise the sugar planters dynamic to feel a keen sense of Brazil were not yet sufficiently the case with the cacao planters of frustration; though this was not evaded the monopoly claims of the Venezuela who challenged and knew until they secured its Caracas Company in every way they liquidation in the 1780s. the slaveholders of the New Aside from a few privileged big-wigs officials since they wished to run World had a lively dislike of colonial officialdom had the job of their own affairs and since colonial But at least colonial garrisons administering mercantilist regulation. Slaveholders were prone to a more intimate gave them some protection. merchants and their local agents, antagonism towards metropolitan the case, they were indebted to them. especially when, as was SO often where a crop could be sold was Bringing a slave plantation to the point The planters often had and risky undertaking. often a protracted, expensive slaves, equipment or provisions. They recourse to credit in buying after a war, a hurricane, or a fell into the clutches of the merchants had carried away slave revolt had wiped out their crop or an epidemic the merchant of the overworked slave crew. Typically half or more --- Page 25 --- Introduction charged high interest on loans to planters and doing SO because of the risks involved. But could get away with slaveholding planter was giving the all this meant that the super-profits that had not yet even merchant-creditor been a prior claim on out in acquiring a slave represented produced. The very cash laid appropriated by putting the slave to work. discounted There future surplus to be antagonism between planter and merchant was here a nexus of hostility to colonial systems which that often intensified monopolies. Usually local merchants awarded national mercantile since they might be partners in aroused less suspicion or hatred metropolitan creditors. But the evading mercantilist restrictions and merchants was never an easy one. relationship This included between planters and traders wherever planters felt that they could antagonism to slave slave purchases. It could even get along without extra sort of desperate longing by the prompt impatience with slavery itself, a own skin and into that of slaveholding planter to jump out of his agriculturalist. some more sovereign landholder and The relationship between planters and other population of the colonies, while also layers of the free cordiality. The planters bought ambivalent, admitted of more supplies from local manufacturers. provisions from small-holders and some overseers, book-keepers, lawyers, doctors They engaged the services of zone itself the larger and the like. In the local planter would be plantation community, holding such acknowledged as leader of the militia. Despite tensions associated posts as magistrate or Colonel in the usually attract support from other free with patronage the planters could the metropolis. population of the colonies, while also layers of the free cordiality. The planters bought ambivalent, admitted of more supplies from local manufacturers. provisions from small-holders and some overseers, book-keepers, lawyers, doctors They engaged the services of zone itself the larger and the like. In the local planter would be plantation community, holding such acknowledged as leader of the militia. Despite tensions associated posts as magistrate or Colonel in the usually attract support from other free with patronage the planters could the metropolis. This colonists in confrontations with North American plantation planter-dominated axis was strongest in the plantation development had taken zone but was also found wherever been obliged to allow the colonies place. The metropolitan powers had capacity both as an insurance against to develop their own military to metropolitan forces during the servile revolt and as an auxiliary Throughout the Americas wars of imperial rivalry. merchants linked to them, were planters, restive slaveholders, and the local This was true in South America and the and unruly colonial subjects. America. But naturally the prevailing Caribbean as well as North vigour of the slave-based balance of social forces and the goals and methods economy encouraged variations in the adopted. The precise and running a plantation possession of slaves conferred mainland tended gave a habit of command. The status, to be bolder in planters of the the Caribbean, defying imperial authorities; perched on large slave those of than deed and often majorities, were fiercer in word centres. But whatever preferred to lobby for influence in the their location planters inclined imperial to think of --- Page 26 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery agents with an enlightened and rational themselves as autonomous of economic rationality outlook on life. The species quasi-capitalist this outlook and often embodied in the slave plantation direction. encouraged Striving to get a competitive tilted it in an anti-mercantilist resented commercial restrictions return out of his estate the planter and selling to him from buying the cheapest supplies which prevented British West Indian planters felt these resentments any willing customer. free trade allowed them to buy cheap less intensely because empire English metal implements and textiles, North American supplies, cheap could Virginian and to find outlets for as much sugar as they because produce. by selling planters looked at it differently and Maryland they could cut out the middleman's tobacco direct to Europe the French Antilles and of the plantation commission. The planters of merchants paid enclaves of Spanish America knew that metropolitan and would have liked to them less because of their monopoly manufactures privileges and North American have direct access to British concessions in Brazil felt such supplies. The owners of gold mine their concessions depended on resentments less keenly, partly because was in decline by licences and partly because the mining economy royal the 1770s as deposits were exhausted. Americas allowed a large measure of Britain's colonial empire in the been held together by its own colonial self-government. It had of the Royal Navy and by fear of commercial coherence, by the strength of Virginian tobacco the Indians and of France. With the exception of its absorbed by far the greater part of the plantation produce Britain of dynastic and national aggrandisement France colonies. For reasons colonial establishment; sections of the maintained a large naval and in the colonial and bourgeoisie both found a nesting ground aristocracy colonial conseils were as jealous of their rights system. But the French and probably more representative of the as the metropolitan parlements Britain and France extracted a commercial local possessing classes. direct revenues from from their colonies but did not levy large surplus of Spain and Portugal had a much weaker them. orbed by far the greater part of the plantation produce Britain of dynastic and national aggrandisement France colonies. For reasons colonial establishment; sections of the maintained a large naval and in the colonial and bourgeoisie both found a nesting ground aristocracy colonial conseils were as jealous of their rights system. But the French and probably more representative of the as the metropolitan parlements Britain and France extracted a commercial local possessing classes. direct revenues from from their colonies but did not levy large surplus of Spain and Portugal had a much weaker them. The royal governments on American revenues generated European base and had come to rely trade. In fact the flow of by the mining economy and some plantation both and financed a colonial revenues to Madrid and Lisbon required by an establishment whose spinal column was supplied colonial African slaves and free people of colour were aristocratic military caste. fortifications, force to underpin imperial still used as an auxiliary In 1770 both Spanish and arsenals, naval yards and communications., lacked the autonomous vigour of Portuguese America almost entirely the local-born (*creole') elite had at the English and French territories; and was, outside plantation best a secondary role in government --- Page 27 --- Introduction enclaves, generally sunk in provincial torpor. slaveholders in the Americas The most independent and vigorous North America and in the French were to be found in English century some planters in Caribbean; towards the close of the eighteenth to emulate them. Portuguese Brazil and the Spanish Caribbean began from the resistance to imperial control - moving The arc of planter one of the themes of this book. It began former to the latter - furnishes America because the planters with the British colonies of North but partly also because the imperial there were more strongly internal positioned colonial autonomy. The strongest power had long tolerated France, had been willing to concede more to Atlantic states, Britain and than did Spain or Portugal, weaker as colonial self-government formidable imperial bureaucracies. In the European powers but with where imperial authority was year 1770 colonial slavery was strongest Similarly slavery was weakest in weakest, in the English colonies. authority was exercised in the Spanish America where metropolitan occupied intermediate fashion. France and Portugal of most dirigiste to the exercise positions. Since slavery was inversely proportional that the first exercise in metropolitan authority it is not surprising contribution to boosting the independence was to make a rather large slave systems. less exacting and constrictive, was also The British empire, though planters than was the case with the less useful to the North American of the French, and with them of other imperial systems. The departure also revealed that the empire the need for British military protection, rationale which was still had long lacked the intrinsic productive the other large empires. French retained, to a greater or lesser extent, by the merchants of Bordeaux and absolutism conferred privileges on planters. The slave trade was Nantes but also helped the Antillean from taxation subsidised, planters with a title of nobility were exempt and those helped to maintain roads, ports and the colonial garrisons which made St Domingue SO productive. The systems of irrigation Brazil could also compile a similar list of planters of North East to foster the plantation imperial favours in the 1760s, as Pombal sought on the infrastructure of empire impinged economy. By contrast constraint and not a support. This Virginian planters more simply as a motives dictated the pattern and is not to say that narrowly economic as were effective the sequence of colonial rebellion; but SO long they as well as on mentioned here had an impact on mentality structures calculation. As for the Spanish American mining proprietors, economic beholden to the imperial authorities than they were more thoroughly depended on them, as noted above, for supplies, any planter since they labour, licences and transport. --- Page 28 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Old World the 'intensive' commercial and manufacturing In the Countries had led to a momentous clash with development of the Low 'extensive' empire, that of the Spanish the then most powerful liberation appeared in those Hapsburgs; a similar impulse to national intensive of of the New World where there was an development commerce, regions farming and planting. they were more thoroughly depended on them, as noted above, for supplies, any planter since they labour, licences and transport. --- Page 28 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Old World the 'intensive' commercial and manufacturing In the Countries had led to a momentous clash with development of the Low 'extensive' empire, that of the Spanish the then most powerful liberation appeared in those Hapsburgs; a similar impulse to national intensive of of the New World where there was an development commerce, regions farming and planting. concentrated in the tropical Slaveholding in the Americas was heavily and of the immediate hinterland and sub-tropical zone of the Caribbean South America. While there were of the Atlantic coasts of North and colonised or controlled by an still huge expanses not yet effectively sectors of the colonial economies in imperial power there were also role. The 25,000 or SO which slavery played a secondary or negligible crucial to farming or black slaves in New England in 1775 were of not the slave gang had no ship-building; the coerced cooperation and manufacture as it commanding productivity edge in mixed farming staples. However did in the cultivation and processing of the New plantation found that the farmers and sea-captains of England the merchants, customers and resented attempts to slaveholding planters were good there was little they could limit their trade with the West Indies; as yet America often engaged some supply to Europe. The ranchers of South and wished to sell hides and slaves - they sold dried meat to the planters miners of merchants. The slaveholding gold skins more freely to European vigorously but and cacao planters of Venezuela smuggled New Granada controls. still resented metropolitan of colonial slavery had produced different patterns of The maintenance for conflict. In all the colonies racial privilege, with different potentials By 1770 all American whites enjoyed special status and advantages. slaves. Lower class whites slaves were black though not all blacks were enslavement to Americans owed their freedom from outright and native resistance. Slaveholders appealed to the the resources of communal and sometimes they even urged Indians to racial solidarity of whites, but only in the English colonies help them maintain black enslavement; that nearly every black was a was there SO small a free black population sufficient numbers of slaves, slave. In Spanish and Portuguese manumission America to create a sizeable free had obtained or their offspring, The free blacks and mulattos were black and mulatto population. both to the sometimes regarded by the authorities as a counterweight status in the slaves and to the creole elite; they occupied an if still intermediate subordinate, identity. caste system and were permitted a separate, black regiments with black officers In Brazil the Portuguese had formed --- Page 29 --- Introduction the Dutch; the Spanish also formed black in their struggle to eject The ranks of the Brazilian Henriques militias in the eighteenth century. batallions were often recruited or the Spanish American pardo or negro and offered their freedom in return from slaves purchased by the state slaves for the armed term of service. Since purchasing for a lengthy seized from enemies of the forces was expensive they were sometimes Caribbean free people of colour were Crown. In the French and Dutch colonists and received some official almost as numerous as the white the colonial slave system. The buttress to recognition as a subordinate Portuguese and French complex racial hierarchy of the Spanish, in the contrasted with the bipolar, black or white system colonies large white colonial populaEnglish colonies with their comparatively of North America a majority white tion. In the plantation colonies the presence of free blacks; in the population only barely tolerated massive slave majorities, the whites British West Indies, with their to free blacks found it expedient to be somewhat more accommodating blacks and mulattos could and mulattos. In all the colonies free colonies this was quite rare. themselves own slaves, but in the English free coded 'black' skin as a slave characteristic; New World slavery their blackness or to deny people of colour might be led to deny descent shared with 'white' slavery. Slaveholders of partly African them towards this slaveholders a concern for their rights that impelled difficult choice. only barely tolerated massive slave majorities, the whites British West Indies, with their to free blacks found it expedient to be somewhat more accommodating blacks and mulattos could and mulattos. In all the colonies free colonies this was quite rare. themselves own slaves, but in the English free coded 'black' skin as a slave characteristic; New World slavery their blackness or to deny people of colour might be led to deny descent shared with 'white' slavery. Slaveholders of partly African them towards this slaveholders a concern for their rights that impelled difficult choice. Americas in 1770 were more intensively exploited The slaves of the Yet the immediate threat to than any group of this size in history. but from a colonial alliance empire came not from the exploited While imperial garrisons and including many of the exploiters. slave revolts and sometimes available to subjugate squadrons were to stamp out resistance by means contain maroons the planters preferred forces had the primary of their own patrols and militia. Metropolitan external attack. It is for this reason function of protecting colonies from America in 1763 was too sweeping for that the British victory in North colonists from their fear of the French its own good; it emancipated the and Spanish. enterprises in each colony were Those who built the slave-based and economic interest; and they united by language, cultural identity and to secure allies amongst the had the resources to hire employees contrast, had been free population. The slaves, by non-slaveholding of a huge continent; they spoke different torn from different parts traditions. The sequence of capture, sale languages and had different Those captive Africans who came and shipment was itself traumatic. --- Page 30 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery regions were more vulnerable, both more from the more developed familiar with life in the forest than the familiar with slavery and less number of Bushmen who seem to have comprised a disproportionate slaves developing a Every effort was made to prevent the maroons. by sowing division within the plantations common outlook or interest, between them. The slave populations and preventing communication to their masters; but this fear did were always a source of apprehension believed themselves to be better the slaveholders who not paralyse necessities of slave control than metropolitan functionschooled in the aries. could not have survived for over Colonies with large slave majorities the subjection of the or more if they had not reproduced and a century effectively. The extraordinary destructiveness forced labourers continually re-created a labour force that profitability of the plantations discover itself. The slave crews condemned had had little opportunity to and sub-tropical zone had to labour in the plantations of the tropical that it required a slave trade of such high mortality and low fertility levels. Had it to maintain or increase population enormous proportions of the Caribbean colonies not been for this influx the slave populations four cent each year in the would have declined by two, three or per bought more male than mid-eighteenth century. Caribbean planters to take on the expense of female slaves because of their unwillingness and 1774 half a million slaves Between 1700 natural reproduction. the slave population rose by only were introduced to Jamaica dates. yet The fact that the newly arrived slave 150,000 between these two of only seven or ten years, and in the Caribbean had a life expectancy replenished by purchases, that the plantation crews were continually and transmission of a new made more difficult the construction hand the dire prospects of plantation collective identity. On the other and occasional mass breakexistence did encourage individual escapes outs. security varied markedly from Slave conditions and plantation slaves of English North America were colony to colony. The 450,000 by their owners, who subjected to close and detailed invigilation slaves, if that. The whip, the typically possessed only a few dozen of foodstocks helped to keep book and the planters' control often prayer from sun-up to sun-down, with evenings them hard at work However a milder climate, devoted to processing or manufacture. foodstuffs, and the less intense plentiful land for raising fresh that North American slave requirements of tobacco cultivation, meant rates characteristic of the populations avoided the very high mortality multiplied almost as fast as blacks in North America but much sugar plantations; faced higher slave prices the whites. North American planters --- Page 31 --- Introduction lower interest rates, giving them an incentive reproduction of the slave labour force. prayer from sun-up to sun-down, with evenings them hard at work However a milder climate, devoted to processing or manufacture. foodstuffs, and the less intense plentiful land for raising fresh that North American slave requirements of tobacco cultivation, meant rates characteristic of the populations avoided the very high mortality multiplied almost as fast as blacks in North America but much sugar plantations; faced higher slave prices the whites. North American planters --- Page 31 --- Introduction lower interest rates, giving them an incentive reproduction of the slave labour force. to encourage the natural American slaves less Family ties made North Caribbean. willing to run away or revolt than those in the The low survival rate of Africans in much of reflected the fact that they were the New World partly where disease took a toll concentrated in the tropical lowlands the heavy on all immigrants. But consequent neglect of overwork, and At least two thirds of the subsistence, Africans certainly helped to kill the slaves. to sugar plantations. In the arriving in the New World were sent regularly Caribbean and Brazil the sugar imposed a sixteen or even hour plantations slaves; there was nightwork in the mill, cighteen working day on the the day during the long and, rain or shine, field work in planting and given bare rations and harvesting cycle. The slaves were expected to feed day, or a day and a half, each week themselves by working for a purpose. The Caribbean on plots given to them for the slaves each; the brutalised plantations typically contained hundreds of entrusted did not even have overseers the and drivers to whom they were chattels with some owners' dubious motive for care, namely that they treating his In Spanish and Portuguese America would lose value if he did not. the lot of the generally no better and that of the slaves in the plantation slave was worse in the latter case therc was gold workings actually over-work and exposure to not even a harvest cycle to The relative water or weather inflicted heavy limit the cheapness with which new mortality. slave merchants and the captives could be bought from sugar or gold - gave a terrible great value of slave produce - whether up the lives of the slaves in a few commercial logic to the practice of using slave crews were wracked years of intense labour. And SO long as by disease and difficult to resist their oppression overwork they found it collectively. Throughout the plantation zone the slaves threatened by, repeated floggings, were subjected to, and punishment; slave women were abused quite apart from other forms of plantation community, if such it by the white men; and the can be called, often under-nourishment and discase, despond and abandoned to galvanised by brute force to attend to the lassitude, when not plantation labour. The material conditions implacable rhythms of undoubtedly worse in the Caribbean and of slave existence were where crops and climate were less Brazil than in North America, size of plantations in the Caribbean exacting. On the other hand the large the slaveholders; this factor favoured diminished the cultural impact of the discovery of new sources of African survivals and, eventually, Caribbean creole languages and dialects, communal identity. Throughout the vocabularies and structures, became the heavily influenced by African chief medium of communica21 --- Page 32 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of South Carolina tended to this latter tion. The large rice plantations a language of with the inhabitants of that region developing the pattern, as islanders did in many parts of Caribbean. their own, Gullah, just of slaveholding in Spanish The diversified and traditional pattern encouraged the more America, and to a lesser extent in Brazil, incorporation within privileged slaves to develop their own subordinate the when either they or colonial society and to look forward to day brotherhoods furnished their children would be freed. Special religious insurance for the comparatively a cultural medium and a form of social 9 the and Portuguese large free black and mulatto population." In Spanish slaves, a number of semi-autonomous colonies there were quite large under their own direction. , Gullah, just of slaveholding in Spanish The diversified and traditional pattern encouraged the more America, and to a lesser extent in Brazil, incorporation within privileged slaves to develop their own subordinate the when either they or colonial society and to look forward to day brotherhoods furnished their children would be freed. Special religious insurance for the comparatively a cultural medium and a form of social 9 the and Portuguese large free black and mulatto population." In Spanish slaves, a number of semi-autonomous colonies there were quite large under their own direction. Allowed to plying a trade or working land they could buy their freedom, or keep a proportion of their earnings also gave or SO - in SO doing they that of a relative, over twenty years slave and thus to their owner the resources to buy a new young perpetuate his or her role as slaveholder. convenient to foster and rely on a American slaveholders found it slaves who had skilled or responsible layer of more permanent, of plantation agriculture. These mastered the complex requirements and in return were expected to help were awarded petty privileges in the slave gangs. Members of the slave invigilate or drive their fellows and at least a elite had extra rations, could choose a mate, and content enjoyed of plantation margin of manoeuvre in negotiating the would pace hand over to their chosen labour. Often the Caribbean planters foodstuffs and rum destined for the slave 'head people' all the clothing, the slave elite had a vested interest in the crew as a whole. In this way It is important to recognise the authority structure of the plantation. In principle each plantation internal strength of the plantation regime. slaves were normally world to itself and only the most privileged was a Éven the field slaves had permitted intercourse with other plantations. feel tied to the estate, where reason to fear life in the wild and to Slave some and attachments. they would have their own plots endemic, personal taking a reformist as resistance to the plantation regime was via the drivers and form. Slaves would negotiate, well as revolutionary or an extra evening to work for overseers, for larger gardens of slavery may themselves. The absoluteness of the juridical category slave condition that from seeing all features of the actual prevent us slaves themselves. While the plantation regime were important to the those habituated to it came to was a shock to the newcomer good and bad drivers or discriminate between good and bad conditions, but other objectives could overseers. They would still long to be free or making life immediate and practical - a larger garden appear more By working slowly and 'stupidly', or difficult for a hated overseer. --- Page 33 --- Introduction and the slaves could seeming indifferent to threats punishment, owners and sometimes bargain for better conditions. The plantation would use the utmost local authorities had superior fire-power, and but planters and managers brutality to maintain servile subordination, was the best way to get the sometimes discovered that negotiation the blacks severely limited harvest in; the bleak alternatives available to the bargains they could strike. islands, where slaves comprised In the French and British sugar were evidently far more 80-90 per cent of the population, the planters the colonial state than was the beholden to the guarantee afforded by could always call upon the case on the mainland. In the last resort they of the line' even though they help of metropolitan garrisons and 'ships forces. In practice the small size of preferred to count only on their own of militia forces greatly the Caribbean colonies and the proximity Considerations of the for slave revolt or escape. reduced opportunities could, however, dispose Caribbean security and commercial advantage metropolis. During the Seven Years planters against their own national of the French and Spanish War Britain was able to occupy parts of local planters. Caribbean with the active collaboration certain West European states The entire colonial process whereby mines or plantations in the Americas, and developed carved out empires described in terms of a prodigious growth in social in them, can be by states, many others propelled by powers, some of these co-ordinated The African captives were private centres of wealth and power. where the slaveholder disposed not introduced into a social formation but also of the support of his only of the fire-power of his henchmen, foodstocks bought in by the planter or neighbours and clients. with the active collaboration certain West European states The entire colonial process whereby mines or plantations in the Americas, and developed carved out empires described in terms of a prodigious growth in social in them, can be by states, many others propelled by powers, some of these co-ordinated The African captives were private centres of wealth and power. where the slaveholder disposed not introduced into a social formation but also of the support of his only of the fire-power of his henchmen, foodstocks bought in by the planter or neighbours and clients. Without Planters and colonial officials his administrator starvation might ensue. and made recalcitrant blacks the controlled local information systems Even the Amerindian populations were victims of exemplary violence. often hostile to black rebels or runaways. within an insidious and manyIn normal times the slave was trapped slaveholders disposed of economic sided structure of oppression in which and military guarantees; and ideological resources, as well as political background and situation, by contrast the enslaved were divided by in their new habitat, and cut off from their origins but isolated of territorial control, enmeshed within vast and complex systems economic exchange and social mobilisation. empires helped to set the scene for attempts Rivalry between the various sphere of autonomy and gave some by colonists to assert a larger --- Page 34 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery resistance: only one decade between 1660 and opportunities for slave between one or other of the Atlantic 1770 was not marked by war states. had protected the infancy of the slave systems Colonial mercantilism trades but output rose most vigorously as chartered and national slave restrictions lifted. Some monopolies were disbanded and mercantilist to claim selfconfident of their position planters felt sufficiently freedom for the colonies; others preferred government and commercial A few were reactionaries with reform within the metropolis. to sponsor niche in the prevailing order. position and a privileged a stand-pat uniform outlook or situation but they Slaveholders did not have a and at least some of them rose to be tended to the side of progress leaders of the age. With the amongst the outstanding revolutionary much in its infancy in 1770 there was industrial revolution still very world with the boom in plantation nothing to compare in the Atlantic century and a half. In sociooutput and trade over the preceding of the New World had created a new economic terms the slaveholders to invent, almost from scratch, species of slavery and had been obliged of a slave system. This historical the legal and ideological underpinnings certain confidence in their own experience endowed them with a Declaration of the Rights of capacities. However there was to be no chose to stress other Slaveholders. The revolutionary slaveholders usually uniting all free-born identities, and other common interests, revolutionaries disavowed not only citizens. At the limit some planter with civic liberty and the slave trade but also slavery as inconsistent of their double or triple national integrity; they discarded that aspect and preferred to see identity which they found most difficult to justify and learning. That themselves as citizens and as men of enterprise was not difficult to slavery was the ugly side of New World progress long understand even for a slaveholder. Slavery was thought degrading and economists explained their own objections. before the moralists of the Age of Revolution E.J. Hobsbawm surveyed În his classic study industrial revolution and the political the economic impact of Britain's There is much in subsequent impact of the French Revolution. and in the modern world, which European and American development, implications of this 'dual revolution'. can be traced to the momentous World slavery demands attention to However the history of New those generated by the political another set of forces and impulses: Hanoverian state, the Atlantic's premier impact and example of the of the revolutionary events in North power, and the economic impact --- Page 35 --- Introduction and South America. surveyed În his classic study industrial revolution and the political the economic impact of Britain's There is much in subsequent impact of the French Revolution. and in the modern world, which European and American development, implications of this 'dual revolution'. can be traced to the momentous World slavery demands attention to However the history of New those generated by the political another set of forces and impulses: Hanoverian state, the Atlantic's premier impact and example of the of the revolutionary events in North power, and the economic impact --- Page 35 --- Introduction and South America. Even those who fought America, the Caribbean found much to admire in it; its political against Hanoverian Britain be imitated in the Atlantic institutions, as we will see, were to widely with plantation slavery world of this epoch, and came to be associated Likewise the Revoluuneasily co-existing with half-baked abolitionism. consequences for the tions of 1776, 1789 and after had prodigious They broke down economic fortunes of slavery in the Americas. and gave an barriers to the expansion of the plantations time mercantilist of slavery on the mainland; at the same they impulse to the spread against slavery occasion for a succession of momentous eruptions tends to gave The literature on the 'Age of Revolution' in the Caribbean. albeit that R.R. Palmer and J. Godechot concentrate on Europe, democratic impulse of the revolt of the stressed the revolutionary But developments in the slave thirteen North American colonies. rise of new states based on slavery, or plantation zone after 1776 - the from Haiti to Spanish the spread of revolution and emancipation commensurate with their attention America - have not been given devoted as it is to a vital chapter in the significance. The present study, this somewhat neglected history of New World slavery, will explore American dimension.' 10 of the "Age of Of course there is no consensual understanding Hobsbawm's work was Revolution' in Europe, even among Marxists. of a continent-wide notable for addressing the international revolution' complexity in which politics and and epochal process of 'bourgeois rather than unison. The class economics advanced in counterpoint confined to the struggle of a struggles of this epoch were by no means feudalism. Small producers, rising capitalist class against an obsolete non-capitalist "bourgeois' labourers, artisans, petty functionaries, wage Sometimes they formed alliances with capitalist all played a part. obstacles to capitalist advance. But a interests or helped to remove of Revolution' is that popular forces characteristic feature of the 'Age best knew how. their own interests as they also intervened to safeguard did eventually produce national state This epoch of 'bourgeois' progress accumulation than the anciens structures more conducive to capital democratic movements and régimes; but it also gave birth to of capital. The course of institutions that acted as a check on the power marked by in the Americas was to have a similar complexity, events revolution. This secular and popular class struggle as well as bourgeois slaveholders to a pinnacle of wealth contested process raised American to dash them to pieces at the next. and power at one moment only to Rio de Janeiro could be That slaveholders from the Chesapeake development is, of of bourgeois revolution' and capitalist bourprotagonists paradoxical since they were not themselves course, thoroughly --- Page 36 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery if their mercantile associates can be SO geois or capitalist, even that while the rise of described. And there is the further problem centuries in the seventeenth and eighteenth capitalism in Europe of the slave systems in the New manifestly promoted the development to be some link between World there does, nevertheless, seem In several outstanding studies the capitalism and the rise of anti-slavery. has been identified with the abolition of slavery or the slave trade civilisation. It or outlook of a new capitalist and imperialist for purposes that the critique of slavery cleared the path regimes has been argued the of a bourgeois hegemony on of industrial wage labour or imposition idiom, the advance of every layer of society. capitalism in Europe of the slave systems in the New manifestly promoted the development to be some link between World there does, nevertheless, seem In several outstanding studies the capitalism and the rise of anti-slavery. has been identified with the abolition of slavery or the slave trade civilisation. It or outlook of a new capitalist and imperialist for purposes that the critique of slavery cleared the path regimes has been argued the of a bourgeois hegemony on of industrial wage labour or imposition idiom, the advance of every layer of society. Similarly, in a non-Marxist market relations is held to rationalisation or of industrial society or of of enslavement. If slavery have driven back the primitive social form insisted above, how was developed in the wake of capitalism, as I have impulses? In the advance also prompted anti-slavery it that capitalist will be made to resolve the paradox of course of this book an attempt of unfree labour and yet how capitalism at once needed regimes American slavery. unleashed forces which helped to challenge Williams developed the In Capitalism and Slavery (1944) the old Eric world of colonial mercanargument that slavery belonged to the rise of wage labour in the tilism and was rendered redundant by colonial rule in Asia and Africa. metropolis and the spread of European and and Slavery contains much powerful argument While Capitalism of abolition accordmarvellous illustration it propounds an explanation with the slave trade and ing to which industrial capitalists did away Reference is made to colonial slavery for essentially economic revolts reasons. but the main weight of broader social tensions and to slave interest. British abolition is explanation is borne by capitalist economic national process and the approached as if it were a largely self-sufficient either as a America is not investigated, fate of slavery in independent Williams his thesis or as an influence on British emancipation. test of the of capitalism and slavery did not blink the fact that development minimised the explanatory problems had been intimately related. But he rather than the other by holding that slavery had produced capitalism understanding of the origins of about. In contrast to the Marxist way Williams did not take the measure of agrarian, manufactur- For capitalism, accumulation in the pre-industrial epoch. ing and mercantile capital far from being a consequence of him the New World slave systems, ladder up which it had capitalist development, were a disposable schema of capitalism using and climbed. In the end his 'dialectical' discarding slavery is mechanical and unsatisfactory. Revolution 1776-1823 In The Problem of Slavery in the Age of and complex David Brion Davis advances a more comparative (1975) --- Page 37 --- Introduction illuminating the ways in which they interrogation of the abolitionists, even while moving against helped construct a new bourgeois hegemony, in the plantation zone. This mode of exploitation a more primitive chiefly on the ideology of abolitionism, impressive work focuses form some of the early struggles over presenting only in summary controversies are much illuminated emancipation. While metropolitan amongst the slaves of resistance and accommodation the pattern into the analysis. The experience and themselves is not integrated are far more difficult to identify aspirations of the slaves of this epoch abolitionists, but this does and document than the thoughts of leading us from making the attempt. not dispense outstanding essay From Rebellion to Revolution Eugene Genovese's of the slaves' own anti-slavery, (1979) explores the development during the epoch arguing that its scope and trajectory were transformed these sustained works of democratic revolution. In of bourgeois research, Davis and Genovese interpretation, informed by wide-ranging anti-slavery to the rise of both qualify and nuance the thesis abolitionists linking often aimed beyond a bourgeois society. Davis shows that while Genovese brings out capitalist revision of social relations, against purely which slave resistance was made to prevail the ways in that democratic revolution bourgeois egoism and reminds us bourgeois democratic itself often involved popular forces imposing in Europe bourgeois. Davis and timid or treacherous progress on reluctant, and contradictions that this Genovese draw attention to the tensions and the enactment entailed and place the rise of abolition movements, of class struggles both and outcome of emancipation, in a context Drawing on these within the plantation zone and in the metropolis. ist revision of social relations, against purely which slave resistance was made to prevail the ways in that democratic revolution bourgeois egoism and reminds us bourgeois democratic itself often involved popular forces imposing in Europe bourgeois. Davis and timid or treacherous progress on reluctant, and contradictions that this Genovese draw attention to the tensions and the enactment entailed and place the rise of abolition movements, of class struggles both and outcome of emancipation, in a context Drawing on these within the plantation zone and in the metropolis. Marxist narrative of approaches the present work seeks to construct a of the Americas and liberation struggles in the different areas the actual either in intention or result, to establish to what extent anti-slavery, dynamic. The transcended the bourgeois democratic or capitalist the contrireconstruction offered also seeks to acknowledge narrative slaveholders to a wider bourgeois revolutionary bution made by colonial slavery and to the birth of new process, to the dismantling of bringing together colonial and slave systems. This has involved account of the fate of metropolitan politics in a country-by-country slavery in each colony in the revolutionary epoch. of abolitionism is In the 1980s there are signs that the study from the history of branch of study disconnected becoming a specialised of middle class slavery. Abolitionism is seen as an important expression in the plantation zone reform rather than as a response to struggles tends to be assumed itself. That abolitionism led to emancipation as a vindication of investigation. Thus abolition is understood without --- Page 38 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of the spread of a market model of society and capitalist advance, In such work the focus tends to be bourgeois confidence in progress. and feeling amongst the the evolution of social thought upon middle classes. Little attention is paid to metropolitan of the metropolitan the purpose and character class struggle or to contests concerning events in the plantation zone and even less attention is paid to state; resistance and to the role of former slaves in determining itself, to slave While a theoretical critique of the outcome of the emancipation process. which traces the advances of these approaches is needed a narrative its own contribution and anti-slavery in the Americas can make slavery as this book seeks to do." to suggesting their inadequacy, are prone to ignore events in the If historians of abolitionism school of 'slavery studies' plantation zone there is also a flourishing politics and which abstracts from the context supplied by metropolitan in isolation, Slave life and black resistance are studied economy. decisions. Academic without reference to their impact on metropolitan but the and division of labour has its own justification if specialisation of colonial slavery cannot be grasped reasons for the destruction the of the plantation zone are abolition and struggles metropolitan of knowledge. allotted to different departments the struggle against The still unsurpassed model for understanding L'Ouverture and the San slavery is The Black Jacobins: Toussaint (1938). In this work James Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James the Caribbean on events in the establishes the impact of revolution in fusion of different traditions metropolis and explores the extraordinary in the 1790s. James' story and impulses achieved in St Domingue racialism, colonialism illuminates the essential workings of capitalism, to which they gave rise in class struggle and slavery - and the complex sense of the eruption of the St Domingue; it conveys a marvellous attuned to the cosmopolitan forces masses in history. With a sensibility revolutionary impulse as it crissof the age he follows the transatlantic to Paris and back to the crosses the ocean from Saint Domingue as explanation, and Caribbean again. This is both far more satisfying of struggles as narrative, than those accounts far more compelling which never look outside the plantations or, concerning colonial slavery chambers of the never leave the drawing rooms or debating even worse, it is supposed that narrative history has metropolis. conveys a marvellous attuned to the cosmopolitan forces masses in history. With a sensibility revolutionary impulse as it crissof the age he follows the transatlantic to Paris and back to the crosses the ocean from Saint Domingue as explanation, and Caribbean again. This is both far more satisfying of struggles as narrative, than those accounts far more compelling which never look outside the plantations or, concerning colonial slavery chambers of the never leave the drawing rooms or debating even worse, it is supposed that narrative history has metropolis. In some quarters deep-seated structures of little to offer and is incapable of life. identifying 12 The present work was undereconomy, mentality or political that if they are real and effective such taken out of the conviction the level of events. And in the further structures will also be visible at the discourses of ideology are SO belief that socio-economic forces and that they open up a space of inherently antagonistic and contradictory --- Page 39 --- Introduction which must also be registered if the dynamic political choice and action The attempt to construct a of historical development is to be grasped. to the test. It can narrative therefore puts conflicting interpretations and significance of the different help to establish the respective weight offered below I have tried to forces and factors at work. In the accounts and to show that antiplace struggles over colonial slavery in context decision-makers by slavery was often imposed on metropolitan in the works of such writers as external pressures. Marxist research, has already made a notable James, Genovese, Gorender and Fraginals, of the making and unmaking of contribution to our understanding of this body of work on the slavery in the Americas. But the bearing and class struggle has been mainstream of capitalist development furnishes an additional reason for insufficiently appreciated, and this offered remain partial and tentative the present study. The conclusions and debate advance at a rapid rate. in a field where research of anti-slavery in the midThe first chapter surveys the sources sentiment, in slave century Atlantic world - in popular for eighteenth But it required the crisis of empire resistance and in philosophy. of practical politics; subsequent anti-slavery to become a question themes in the imperial and chapters trace the eruption of anti-slavery the history of the Atlantic revolutionary crises which punctuated century. The systems of powers down to the middle of the nineteenth inverse order to that of their colonial slavery unravelled very nearly in and French systems preceding, formation, with the crisis of the British It has been that of the Iberian powers. and helping to precipitate, impetus often that American slavery had an expansionary suggested mercantilism and it is therefore not surprising frustrated by colonial was provoked by growth rather that the crisis of the colonial systems that Hanoverian Britain, than contraction. It was altogether appropriate should have been the first state aggrandised by slave-related commerce, and then, in the 1790s, to be humbled by its own colonists, in 1776-83, The of English slaves. planters the first to be defeated by insurgent in the New World but they were North America were not the richest social formation and they were embedded in the most dynamic colonial Chapters 2 to 4 power. the best placed to challenge metropolitan America, setting both the explore anti-slavery in Britain and North abolition in the context of the American Revolution and the rise of In subsequent order and culture from which they emerged. considered political overthrow of French colonial slavery is similarly chapters the of the crisis of the ancien régime and the eruption in its context, that --- Page 40 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery forces in France and the Caribbean. not the richest social formation and they were embedded in the most dynamic colonial Chapters 2 to 4 power. the best placed to challenge metropolitan America, setting both the explore anti-slavery in Britain and North abolition in the context of the American Revolution and the rise of In subsequent order and culture from which they emerged. considered political overthrow of French colonial slavery is similarly chapters the of the crisis of the ancien régime and the eruption in its context, that --- Page 40 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery forces in France and the Caribbean. rather of revolutionary abolition and New World slavery often pass Accounts of them of the revolutions in the French rapidly over the impact upon of Haiti, a black state. It is almost as if Caribbean and the emergence them from considering the momentous James' Black Jacobins dispenses of the only successful slave revolt in concomitants and consequences work should be an inspiration to trace through history. In fact James' on the subsequent struggles over the impact of the *first emancipation' of the Americas. The detailed account colonial slavery in other parts of slaveholder power in St given in chapters 5 to 9 of the disintegration of the latter's impact on slaves and Domingue, of the birth of Haiti, and the milieu slaveholders, on the strategists of empire and on this free-floating deficiency, with and revolutionaries, seeks to remedy of adventurers of monographs on this subject by help from the welcome recent spate show that it is scarcely possible to Caribbean historians. I hope to revolution on the fate of colonial exaggerate the impact of the Haitian slavery. others from chapters which trace the This conclusion and emerge in the United States, Spanish and progess of slavery and anti-slavery West Indies and the French Antilles. Portuguese America, the British that while this period of 'bourgeois They underline the paradox advance strengthened and exdemocratic' revolution and of capitalist the New World (the South of the United tended slavery in some parts it also set the scene for anti-slavery currents States, Cuba and Brazil), in almost every decade which secured significant slave emancipations There can be no doubt that this from the 1780s to the 1840s and beyond. challenge to historical explanation. paradoxical correlation poses a major to historical progress It has recently been claimed that a commitment the history of New World slavery can no longer be sustained. Certainly of historical advance. But allows of no simple or linear conception taken of cross-currents and contrawhen all due account has been independence, for republican dictions, the movements for American achievements in liberties and for slave emancipation do represent modern epic world. Despite the human history and in the making of the the sacrifices of slave rebels, mixed results of anti-slavery in this period democrats were not in vain. of radical abolitionists and of revolutionary and sometimes defeat, the They show how it was possible to challenge, obverse of the growth of human oppression which grew as the horrible the Atlantic world of the early modern social capacities and powers in interest in illuminating the ways in period. More generally they are of emancipatory interests can which, however incompletely or imperfectly, and the spirit of ruthless against ancient law and custom prevail accumulation. --- Page 41 --- Introduction Notes Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, 1. For the many varieties of slavery see definition of this variable institution in a Cambridge, Mass., 1982; I attempt a London 1988. contribution to Leonie Archer, ed., Slavery, Genovese, Fruits of Merchant Capital; 2. Elizabeth Fox Genovese and Eugene Rise and of Capitalism, Oxford and Slavery and Bourgeois Property in the El Ingenio, Expansion 3 vols, Havana 1978; see also New York 1983; Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Hill 1972; Michael Craton and James Walvin, Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, Chapel Gabriel Debien, Les Esclaves aux Antilles A Jamaica Plantation, Toronto 1970; Guadeloupe 1974. Archer, ed., Slavery, Genovese, Fruits of Merchant Capital; 2. Elizabeth Fox Genovese and Eugene Rise and of Capitalism, Oxford and Slavery and Bourgeois Property in the El Ingenio, Expansion 3 vols, Havana 1978; see also New York 1983; Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Hill 1972; Michael Craton and James Walvin, Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, Chapel Gabriel Debien, Les Esclaves aux Antilles A Jamaica Plantation, Toronto 1970; Guadeloupe 1974. Françaises: XVII-XVIII Siècle, Basse Terre, Sào Paulo 1978 (p. 242 for the argument 3. Jacob Gorender, O Escravismo Colonial, referred to above). of the formation of colonial slavery in the New World 4. These and other features in a companion study to the present work up to 1776 will be explored systematically entitled The West and the Rise of Slavery. Empire, London 1966; James Lockhart and 5. J.H. Parry, The Spanish Sea-borne Cambridge 1983, pp. 98-101, 181-252; James Stuart Schwartz, Early Latin America, Plantation, New York 1979, pP. 115-52, 205-18. Lang, Portuguese Brazil: the King's Europe and the People Without History, London For the wider context see Eric Wolf, The 1984. have been drawn from Ralph Davis, 6. The data in this and previous paragraphs 1973, 257, 264-5; Fraginals, El Ingenio, 1, P. Rise of the Atlantic Economies, London of the Atlantic pP. Slave Trade: a Synthesis', Journal of 41; Paul E. Lovejoy, "The Volume 473-501; David Eltis, 'Free and Coerced Transatlantic African History, vol. 23, 1983, pp. Review, vol. 88, no. 2, April 1983, pp. 251-80. Migrations', American Historical behind plantation development see Sidney Mintz, 7. For the consumer dynamic Sweetness and Power, London 1985. of the ways in which empires have imposed 8. For an illuminating exploration Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Cambridge productive co-ordination see 1986, PP. 145-55, 250-98. The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil, 9. A.J.R. Russell Wood, also Ronaldo Vainfas, Ideologia e Escravidao, London 1982, pp. 128-60; but see Petropolis 1986, pp. 93-115. does register, briefly but emphatically this 10. Though Hobsbawm himself Revolution, certainly London 1964, pp. 69, 110. American dimension, see The Age of "Capitalism and the Origins of this see Thomas Haskell, 11. For an example approach American Historical Review, vol. 90, no. 2, April of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part Review, 1', vol. 90, no. 3,, June 1985; see also the "Forum' 1985, Part 2', American Historical Historical Review, vol. 92, no, 4, 1987, pP. 797on these articles in the American Davis and Ashworth and a reply by Thomas 878, with critiques by David Brion John Haskell. the French Revolution, Cambridge 1985, pP. example approach American Historical Review, vol. 90, no. 2, April of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part Review, 1', vol. 90, no. 3,, June 1985; see also the "Forum' 1985, Part 2', American Historical Historical Review, vol. 92, no, 4, 1987, pP. 797on these articles in the American Davis and Ashworth and a reply by Thomas 878, with critiques by David Brion John Haskell. the French Revolution, Cambridge 1985, pP. 12. François Furet, Interpreting 184-204. --- Page 42 --- --- Page 43 --- I The Origins of Anti-Slavery Branco diz O preto furta Preto furta come razâo Sinho branco tambem furta Quando faz a escravidao (The white says the black steals The black steals with reason The white master also stole When he made slavery) Brazilian song of slavery days the king and his other threescore thousand lords . . found there (Mile men of divers and End] in England. So the king entered in villages of sundry countries sweetly, 'Ah, ye good I among them and said to them will ye say?" Then such people, am your king. What lack ye? What make us free for as understood him said: 'We will ever ourselves, our that ye we be called no more bond, heirs and our lands, and that am well agreed thereto. Withdraw nor SO reputed', *Sirs', said the king, I and into such ye home into your own houses writings to be made villages and as seal ye came from : . . and I shall cause everything that ye demand'. them with my seal . . containing These words common people, such as were appeared well to the simple, good, plain men. Froissard's Chronicle (1381) --- Page 44 --- MARYLAND Mh New York VIRGINIA 6 Slaves comprise a N. CAROLINA tenth or more of the S. CAROLINA BRITISH population NORTH GEORGIA AMERICA = Zone of slavebased development Centre of slave FLORIDA resistance or Maroon activity MEXICO (Spanish) Havana CUBA (Spanish) e Veracruz ST CORRON VIRGIN ISLANDS (Danish) JAMAICA LEEWARD ISLANDS (British) GUADELOUPE (French) - 6 iW - ST. VINCENT- MARTINIQUE (French) BARBADOS (British) Cartagena Caracas GRENADA (British) T DEMERARA (Dutch) SURINAM (Dutch) VENEZUELA Choco (Spanish) NEW GRANADA (Spanish) Esmeraldas Pernambuco C Palmares a Lima V PERU (Spanish) BRAZIL (Portugal) Bahia Minas Gerais Carlota 24 h Rio de. Janeiro Cordoba Mendoza - Buenos Aires RIO DE LA PLATA (Spanish) Zones of slave-based development and of slave resistance around 1770 --- Page 45 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery authoritative opinion in Europe and Prior to the mid-eighteenth century or secular, had always accepted the New World, whether religious book of the Old Testament Noah was held enslavement. In the very first 'the sons of Ham', to a portion of humanity, to have condemned Ham had seen his father naked. The Judaic perpetual bondage because had been adopted by Muslims and justification of enslavement taint was thought to justify racial Christians; the notion of a hereditary a slave code in the sixth slavery. ins of Anti-Slavery authoritative opinion in Europe and Prior to the mid-eighteenth century or secular, had always accepted the New World, whether religious book of the Old Testament Noah was held enslavement. In the very first 'the sons of Ham', to a portion of humanity, to have condemned Ham had seen his father naked. The Judaic perpetual bondage because had been adopted by Muslims and justification of enslavement taint was thought to justify racial Christians; the notion of a hereditary a slave code in the sixth slavery. The Emperor Justinian promulgated hereditary bondage and which admitted property in persons, abuse and century prohibiting gratuitous the powers of slaveholders though regulations inspired by this allowing for the possibility of manumission; the Iberian powers while the code were extended to the New World by also strengthened revival of Roman law in the late medieval epoch had offered no The philosophers of Antiquity respect for property. the same can be said of the early fundamental criticism of slavery; medieval Church, the leaders of Christian fathers, the theologians of the The Christian view that the the Reformation and Councr-Reformation service to the master is found from St servant or slave owed faithful was not only recognised by Paul to Luther and beyond. Slaveholding in Rome through into the eighteenth the Catholic Church but tolerated chattel slavery; Luther, Neither Luther nor Calvin questioned for century. case, argued that it would be wrong deliberately taking the extreme from an infidel Turkish owner." slave to steal himself away a Christian treaties of the European states acknowledged and The international the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 had done regulated the trade in Africans; the slave trade to Spanish in the case of the asiento, all SO quite explicitly Portugal, the Netherlands and Denmark America. England, France, engaged in the slave traffic; and if had chartered trading companies in the Africa trade this was most states also permitted free enterprise the supply of slaves to because it had proved more effective at boosting liberum as well as of the the colonies. Grotius, advocate of the mare institution. doctrine, accepted slavery as a legitimate natural rights slavery SO did the new doctrines of "possessive While tradition sanctified indeed a chattel whom the individualism', since the slave was property, legal acquired through some perfectly slaveowner had normally widely acknowledged to be transaction. The lot of the slave was still held to be the best or only unenviable, and even pitiable; yet it was civilisation. of heathens and savages to the way introducing in 1808 of Thomas Clarkson's History of Since the publication Slave Trade it has been common to identify the Abolition of the British of the learned men who first origins of Anti-Slavery with the works trade. Yet to approach the published critiques of slavery or the slave distortion. It is both true and subject in this way involves a serious --- Page 46 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery attacks on New World slavery - that is remarkable that philosophical itself rather than on cruel excesses of particular to say on the institution rare. prior to the middle of the masters or traders - were extremely critique in 1576 after which eighteenth century; Bodin made a pointed of Montesquieu's silence until the appearance there was a prolonged with its critical passage on the enslavement of Esprit des Lois in 1748, tapped a popular revulsion to blacks. But the rise of anti-slavery which long preceded the bondage and untramelled private power the slaves themselves, if the critiques of colonial slavery. And, of course, wait for the of presented itself, did not approval will opportunity out for their freedom. This chapter philosophers before striking of anti-slavery in its various forms. survey the emergence and meaning anti-slavery in its context and to It will seek to put 'philosophical" and political economists indicate the ways in which the philosophers that they did not invent. sought to respond to an anti-slavery impulse the rise of colonial slavery had not changed the the popular slave Paradoxically, both sides of the Atlantic, that the condition of consensus, on menaced the liberties and condition of was odious and that slaveholding was more than aversion to becoming the free-born. philosophers before striking of anti-slavery in its various forms. survey the emergence and meaning anti-slavery in its context and to It will seek to put 'philosophical" and political economists indicate the ways in which the philosophers that they did not invent. sought to respond to an anti-slavery impulse the rise of colonial slavery had not changed the the popular slave Paradoxically, both sides of the Atlantic, that the condition of consensus, on menaced the liberties and condition of was odious and that slaveholding was more than aversion to becoming the free-born. Popular anti-slavery that slaveholding and slave trading a slave: it embraced the notion territory. As an element in the should not be allowed within a given be considered here since culture of early modern Europe it must While the popular for later abolitionist appeals. it furnished a springboard were innovatory the anti-slavery techniques of abolitionist agitation and spontaneous. The roots of feeling it tapped was both traditional reach back into the Middle Ages. primitive abolitionism undoubtedly force in feudal Europe, the Slavery was a marginal but not insignificant could secure them, either as an lords regarding slaves, when they The supply of new slaves adjunct or as an alternative to serfdom. stabilised, as enslavement dwindled when the frontiers of Christendom distinct cultures. In had been promoted by clashes between radically the Iberian Peninsula, the Eastern and Southern Europe, especially and there was of warfare remained conducive to enslavement, Northern and pattern slaves in agriculture. In some scope for employing of serfdom was associated with a Western Europe the consolidation farming, with extensive diminution of outright slavery: mixed general advantage to cultivation by use of the heavy plough, gave no productive on controlling land and encouraged the lords to concentrate slave gangs Individual slaves, when available, were acquired to rather than labour. lands or to operate the mill; but such work the lord's own desmesne --- Page 47 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery eventually acquired the status of freedmen. In slaves or their offspring centuries the devastating impact of the the fourteenth and fifteenth revolt and a growth of trade in Black Death, the spread of peasant serf-lords in many parts of necessities as well as luxuries encouraged labour services into rent. The North West Europe to commute relations supplied the context for a strengthening of economic property class struggle against all forms of bondage.? an anxiety to Popular resistance to bondage reflected not simply which but also a fear of the outsize power avoid becoming a slave with free persons. This 'egotistical" slaveholders could wield in dealings slave-owner, as a threat to the anti-slavery might detest both slave and be used as bailiffs independence of the free. Those of slave origin might became both more Where serfdom was in decline slavery or henchmen. vulnerable. It disappeared from neither valuable to the lords and more in the latter it did change its name. East nor West Europe, though in the scale of social esteem, being *Servus', the old term for slave, rose 'slave' spread in Western Europe, transmuted into 'servant'. The term slaves by the fourteenth reflecting the 'slavic' origin of many European of wealth and power in late and fifteenth centuries. The privatisation to chattel slavery feudal and early modern society furnished new space While some from the common people. but also stimulated opposition especially Italy and the Iberian slavery survived in Western Europe, in the East, though there too it peninsula, it was far more common consolidated. The relatively gradually diminished as serfdom was of life on the Eastern physical and economic insecurity and greater create conditions conducive to slavery marchlands helped to vulnerable situation. of many European of wealth and power in late and fifteenth centuries. The privatisation to chattel slavery feudal and early modern society furnished new space While some from the common people. but also stimulated opposition especially Italy and the Iberian slavery survived in Western Europe, in the East, though there too it peninsula, it was far more common consolidated. The relatively gradually diminished as serfdom was of life on the Eastern physical and economic insecurity and greater create conditions conducive to slavery marchlands helped to vulnerable situation. In encouraged self-sale by those in a particularly labour giving a premium to the East land was plentiful in relation to of land allowed the control of the latter; in the West the relative scarcity to it without the need where they could control access lords to prevail for strict personal bondage. Western and Northern Europe the towns In the class struggles in or evasion of, the harsher became a point of support in resistance to, liked to proclaim that the forms of bondage. The medieval communes with bondage. Toulouse 'free air' of the city or town was incompatible charters which made them in 1226 and Pamiers in 1228 adopted became free; the Kings of France refuges where slaves automatically The affranchisement toulousain chose to encourage this principle. of local serflords and to boost the aimed to undermine the power Sovereigns who exercised the population and resources of the town. free of gained the freedmen as perfect subjects, power of emancipation towns and cities the protection of civic awkward obligations. In some than of slaves. The freedom led to the exclusion rather manumission --- Page 48 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery also exercised bans on the entry of those of a cantons of Switzerland of North Italy did not stop the rich servile condition. The townsmen did exclude slaves from the buying slave domestics but Venice The guilds and arti of late municipal fleet and from fine cloth-weaving. autonomy and medieval Europe asserted a principle of occupational and monarchs could dignity that was inimical to slavery. Municipalities institution that undermined both be persuaded that slaveholding was an category from the the integrity of the social order, removing a special were concerned the restraint of law. So far as sovereign authorities of their own powers of the slaveholder were potentially a derogation laws and royal In most of Western Europe both municipal offer their power. of liberty and to decrees came to make a presumption bondage. But they also tolerated citizens or subjects relief from personal wealth where chattel slavery remained. a private sphere of power and colonies in the Mediterranean and Venice possessed plantation and at home. Despite the permitted slave-owning both in its possessions Italy produced an ideal of civic survival of domestic slavery Renaissance Machiavelli had little to with widespread bondage. virtue incompatible did that a healthy Republic needed a say about slavery but he would argue be corrupted by lordly pretention or sizeable free citizenry, and out that even in a kingdom not founded an idle gentry. And he pointed behoved the monarch to guarantee the on extensive civic liberty it still did the King of France. On the other personal security of his subjects, as service for foreigners were hand small pockets of slavery and indentured civic patriotism. The slave acceptable to Machiavelli and to Italy's controversy activities of Venice, Genoa and Ragusa prompted and trading nevertheless. În contrast the muncipalities of France but thrived sometimes succeeded in completely suppressing Northern Europe within their limits. The struggles of extremities of personal bondage in Germany and Central Europe Hussites, Lutherans and Anabaptists freedom and equality with proventilated a doctrine of Christian was probably more nounced secular overtones; hostility to slavery since it was likely to be less intense in the countryside than in the towns was in any case circumscribed in its effects there and since slaveholding late medieval or early and civilisation. nevertheless. În contrast the muncipalities of France but thrived sometimes succeeded in completely suppressing Northern Europe within their limits. The struggles of extremities of personal bondage in Germany and Central Europe Hussites, Lutherans and Anabaptists freedom and equality with proventilated a doctrine of Christian was probably more nounced secular overtones; hostility to slavery since it was likely to be less intense in the countryside than in the towns was in any case circumscribed in its effects there and since slaveholding late medieval or early and civilisation. There was no linked to luxury but there was a molecular restriction of slavery modern 'abolition' popular belief that the rich and the backed up by a widespread at will of the bodies of the powerful should not be allowed to dispose formation in which The daily workings of a social common people. and unfree labour were assuming new 4 forms economic power detestation of bondage. continually renewed and replenished or coherence of modern Medieval laws did not aim at the system enforced, SO slavery often legislation, nor were they comprehensively --- Page 49 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery of the social formation. But by the time that survived in the interstices and France were setting up slave colonies in the Netherlands, England institution had virtually disappeared in the the New World the where slavery persisted, it was metropolis. Even in Spain and Portugal, slaves were introduced to the of declining significance, though African of Aragon and Castille Canary Islands and the Madeiras. The monarchs of the celebrated an elaborate but mild slave code, as part had adopted Alfonso X, 'the Wise'. This code conceded many rights Siete Partidas of manumission and, in cases of including that of purchasing to slaves, sale to another master; it echoed Justinian but abuse, that of demanding to the municipal and royal should also be seen as an Iberian Western response Europe, though it sought to emancipations of other parts of During the first half-century of regulate rather than eliminate bondage. World this custodial tradition was Spanish colonisation of the New decline of the Indian given a new twist when the catastrophic led to promulgapopulations and royal distrust of the conquistadores in the 1540s. This selective tion of a ban on the enslavement of Indians for more extensive imports of royal abolitionism actually paved the way of enduring the rigours African slaves, who were deemed more las capable Casas had denounced the of bondage. While Bartolomé de sixteenth century Spanish American enslavement of Indians two other Alonso de Sandoval, attacked the clerics, Tomâs de Mercado and such critics did not attack the very excesses of the slave trade. But even their protests helped to principle and institution of enslavement; The Church as well as the state strengthen the case for regulation. slaveholders in New believed that the slaveholder needed tutelage; for ill-treating their slaves Spain could be denounced to the Inquisition The slave codes of the Catholic and there were a few cases of this sort. household or urban slaves but powers gave a certain protection to some the were to develop large slave-worked enterprises in countryside invigilation and here beyond the scope of secular or religious letter.5 regulations beneficial to the slaves were a dead without ever and France slavery had withered away In England Smith was to point out in De Republica becoming illegal, as Thomas the distinction between chattel slaves Anglorum (1565). After outlining 'Neither of the one sort nor of and serfs bound to the estate he declares: in And of the first I never number of England. the other do we have any time; of the second SO fewe there be, knewe any in the realme in my But our law doth acknowledge that it is almost not worth the speaking. this both these sortes." 1 Smith's explanation for development them in methods of securing a labour pointed both to religion and to alternative the chaunge of religion to a more force: I think in France and England caused this old kinde of servitude gentle humane and equall sort --- Page 50 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery into that moderation . other do we have any time; of the second SO fewe there be, knewe any in the realme in my But our law doth acknowledge that it is almost not worth the speaking. this both these sortes." 1 Smith's explanation for development them in methods of securing a labour pointed both to religion and to alternative the chaunge of religion to a more force: I think in France and England caused this old kinde of servitude gentle humane and equall sort --- Page 50 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery into that moderation . and litle by litle and slaverie to be brought civil and gentle means and more equall to extinguished it finding more time of (heathenesse) (i.e. pagan have doone that which in 56 gentility antiquity] servitude or bondage did.' were naturally more gentle It is difficult to believe that the powerful of Christendom; and humane in England and France than in other Labourers parts of 1349-51 in the English case the ferocious Statute it of is the possession of other certainly suggests otherwise. Therefore labour control) that must bear "means' to the same end (presumably, the eclipse of serfdom and slavery. the main weight in explaining by Smith, also helped to determine the Popular revolt, not mentioned Peasant's revolt of 1381, choice of means, even, as with the English of market power when it was defeated or deflected. Some combination labourers into the hands of could deliver landless and state power with no need for the aggravation of direct landlords or their tenants united the exploited; markets could bondage. Serfdom and poll taxes abolition but it divide them. Popular pressure did not directly themselves produce as guarantors of did encourage ruling authorities to present elementary personal freedom. between the feudal order and the threat of Standing as a rampart disaffection, the centralised repressive apparpeasant revolt, or urban made serfdom redundant. The construcatus of the absolutist regimes intensified personal bondage nor did tion of absolutism did not require The proponents of monarchical it extinguish particularist privileges. privatisation of social were often distrustful of the spontaneous power forms of mercantile and agrarian capital accumulation relations, as in the social formations of Western Europe. They established themselves which left little space for metropolitan elaborated a model of kingship custodial power should slaveholding. They insisted that the sovereign's stretch evenly over all subjects. of the new theory of Jean Bodin, one of the earliest exponents the first critical discussion sovereignty, also produced what is probably (1576). He pointed out of slavery in Les Six Livres de la République practising lawyers were that whereas all philosophers justified the slavery, law not by the discourses or different: 'Lawyers, who measure to the common sense and decrees of philosophers, but according to nature.' of the people, hold servitude to be directly contrary the French capacity were directly inspired by Bodin's observations on this topic He pointed to the wisdom of municipal tradition of affranchisement. varieties of servitude and urged French Kings in banning the harsher to which slavery must give that, in view of the cruelties and dangers ever to allow slaves to rise, it would be 'most pernicious and France dangerous' had failed to establish New enter the country. At a time when --- Page 51 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery attacked the slavery practised by Spain and World colonies Bodin but does not mention the use of slaves in Portugal in the New World, the French galleys. formalised and accommodated the The status of slave had previously birthright and entirely presence of aliens or of persons lacking any The refusal to admit this absorbed in the household of their owner. in which all were the birth of a new civic consciousness status signalled The absolutist regimes and early bourgeois to be subjects or citizens. that did not fit with slavery. The states both conceded a civic identity slavery as a punishment for English Parliament was persuaded to accept after a popular outcry. vagrants in 1547 but abandoned the legislation a traveller from A famous English judgement of 1567 prevented the that 'the air of bringing back a bondsman from Russia on The grounds French cult of civic England was too free for a slave to breathe'. the Parlement of Guyenne liberty was no less vigorous. civic consciousness status signalled The absolutist regimes and early bourgeois to be subjects or citizens. that did not fit with slavery. The states both conceded a civic identity slavery as a punishment for English Parliament was persuaded to accept after a popular outcry. vagrants in 1547 but abandoned the legislation a traveller from A famous English judgement of 1567 prevented the that 'the air of bringing back a bondsman from Russia on The grounds French cult of civic England was too free for a slave to breathe'. the Parlement of Guyenne liberty was no less vigorous. In 1571 and declared that slavery described France as the 'mother of liberty', brought a boat-load tolerated there. When a Dutch captain could not be in 1596 the municipality obliged him to of African slaves to Middleberg of Mechlin declared in the early free them. The Grand Council to Flanders by the Spanish seventeenth century that all slaves brought would be free upon arrival. American colonisation, such as Walter Those who first proposed urged that it should be based on free Raleigh or the Dutchman Usselinx, the calling of the French Estates immigration. The Dutch revolt, Civil War all gave occasion for General in 1618 and the English of the English Star assertions of metropolitan freedoms. An indictment decision of 1567, and Chamber in 1640 cited the judicial anti-slavery record of it. An English Member constitutes the only surviving written as indentured of Parliament, attacking the sale of captive royalists the freest people in the servants in 1659, declared indignantly: We Grenoble are described France in world.' In a similar vein the Bishop of world' while Massillon declared 1641 as 'the freest monarchy in "You the do not rule over slaves, you rule a that monarchs must remember: of its liberty as of its loyalty." The free and fiery nation, as jealous French liberties had an element of mythcelebrations of English and such myths conceded to popular antimaking about them but at least slavery." developed a novel ferocity, scale and focus. As New World slavery economic in character noted in the introduction it was overwhelmingly those of African descent. Plantation and soon battened exclusively on contested other than by slaves slavery in the Americas, though lives barely of millions of captives with an themselves, ground out the The New World did not simply implacable commercial frenzy. --- Page 52 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery features of slavery in Europe, the Mediterranean or reproduce the prior what be termed a degradation of slavery, Africa. It brought about might traditional notions of what slavery violating on a massive scale even social formations slavery had meant. In most previous slaveholding institution: slaves had not been been both a marginal and a various burdensome wholly concentrated in the meanest and most in the New occupations. World it But as the slave systems established themselves slavery; there were became impossible to conceive of an 'honourable' slave administrators or soldiers and very few acknowledged no slave the of the Atlantic boom enslavement concubines. Under impetus In many intensified and accumulated. Slavery had a new permanence. alien formations enslavement had been a means whereby social into the host society, with the prospect individuals were incorporated children would eventually rise out of slavery. that either they or their slaves were destined to die in The great majority of Afro-American the prospects were especially poor for slavery, as were their children; the British colonies. field slaves and for slaves in moralism the protagonists of the Despite their intense and radical Commonwealth accepted and promoted Dutch revolt and the English the 1630-1750 the British black slavery in the Americas. In period and even obsessive, Empire witnessed an increasingly clamorous, side by side with an almost 'egotistical" revulsion against 'slavery' Thus John Locke, who uncontested exploitation of African bondage. slaves were destined to die in The great majority of Afro-American the prospects were especially poor for slavery, as were their children; the British colonies. field slaves and for slaves in moralism the protagonists of the Despite their intense and radical Commonwealth accepted and promoted Dutch revolt and the English the 1630-1750 the British black slavery in the Americas. In period and even obsessive, Empire witnessed an increasingly clamorous, side by side with an almost 'egotistical" revulsion against 'slavery' Thus John Locke, who uncontested exploitation of African bondage. justified slavery as a means owned stock in the Royal Africa Company, worse fate. But when writing of whereby Africans were rescued from a Treatises of Government he institutions in Two his own country's vile and miserable an Estate of Man, roundly declared: "Slavery is SO Temper and Spirit of Our to the Generous and SO directly opposite be that an Englishman, much less Nation; that 'tis hardly to conceived, Locke was here attacking the Gentleman, should plead for *t.10 a of Filmer, disciple of Bodin and patriarchal political philosophy authority; he had no intention of challenging apologist for monarchical Africans. the appropriateness of slavery for commoner slave colonies were created The very process whereby the new slavery and the ease with reflected both the popular revulsion against limits. English or Irish which it could be kept within ethno-centric could not be abused in the indentured labourers or French engagés they could elicit from free manner. of a slave because of the solidarity alien, heathen and black the colonists. Because captive Africans were with them. Secular and civic free colonists were less inclined to identify and localistic than the religious identities tended to be more exclusive were also more intolerant of ideologies which they displaced. But they overbear other citizens. the claims of the slaveholder, who might easily --- Page 53 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery French settlers to tropical and sub-tropical The majority of English or labourers. But their contracts as servants or America arrived as unfree masters were often taken to court engagés offered them some protection; something which could by their servants or by friends of their servants, servant had happen in the case of slaves. The English or French African. scarcely which could not be claimed by the captive rights as a subject also better placed to run away; their chances Servants or engagés were of colonial settlement was certainly of escaping detection in areas of this epoch did not have greater than those of blacks. The Europeans but they preferred to see the racial conceits of a later colonial epoch rather than perform it blacks put to the deadly work of the plantations themselves. 11 some travellers to the new By the later seventeenth century the inhuman treatment of Caribbean colonies recorded their shock at Behn, the writer. the blacks, as did George Fox, the Quaker, or Aphra to the But their comments did not amount to consequent opposition slaves with Fox urged slaveholders to treat their very idea of slavery. cared for their immortal souls; he care and consideration, if they labour should lead to manumission. suggested that thirty years of indicted the enslaveAphra Behn's novel Oroonoko (1688) made specifically clear, stood apart from his ment of an African Prince who, she it is broadly hinted, stemmed race; he instigates a revolt whose failure, to arouse. Both Fox the subservient nature of those he was trying from by the inhumanity of the plantations without and Behn were outraged that was echoed in some private yet seeing beyond slavery, a mixture of kindness and in the precarious letters or journals, in isolated acts numbers of black freedmen and tolerance sometimes extended to small creole slaves and Christian women. (1688) made specifically clear, stood apart from his ment of an African Prince who, she it is broadly hinted, stemmed race; he instigates a revolt whose failure, to arouse. Both Fox the subservient nature of those he was trying from by the inhumanity of the plantations without and Behn were outraged that was echoed in some private yet seeing beyond slavery, a mixture of kindness and in the precarious letters or journals, in isolated acts numbers of black freedmen and tolerance sometimes extended to small creole slaves and Christian women. As a core of responsible slaves, definition of slavery became more convert slaves developed the racial societies went hand in hand pronounced; but this maturing of the slave slaveholders. 12 of the material interests of with a consolidation observed that the racial slavery of the New În the introduction it was dilemma on free people of colour. World imposed an especially sharp and the slave trade from this quarter The first challenges to slavery were both more sustained and came from the Portuguese Empire; they of the Spanish clerics. In effective than the early, isolated queries more Office received a number of petitions the years 1684-6 the Holy trade and at the 'perpetual attacking the brutality of the slave Africans protesting taken to the New enslavement' visited upon descendants of and 'white'. The Brazilian World, even those who were Christian and presented a mulatto Lourenco da Silva de Mendouca composed Procurator of one of the number of these protests; he was the lay and enslaved blacks and brotherhoods permitted to free religious --- Page 54 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery received backing from the mulattos in Brazil and Lisbon. These protests in the which pointed Capuchin Order, active in seeking converts trade could Congo, be said to be justly out that few African victims of the slave endorsed condemnation of enslaved. In March of 1686 the Holy Office sweeping the slave trade was being conducted in an apparently the way such as excommunication, resolution. Not only was no sanction, itself became a dead letter, proposed for slave-traders but the resolution The shelving of the be mentioned again for well over a century. not to in the minute of a Vatican Secretary of State resolution is explained slave trade was a source of revenue and a vital who pointed out that the Majesties the Kings of Spain imperial interest for their Most Catholic and Portugal. 13 for the protests of Lourenco da The Vatican's momentary support the of the French Mendouca may have helped to inspire absolutism's promulgation preferred solution to Code Noir of 1688. Regulation was Under the terms of the excesses of the burgeoning new slave systems. share the rights of other Louis XIV's code free people of colour were to blacks were often to colonists. Both this clause and others favourable to of royal adminissometimes with the active connivance be flouted, development accelerated. trators, as the momentum of plantation in the late If the horrors of the slave trade were multiplying the profits of those seventeenth and early eighteenth century, SO were the few scattered early engaged in it. This certainly helps to explain why also be borne in mind that were stifled and ignored. But it must were couched. protests limited by the very terms in which they the protests were enslavement root and branch, they focused Rather than rejecting of slaves, especially concerns - the treatment instead either on pastoral - or on the moral perils of if actual or potential converts to Christianity vehement critics of slavery at this being a slaveholder. Even the most views and to impale themselves on time inclined to compromise their accepted the established order, in the following dilemma: either they amelioration of slave conditions which case they advocated a pastoral King and Church rather than the overthrow of slavery; or they rejected the morality of in which case in the name of a private sphere, individual conscience. focused Rather than rejecting of slaves, especially concerns - the treatment instead either on pastoral - or on the moral perils of if actual or potential converts to Christianity vehement critics of slavery at this being a slaveholder. Even the most views and to impale themselves on time inclined to compromise their accepted the established order, in the following dilemma: either they amelioration of slave conditions which case they advocated a pastoral King and Church rather than the overthrow of slavery; or they rejected the morality of in which case in the name of a private sphere, individual conscience. Radical antislaveholding became a matter of secular space and a required the existence of a public humane slavery that even a thoroughly pious and preparedness to argue injustice. slaveholder would be perpetrating prompting Quakers did have secular responsibilities In Pennsylvania Friends of Germantown to address a searing four Dutch-speaking, Meeting in 1688. The Germantown petition reproach to a Pennsylvania to making out a radical case comes closest of all the early protests still seen as though even here the question was probably against slavery, --- Page 55 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery conscience for a small group of co-religionists: one of private should doe to all men like as we will be done There is a saying that we of what generation, descent or colour they ourselves; making no difference and those who buy or purchase them, are. And those who steal or rob men, of conscience, wch is right and are they not all alike? here is liberty of ye body, except of ye evilreasonable; here ought to be likewise liberty hither and to rob or sell them doers which is another case. But to bring men for In Europe there are many oppressed against their will, we stand against. wh are of a black colour conscience sake; and here there are those oppressed of Europe, where they here This makes an ill report in all those countries If - doe here handel men as they handel there ye cattle . off, that ye Quakers wicked and stubbern men) should once these slaves (wch they say are SO and handel their masters and joint themselves - fight for their freedom.- will these masters and mistresses mistresses as they did handel them before; these poor slaves . have these take the sword at hand and warr against their freedom, as you have to keep them negers not as much right to fight for slaves214 allowed to disturb the Holy Experiment in Such questions were not petition was tabled by the colonial settlement. The Germantown in character and Quarterly Meeting; it was not public and Philadelphia handful even of Quakers. At this time slaveholding reached only a in the councils of the Society slave-trading had powerful representatives of Friends just as they did in the Vatican. in London in Johnson's History of the Pyrates, published Captain another early sometimes attributed to Defoe, represents 1724 and this time entirely secular in manifestation of anti-slavery spirit, story of a French This work recounted the real or apocryphal that character. Misson, who came to the conclusion buccaneer, one Captain the minds of the weaker which the religion was no more than 'a curb on Misson maintained that: wiser sort yielded to in appearance only'. much right to what would 'Every man was born free and had as held that monarchy only existed him as the air he respired." He if it support and that government was only legitimate to justify inequality from oppressing the weak. The prevented the wealthy and powerful the of divine justice' and slave trade could never be justified in eyes that 'their religion was Christians who practised the slave traffic proved Misson led a than a According to Johnson's account no more grimace'. pirates' amongst whom 'regularity, buccaneer crew of 'new-fangled Many of the French members of tranquillity and humanity' prevailed. him as the air he respired." He if it support and that government was only legitimate to justify inequality from oppressing the weak. The prevented the wealthy and powerful the of divine justice' and slave trade could never be justified in eyes that 'their religion was Christians who practised the slave traffic proved Misson led a than a According to Johnson's account no more grimace'. pirates' amongst whom 'regularity, buccaneer crew of 'new-fangled Many of the French members of tranquillity and humanity' prevailed. La Rochelle. When they captured his mixed crew were Huguenots from Misson and freed them and invited them to join as equals. slaves they of "Libertalia' on Madagascar; slavery his crew established the colony --- Page 56 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery treasury but land be outlawed and money kept in a common was to The government of "Libertalia' took a held in private possession. themselves the makers and 'democratical form where the people were judges of their own laws'.' 15 even if its author had Johnson's book broadcast an attack on slavery The early history of the embroidered for effect the stories it contained. that antiaffords documentary evidence popular colony of Georgia inimical to black as well as white slavery feeling could take forms by several years it is bondage. Predating the philosophical critiques slavery. When the first civil and public petition against ensure that it probably established in 1735 it was proposed to Georgia was and debtors by banning the introduction remain an asylum for orphans in 1739; it was of slaves. A move to abrogate this ban prompted protest their support eighteen Scots immigrants, a number signalling entered by The petition, mixing the egotistic with a mark rather than signature. and practical as well as ethical and altruistic, advances economic objections to the introduction of slaves; who have proclaimed Freedom to all slaves I. The nearness of the Spaniards, makes it impossible for us to keep them who run away from their masters, them, than what we would be at to do their without more labour in guarding know that a White Man may be by the Year work. II. We are Laborious, and III. We are not rich, and becoming than a Negro. more usefully employed of their running away or dying, would inevitably Debtors for Slaves, in case slave to the Negro Merchant, ruin the poor master, and he become a him. greater IV. It would oblige us to keep a than the slave he bought could be to a daily invasion : V. Its Guard-duty at least as severe as when we expected of and their Posterity, shocking to human Nature, that any Race Mankind, in can we think nor justice should be sentenced to perpetual slavery; us to be our Scourge one Day otherwise of it, than they are thrown amongst to them must be as dear as to us, or another for our Sins; and as Freedom about!'6 what a Scene of horror must it bring with racial animosity While the first or second objection are compatible and universal towards blacks the last clause strikes a more generous of slaves to This did not prevent the gradual introduction note. petition of slavery there in 1750. But it Georgia and the formal legalisation sense' objections to slaveholdprobably gives a good idea of 'common inform the action of free citizens ing, a common sense later often to who opposed slavery. showed that the popular antiThese isolated and sporadic protests had not been though often blinkered and egotistical, slavery reflex, The growth of black enslavement entirely perverted by racial privilege. stimulated fears of slaveholder power into a vast and permanent system --- Page 57 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery and of the first and of slave revolt. The epoch of the Enlightenment association and sociothe of political attempts to codify principles of the legitimacy of civil allowed the question economic organisation philosophers did not invent institutions to be posed in a new way. Ifthe also elaborated it anti-slavery they did educate and generalise it. They Civic boasts about the where it could inform public policy. to point been hot air. At last some philosophers and 'free air' had often examine the merits of the anti-slavery ideal moralists were prepared to and modified it to new concerns. Enlightenment association and sociothe of political attempts to codify principles of the legitimacy of civil allowed the question economic organisation philosophers did not invent institutions to be posed in a new way. Ifthe also elaborated it anti-slavery they did educate and generalise it. They Civic boasts about the where it could inform public policy. to point been hot air. At last some philosophers and 'free air' had often examine the merits of the anti-slavery ideal moralists were prepared to and modified it to new concerns. or myth. In SO doing they also shaped devoted the best part of one chapter In the Esprit des Lois Montesquieu for the enslavement of Africans conventional justifications to ridiculing remarks were to be widely quoted by early in the New World. His fell short of a thoroughgoing antiabolitionists, though in fact they for black slavery on the plantations slavery. In a parody of arguments which these the crude interests and racist assumptions he unmasked having extinguished the Americans, usually conveyed: "The Europeans, for clearing such vast tracts to make slaves of the Africans were were obliged would be too dear if the plants which produce it of land. Sugar than slaves." Because of their substantial cultivated by any other taken as well as ironically. such remarks could be cynically accuracy somewhat less ambivalent: Others were believed that God, who is a wise Being, should place a It is hardly to be in such a black ugly body The Negroes soul, especially a good soul, which white nations value SO highly. Can prefer a glass necklass to that gold common sense? It is impossible to there be a greater proof of their wanting because, allowing them to be men, a suppose these creatures to be men, are not Christian.' 17 suspicion would follow that we ourselves by the contention that disavowal was re-inforced This oblique with the spirit of true liberty and slaveholding was incompatible of despotism. The slaveholder was provided fertile soil for the growth and cruel while the slave encouraged to be arbitrary, pleasure-loving However, Montesquieu also could do nothing from a motive of virtue. evil: might sometimes be a necessary conceded that enslavement where the excess of heat enervates the body, and renders There are countries that nothing but the fear of chastisement can man SO slothful and dispirited, laborious duty: slavery is there more reconcilable oblige them to perform any with respect to his sovereign, as is his to reason; and the master being as lazy this adds a political, to a civil slavery. slave to him, --- Page 58 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery clauses the former President of the Bordeaux In these few, swift deprecation of the slaveholder with Parlement contrived to join together aspersions on the morality of the justification of metropolitan authority, that enslavement might be a sad planters with readiness to concede favoured generous recognecessity in tropical climates. Montesquieu and other intermediary institutions nition of the rights of the parlements his references to colonial disobedibetween sovereign and subject, but The French little sympathy with colonial autonomism. them ence argue known for their hatred of the exclusif which bound colonists were few other ports; they distrusted metropolitan to Bordeaux and a themselves in such a rude and riotous manner officials, and conducted discredited the impulse to constitutional reform, when aroused that they of 1718. It is difficult to believe that the as in Martinique's Gaoulé opinion but, once that Esprit des Lois did much to create anti-slavery reference point. Montesopinion had formed, it supplied a prestigous he for white racism, real contribution lay in the scorn expressed which quieu's ideology, and it is this explains a salient feature of slaveholder of the anti-slavery cause. in such a rude and riotous manner officials, and conducted discredited the impulse to constitutional reform, when aroused that they of 1718. It is difficult to believe that the as in Martinique's Gaoulé opinion but, once that Esprit des Lois did much to create anti-slavery reference point. Montesopinion had formed, it supplied a prestigous he for white racism, real contribution lay in the scorn expressed which quieu's ideology, and it is this explains a salient feature of slaveholder of the anti-slavery cause. why he was taken to be a prophet in his System of Moral Francis Hutcheson, The Scottish philosopher which were also to be cited by Philosophy (1755) advanced arguments not as radical as those of the opponents of slavery. His arguments were in a philosophical system but they were embedded Darien immigrants individualism' with more ample that sought to temper 'possessive considerations. And as a professor at the humanitarian and ethical certain eminence. He held that University of Glasgow he enjoyed a violation of 'all sense of natural slavery and the slave trade were a sense of "liberty'. He wrote: justice', of Christian morality or a proper that all his enjoyments are 'Scarce any man can be happy who sees will of others of whose kind precarious, and depending on the All men have strong desires of intentions he can have no assurance. of and strong natural impulses liberty and property, have notions and right, earnest desires of their safety."' families and offspring, to marriage, both because it failed to respect this Hutcheson condemned slavery and because it violated the natural human propensity to reproduce of his own liberty'. He principle that 'each man is the natural proprietor could justify slavery since: refused to accept that servile acquiescence of tolerable strength and sagacity are of much The labours of any person We see that the generality of healthy more value than his bare maintenance. of the of their labour for the support people can afford a good share profits and If a servant obliged of a young family, and even for pleasure labours for no gayety. other compensation than himself by a contract to perpetual and unjust; . . . he has a his bare maintenance the contract is plainly unequal --- Page 59 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery either in some peculium, or little stock perfect right to further compensation, maintenance for this family. Such a for him or his family, or in a humane of is to retain all the rights of servant whether for life or a term years, only that mankind, valid against his master, as well as all others, and excepting in lieu of this he his labours, which he has transferred to his master; to or to the wage agreed as above mentioned, has a right to the maintenance on.' 19 Hutcheson started out from radical hostility In this and other passages endorsement of humane forms but veered towards qualified to slavery American slaveholders encouraged slaves of permanent service. Many plot or even to have a 'frolic' families, to cultivate a garden to have in. The slave did, in theory, retain some human when the harvest was usually lawful for their owners to kill rights; for example, it was not Slaveholders did claim to control much them unless gravely provoked. of the slave; yet in the end it was control more than simply the labour the crucial concern. Hutcheson's of the slaves' labour which was that the principles of his observations on the slave trade also suggest at which he allow him to reach the conclusions reasoning did not quite crime committed can change a aimed. He wrote: 'No damage done or all and incapable of creature into a piece of goods void of right, rational injury from the proprietor.' This acquiring any, or of receiving any on to take seriously the clear enough, but Hutcheson goes seems slave-trader and slaveholder qualify for some argument that the captive Africans to the New compensation for the costs of taking World: such slaves; SO that his whole Thus suppose that a merchant buys a hundred of the adding also a charges on the voyage, and prime cost stock captives, amount to a reasonable merchant's profit upon the employed, for this sum; and as thousand pounds. rational injury from the proprietor.' This acquiring any, or of receiving any on to take seriously the clear enough, but Hutcheson goes seems slave-trader and slaveholder qualify for some argument that the captive Africans to the New compensation for the costs of taking World: such slaves; SO that his whole Thus suppose that a merchant buys a hundred of the adding also a charges on the voyage, and prime cost stock captives, amount to a reasonable merchant's profit upon the employed, for this sum; and as thousand pounds. These captives are his debtors jointly amounts to this sum, value of their labours beyond maintenance be soon as the from the time it was advanced, they have a right to and the legal interest free.20 that slaveHutcheson is here, for the sake of argument, supposing He optimistirescuing Africans from an original captivity. traders were could work off their debt in ten or twelve cally estimated that slaves would, if they wished, have slaveholders years, though presumably Hutcheson did produce something of produced different calculations. but, in themselves, his ideas could an immanent critique of slaveholding abolition of slavery and the slave suggest a reform rather than outright attack slavery but not to trade. Part of his difficulty lay in a wish to property rights or to question long-term infringe legally acquired --- Page 60 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery service for life, such as still survived in the coal mines indenture, or even Scotland. At a more fundamental level Hutcheson of eighteenth century that the activities of men of commerce and was concerned to assert elaborated by moral wealth should be answerable to general principles establishment. members of an academic or clerical since philosophers, thinker to attack slavery unequivocally The first European George Wallace in his book, A Bodin was probably the Scottish jurist Scotland, published in 1760. System of the Principles of the Law of obscure its sections on Though this work was itself to remain fairly of slavery concluded: slavery were widely reprinted. Wallace's discussion those unfortunate men, who are pretended to For these reasons every one of free, for he never lost his liberty; he be slaves, has a right to be declared to of him. Of course the could not lose it; his prince had no power about dispose with him and is entitled void. This right he carries sale was ipso jure declared. As soon, therefore, as he comes into a country, everywhere to get it of their own humanity, it is their duty in which the judges are not forgetful him to be free. remember that he is a man and to declare to simple: 'men and their liberty are not in For Wallace it was quite radicalism came more easily to him commercio: Wallace's anti-slavery lack of respect for private property: in consequence of his unusual felicity, is too deeply rooted in society, 'Property, that bane of human of it, easily to be too essential to the subsistence and is thought be banished out of the world before abolished. But it must necessarily Wallace further insisted that slavery an Utopia can be established." economic loss; it would be should be abolished even if it meant may be filled for mankind to be abused 'that our pockets intolerable However, he added: 'Set with money, and our mouths with delicates'. this vast and fertile continent the Nigers free, and in a few generations, >21 Free men would, he believed, be would be crowded with inhabitants." members of the Scottish school Wallace more industrious. Like other liberal family statute. wrote at length on the need for a more drawn upon by Wallace's anti-slavery argument was extensively in his contribution to the Louis de Jaucourt, who used it verbatim in 1765 in the sixteenth Encyclopédie on the slave trade, published Wallace's radicalism and volume. Rousseau's attack on slavery echoed into bondage. the Nigers free, and in a few generations, >21 Free men would, he believed, be would be crowded with inhabitants." members of the Scottish school Wallace more industrious. Like other liberal family statute. wrote at length on the need for a more drawn upon by Wallace's anti-slavery argument was extensively in his contribution to the Louis de Jaucourt, who used it verbatim in 1765 in the sixteenth Encyclopédie on the slave trade, published Wallace's radicalism and volume. Rousseau's attack on slavery echoed into bondage. against the validity of self-sale added to it arguments were reproduced by the North Wallace's observations on slavery who compiled the first American Quaker Anthony Benezet in 1762, and the slave trade; collection of writings directed exclusively at slavery Africa inhabited by A Short Account of that Part of this pamphlet, on both sides of the Atlantic. Negroes, was itself much reprinted --- Page 61 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery travellers' reports as well as the arguments of Benezet drew on the cruelty and immorality of slave philosophers to demonstrate trading.2 colonial slavery was to be greatly strengthened by The case against in the new political economy, the fact that it could find some support concerning the productive in the central dogma most particularly free labour. In the moral system of classical political superiority of producer were the ultimate economy the interests of the independent Both the Scottish touchstone and the activities of traders were suspect. that slave labour political economists and the French Physiocrats view argued the of slave and inefficient; in Adam Smith's expense was costly be borne by the planters because of their labour could only Slave labour was held to be expensive because monopolistic privileges. and low fertility, because their owners of the slaves' high mortality in human chattels and because the capital was tied up unproductively hard or effectively. It is interesting that slave had no motive for working throughout the Atlantic world in such arguments began to gain ground almost simultaneously in the mid-eighteenth century. They appear and 1760s in such places as in the 1750s writings published Franklin), Paris (Marquis de Mirabeau), Philadelphia (Benjamin Havana (Felix de Arrate). 23 The analysis of Glasgow (David Hume) and knowledge of the workings of the slave labour implied some general concluded too hastily that slave labour slave systems, even if they those who wrote on be or inefficient - few of tended to unprofitable slave at work and were thus slave labour had observed a gang coerced however of co-operation, unfamiliar with the compensations expensively obtained. slave labour and colonial mercantilism was to The critique of both Smith's Wealth of Nations published in find classic expression in Adam and the Physiocrats had a special 1776. The arguments of Smith middle classes - lawyers, doctors, resonance amongst the professional producers academics, administrators - as well as amongst independent amour tutelage. In these cases occupational resentful of mercantile belief in the virtues of free labour and a distrust of propre encouraged a reflected the vigour of a social slaveholders. Smith's political economy with widespread formation where capitalism was still compatible and artisans as well as economic independence, for mechanics Some American planters also commercial farmers and manufacturers. economics. The critique of mercanwelcomed Smithian and Physiocrat and effective than the critique of tilism was far more thorough conceded that indefinite reliance on plantation slavery. Many planters expensive and believed that their the slave trade would prove ruinously and a cessation of slave slave labour force could be self-reproducing; --- Page 62 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery would even boost the value of their slaveholdings. rounded imports anti-slavery received its most The outlook of early John in another work of the Scottish Enlightenment, in 1771 presentation the Distinction of Ranks, first published Millar's The Origin of Millar radiated confidence in and reprinted three times within a decade. ation slavery. Many planters expensive and believed that their the slave trade would prove ruinously and a cessation of slave slave labour force could be self-reproducing; --- Page 62 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery would even boost the value of their slaveholdings. rounded imports anti-slavery received its most The outlook of early John in another work of the Scottish Enlightenment, in 1771 presentation the Distinction of Ranks, first published Millar's The Origin of Millar radiated confidence in and reprinted three times within a decade. and remedy its bourgeois order while secking to identify the emergent It was the contention of this work that: weaknesses and inconsistencies. tendency to of personal liberty has . an infallible "The introduction This conclusion render the inhabitants of a country more industrious." discussion of the demerits was reached via a longer and more systematic 'when the arts than was to be found in Smith or Hutcheson: in of slavery effects of industry and skill when the wonderful begin to flourish, them to perfection, become cheapening commodites, and in bringing little can be drawn it must be evident that profit be more conspicuous, slave'. In Millar's view the slave could not from the labour of the of Moreover the 'dexterity' and 'habits application'". expected to acquire over-capitalised: slave-based enterprise was inevitably attending the labour of the slave, not only the when we compute the expense but also the money laid out in his first charge of his maintenance, all the hazard to which his life is exposed, must acquisition, together with When these circumstances are duly necessarily be taken into account. that the work of the slave, who receives nothing considered, it will be found dearer than that of a free man, to whom but a bare subsistence, is really to his industry. constant wages are given in proportion of hard work and will sustain an adequate system Wages will ensure 'No conclusion seems more certain than reproduction of the labourer: when they work for this, that men will commonly exert more activity to labour for another." their own benefit than when they are compelled Moreover: of a country, the mechanics and labouring To promote the populousness in such a manner as will yield the highest people should be maintained of performing; and it is probable profit from the work they are capable the enjoyments of life according that they will more commonly procure for their own maintenance, than to this due medium, when they provide will of a master, who, from narrow and when it depends on the arbitrary interest in diminishing the expense partial views, may imagine that he has an of living as much as possible." of slavery a central point is its supposed unprofitability. In this critique this assumption his itemisation of the Though Millar erred in making better grasp of plantation borne by the slave-owner showed a costs --- Page 63 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery themselves possessed; his error lay not in economics than some planters of slave labour but in his failure to his computations of the expense coercive co-operation on the plantation consider the superprofits which extent the purpose of Millar's could produce. To a considerable as foil to his own view of the direction discussion is to construct slavery Millar's lengthy chapter devoted to this social progress should take. discussion of the family, which topic is complemented by an even longer and indispensable to the workings he sees as incompatible with slavery to the liberalisation of of a free labour system. He observes a tendency nations which have made the the family regime: "In all European and manufactures great liberty is greatest improvements in commerce family; and the children are no further enjoyed by the members of every to their own advantage." subjected to the father than seems necessary within the family had a But Millar certainly believed that authority basis and he is disposed to natural rather than wholly contractual Millar also observed: justify this. topic is complemented by an even longer and indispensable to the workings he sees as incompatible with slavery to the liberalisation of of a free labour system. He observes a tendency nations which have made the the family regime: "In all European and manufactures great liberty is greatest improvements in commerce family; and the children are no further enjoyed by the members of every to their own advantage." subjected to the father than seems necessary within the family had a But Millar certainly believed that authority basis and he is disposed to natural rather than wholly contractual Millar also observed: justify this. While rejecting traditional patriarchy towards the opposite "The tendency of a commercial age is rather that the members of a extreme, and may occasion some apprehension than is consistent with family will be raised to greater independence ,25 good order or a proper domestic subordination." of slavery on the grounds that it Millar's measured condemnation profitable economy and family life was inimical to personal industry, abolitionism of the Atlantic world in corresponds closely to the average the fiercer moral indictment the latter half of the eighteenth century; of Wallace, his less well-known and rejection contained in the work on a narrower band of fellow countryman, had an impact, by contrast, wide influence at times of anti-slavery radicals. The latter only acquired aimed at purifying crisis, though even then the measures they proposed order. Radical abolitionism rather than overthrowing the established the slave trade and was prepared to aimed at slavery as well as in the name of universal human rights. challenge property and the state and non-expropriatory Moderate abolitionists thought that gradual of the state and of the measures could strengthen the moral standing moderate measures demanded predominant social order; however even and the workings of the market. a willingness to qualify property radical rights and widely disseminated attacks One of the most remarkable, epoch is to be found on slavery to be published in the pre-revolutionary first in 1770 and going Histoire des Deux Indes published in Raynal's five editions in five languages over the subsequent thirty through fifty from several hands, contained a years. The book, which drew on drafts colonies; it expressed sympathy comprehensive survey of the American colonists and hostility to the projects of for the demands of American in this work were drafted British imperialism. The passages on slavery --- Page 64 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery socialist of colonial extraction, Jean de Péchmèja, by an early utopian the moderate reformism found in other and were discrepant with the involvement in slavery of the sections. They point with outrage to Those who dare to justify Church and of the monarchs of Europe. and a dagger slavery are said to deserve the contempt of would philosophers be just to carry fire, from the slaves. It is pointed out that it sovereign who emancipation into the lands of any European sword and trade. Slave revolts and the communities of upheld slavery and the slave of the future. runaway slaves are pointed to as a portent indicators of the impending storm, and the These enterprises are SO many courageous to lead them to vengeance negroes only want a chief, this sufficiently man to be found, whom nature perhaps, and slaughter. Where is great Where is this new Spartacus, who owes to the honour of the human species? will not find a Crassus22 from Raynal use reference to New As in the case of Millar the passages institutions - in this World slavery to express a view of metropolitan of Church and King. For case to call in question the had authority a link to the destiny of their own Europeans anti-slavery always it purely for its own sake. For society and only a few rare souls pursued the of the slaves obvious reasons this was not the case with anti-slavery anti-slavery, whether themselves. And as we have seen European that slaves had and would was keenly aware popular or philosophical, contest their bondage. As in the case of Millar the passages institutions - in this World slavery to express a view of metropolitan of Church and King. For case to call in question the had authority a link to the destiny of their own Europeans anti-slavery always it purely for its own sake. For society and only a few rare souls pursued the of the slaves obvious reasons this was not the case with anti-slavery anti-slavery, whether themselves. And as we have seen European that slaves had and would was keenly aware popular or philosophical, contest their bondage. despite formidable and usually The prevalence of slave resistance, significance. For the escaped overwhelming odds, was a fact of great would be ardous indeed, even slave or maroon the struggle for existence well-mounted without the hazards of militia patrols and well-armed, overseer and all free slave catchers with tracker dogs. The planter, and other firearms; would be armed with cutlasses, pistols employees united by fear of the slaves. In principle they and their neighbours were physical controls and the being a slave meant being exposed to tight of abuse; resistance was met by punishments risk of daily physical the slaves. Outbreaks were extraordinary savagery designed to terrorise palliatives, rewards for by the divisive privileges, petty also discouraged alluded to in the introducgood behaviour, and disguised bargaining drove the slave the elite of slave headmen, and a few headwomen, of tion; The diverse origins but did set some limits on planter power. warned in gangs assisted planter control but a Governor of Virginia the slaves --- Page 65 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery Either their Stupidity, or that Babel 1710: we are not to Depend on which Can without a of languages among 'em; freedom wears a Cap of the fetters of Call Togather all those who Long to Shake Tongue, Slavery." ,27 would be that of freedom from The liberty the slave aspired to and from being at the continual unremitting toil, from daily abuse world of the plantation could command of another. The of tyrannical life in the wild seem inviting. Its intimate make even the dire prospect that it was likely to provoke a control of the slave was SO far-reaching influenced by, but not limited to, African new conception of freedom, as the African past necessarily memories. The American present as well communities. Sometimes influenced slave resistance and the maroon on St struck an alliance with American Indians, as happened rebels up 'black Caribs', who gave British occupation forces Vincent with its 1770s. In other cases maroons came to terms much trouble in the early the was marked by with the colonisers. And just as life on plantation could lead to communal resistance SO revolts practical forms of regime. compromises with the colonial or slaveholding the history of the slave Slave conspiracies and revolts punctuated where there were large estates, colonies. They were more damaging resistance and a slack or terrain suitable for maroon slave majorities, Thus Jamaica was notable for the distracted colonising population. of maroon resistance from frequency of revolts and the stubbornness the 1650s down to the 1760s. In the time ofits capture by the British in authorities negotiated agreements the 1730s and 1740s the colonial linking them to the colonial with some of the main maroon bands, usufruct of tracts of land. One administration in return for undisturbed Revolt' in 1760-1. On this occasion of the last big risings was "Tacky's of St Mary's Parish on the about a dozen plantations in the vicinity four hundred slaves involved, North coast were raised and as many as the rising was only suppressed many of them of the Coromantin nation; and the mobilisation of militia after many months of fierce fighting auxiliaries, with the units, regular troops and two groups of About maroon 400 slave suspects and latter bearing the brunt of the fighting. administration in return for undisturbed Revolt' in 1760-1. On this occasion of the last big risings was "Tacky's of St Mary's Parish on the about a dozen plantations in the vicinity four hundred slaves involved, North coast were raised and as many as the rising was only suppressed many of them of the Coromantin nation; and the mobilisation of militia after many months of fierce fighting auxiliaries, with the units, regular troops and two groups of About maroon 400 slave suspects and latter bearing the brunt of the fighting. British colonies. executed and 500 deported to other rebels were Revolt vouchsafed the following A rebel captured in Tacky's militiaman, according to an remarkable plan to his guard, a Jewish Edward Long: account written in 1774 by the Jamaican planter nation (meaning the Coromantins), ought to You Jews, said he, and our You differ from the rest of the Whites and consider ourselves as one then people. it is best for us to join in one common interest, they hate you. Surely and hold possession of it to ourselves. We drive them out of the country, --- Page 66 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery fair division of estates, and we will make sugar will have (continued he) a As for the sailors, you see they do not and rum, and bring them to market. of the country, Black or White, oppose us, they care not who is in possession that after we are masters of it, you need it makes no difference to them; SO now do to the Whites) fear that they will come cap in hand to us (as they not from t'other side the sea and be glad to trade with us. They'll bring us 28 things to take our goods in payment." hopes, fear and prejudices, may have Long, animated by his own the dream of American indepenembellished the story. Nevertheless and reflected something of the dence was not to be confined to planters had built the plantations - a and confidence of those who vigour included the slaves. category that most emphatically and certainly more typical, Another, possibly more authentic, in the words used in of the rebel outlook was to be found statement representatives who wished to negotiate Surinam in 1757 to colonial with a rebel band: and your court, that in case they want to We desire you to tell your governor ought to take care that the planters keep a raise no new gangs of rebels, they and not trust them SO frequently more watchful eye over their own property, who wrongfully and in the hands of drunken managers and overseers, their wives and children, severely chastising the negroes, debauching and wilfully drive to the neglecting the sick are the ruin of the colony, who by their sweat earn your woods such numbers of stout active people, colony must drop to nothing, and to subsistence, without whose hands your are glad to come and sue for whom at last, in this disgraceful manner, you friendship. 29 under which they received This group eventually reached an agreement not to raid the ammunition and supplies; in return they promised arms, and to return all escaping slaves. under plantations of resistance within the plantations could, The small-scale acts attack on the slavecircumstances, coalesce into a general favourable challenging the juridical holder regime while still not formally slave revolt on an estate near institution of slavery. Thus there was a between the in 1789 which led to a prolonged struggle Ilheus in Brazil of the plantation withdrew to the owner and the slave crew. The slaves They offered to woods taking with them some valuable equipment. could veto the on condition that (a) they return to the plantation and Saturdays were to be free as appointment of overseers (b) Fridays and nets for their fishing (d) well as Sunday (c) they were given canoes and dances (e) the staffing they had freedom to perform their own songs of food and clothing were of the mill was increased (f) rations --- Page 67 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery increased. In this extreme case the slave demands dismantling slavery without the institution itself went far to The songs and dances that the Brazilian being named. (a) they return to the plantation and Saturdays were to be free as appointment of overseers (b) Fridays and nets for their fishing (d) well as Sunday (c) they were given canoes and dances (e) the staffing they had freedom to perform their own songs of food and clothing were of the mill was increased (f) rations --- Page 67 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery increased. In this extreme case the slave demands dismantling slavery without the institution itself went far to The songs and dances that the Brazilian being named. 30 were a vital element in the slaves wished to perform with varying inflexions and Afro-American culture which sprang up district. Like other combinations in each separate colony and components of Afro-American language, myth - the music and songs of the culture - religion, with a painful ambiguity: they blacks were shot through that offered by slaveholder helped to affirm an identity distinct from intolerable conditions society but they also helped to more supportable. The make resistance sometimes echoed African political forms of slave military organisation but with the risk models - Akan kingship or Jaga being of alienating other inappropriate to American conditions. The slaves or 'voodoo', found in many parts of French widespread cult of eighteenth century, echoed tropical America by the later tistic diversity that was elaborated Dahomeyan myths but had a rich syncreseparate grouping and its according to the inclination of each content of the various Afro-American houngan or priest. The precise ideological less significance from the point of view cultural of forms may have been of that they provided a medium of anti-slavery than the very fact invigilation of the masters and their communication 31 removed from the overseers. Though wars and internal commotions slaves to make a break for freedom, gave an opportunity to some vigilance and fire-power of the they also tended to boost the populations remained slaveholders and their patrols. The slave hierarchy of each fragmented and subjected to the disciplines and to engulf a whole separate plantation. Slave rebellions only island of Ste colony on two occasions before the threatened Croix in 1733 and Dutch Berbice 1790s: the Danish third-rate colonial powers had failed in 1763. In both cases guarantee slave subordination and had to mobilise sufficient force to From the mid-1760s slave to call on help from outside, the colony embarked on rapid rebellions became far rarer in Jamaica as revolts in St Domingue, the growth. Likewise there were few most slave the historic uprising of 1791. dynamic sugar colony of all, prior to prosperous attracted settlers and could Colonies that were growing and militia units and garrisons. Slave afford the upkeep of patrols, the periphery of the slave maronnage was more of a problem at There were systems or in colonies that were particularly large numbers of stagnating. communities inland from the South fugitive slaves and maroon Venezuela, the Guianas, American littoral, in New Granada, following the expulsion of Surinam, the Brazil and the River Plate. And formerly owned in Spanish Jesuits in the 1760s the estates they had The North American America were the scene of a chain of revolts. interior, with its strong Indian nations, was less --- Page 68 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery though in Florida the Seminoles struck up hospitable to the runaways, blacks. In normal times slave conspiracies and an alliance with Spanish mortal threat to the slave systems. This very rebellions did not pose a the American slaveholders fact encouraged a sense of security amongst could be challenged with little and a belief that the colonial relationship on a slave elite, as did those who depended risk. But understandably inclined to greater caution. many Caribbean planters, of the crucial sources of anti-slavery has also The foregoing survey anti-slavery prejudice tended to be indicated their limits. The European it came from and ethnocentric; and even at its most generous egotistical excluded from political power. The philosophithose who were largely though not exclusively, cal critique of slavery was predominantly, or even purely speculative moderate and reformist in its implications work of writers rather than those and rhetorical; and it too was the lived in fear of slave with direct power or responsibility. understandably inclined to greater caution. many Caribbean planters, of the crucial sources of anti-slavery has also The foregoing survey anti-slavery prejudice tended to be indicated their limits. The European it came from and ethnocentric; and even at its most generous egotistical excluded from political power. The philosophithose who were largely though not exclusively, cal critique of slavery was predominantly, or even purely speculative moderate and reformist in its implications work of writers rather than those and rhetorical; and it too was the lived in fear of slave with direct power or responsibility. The with planters the fragmentation of their revolt, but the slaves had to contend ferocious and integrated apparatus and confronted a own communities Finally all three species of anti-slavery existed of coercion and control. another and as late as 1770 still did remove from one at a considerable threat to the slave systems. The rise of antinot represent any concerted level of the social formation, and slavery reflected pressures at every be made in the context of crises significant advances were only to numbers into political life, gripping the whole society, drawing forces large and influences and putting in bringing together the most diverse question the organising principles of power. and the development of new The construction of the colonial systems had assembled new labouring patterns of production and consumption came from they brought with populations; wherever these labourers and of the that could challenge the power arrogance them conceptions into which they slaveholders and slave-traders. The new environments discover new sources of eventually allowed them to were plunged The whirlpool of Atlantic economy solidarity and points of resistance. and nationalities as it recruited the mixed up races, languages, religions craftsmen and labourers that seamen, dockers, clerks, lawyers, notaries, bent and broken in the port Even the slave relationship was it required. slaveholders said, the urban slave was already cities; as the Brazilian often the same pidgin or creole half free. Poor or outcast whites slavery spoke did not simply set planters as the slaves. The systems of colonial masters. They also set officials and merchants, or slaves against against associations between those brought up the most strange and unexpected with one another by Atlantic into some sort of communication smugglers, the "brethren of the commerce and its tributaries: maroons, --- Page 69 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery naval ratings fleeing the lash, seamen jumping ship, coast', deserters, dissidents, soldiers of fortune and renegade priests, religious or political devotees of the Enlightenment and disciples Quakers and Freemasons, colonial milieu was turbulent and disrespectful - of African cults. The and libertinism continually and its rough and ready egalitarianism together with other threatened to spill back into the metropolis, smuggled goods. and the different species of abolitionism Both slave resistance by a dynamic slave sector of a reflected the inherent tensions generated socio-economic system and transitional, and therefore incomplete, created the Atlantic boom political order. The enslavement that was by whether African or did not only shatter prior notions of bondage, to the distribution of European, it also posed a revolutionary and challenge colonial merchants that was power. It created a class of planters tutelage. The real unlikely to remain for ever content with metropolitan easily aroused intentions of slave-owners and slave-traders or supposed non-slave-owners, whether inside or suspicion and alarm amongst outside ruling circles. and the rise of both slavery and industrialism The Atlantic boom some of which helped to make slavery fostered different types of fears, to take the measure of controversial. It was, perhaps, too early mode based primarily capitalism without slavery, that is of a capitalist at the labour. But it was not too early to be concerned on free wage capitalism with slavery; that is of a implications of a sort of hybrid wealth-holders could deploy servile regime of accumulation in which Britain and France, labour at will wherever they found it convenient. the rise of both slavery and industrialism The Atlantic boom some of which helped to make slavery fostered different types of fears, to take the measure of controversial. It was, perhaps, too early mode based primarily capitalism without slavery, that is of a capitalist at the labour. But it was not too early to be concerned on free wage capitalism with slavery; that is of a implications of a sort of hybrid wealth-holders could deploy servile regime of accumulation in which Britain and France, labour at will wherever they found it convenient. colonies, were the states where possessed of the most flourishing financial slave seemed to be most highly the spirit of commercial and gain century. It was widely developed by the latter half of the that eighteenth there was a connection. The believed, and not without reason, based on the toil of a motley, mobile and surge of Atlantic trade was of seafarers, port and construction yard cosmopolitan proletariat continually stimulated by tussles workers with a culture of resistance customs officers and the press gangs. with employers, colonial officials, the language when the In 1768 the word strike' was added the to sails English oft the ships in the port and seamen and dockers ofI London struck and No King". . 32 joined the demonstrations calling for -Wilkes Thomas Spence gave a lecture In 1775 the English agrarian socialist in which the wealthy and powerful on the evils of a property system of life, above all land. 'If we look back monopolised access to the means shall see that the land and all its to the origins of the present nations few we and divided amongst themselves appurtenances was claimed by a other creatures were obliged to SO that all things, men as well as * He concluded that this owe their existence to some other's property." --- Page 70 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery on the common Property of private 'conquest or encroachment be 'cultivated either by slaves, Mankind' meant that the earth came to objects whom they [the compelled, like beasts, to labour, or by indigent in the soil, that want may landowners] first exclude from a share indictment compel them to sell their labour for daily bread. Spence's of the unite a critique of slavery with a critique thus sought to the 'common Property of Mankind' it proletarian condition; vindicating in subsequent decades, as will be was to inspire a radical anti-slavery seen in chapter 8. excited the imagination of common people The 'New World' had long livelihood and in Europe. They hoped to find there an independent For many America came freedom from abusive authorities of all sorts. and Cockaigne. 34 At take the place of the mythical lands of Atlantis to could make common cause its most generous this popular utopianism forms it still with slave rebels. But even in its egotistical World or ethnocentric being held in thrall to objected to the lands of the New revolutionaries and reactionaries slaveholders and slave-traders. Both sentiment, especially when their were prepared to appeal to this popular needed to rally all the support they backs were to the wall and they could get. the commercial megapolis, the The novelty of the slave plantation, factory posed fundamental proto-industrial village, the capitalist and reproduction, questions about the relations between production forces with a stable and about the compatibility of new productive and debates of the age configuration of family and state. In the struggles with a conservative of revolution anti-slavery furnished revolutionaries cause. It enabled them cause and conservatives with a revolutionary and justice. both to articulate their vision of social Millar harmony has already made it clear The discussion of Hutcheson and did give birth to a distinctively that the late eighteenth century abolitionism stressed the need to bourgeois abolitionism. Bourgeois family life, to pacify and normalise social relations, to encourage often endorsed by habits of industry and thrift. It was develop class who played the role of organic professionals and middle people be by institutions intellectuals of a new social order, to strengthened and its unruly which they hoped would tame and civilise capitalism and libraries as well assemblies, schools, class struggles: representative Such outstanding social reformers as as prisons, police and hospitals. ively that the late eighteenth century abolitionism stressed the need to bourgeois abolitionism. Bourgeois family life, to pacify and normalise social relations, to encourage often endorsed by habits of industry and thrift. It was develop class who played the role of organic professionals and middle people be by institutions intellectuals of a new social order, to strengthened and its unruly which they hoped would tame and civilise capitalism and libraries as well assemblies, schools, class struggles: representative Such outstanding social reformers as as prisons, police and hospitals. Condorcet, Buxton, Schoelcher and Benjamin Rush, Jeremy Bentham, be of anti-slavery. While Ramon de la Sagra were also to proponents ideals they also felt that the such men did promote bourgeois or even dangerous. institutions of a 'commercial age' were inadequate might support such and far-sighted capitalist Though an enlightened --- Page 71 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery bourgeois ideals there was no complete or immediate bourgeois politics and capitalist interest in this identity between revolution. At the limit radical bourgeois age of reform and who believed that capitalist became 'bourgeois socialists' done away with. The majority private of property itself would have to be 'bourgeois socialism' but big capitalists shunned not even 'bourgeois only presented itself as an imperative abolitionism' unless it decorous anti-slavery from above compromise or concession, SO that a prietors to pre-empt a rude might allow non-slaveholding probelow. egalitarianism and emancipationism from The issues at stake in the various a powerful symbolic meaning for wide struggles over colonial slavery had Atlantic empires and could involve layers of the populations of the estates or commercial centres. Attacks even those remote from the slave on the ruthlessness of on both the ancien régimes and anti-slavery reflex in private power and wealth both appealed to the was anti-slavery sentiment European did popular culture. Widespread though it mild benevolence or mere political not necessarily amount to more than easily be adopted for rhetoric. Since abolitionism could SO contact with ideological effect it often crumbled an opposing material or at the first ideology of abolitionism has been patriotic' interest. Once the larger question of how, and by interpreted there still remains the and with what results. Even whom, the slave systems were destroyed a thoroughly abolitionism as a system ofideas would satisfactory account of actual forces at work in the overthrow not add up to an account of the There were, of course, of colonial slavery. in any form since the slave powerful vested interests opposed to abolition to the wealth of the Atlantic systems made such an immense contribution by the conflicts internal states. But such opposition was weakened merchants and planters, to the colonial slave systems between trade and creditors and debtors, one another - and some slaveholders colony or branch of that they could accept or welcome found themselves SO placed as suppression of the slave trade. particular abolitionist measures, such abolitionism were compatible with Some moderate varieties of system, though they might be resisted a reformed or strengthened slave fearful of legitimating nonetheless by slaveholders The 1750s and the anti-slavery. 1760s witnessed as well as the beginnings of the open stirrings of colonial revolt slavery. The Seven Years War sea-change in educated opinion towards systems of colonial slavery than had more disruptive effects on the involved all the major Atlantic any of the wars that preceded it. It sentiment and ended in a powers, stirred up a variety of patriotic The war moved peace that was pregnant with future conflict. Quakers in Philadelphia to begin to dissassociate --- Page 72 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery while the peace set the scene for rebellion themselves from slavery Secular political quarrels and a within the British and French Empires. colonial revolt slavery. The Seven Years War sea-change in educated opinion towards systems of colonial slavery than had more disruptive effects on the involved all the major Atlantic any of the wars that preceded it. It sentiment and ended in a powers, stirred up a variety of patriotic The war moved peace that was pregnant with future conflict. Quakers in Philadelphia to begin to dissassociate --- Page 72 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery while the peace set the scene for rebellion themselves from slavery Secular political quarrels and a within the British and French Empires. new openings to the debate on the proper nature of public space rebellion gave in the British North challengers of New World slavery. The in the next chapter. As a American colonies will be considered colonists ofSt Domingue met premonition of things to come the French resistance in the 1760s and projects of imperial reform with clamorous of the reform measures which most demanded greater autonomy. One to enrol free blacks and outraged the colonists had been a project against this, in special militia units; poor whites had agitated mulattos threat to their position within both the racial aware that it represented a The French authorities were able to caste system and the slave system. in the 1760s without compromising contain colonial insubordination officials urged that civil conflicts of this plantation security; but French disrupting the apparatus sort in a slave colony were highly dangerous, conflict. 35 more insidiously than an international of slave subjection branch of the Atlantic slave trade was The first decree banning a the advice of the future Marquis of issued in Portugal in 1761 on anticipating attack by Spain as Pombal. Portugal was at this moment sides in the Seven Years War. The the two countries joined opposite slave to metropolitan Portugal. decree of 1761 banned further be imports taken to Brazil rather than the Its aim was to encourage slaves to ofinternal instability. Pombal himself metropolis and to reduce a source that he had encountered as an ambasdisliked the English arrogance some of the racial caste sador in London and sought to dismantle imperialism. The measure discriminations which structured Portuguese of slavery, but it of 1761 was an echo of the Iberian tradition regulated and rendering it more was also a contribution to modernising Portugal late baroque prototype of the independent of Britain. Pombal was a despot. He may have been patriot dictator, an Iberian enlightened Resgatado by Ribiera da influenced by the appearance of O Etiope that the actual slave systems Rocha in 1758, a work which insisted of just bondage. This work grossly violated the Christian concept the custodian as well as proprietor of argued that the slaveholder was the slave should be able to buy it back after the slave's freedom and that faithful service. The decree of 1761 was of twenty or twenty-five years anti-slavery had appeared elsewhere followed after an interval in which 1773 which extended in the Atlantic world by a decree of January and slaves in Portugal whose parents, grandparents freedom to those slaves. Pombal was concerned grandparents had been Portuguese great slipping away from him. This exceedingly at the time to stop power was not the product of any modest instalment of emancipation claims. Yet it probably illustrates movement, nor accompanied by large --- Page 73 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery to have a mobilising and the way in which anti-slavery was thought which needed to secure popular legitimating potential for regimes support: 36 and abolition must be placed All subsequent struggles over slavery a critical role in shaping within the wider political context which follow played it will therefore be necessary their outcome. In the chapters that New World slavery examine the imperial states, which had promoted to its spoils, and the nature of the revolutionary and which fought over of abolition'. As the imperial states challenges they faced in the 'age to the black were presented broke up and reformed new opportunities different kinds. of several rebels or revolutionaries or automatically The onset of revolutions by no means immediately slaveholders who backed spelled the end of slavery. Those American connection and counted on revolution did SO to challenge the colonial Anti-slavery inherent strength of the slave systems. that New World slavery examine the imperial states, which had promoted to its spoils, and the nature of the revolutionary and which fought over of abolition'. As the imperial states challenges they faced in the 'age to the black were presented broke up and reformed new opportunities different kinds. of several rebels or revolutionaries or automatically The onset of revolutions by no means immediately slaveholders who backed spelled the end of slavery. Those American connection and counted on revolution did SO to challenge the colonial Anti-slavery inherent strength of the slave systems. the considerable accumulation of problems only prevailed where there was a protracted of diverse forces opposed to it. for the slave order and a concatenation buttressed by respect for property, The institution of slavery was definitions of national interest - antidisregard of blacks and prevailing each of these was contested. slavery only made headway as Notes 'From the Land of Canaan to the Land of Guinea: The 1. William McKee Evans, The American Historical Review, vol. 85, no. 1, Strange Odyssey of the Sons of David Ham', Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western February 1980, PP. 15-44; 62-121; Herbert Marcuse, From Luther to Popper, Culture, Ithaca, N.Y., 1966, pp. but London 1984, PP. 56-78. be the most tentative sketch. For a compendious 2. The above remarks can only of slavery in medieval Europe see Charles Verlinden, anecdotal account of the extent vol. 1, Brussels 1955; vol. I1, Ghent 1977; for the L'esclavage dans l'Europe the médiévale, decline of slavery in late antiquity and early medieval and Europe, Pierre wider context, tracing and Serfdom in the Middle Ages, Berkeley 1975 see Marc Bloch, Slavery and Liberation, London 1982. Dockès, Medieval Slavery references, see Rodney Hilton, Bondmen 3. For England, with some comparative 232-6; see also Georges Duby, The Early Made Free, London 1973, especially pp.56-9, London 1974, especially PP. 172-84; and Perry Growth of the European Economy, London 1974, pp. 197-211. For Russia Anderson, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, Change in Muscovy, Chicago 1979; the see David Hellie, Enserfment and Military indexed in David Hellie, Slavery in Russia: phenomenon of self-sale is copiously the transition from feudalism evidently have a 1492-1725, Chicago 1982. Debates slow, on uneven decline of slavery in the latter Middle bearing on the forces at work in the and political power in both feudalism and early Ages. For the privatisation of economic Social Power, PP. 416-50 and Ellen capitalism see Michael Mann, The Sources of --- Page 74 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Economic and the Political in Capitalism' in New Meiksins Wood, "The Separation of the Left Review, 127 (1981), pp. 66-95. and civic anti-slavery is surveyed in William 4. The late medieval pattern of slavery Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade, Manchester D. Phillips, Jr., Slavery from Roman abolitionism of Pamiers and Toulouse see Verlinden, 1985, pp. 88-113. For the municipal médiévale, I, pp. 814-9 and R. Limouzin-Lamothe, La be L'esclavage dans l'Europe Toulouse 1932, p. 230. The struggle for civic freedom may France, Commune de Toulouse, Histoire des Classes Ouvières en traced in such classic works as M.E. Levasseur, Life in the Fifteenth Century, 2 vols., London Paris 1859 and Mrs J.R. Green, Town 92-5. For the strength of the guilds even in an 1894, vol. 1, pp. 174 et seq, vol. Il, pp. Traders and Tradesmen: the World of the oligarchic context see Richard Mackenney, 1250-c. 1650, London 1987, pP. 229-32. For Guilds in Venice and Europe C. 1, ch. 16-18, 37, 47, 55,58; book II, ch. 1859 and Mrs J.R. Green, Town 92-5. For the strength of the guilds even in an 1894, vol. 1, pp. 174 et seq, vol. Il, pp. Traders and Tradesmen: the World of the oligarchic context see Richard Mackenney, 1250-c. 1650, London 1987, pP. 229-32. For Guilds in Venice and Europe C. 1, ch. 16-18, 37, 47, 55,58; book II, ch. 59; and Machiavelli see The Discourses, book 48-77. For egalitarianism and hostility Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli London 1981, Norman pp. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millenium, to bondage in North Western Europe of see popular culture, see Peter Burke, Popular Culture London 1957; on the 'politicisation' 259-69. Modern Europe, London 1978, pp. 1975, pp. 67-8, in Early Francis Maxwell, Slavery and the Catholic Church, London Colin Palmer, 5. John Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, pp. 165-196; 88-9; Davis, The White God, London 1976, pp. 82-119. Slaves of the Anglorum, edited by Mary Dewar, Cambridge 6. Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica 1982, pp. 135-6. Livres de la République, 4th ed., Paris 1579, livre 1, ch. V,pp. 7. Jean Bodin, Les Six done into English by Richard Knolles, 45-66 (The Six Bookes of the Commonweale, Quintin Skinner, The Foundations of London 1606, pp. 33, 44). For the context see, of the Reformation, Cambridge 1978, pp. Modern Political Thought, Vol. 2, The Age State, London 1974, pp. 50-1. 293-300; Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist in Tudor times see C.S.L. 8. For the unpopularity of slavery The in Vagrancy England Act of 1547, Economic History Davies, Slavery and Protector Somerset; 3, 1966 pp. 533-49; for Guyenne see Verlinden, Review, 2nd series, vol. XIX, médiévale, no. I, P: 851; for Mechlin see Seymour Drescher, London L'esclavage dans l'Europe British Mobilisation in Comparative Perspective, Capitalism and Anti-Slavery: did 1987, pp. 14, 172. Collections, II, London 1680, p. 468; such rulings 9. John Rushworth, Historical juridical status being attached as servants or slave not stop a few blacks of indeterminate wealthy magnates in Tudor and Stuart England. For domestics to the households of some Blandine Barret-Kriegel, L'état et les esclaves, Massillon and the Bishop of Grenoble see Paris 1979, pp. 51, 75-6. of edited by P. Laslett, Cambridge 1960, 10. John Locke, Two Treatises Government, p. 159; see also pp. 302-3. and Slaves: the Recruitment and Employment of Labor', 11. Richard Dunn, 'Servants Colonial British America, Baltimore 1984, pp. in J.P. Greene and J.R. Pole, eds., pour les Antilles, Paris 1947. 157-94; Gabriel Debien, Les engagées and of Dutch clergy are noted in Davis, The Problem of 12. The doubts of Quakers 291-332; see also David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, pp. 213-4, n. 1.; Aphra Behn's novel is in many ways Slavery in the Age of Revolution, pp. do limit her sympathy with the mass of blacks, very engaging but her royalist convictions 32-3, 86-7; see also Peter Hulme, Colonial see Oroonoko, London 1986, pp. London 1986, PP. 240-2. Encounters: Europe and the Native Caribbean, the Atlantic Slave Trade', Past and Present, 115, 13. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, pp. 213-4, n. 1.; Aphra Behn's novel is in many ways Slavery in the Age of Revolution, pp. do limit her sympathy with the mass of blacks, very engaging but her royalist convictions 32-3, 86-7; see also Peter Hulme, Colonial see Oroonoko, London 1986, pp. London 1986, PP. 240-2. Encounters: Europe and the Native Caribbean, the Atlantic Slave Trade', Past and Present, 115, 13. Richard Gray, The Papacy and May 1987, pp. 52-68. valuable compilation by Roger Bruns, ed., Am I not a 14. For the full text see the Crusade of Revolutionary America, 1688-1788, New Man and a Brother: the Antislavery York 1977, pp. 3-5. A General History of the Pyrates, London 1724, pp. a 384-434. part see 15. Charles Johnson, and the of which it was For the significance of this text phenomenon --- Page 75 --- Origins of Anti-Slavery vol. III, People and Ideas in 17th Century England, Christopher Hill, Collected Essays, Brighton 1986, Am pP. I 161-87. not a Man and a Brother, pp. 64-6. des Loix, Geneva 1748, 16. Bruns, Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, De L'Esprit book XV, chapter 1. 17. The Spirit of the Laws, Aberdeen 1756, pp. 383-5; Montesquieu, first of many English editions. the limitations of This was the The Spirit of the Laws, PP. 262-3. For in Western Culture, 18. Montesquieu, The Problem of Slavery Montesquieu's anti-slavery see Davis, 394-5. London and Glasgow 1755, pp. 19. Francis Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, book III, ch. 3, section 1, PP. 199-200. Philosophy, book II, ch. 14, section iii; see the 20. Hutcheson, System of Moral Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, London discussion in Roger Anstey, The 1975, Pp. 101-2. of the Principles of the Law of Scotland, Edinburgh 21. George Wallace, A System that individuals owned themselves: *Nobody is the 1760, pp. 94-5. Wallace also denied for the property of them belongs not to any proprietor of the members of his own body; Therefore no man has a right to mutilate private person, it is vested in the public. of his life.' (P: 99) himself. A Fortiori he has no right to dispose on Early Antislavery Radicalism', 22. See, David Brion Davis, 'New XXVIII, Sidelights October 1971, pP. 585-94. William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, mundo, Havana 1761 (reprinted with an 23. Felix de Arrate, Llave del nuevo D.F., 1949); Davis, The Problem of Slavery in introduction by Julio le Riverend, Mexico and Genovese, The Fruits of Merchant Western Culture, pp. 426-8; Fox-Genovese Capital, PP. 272-98. of the Distinction of Ranks, London 1781, 3rd edition, 24. John Millar, The Origin PP. 306, 311, 347-8. of the Distinction of Ranks, pp. 168-9, 170. and Trade 25. Millar, The Origin and Political History of the Settlements III, pp. 26. Abbé Raynal A Philosophical West Indies, 2nd edition, London 1776, 5 vols, of the Europeans in the East and French edition of 1774. 466-7. This passage derives from the second Black, Chapel Hill 1968, p. 111. 27. Quoted in Winthrop Jordan, White II, over London 1774, P. of the Distinction of Ranks, pp. 168-9, 170. and Trade 25. Millar, The Origin and Political History of the Settlements III, pp. 26. Abbé Raynal A Philosophical West Indies, 2nd edition, London 1776, 5 vols, of the Europeans in the East and French edition of 1774. 466-7. This passage derives from the second Black, Chapel Hill 1968, p. 111. 27. Quoted in Winthrop Jordan, White II, over London 1774, P. 460. For Tacky's Revolt 28. Edward Long, History of. Jamaica, Ithaca 1982, pp. 125-39. For a sociology of Maurice Craton, Testing the Chains, Slave Revolts', in Richard see Jamaican slave revolts see Orlando Patterson, Communities "Slavery and in the Americas, Garden City, Price, ed., Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave N.Y. 1973, PP: 246-92. Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted 29. Quoted, J.G. Stedman, London 1796, 2 vols, 1, pp. 68-9. Negroes of Surinam, Conrad, ed., Children of God's Fire, Princeton 1983, pp. of 397-401. African 30. Robert Edgar of voodoo and the 'fiercely conservative' nature New New 31. On the development African Civilisations in the World, culture in the Americas see Roger Bastide, differentiated account see also José Luciano York 1971, pp. 133-51. But for a more Mundo, Havana 1966. For the persistence of Franco, La Presencia Negra en el Nuevo Oruno D. Lara, 'Resistance to Slavery: From Africa African forms of slave resistance see Perspectives on Slavery in New World in V. Tuden, ed., Comparative Schwartz, "The to Black America', York 464-80. But see also Stuart Plantation Societies, New 1977, Colonial PP. Bahia', in Price, ed., Maroon Societies, pp. Mocambo: Slave Resistance in ideas on this question in David Geggus, 'Slave 202-26, and the critical survey of received Revolt', mimeographed paper published by Resistance Studies and the Saint Domingue 1983. Florida International University, Winter sea-farers and their links with blacks, both 32. For revolutionary traditions amongst by Peter Linebaugh, 'All the Atlantic Mountains free and slave, see the evocative essay and also the exchange between Robert Swilling Shook', LabourlLe Travail, no. 10 (1982); 14 and Linebaugh in LabourlLe Travail, Land no. Reform (1984). to the Newcastle Philosophical Society 33. Thomas Spence, Lecture on --- Page 76 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery (1775), in M. Beer, ed., Pioneers of Land Reform, London 1920, PP 7-8; see also Noel W. Thompson, The People's Science, Cambridge 1984, pP. 42-5. 34. Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: the Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller, London 1980, PP. 112-26. 35. Charles Frostin, Les Révoltes Blanches à Saint Domingue, Paris 1975. 36. A.C. de C.M. Saunders, A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal, Cambridge 1982, p. 178. --- Page 77 --- II Hanoverian Britain: Slavery and Empire When Britain first at Heav'ns command Arose from out the azure main Arose, arose from out the azure main This was the charter, the charter of the And guardian angels sang this strain land, Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves Britons never never never shall be slaves. Rule Britannia (1740), Arne/Thompson Why do the nations SO furiously peoples imagine a vain thing? The rage together? Why do the the rulers take counsel kings of the earth rise up, and against the Lord and His anointed. Empire When Britain first at Heav'ns command Arose from out the azure main Arose, arose from out the azure main This was the charter, the charter of the And guardian angels sang this strain land, Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves Britons never never never shall be slaves. Rule Britannia (1740), Arne/Thompson Why do the nations SO furiously peoples imagine a vain thing? The rage together? Why do the the rulers take counsel kings of the earth rise up, and against the Lord and His anointed. Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their yokes from us. He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them shall have them in derision. to scorn, the Lord Thus saith the Lord, the Lord God of Hosts: while, and I will shake the heav'ns and the Yet once, a little dry land, and I will shake all earth, the sea and the nations, and the desire of all nations shall come.' Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, Hallelujah! The Messiah (1741), Handel/Jennens --- Page 78 --- --- Page 79 --- Hanoverian Britain in the 1760s and Slavery first became a focus of public controversy in crisis. The first moves 1770s as Britain's imperial order was plunged reflect the distinctive political against slavery and the slave trade were to in the latter half of the and culture of the British Empire to economy This chapter aims to illuminate this context, eighteenth century. of the state which had established a premier position explore the nature the sources and limits of antiin Atlantic commerce and to identify down to the outbreak of the slavery in Britain and North America American Revolution. some species of early capitalist or Hanoverian Britain was evidently the of the seventeenth bourgeois state. It had issued from revolutions which asserted the culminating in the post-1688 settlement, The century, landowning and mercantile oligarchy. political power of a capitalist and extend the social Hanoverian state helped to guarantee, reproduce and manufacturing accumurelations necessary to agrarian, commercial free labour. Britain was the and wage lation - independent property with its dependencies, the largest in largest free trade zone in Europe; several thousand paid employees, the world. The state, staffed by and colonies. A unified claimed direct sovereignty over both metropolis national territory through the government administered the whole and the Board of Trade. It had at its Treasury, the Departments of State small but effective standing army. disposal a formidable navy and a more closely to Max The Hanoverian political order the modern approximated state - a body exercising a Weber's classic definition of territory' - than did other 'monopoly of legitimate violence over a given sovereignty' and states of the epoch, with their 'parcellised claimed European autonomy.' 1 The Crown in Parliament provincial or municipal kingdom and empire. Thus the Union sovereign sway over the entire United Kingdom, with a single with Scotland (1707) produced a larger Yet the sovereignty not a 'dual monarchy'. set of sovereign institutions, and ill-defined: the early Hanoverian of the state was still approximate and self-reproducing. In Britain most order was dispersed, localised Customs and Excise, the Post Office or the public employees worked for of State with tiny staffs of a Ordnance, leaving the great Departments aspired few dozen each. The landed gentry and municipal interference corporations from a and did not welcome to be self-governing claims of absolutism had been centralised authority. The political in favour of limited government. vigorously and indignantly dominated rejected by the propertied oligarchy, but Not only was Parliament as Lords Lieutenant, County the latter ran local affairs directly --- Page 80 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of a Justices of the Peace or through membership but Commissioners, Parliament determined the national budget variety of corporations. offices were held as private property. many of the most lucrative public of legislation, but the laws were Parliament established a framework of the Peace, drawn from the local interpreted and applied by Justices of office. Even in Parliament Bills gentry, who enjoyed lengthy terms over government introduced by private Members predominated budget. Not only was Parliament as Lords Lieutenant, County the latter ran local affairs directly --- Page 80 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of a Justices of the Peace or through membership but Commissioners, Parliament determined the national budget variety of corporations. offices were held as private property. many of the most lucrative public of legislation, but the laws were Parliament established a framework of the Peace, drawn from the local interpreted and applied by Justices of office. Even in Parliament Bills gentry, who enjoyed lengthy terms over government introduced by private Members predominated budget. In the Commons save in the case of the annual measures, of which could be bought, outnumbered 'county' "borough' seats, many doubt for an early while this distribution was no appropriate the seats; the existence of the 'rotten boroughs' betrayed bourgeois regime, development. The City of London was jealous immaturity of bourgeois other municipalities. The Bank of of its corporate privileges, as were were private bodies, though England and the chartered companies of law and order was the established by public statute. The preservation with its militia or special reponsibility of each county or borough, seamless robe but a Oligarchic power was thus not a constables. patchwork.? of empire was of a piece; the governors and officials The structure needed to negotiate local sources of appointed from London usually with at least a section of finance and to establish a cordial relationship America and the West Indies the local possessing classes. In North colonial of the Peace assemblies, colonial militia and Justices colonial of government. These British colonies were integral to the structure editions of the metropolitan regime which could be seen as miniature Most of the colonial assemblies had an claimed sovereignty over them. drawn from them was a Council presided upper and a lower house; The British outposts in the Royal Governor or Proprietor. over by the of chartered corporations - the Africa and India were in charge India Company - established by Royal Africa Company and the East their shareholders and the Crown in Parliament but answerable to the colonial of their own armed forces. But before exploring and disposing to further specify the political dimension it will be appropriate social formula of the regime in the metropolis. to coin the term Old of the late Hanoverian order were Opponents the way in which oligarchic factions gained Corruption' to highlight distributed the spoils amongst their possession of the state and of the constitution. Though this supporters, thus upsetting the "balance' of the articulation of evokes a and at times crucial, aspect term specific, Britain, it does not sufficiently capture the power in eighteenth century of the Hanoverian order, nor its ability to social logic or future dynamic influence could be bought, enlist consent. Precisely because political between the workings of governthere was a definite correspondence --- Page 81 --- Hanoverian Britain whether new or old. And ment and the interests of large-scale property, between rival oligarchic groupings while there was fierce competition for the rules of the game, enshrined there was also widespread respect and other ruling institutions; appointin the procedures of Parliament would often be respected by its ments made by one government strength and successor. If they could muster the required parliamentary wished, but in their own could pass what laws they time governments bound by the law and by the decisions of courts actions ministers were While the lay magistracy was the gentry they did not directly control. the senior officers were political wearing a different wig, and legal and semi-independent appointees, between these two was a professional of as well with the power to decide cases in the light precedent judiciary justification and codification The need for a legal-rational the as legislation. claborated, with its beginnings in of the laws and constitution was and its culmination in the systematic polemics of Locke and Hoadly of the Scottish school, William compilations and commentaries Blackstone and Jeremy Bentham." of intense national pride, even to Britain's constitution was a source after that date prior to 1776 - and for the great majority private oppositionists, Government was obliged to respect all independent as well. cases in the light precedent judiciary justification and codification The need for a legal-rational the as legislation. claborated, with its beginnings in of the laws and constitution was and its culmination in the systematic polemics of Locke and Hoadly of the Scottish school, William compilations and commentaries Blackstone and Jeremy Bentham." of intense national pride, even to Britain's constitution was a source after that date prior to 1776 - and for the great majority private oppositionists, Government was obliged to respect all independent as well. of the "free-born Englishman'. Indeed most of property and the rights did SO in the name of Britain's those who attacked 'Old Corruption' whose peculiar genius was traced supposedly ancient 'mixed" monarchy, lost in the mists of time, as to Magna Carta and Anglo-Saxon in principles his History of England. In fact T.B. Macaulay was to claim from its Stuart and Hanoverian monarchy differed fundamentally opened up by that difference Tudor predecessors - it was in the space could be asserted in a new way. that property rights and personal rights aim of government was the When Locke declared that the principal sense: land, buildings, of he meant this in a larger 'defence property', and exemptions, the liberties of the cattle, offices of profit, privileges other including wives, subject and the latter's rights over persons, Property was indentured servants and slaves, all counted as 'property'. and and the monarch's role was to respect now the real sovereign the Bill of Rights. The apologists for the uphold it, as laid down in of Settlement - such as Hoadly, the Revolution of 1688 and the Act of the Bishop of Bangor - had a truer appreciation 'constitutionalist' by the new order than their mythopoeic innovation represented the origins of the state opponents." 4 Seeking to downplay revolutionary Whigs constructed a and some later reform-minded Tory oppositionists whose categories failed to acknowlstory of constitutional continuity state. That novelty must be edge the true novelty of the British capitalist of colonial slavery and concern of the present study since the fortunes a --- Page 82 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of the Hanoverian regime were SO closely intertwined. Though the structure of social power in essentially oligarchic, the state was formally Hanoverian Britain was bourgeois states, also oligarchic in social monarchical. Previous early republican form, whether content, had opted for the been restored to give stability, municipal or federal. In Britain monarchy had of the state. The continuity and decorum to the and armed sovereign stood at the head of the workings forces, but also at the intersection of permanent executive oligarchy was no means oblivious to the need class forces. The general consent. Popular tradition had to secure a measure of check to the power of wealthy long looked to the monarch as a engineered by the oligarchy but magnates; the Restoration of 1660 was acclaim, in gained a degree of part because it was seen as a popular support and untrammelled rule of Commonwealth deliverance from the form of government which it was easier power-brokers. for Monarchy was a understand and accept than unadorned the common people to be represented both as the custodian oligarchy. The monarch could subjects and a barrier of the liberties of his 'free-born' enthusiasm. But the against renewed bouts of Puritan restoration of monarchy revolutionary danger of royal recidivism. The Divine brought in its train the stridently asserted in the years before Right of the monarch was as absolutism. The ejection of James II 1688 as in the heyday of Tudor clear that Britain's ruling class would by the Glorious Revolution made it substantive and independent royal not permit any reassertion of a Quakers had helped to complete government; the King's deal with the Revolution capitalist state allowed the oligarchic alienation. the against renewed bouts of Puritan restoration of monarchy revolutionary danger of royal recidivism. The Divine brought in its train the stridently asserted in the years before Right of the monarch was as absolutism. The ejection of James II 1688 as in the heyday of Tudor clear that Britain's ruling class would by the Glorious Revolution made it substantive and independent royal not permit any reassertion of a Quakers had helped to complete government; the King's deal with the Revolution capitalist state allowed the oligarchic alienation. The postproperty and contain levelling tendencies ruling class not only to defend effectively, to run an but also to make war more National empire, to raise taxes and Debt - each of which to guarantee the the social order. Monarchy put extra strain on the maintenance of furnish a point of concentration helped to clothe oligarchic rule and to to the various person of the monarch came to propertied interests. The and developing capacity of Britain's symbolise the more uniform authority The menace of a renewed royal bid state for administration. to be feared after 1688 for a structural independent power continued propertied classes needed a reason - the Hanoverian to control it. Parliament did centralising instance yet were unable not sit for the fully members had their estates or business greater part of the year; its had the power to select ministers and interests to attend to. The King itself was only a sample of the to dissolve Parliament. Parliament of its members would be beholden major propertied interests and a number problem was that the ruling class itself to royal patronage. At root the and commercial wealth, with was organised around landed an inadequate impulse to the generalisa72 --- Page 83 --- Hanoverian Britain of policy. The individual members of the ruling tion and centralisation the country, were naturally preoccupied oligarchy, scattered across Moreover such means of communication and with their private affairs. association developed unevenly deliberation as newspapers and political rule. and sometimes against the grain of oligarchic of the ruling oligarchy was Both the strength and the weakness of the national Church; revealed in its jealous concern for the privileges of it was essential the monarch was head ofthe Church and membership labels Beneath the factional post-Restoration to all office-holding. state. Under the terms of the Test Britain was formally a 'one church' communicants were permitted to and Corporation Acts, only Anglican dissenters who were willing hold public office, though well-established the communion, might also be occasionally to 'conform', by taking the ruling class at prayer with admitted. The Church of England was it was conceived of as a barrier loyal tenants, freeholders and labourers; The Restoration had been against both Puritan and royal excess. Act of 1661 which tightly immediately followed by the Quaker dissidents. The Putney debates circumscribed the activities of religious ideals which mocked the cynical and and Puritan exaltation bequeathed order. On the other pragmatic arrangements of the post-revolutionary since it was the hand Catholicism was thought even more dangerous the interests of a foreign creed of royal absolutism and wedded to the Toleration Act of 1689 The Revolution Settlement led to individual power. licensed the main Protestant sects while still denying which civic rights. The Test and Corporation Acts Nonconformists many congregrations - Baptists, remained in force but Nonconformist obtain a licence to Independents, Quakers - might Presbyterians, oaths and undertakings, varying according worship in return for specific concordance with Anglicanism. Over the to their degree of theological the factional battles that preceded the next three decades, in the Tories upheld every Anglican privilege Hanoverian consolidation, concessions to Dissent in return for useful while the Whigs offered numbering about 400,000 in all, political support; Nonconformists, financial contributions, even if barred could sometimes vote, or make the chartered With from holding office in the state or in corporations. Presbyterians, oaths and undertakings, varying according worship in return for specific concordance with Anglicanism. Over the to their degree of theological the factional battles that preceded the next three decades, in the Tories upheld every Anglican privilege Hanoverian consolidation, concessions to Dissent in return for useful while the Whigs offered numbering about 400,000 in all, political support; Nonconformists, financial contributions, even if barred could sometimes vote, or make the chartered With from holding office in the state or in corporations. pushed religious the arrival of the Hanoverians secular politics discriminations still from the centre stage. But confessional controversy structured, the political and social system. overlaid, to an extent even need for this reinforcement of their dominant That the oligarchy felt the of weakness; that they could sustain it position in society was a sign while tolerating Dissent was a sign of strength. devised to avoid either royal The Hanoverian regime was thus naked oligarchy or weak republicanbacksliding or Puritan enthusiasm, --- Page 84 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery or the rule of courtiers. The memorable ism, Leveller democracy had prompted those who had convulsions of the seventeenth century ensure that they would not be ultimately benefited from them to of the monarch were narrowly repeated. The personal powers and law. Indeed constitutioncircumscribed by constitutional practice be exercised in and through ally the powers of sovereignty could only chambers. The Crown Parliament, with its hereditary and representative regulate trade and in Parliament had formidable powers to make war, The sanction it was powerless. raise taxes; but without parliamentary these principles SO firmly that, almost Revolution of 1688 established had the financial resources to do for the first time, British government instrument of the new regime was the what it wished; a crucial credit which simultaneously National Debt, a deep well of public it the of a wide its enemies and to attach to loyalty allowed it to fight layer of friendly rentiers. of monarchy, whose The Hanoverian regime was, then, a new species of a derived from the support and consent parliamentary rule formally from Divine Right or royal blood lines. It might oligarchy rather than monarchy - that is a monarchy provisionally be termed an illegitimate title to rule whose very lack of an inherent or self-sufficient When George I, Elector assisted its acceptance by society. the paradoxically succeeded to the British throne, he did SO on authority and of Hanover, (1689) and Act of Settlement (1701) of Parliament's Bill of Rights right. He was, at the time, only fifty-second not by virtue of hereditary itself to rule, of 6 For a ruling class that intended in line succession. monarchical legitimacy was an extra guarantee George's lack of George's lack of English further against attempts to assert royal power. From this date the Cabinet reduced the scope for royal intervention. a Prime Minister, the without the sovereign being present; met regularly over the Cabinet's deliberaFirst Lord of the Treasury, now presided of the were attended tions. Yet while the day-to-day affairs government furnished an element of Cabinet and Prime Minister the sovereign to continuity by and a focus for loyalty. allowed the lack of inherent legitimacy paradoxically The monarch's institution. The weakness of the monarchy to become a more obverse popular of the rights and powers of his sovereign was seen as the could exercise political power in the subjects. While the oligarchy could also find a consolation for King's name, the rest of his subjects as subjects of the their exclusion from political power - their liberties Tory squire, prone to an Crown. This was as true of the backwoods of the government, as of instinctive monarchism and distrust Those who outside the power system. of inherent legitimacy paradoxically The monarch's institution. The weakness of the monarchy to become a more obverse popular of the rights and powers of his sovereign was seen as the could exercise political power in the subjects. While the oligarchy could also find a consolation for King's name, the rest of his subjects as subjects of the their exclusion from political power - their liberties Tory squire, prone to an Crown. This was as true of the backwoods of the government, as of instinctive monarchism and distrust Those who outside the power system. independent men completely by the "free-born Englishman' held vaunted the social rights enjoyed --- Page 85 --- Hanoverian Britain that they had no parallel in continental substance. The abolition of the last Europe, and the boast had some seventeenth vestiges of English century meant meant that all villeinage in the were free to move to where the men, and not a few women, wages and necessary to emigrate to the New World. conditions were best - if employers and employed were still The relations between and servants', but the masters' legally defined as those of 'masters and contract, by the servants' powers were circumscribed by custom substantial body of 'masterless' mobility and by the existence of a market relations created men and women. The extension market new freedoms and new of were tempered by a locally risks; the rigours of the a popular administered welfare propensity to riot if conditions system and by of the subject also offered a got too bad. The legal office-holders, measure of protection from the rights though such rights were more power of propertied than the propertyless, by easily invoked by the men than women. Those who celebrated townspeople than country folk, by Englishman' would be the the rights of the "free-born rather than those frequenters of coffee houses and taverns identity subsisting on the poor rates. But this was acceptable to many with a a secular little religous heterodox religious conviction at all. background or The successes of British arms and the the cult of Britain's mixed profits of empire ensured that This was the epoch which monarchy was a truly national institution. anthems: 'God Save the gave birth to official and unofficial national (1741), with its King!", 'Hearts of Oak' and 'Rule Britannia' triumphant and Britannia rule the waves/Britons suggestive couplet 'Rule Britannia, another register the thrilling chords never, never, never shall be slaves."' In of Handel's encouraged a species of secular magnificent oratorios and responsibility. religiosity combining self-confidence The new sense of a secular national expression in the ideology of destiny received militant Britain, its constitution and liberties. 'patriotism', vaunting the glories of vocation was a favourite patriot Britain's maritime and imperial in the parliamentary theme; it received striking expression oratory of Pitt the Elder in the leading to war with Spain and France, and 1730s and 1740s, corruption of Walpole's indicting the comfortable be seen as a "Robinocracy'. Imperial popular cause because it aggrandisement could encourage colonial development, promised to facilitate emigration, and boost the supply of promote the export of manufactures London in the late 1730s plantation produce. France's ambassador to and labourers was struck by the fact that as well as Peers of the realm took humble artisans war against Spain to secure and enlarge up the patriot cry for a he was alarmed by the Britain's American empire. And patriots' skill in confecting issues, mis75 --- Page 86 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery questions and playing upon popular prejudice. representing complex Ear' was the first fruit of this new-fangled patriot The "War of Jenkin's agitation." 7 in the claims and identity of the "freePatriotism, rooted as it was which to the radical and born Englishman', was an ideology appealed to furnish it with a expansive wing of the oligarchy and helped and aspirations. by the Britain's American empire. And patriots' skill in confecting issues, mis75 --- Page 86 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery questions and playing upon popular prejudice. representing complex Ear' was the first fruit of this new-fangled patriot The "War of Jenkin's agitation." 7 in the claims and identity of the "freePatriotism, rooted as it was which to the radical and born Englishman', was an ideology appealed to furnish it with a expansive wing of the oligarchy and helped and aspirations. But interests following. It claimed to represent popular had made their oppositional Tories and members of the 'country party' and of the social contribution to the invention of patriotism own The Tory leader Bolingbroke ideology of the 'free-born Englishman'. which gained currency in had elaborated a theory of patriot opposition legitimist Bolingbroke's the 1730s and 1740s. For a sometime Renaissance republicanpatriotism was a curious echo of Machiavelli's as a menace ism: it attacked the corruption of Hanoverian governments and the Tories liberty and civic virtue. Bolingbroke to English distrust of Westminster and of articulated the country gentlemen's But the Tories had themselves costly entanglements in European wars. and maritime orientation of played a part in consolidating the imperial had sponsored the 'blue water' British policy and the British state: they Succession, seen as a cheaper and strategy during the War of Spanish in Europe, and alternative to military engagement more profitable for the Treaty of Utrecht. The great themselves had responsibility the Hanoverians but wished to majority of Tories not only accepted and to a responsible and underline their commitment to the constitution of Britain's balanced ordered liberty. Thus the peculiar virtues words by an constitution were to be summed up in the following Journal, in The Freeholders oppositional paper of Tory inclinations, 1769: (the best in the The constitution of our English like the government Turkish Grand Seigneur's, or the world) is no arbitrary tyranny, rather lusts) dispose of the lives and fortunes French King's, whose wills (or where the great one(s) (like fish of their unhappy subjects: nor an oligarchy devouring the lesser at their pleasure: in the ocean) prey upon, and live by much less an anarchy, where all Nor yet a democracy or popular well met. state, But a most excellent mixt or qualified confusedly are hail fellows vested with large prerogatives sufficient to monarchy, where the King is from power of doing himself and his support Majesty; and restrained adorned only with priviledges to be a screen to people harm the nobility shade to their inferiors, and the commonalty too, Majesty and a refreshing by the fence of the law, as renders SO guarded in their persons, and properties them free-men, not slaves." conservative strand of the ruling ideology was Thus even the more --- Page 87 --- Hanoverian Britain here, to flatter the common people prone, as with the concluding phrase While the patriot Whigs and radicals with the compliment of freedom. the more Whigs the claims of the middling sort conservative paraded stress that social freedom was perfectly compatible and Tories liked to interests affronted by the subordination. Those powerful with political of colonial rights or Wilkes and turbulent and challenging proponents should be content Liberty' were to argue that the free-born Englishmen with being a subject not a citizen. World colonies and the superprofits of slavery The possession of New safety valve for the Hanoverian regime both a transatlantic its battles at gave and extra resources with which to wage their popular energies thousands of Britons went to make home and abroad. perfectly compatible and Tories liked to interests affronted by the subordination. Those powerful with political of colonial rights or Wilkes and turbulent and challenging proponents should be content Liberty' were to argue that the free-born Englishmen with being a subject not a citizen. World colonies and the superprofits of slavery The possession of New safety valve for the Hanoverian regime both a transatlantic its battles at gave and extra resources with which to wage their popular energies thousands of Britons went to make home and abroad. Every year claiming a third of fortune in the New World. Britain's tax system, and Excise. It income, found its major support in the Customs national monarchy' that taxes characteristic of Hanoverian illegitimate was of circulation would be preferred to those directly falling on the sphere the of production. There was a levied on wealth holders or on process its incidence as low as land tax, but ministers generally strove to keep and Excise, levies falling possible. The revenue obtained from Customs exceeded those from any always greatly on commodity circulation, sugar and the other other source." The customs duties on tobacco, welcome source of revenue colonial imports provided a particularly resentment in the since they were less likely to arouse popular of domestic products. metropolis than excise levied on the consumption from the British market Foreign tobacco or sugar was virtually excluded duty. Re-exports but the colonial product still had to pay a sizeable revenues. rate but could still yield impressive paid duty at a lower of and given protected access to the Domestic exports were free duty interests were not menaced colonial markets. So long as metropolitan to penetrate the British traders and British colonies were encouraged Treaty with Portugal imperial systems of Britain's rivals. The Methuen of Utrecht were both (1703) and the Asiento clauses of the Treaty trade. Thus much of a clandestine as well as legal designed to encourage and New Granada ended up in the Bank the slave-mined gold of Brazil of the East India and of England or helping to finance the American activities colonies were expected While the North African companies. they were permitted to trade in rice manufactures, to buy only English West Indies. and provisions to the foreign the of 'illegitimate monarchy' Prior to the imperial crisis regime with colonial profits and seemed to have a special affinity with empire, --- Page 88 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery metropolitan stabilisation. The phenomenal projects greatly assisting and Atlantic trade in the period 1620-88 growth of Britain's colonial of revenue but also reflected and had not only created new sources mercantile and manufacturing establishconsolidated the rise of a new The limited underpinning the new political regime. ment directly definite attraction for colonial planters and monarchy formula had a that could defend their vital interests merchants. They wanted a state affairs. The planter while interfering as little as possible in their private landowner. Both West was in any case first cousin to the metropolitan played a part in devising the Indian and North American planters in London settlement of 1688-9, both through their representations assemblies challenging the and through the parallel action of colonial merchants, for their part, knew pretensions of royal governors. Colonial of the King's that trade was one of the foremost preoccupations known their views on ministers and they had many channels for making government policy. merchants and proprietors were able, if they The richest colonial at Westminster. This wished, to purchase influence or representation West India proprietors, though the was especially true of the absentee to advance their interests North American colonies also engaged of agents West Indian Planters replaced in London. In the 1730s a Committee to government informal lobby in making representations the previous Indian merchants for a time had their own and Parliament. King's that trade was one of the foremost preoccupations known their views on ministers and they had many channels for making government policy. merchants and proprietors were able, if they The richest colonial at Westminster. This wished, to purchase influence or representation West India proprietors, though the was especially true of the absentee to advance their interests North American colonies also engaged of agents West Indian Planters replaced in London. In the 1730s a Committee to government informal lobby in making representations the previous Indian merchants for a time had their own and Parliament. West about twenty MPs had links to separate committee. In mid-century trade. Cornwall and West Indian planting, about thirty to and colonial historic ties to West Indian Devon, with their 'rotten boroughs' while such new planting, sent no less than seventy MPs Leeds to Westminster and Halifax sent none.' 10 manufacturing centres as Manchester, 1660 and 1760 all colonial proprietors During the century between facilities which the metropolis needed the protection and commercial royal officials to be could provide. While the richer colonists expected themselves willing gtoinwokeroyalautblonty pliant they were, on occasion, of the sort who had caused such to overawe rebels and demagogues Bacon's Rebellion in 1676.1"1 memorable havoc in Virginia during of monarchy' the Nevertheless, within the system illegitimate measure of selfcolonies developed a more ample and popular of the than was to be found in the constituent parts own government Union. Scotland or Wales did not have their metropolitan at Westminster. The American assemblies but were directly represented Westminster but had their own wellcolonies were unrepresented at Formally these bodies were established representative assemblies. the holder of a royal convoked by a royal Governor, or proprietory in Parliament. In practice and owed allegiance to the Crown patent, --- Page 89 --- Hanoverian Britain their distance from London and their their traditions of self-reliance, them considerable autonomy. more representative character gave no less than in The colonial franchises were based on wealth-holding of adult white males the mother country but a much higher proportion half instead of only one in a third or a met the property qualification; were strongly attached to personal every eight or ten. The colonists Planters displayed this assertive independence and civic equality. and the West Indian colonists were almost impulse no less than farmers, those of North America. The popular as exigent in their demands as limited by the aspect of illegitimate monarchy' - government concern for the rights representation and consent of property-holders, an extra intensity when of the "free-born Englishman' - acquired of black slaves itself transported to the New World. The presence whites. The levelling up of contributed to a sense of equality amongst in the West Indies or all whites was, if anything, more generalised where the slave or New England, Virginia than in, say, Pennsylvania planter was to remark upon 'the population was small. A Jamaican all ranks and conditions. The display of conscious equality through himself nearly on a level with the poorest White person seems to regard his employer with richest, and, emboldened by this idea, approaches open hand.' >12 of the colonial system generated sources of The very successes and merchants, between creditors and tension: between planters in new lands and those debtors, between those looking to invest between one branch of concerned to defend the value of existing estates, in colonial markets and trade and another, between those interested between tax-payers and rentiers or those involved in the entrepôt trade, and unstable quarrels of contractors. So long as these were factional shifting conflict. They testified to interest they could be brokered by of the period 1739-63 the vitality of empire. The patriot agitations notwithstanding quarrels received strong backing from the colonies, and spoils. Down to the very over the precise distribution of expenses the American colonists united in eve of the Declaration of Independence of the Revolution settlement and proclaiming fidelity to the principles Constitution. trade and colonial slavery remained virtually unquestioned, The slave extended the social and until the challenge to empire dramatically of the free-born English political agenda. So long as these were factional shifting conflict. They testified to interest they could be brokered by of the period 1739-63 the vitality of empire. The patriot agitations notwithstanding quarrels received strong backing from the colonies, and spoils. Down to the very over the precise distribution of expenses the American colonists united in eve of the Declaration of Independence of the Revolution settlement and proclaiming fidelity to the principles Constitution. trade and colonial slavery remained virtually unquestioned, The slave extended the social and until the challenge to empire dramatically of the free-born English political agenda. It was, after all, the privileges the earliest examples of the that were being celebrated. One of behind competing parliamentary mobilisation of a broad public opinion in the first decade of the eighteenth factions had been a pamphlet war could enjoy the custom of the slavecentury concerning which ports 13 trading Royal Africa Company. --- Page 90 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Britain's rulers could not entirely avoid the apparent the Nevertheless liberty and colonial slavery. In discrepancy between metropolitan trade Britain itself acquired a growing backwash from the Atlantic thousand or more by the middle population of black slaves, rising to ten A number of colonial proprietors decades of the eighteenth century. of a black boy brought slave domestics with them to Britain; possession even if they had of a status symbol for the wealthy, became something the West Indian planters approached the interest. In 1729 no colonial Yorke, to inquire whether their rights as Attorney General, Sir Philip in the metropolis; they were slave-owners enjoyed legal recognition enjoyed the protection of the assured that all legally acquired property does not bestow freedom'. Two law, including slaves, and that 'baptism Chancellor Hardwicke, reiterated decades later Yorke, now Lord which have destroyed servitude his view that 'there are no laws did not have the force of absolutely'." Though weighty, these opinions decisions which denied legal precedent; there were also judicial leaving the whole question particular slaveholder claims in England, long preceding indistinct. The concern of the planters' representatives, that slave-owning philosophical anti-slavery, came from the knowledge and those prepared to had been and could be challenged by without runaways, asking questions. It seems help them or simply to employ them for further clarification in the courts likely that they did not press Slaveholders in England because they felt unsure of the outcome. in to be able to order wanted the service of their slaves, and particular understood that it would be them back to the colonies at will. They into English law a fullneedless provocation to insist upon enacting found in the colonies. blown slave code, such as was to be challenge to Britain's ruling Following the rise of a revolutionary studied if not were to retreat into empiricism, order its representatives the principles of the outright mysticism, when it came to examining in the middle decades established order. But there was a vital moment spirit of the Enlightenof the eighteenth century when the generalising of Britain's socioment was employed to explore the presuppositions The works of Wallace, Smith and economic and politico-legal systems. would be examples of this. Millar referred to in the previous chapter brilliance, SO directly even Smith's work, with all its analytic But not problems of legislation and government as concerned the practical Commentaries on the Laws of England, first William Blackstone's Blackstone's ambitious attempt to codify England's published in 1765. by Lord doctrine was directly encouraged legal and constitutional This work was thoroughly permeated by Mansfield, the Chief Justice. recognised by for Britain's ruling order and was immediately to respect work of authority. Nevertheless its attempt British courts as a --- Page 91 --- Hanoverian Britain of liberty and order was to encourage not enunciate general principles gloss, and leading proponents only Jeremy Bentham's crypto-republican of slavery. the North American revolt, but also some early opponents oft liberty Blackstone wrote: In a characteristic passage on English of this civil and political liberty flourish in the The idea and the practice where it falls little short of perfection, and highest degree in these Kingdoms, the demerits of its owner; the can only be lost or destroyed through of being peculiarly adapted legislature, and of course the laws England, even in the meanest subject. enunciate general principles gloss, and leading proponents only Jeremy Bentham's crypto-republican of slavery. the North American revolt, but also some early opponents oft liberty Blackstone wrote: In a characteristic passage on English of this civil and political liberty flourish in the The idea and the practice where it falls little short of perfection, and highest degree in these Kingdoms, the demerits of its owner; the can only be lost or destroyed through of being peculiarly adapted legislature, and of course the laws England, even in the meanest subject. to the preservation of this inestimable blessing of other states, on the Very different from the modern constitutions of imperial law; which in general continent of Europe, and from the genius and despotic power of controlling are calculated to vest arbitrary authority few And this spirit of the actions of the subject, in the prince, or a and rooted grandees. even in our very soil, liberty is SO implanted in our constitution, he lands in England falls under the that a slave or a negro, the moment a freeman. protection of the laws and becomes eo instanto here had been to heighten the sense of English Blackstone's concern obiter dicta that bore out his view. liberty, though there were judicial that Yorke had come to a different When it was pointed out to him black slaves in Britain, he conclusion and that there were indeeed 1767 edition to the following flourish in the changed the concluding formulation: 'A slave or a negro, the moment he perilously uncertain of the laws, and SO far lands in England, falls under the protection right to his service may though the master's becomes a freeman; ,15 probably still continue.' Blackstone adduced arguments from Elsewhere in the Commentaries the validity of slavery: the logic of contract also tending to undermine to the seller, in lieu of what he transfers to Every sale implies an equivalent be for life and liberty? His property the buyer. But what equivalent can given devolves ipso facto to likewise, with the very price which he seems to În receive, this case therefore the buyer his master, the instant he becomes a slave: Of what validity, then, can a gives nothing, and the seller receives nothing. which all sales are sale be, which destroys the very principles upon founded21 this was by no means Neat though it might sound at first, argument recognised many forms invulnerable since eighteenth century England title. founded neither in purchase, reciprocity nor original of property a variety of conundrums such as Moreover English law encompassed but that his government could; selfthat 'the King could do no wrong' alienation just as royal ownership might be neutralised by perpetual --- Page 92 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Blackstone's argument from power was by ministerial responsibility. that flowed from a supposed universal contract was stated in terms that slaveholding was entirely logic, yet Blackstone himself recognised or philosophical his lawful in the British colonies. However systematic the contradictions of a social approach Blackstone could not resolve the clash of contending social order which gloried in inconsistency; only with the publicaand could do that. Nevertheless, forces philosophies Commentaries law as a functional and legitimating tion of Blackstone's might lack legitimacy but the ideology had come of age; the monarchy it. The need for this work may be social order on which it rested craved nineteen editions in the first judged from the fact that it went through seven years after publication. Britain were concerned to While those responsible for governing their actions did betray an recognise and protect colonial slavery institution in that it could be an inconvenient or vulnerable awareness well. The colonial charter given to Georgia in 1733 the colonies as slaves from the colony, in the hope that this contained a clause barring for the poorer class of emigrant and would provide more opportunities and debtors. The would make Georgia an asylum for English orphans by security banning of slaves may well have been flank encouraged of the British possesconsiderations. Georgia, on the southern known that the Spanish sions, was exposed to Spanish attack; rebellion it was in case they attacked authorities would sponsor servile Georgia. or vulnerable awareness well. The colonial charter given to Georgia in 1733 the colonies as slaves from the colony, in the hope that this contained a clause barring for the poorer class of emigrant and would provide more opportunities and debtors. The would make Georgia an asylum for English orphans by security banning of slaves may well have been flank encouraged of the British possesconsiderations. Georgia, on the southern known that the Spanish sions, was exposed to Spanish attack; rebellion it was in case they attacked authorities would sponsor servile Georgia. authorities concluded treaties with the Similarly, when the British pledged them to help in defending the Jamaican maroons in 1739, they Britain itself hoped to play the part of island from foreign invasion. the commanders of an expedition destined liberator in Central America: the early 1740s drew up proclamations for Central America in from the Spanish yoke. Abandonment of promising the Indians freedom unused.' 17 the expedition meant that this tactic remained in North America concluded triumphantly at Britain's war for empire with the ejection of the French. This victory the Peace of Paris in 1763 conflict which ensued directly prepared the ground for the momentous colonies. During the wars between the metropolis and the mainland colonial assemblies. Efforts had concessions had been made to the large the formerly localistic and fragmented been made to bring together effort. The defeat and disappearance of colonies in a common military North America removed a powerful French power in mainland The heady rhetoric of 'patriotism' incentive to colonial subordination. confidence and imperial assertiveness. had stimulated both colonial American colonies in the 1760s appeared, The defiance of the North --- Page 93 --- Hanoverian Britain to begin with, to be a quarrel within the monarchy' and of the patriotic' terms of 'illegitimate Americans defied first exhilaration of the time. The particular parliamentary competence or authority of Parliament, and measures, then the Hanover; as late as July 1775 the rebels only lastly the House of ultimate loyalty to the King. In were still declaring their 1715 and 1745, the British contrast to the Jacobite rebellions of rhetoric and drew its main opposition of the 1760s adopted a loyalist associated with the Atlantic boom. strength from the new social forces the language of North Like that of the Wilkesite rights of 'free-born American resistance was couched in terms opposition of the 'illegitimate Englishmen' and exploited the monarchy'. Patriotic politics not ambiguities of interests but was promoted with a only expressed commercial of the Atlantic, with new commercial flair on both sides newspapers and pamphlets, mass-produced buttons and pottery, as well as The patriotism of the broadcasting the themes of civic liberty. 18 had largely converged metropolis and the patriotism of the colonies public during the war years. But the opinion on each side of the Atlantic fostered mobilisation of arrogance and colonial insubordination. The both metropolitan of royal government, and the relatively weak legitimacy each "free-born' strength of national conceit, subject to assume airs of permitted remarked: 'Every man in England superiority. Benjamin Franklin of a seems to consider sovereign over America; seems to himself as a piece with the King, and talks of our jostle himself into the throne metropolitan English subjects in the colonies. >19 But if the developed their were prone to arrogance the colonial own potent claims and English themselves into the place of Parliament conceits. They wished to jostle with the King. and entertain a direct relation The advent of peace prompted London integrity of empire. With the governments to enhance the responsibilities and departure of the French, Britain's permanent garrison expenses had increased as a string of forts and to be maintained. , and talks of our jostle himself into the throne metropolitan English subjects in the colonies. >19 But if the developed their were prone to arrogance the colonial own potent claims and English themselves into the place of Parliament conceits. They wished to jostle with the King. and entertain a direct relation The advent of peace prompted London integrity of empire. With the governments to enhance the responsibilities and departure of the French, Britain's permanent garrison expenses had increased as a string of forts and to be maintained. The a western boundary was designed to curb colonial proclamation of a colonial propensity to stir up Indian trouble. The land-grabbing and the was designed to prevent colonists paying off Currency Act (1764) in depreciated local currencies. The debts to British merchants revenues and prevent the North Sugar Act (1764) aimed to boost clandestine trade with the French islands Americans from engaging in a West Indies. British ministers to the detriment of the British that of raising revenue and started with relatively modest objectives - discovered that they had gravely tightening up administration but soon When challenged by the colonists underestimated colonial pretensions. 20 responsible British British ministers claimed that all subjects were 'virtually represented' in Parliament, --- Page 94 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery comprised a sample of the possessing classes. since its members however, could not accept that they Proprietors resident in the colonies, Parliament. With an within the London were 'virtually represented' from the ruling authority American colonists ocean separating them needs and interests. They believed that they knew they had different Colonial troops contribution to imperial prosperity. made a decisive of the Seven Years had participated in most of the decisive engagements depended on North War. Britain's navy and merchant marine naval construction yards. American supplies and the output of its with its largest and most Colonial trade supplied the metropolis The North American colonists were dynamic outlets and vital inputs. reverses on the British ministries of able to inflict a series of humiliating of British manufactures stimulated an the 1760s. The colonial boycott administrations to retreat, all the outcry in Britain and forced successive Parliament's ultimate sovereignty. while proclaiming assemblies were also disposed to defy central The West Indian early of defiance. authority but were quite unable to sustain actually gestures lived in Britain. Over a half of the West Indian proprietors of the colonial population. Together Slaves comprised the vast majority this was identified as a great with the presence of nearby hostile powers needed to guarantee the source of insecurity. British troops were Revolt' in Jamaica, uprisings like Tacky's colonial order, suppressing from the continuing danger of foreign and to defend the islands were also deterred from schemes invasion. The West Indian proprietors that they benefited from privileged of independence by the knowledge well in imperial to the imperial market and were represented access West Indian planters and the West Indian merchants institutions. The of the British market for colonial had a common interest in protection adoption of the Sugar Act, sugar; they had played a part in urging French islands. In all the curbing as it did trade with the sugar assembly was prepared circumstances it is surprising that the Jamaican American defiance of the to extend even verbal support to North to the will to autonomy metropolitan authority. That it did SO testified when these were in a highly of local representative institutions, even to seek independence. vulnerable position and had little reason settled of with its far larger and more population In North America, of gentry and richer townsmen had white colonists, the local oligarchy of freeholders in their periodic tussles obtained the support of the mass In Virginia, which was to play with royal Governors or proprietors. members of around such a crucial role in the challenge to Britain, bench, the county families dominated the magistrate's 400-500 gentry but in elections to the latter body courts and the House of Burgesses; for the votes of 25,000-30,000 there was often stiff competition --- Page 95 --- Hanoverian Britain freeholders since any white man who could vote. 21 Most of Virginia's owned fifty acres with a house than those of the Caribbean; slaveholders were much less by the wealthy owned over a hundred slaves revolutionary epoch only sixty-five this size in the British West Indies. bench, the county families dominated the magistrate's 400-500 gentry but in elections to the latter body courts and the House of Burgesses; for the votes of 25,000-30,000 there was often stiff competition --- Page 95 --- Hanoverian Britain freeholders since any white man who could vote. 21 Most of Virginia's owned fifty acres with a house than those of the Caribbean; slaveholders were much less by the wealthy owned over a hundred slaves revolutionary epoch only sixty-five this size in the British West Indies. compared with at least 500 plantations of between thirty and sixty slaves But the tobacco planter who owned man and disposed of and 1,000 acres of land was a rich great influence and more SO if he was a Justice of the Peace patronage and in his county the Court. However, the planter Edmund a member of the County Virginians regarded themselves Randolph noted that all white system of slavery, however as equally free and independent: 'the acute' SO baneful to nature' sense of liberty and resentment nourished a 'quick and independence". 22 at 'any abridgment of personal The Hanoverian regime manifestly American colonists than did the permitted far greater autonomy to measures of imperial reform in the Kings of France or Spain. Projected seriously abridge the 1760s did not aim to cancel or even powers of the assert dormant rights and the ultimate colonial assemblies. But they did metropolis. During the long sovereignty and authority of the Government had regulated colonial years of "benevolent neglect' the British holders but had often failed trade and appointed colonial office effective to enforce its regulations or support to its officials if they give full and local establishment. The British proved unable to work with the 1770s were still willing to give governments of the 1760s and early ground but not to sovereignty over the colonies. The colonial rebels concede Parliament's proclaiming their loyalty, but the and patriots began by monarchy' encouraged them to very institutions of treat 'illegitimate formality with little substance, somewhat metropolitan sovereignty as a authority vis-à-vis Parliament. akin to the monarch's own assemblies claimed they should Some spokesmen for the colonial altogether, in matters other than bypass the authority of Parliament relationship with the monarch. trade and war, and enjoy a direct defending the A flood of rights of colonial subjects and pamphlets appeared terms which drew liberally on Locke, colonial assemblies in English writers who have become Hoadly and the oppositional Imperial reform known as meant commonwcalthmen:2 salaried colonial administration not only taxation but also the creation of a independently of the local and judiciary capable of acting perceived a danger that possessing classes. The colonial spokesmen the thin end of the initially quite modest imposts would be wholesale fiscal wedge, soon permitting, as in the simply and exploitation in the interests of office metropolis, public contractors who would not be holders, rentiers interests. Trade regulations which had controlled by colonial long been a dead letter would at --- Page 96 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Within the thirteen colonies themselves budding local last be enforced. favours. It thus fell to a dynasties already competed for metropolitan colonial of political leaders to articulate radical new generation to rob Americans of opposition to what was seen as an imperial project without their to make levies on their property effective self-government, offices and generally to foist upon consent, to create costly new public inimical to the rights of free-born them a 'tyranny' and 'slavery' Englthmen." colonies were in the full flood of The thirteen North American of Paris; the imperial crisis both development by the time of the Treaty as a check to this growth metropolitan reflected and aggravated the flow of trade. generation to rob Americans of opposition to what was seen as an imperial project without their to make levies on their property effective self-government, offices and generally to foist upon consent, to create costly new public inimical to the rights of free-born them a 'tyranny' and 'slavery' Englthmen." colonies were in the full flood of The thirteen North American of Paris; the imperial crisis both development by the time of the Treaty as a check to this growth metropolitan reflected and aggravated the flow of trade. The North controls and colonial boycotts interrupted shipbuilding, petty manuAmerican complex of farming, planting, to the social formation, facturing and trading gave a self-reliant strength essential or service. which depended on the metropolis for no merchant product marine was No less than a third of Britain's ocean-going ownership. The slaveholding North American in construction and and the Carolinas produced planters of Virginia, Maryland, Georgia and indigo. În contrast to many rice and wheat as well as tobacco had no shortage of land for Caribbean planters Virginian planters typically numbering no subsistence cultivation; their slave complements, natural reproduction, not more than a few dozen, were replenished American by slave system was far more the import of Africans. The North elsewhere in the Americas secure and stable than its counterparts of the white slaveholding social because of the strength and coherence Revolution there were about 450,000 formation. On the eve of the of over English North America out of a total population slaves in colonies, Virginia and Maryland, had no 2,500,000; the major slave The fact that blacks were outnumbered need for further importations. South Carolina gave its own by whites in every colony except the of slaves available to reassurance. On the other hand, presence racial solidarity and pride perform the most menial labour encouraged to extend the free whites. It encouraged the slave proprietors men. amongst rights and freedoms to other white without anxiety more ample less than 1 per cent of the population and Free blacks constituted The pressure exerted by the Indians of suffered many legal disabilities. of solidarity, while British the interior furnished another source aroused frustration. attempts to halt westwards expansion of North America were natural leaders of The slaveholding planters of fighting their own battles as their communities. They had experience with the Indians they had themselves. In the wars well as of governing while in the French wars the colonial militia often seized the initiative, A visitor to old Virginia had contributed to British military strength. --- Page 97 --- Hanoverian Britain Ears are constantly astonished remarked: Wherever you travel . . your that you hear the Number of Colonels, Majors and Captains at the whole Country seems at first to you a Retreat of mentioned: in short filled the ranks of the patrols and militia; Heroes. ,25 The poorer whites because they too feared Indian they accepted this obligation partly because they hoped that the marauders, or runaway slaves, and partly harvest time, or buy extra planter colonel would hire their sons at legal infraction. Class provisions from them, or overlook some petty in North America, even in differentiation among the white population and antagonistic than in the plantation zone, was. less polarised about 30 per cent of the Hanoverian Britain; slaves, comprising performed the harshest labour. population in the southern colonies, to extend considerations prompted the larger proprietors laws Security other whites. Thus Britain's ferocious game concessions to 'freedom of the range' which permitted the contrasted with the livestock or shoot game in the generality of white colonists to graze woodlands. The fellow feeling continent's unfenced grasslands and by the fact that the between planters and farmers was also encouraged of landlord to tenant; indeed relationship between them was not that with both enjoying the planter was a sort of large edition of the farmer, patriarchal authority over their households. resented dependence on Like the Caribbean planter the Virginian rates of interest. On the eve merchants who extended him credit at high colonies owed British of the Revolution the planters of the southern trade of the British merchants about £3 million. But unlike the sugar favoured by the Caribbean the North American staple trade was not resented Virginian tobacco planters workings of the imperial system. ; indeed relationship between them was not that with both enjoying the planter was a sort of large edition of the farmer, patriarchal authority over their households. resented dependence on Like the Caribbean planter the Virginian rates of interest. On the eve merchants who extended him credit at high colonies owed British of the Revolution the planters of the southern trade of the British merchants about £3 million. But unlike the sugar favoured by the Caribbean the North American staple trade was not resented Virginian tobacco planters workings of the imperial system. British merchants rather than trade having to sell at lower prices to and elsewhere in continental directly with the customers in four-fifths France, of their crop. Likewise the Europe, who purchased over and refiners of the northern and farmers, merchants, manufacturers legislation which tried to prevent middle states resented the imperial Brazil and the Spanish them from trading freely with St been Domingue, able to find a ready market for colonies, where they would have and buy molasses or raw sugar. their own provisions or manufactures, lent an extra edge to North Such keenly felt material complaints conduct of the London government American anger at the menacing determination to build on the practice of and stiffened North American colonial autonomy. 26 fundamental radicalisation of The conflict in North America led to a of Thomas of the Hanoverian regime. The publication the critique 1776 was both an eloquent call for Paine's Common Sense in January republican indictment of the and the first fully American independence --- Page 98 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery It is reputed to have sold 120,000 'royal ruffians' and their hangers-on. The break with the metropolis copies in North America in its first year. the of "English could not be sustained by remaining within assumptions discourse of liberties', but required the birth of a new In political Britain the actions of legitimacy and of the rights of man. terms, republican his ministers were challenged in the most sarcastic George III and but few even hinted that monarchy itself as in the writings of Junius, the of the Hanoverian order should be overthrown. While ideology of liberty the new republicanism made for a particularist vindication raised questions of universal significance. the substance of The refusal of the British government to give up but America meant that there was no alternative sovereignty in North order. The custodians of Britain's 'illegitimate to invent a new political felt that empire, royal prerogative, the monarchy', for their part, trade and to appoint officers, government's right to tax, to regulate and empire that could not be were all vital attributes of sovereignty conflict had a large stake in the compromised. Both sides in the of the New World. But soon continuing prosperity of the slave systems found it necessary to vindicate both colonial and metropolitan leaders And as it developed the political arrangements by appeal discover to principles. new sources of legitimacy, to mortal struggle led each side to confusion in the enemy maximise its own striking power and to sOW impelled by the The North American colonists found themselves to camp. conflict and their new goals to raise a carefully delimited challenge This rights in New England. the slave trade and to slaveholder of conflict but also to corresponded not simply to the logic political deep social fears. Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin the ideal To men such as Thomas the independency of such a citizen was an independent property-holder; indebtedness or mercantile monopoly as person could be menaced by British rule and unrepresentative govemments much as by arbitrary which would 'enslave' the compounded these various evils in a tyranny off. 1776 any exercise of colonists if they did not throw it extent By that it became a major sovereignty was intolerable - to such itself. an Patriot discourse had always problem for the rebel Confederation the individual as well as a right to focused on the rights of And it had always displayed a hysteric representative government. property-holder; indebtedness or mercantile monopoly as person could be menaced by British rule and unrepresentative govemments much as by arbitrary which would 'enslave' the compounded these various evils in a tyranny off. 1776 any exercise of colonists if they did not throw it extent By that it became a major sovereignty was intolerable - to such itself. an Patriot discourse had always problem for the rebel Confederation the individual as well as a right to focused on the rights of And it had always displayed a hysteric representative government. device of exaggeration to keep its quality, as if it needed to deploy every in Britain or in North America the constituency on the alert. Whether bringing together artisans, profespatriot alliance was motley indeed, and many others. A lively sionals, labourers, farmers, manufacturers coalition of the middling sort of sense of menace fused this broad people. --- Page 99 --- Hanoverian Britain partisans of free trade, yet The American colonists were apparently whether artisan, farmer, manufacfor them the independent producer, and social value that could not and turer or planter, had a political the verdict of the market. Their 'moral should not be contradicted by as it was with the economy' only favoured free trade SO long compatible Just below the continued prosperity of the independent producer. reflex in as well as anti-mercantilist surface there was an anti-mercantile and again in 1774 and after, the the North American revolt. În 1767, of a trade boycott. In the colonists chose to hit at Britain by means on both sides of merchants were still suspect figures eighteenth century nothing. Much of the Atlantic. Acting as middlemen they produced of the market by their skill was thought to involve manipulation acquired goods cheaply, 'engrossing' and "forestalling' Using credit they into their extortionate interest and converted producers they charged sometimes artificially engendered, hirelings; in times of dearth, individual exceptions, there were important made a killing. Though enthusiasm for merchants in North America displayed no unequivocal they had more to conflict with Britain. As relatively wealthy persons engaged in a transatlantic lose than most; many of them were primarily only those who wished to trade which the colonial system favoured; directly suffered from the expand the carrying trade to the Caribbean American planters, farmers, trade restrictions. The generality of North to see merchants as manufacturers, artisans and labourers were with prone little interest in an commercial agents of the metropolis The idea that productive independent North American prosperity. and selling was reinforced by the activities were superior to mere buying British as well as North American effectiveness of the first trade boycotts; of the 1760s by imploring the merchants responded to the boycotts legislation. When the to withdraw the offending London government demonstration of did back down this seemed an impressive be seen government American producer. Some parallel may the power of the of the protesting North American between the methods and outlook and Boston "Tea Party' - and the colonists - with their boycotts, riots of the British populace in times of typical protests and 'moral economy' of the American Revolution shortage and high prices. In the course fair and committees were often established to set prices itself citizens' thereby prevent mercantile profiteering." of either the British or the Anti-slavery was not a central concern of them were SO deeply North American patriots. Indeed many that to have been SO in the workings of the slave system implicated But their discourse of freedom would have been rather incongruous. did incline to anti-slavery and their commitment to popular politics branch of trade was more familiar gestures. The proposal to suppress a --- Page 100 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery than that of suppressing a category of property. and easier to accept would not be expropriated but only Even the former slave-traders branch of commerce. The suspension of required to find a different find among planters, whose slave imports could even valuable; support in North America planters slaveholding thereby became more while in the West knew that the slave population was self-reproducing and many hoped to emulate this Indies the reproduction rate was rising often hostile to the mercantile North American pattern. a --- Page 100 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery than that of suppressing a category of property. and easier to accept would not be expropriated but only Even the former slave-traders branch of commerce. The suspension of required to find a different find among planters, whose slave imports could even valuable; support in North America planters slaveholding thereby became more while in the West knew that the slave population was self-reproducing and many hoped to emulate this Indies the reproduction rate was rising often hostile to the mercantile North American pattern. Planters were Even those North American interest, seen as the agent of indebtedness. favoured suppression of the patriots most implicated in slavery that the continued importaslave trade, because they recognised and The more tion of Africans was a source of weakness in dependence. slavery, were prone to radical patriots, and those without a stake from the slave trade to extend the argument, albeit cautiously, colonies there was also popular slaveholding itself; and in the northern pressure to curb slaveholder rights. as far in either to West Indian proprietors did not venture North Americans, opposition but even the metropolis or the slave trade as did the the slave trade. "Tacky's they considered partial measures in against the Jamaica Assembly to petition Revolt' in 1760 moved a grouping The Peace of Paris in 1763 led to plans for a restraint on slave imports. in the newly acquired territories. For for plantation development lacked the resources for expansion this established planters who was not at all welcome. The Jamaican prospect of stiffer competition in the hope of asked in 1766 for a tariff on slave imports Assembly impeding such developments." the North American colonial assemblies had The action proposed by In the early stages of the conflict with a more far-reaching significance. who no longer needed the London government the Virginian the planters, slave trade to reinforce other slave imports, called for a ban on of this was strengrhened by the measures of colonial boycott. The logic responsible for bringing slaves to fact that British traders were mainly the royal Governors refused American ports. In Virginia, as in Jamaica, The colonial leaders, though official sanction to the measures proposed. to dramatise British failing in their objective, were not southern displeased colonies the slaveholders sponsorship of the slave trade. In the the plantation as and portrayed stressed their paternalist responsibilties embrace childlike Negroes a large family within whose protective Thomas Jefferson went received shelter and sustenance. The young took on the case of a further in 1767 and in his capacity as a lawyer held in bondage; such free person of colour who had been wrongly colonies but became quite "freedom suits' were rare in the southern common in those to the north.30 --- Page 101 --- Hanoverian Britain In New England and the middle Atlantic declining minority of the population in the states slaves comprised a artisans and labourers of Boston, New period 1750-75. The free refused to work with York and Philadelphia often grounds that it degraded slaves, or white indentured servants, on the became increasingly their occupations. The holding of slaves scant legal protection. problematic In in New England since owners brought the "freedom suits' slaves or enjoyed masters before the courts accused their friends the grounds that there was some technical of wrongful enslavement, on that they had promised manumission error in the bill of sale or freedom suits were heard by in return for good service. Such against juries who often manifested a slaveholding and found against the prejudice reflected antagonism to slaves as master. These decisions the contacts or means to well as slaveholders. Few slaves had cases was to undermine the bring a 'freedom suit', but the effect of these slave legal basis of imports to the New England colonies. slaveholding 31 and discourage The escalation of conflict with the social range of those involved in metropolis helped to broaden the activities of the British political controversy. In the ports the their victims off to the life press-gangs of the naval were a major provocation, hauling hulks and subjected to merciless rating, incarcerated in insanitary set vigorously to work in the North floggings. The Royal Navy press-gangs numbers of experienced sailors American ports because of the there to be found there. these slave legal basis of imports to the New England colonies. slaveholding 31 and discourage The escalation of conflict with the social range of those involved in metropolis helped to broaden the activities of the British political controversy. In the ports the their victims off to the life press-gangs of the naval were a major provocation, hauling hulks and subjected to merciless rating, incarcerated in insanitary set vigorously to work in the North floggings. The Royal Navy press-gangs numbers of experienced sailors American ports because of the there to be found there. large were quite a few free blacks and mulattos. Amongst the seamen press-gangs led both to riots and to lawsuits. The activities of the and James Otis burnished their Lawyers like John Adams which demonstrated the arbitrary patriot and credentials by taking up cases and developing the theory of their tyrannical conduct of the British rights' of man. While the British incompatibility with the 'natural regarded such demagogues, a view shared by men as the worst Otis warned against tumults and many wealthy Bostonians, Adams and rich conservatives but did not condone bully-boy tactics. They criticised the Their doctrine of natural rights the sacking of their houses. protests of the 'meaner sort'. It sought had to elevate and dignify the rude Thus Otis declared in a famous broadside definite anti-slavery implications. by the law of nature free of 1764: The colonists are Attacks born, as indeed all men on slavery and the slave trade are, white or black. 32 between patriot leaders and the became a point of contact times mingle with patriot mob, even if racism might somethe patriot committees abolitionism; in some cases the Sons of Liberty and ship and in other specifically excluded free blacks from cases the question may simply not have memberpreviously quoted pamphlet James Otis, arisen. In the tion that all men were free born, black nothwithstanding his declaraor white, was also at pains to --- Page 102 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery colonies were settled 'not as the common insist that North American mixture of English, of England imagine, with a compound 33 Free people but with freeborn British white subjects." Indian and Negro, to throw in their lot with the blacks themselves sometimes opted standard assumption of a white colonial Patriots, despite the latter's officials made no move to help American identity. Prior to 1775 British when British troops fired North American blacks: on the first occasion the victims Massacre' of 1770 - one of on a patriot mob - the 'Boston of colour. White and coloured artisans was Crispus Attucks, a free man in the port of diverse extraction were brought together and labourers circumstances which encouraged fraternisation towns in cosmopolitan and the employers. The experience of in the face of both the authorities solidarities and friendships across ethnic shipboard life also encouraged and the slave trade helped to and religious lines. Opposition to slavery few of whom were ardent focus more general hostility to merchants, Patriots. inducements to those who sailed The slave-traders offered special because of the but the slaving voyages were not popular with them, and dangerous aspects of life on board brutally disagreeable, degrading the human One way or another for the ordinary sailor as well as cargo. widespread backing in the the call for a ban on slave imports enjoyed north. rhetoric to the patriot mentality makes the The appeal of anti-slavery that in the larger colonial ports, and greater sense if it is borne in mind attracted support from in parts of the interior, the patriot cause form of bondage or servitude mechanics and labourers for whom some and indenture Apprenticeship had been a direct personal experience. inflicted on blacks but could be were far milder than the slavery indebtedness leading to an extention of onerous none the less, with manufacturers, such as Franklin, servitude. on slave imports enjoyed north. rhetoric to the patriot mentality makes the The appeal of anti-slavery that in the larger colonial ports, and greater sense if it is borne in mind attracted support from in parts of the interior, the patriot cause form of bondage or servitude mechanics and labourers for whom some and indenture Apprenticeship had been a direct personal experience. inflicted on blacks but could be were far milder than the slavery indebtedness leading to an extention of onerous none the less, with manufacturers, such as Franklin, servitude. The more idealistic patriot enslavement as well as of endebtedheartily endorsed denunciation of of service they offered their ness in the conviction that the terms Rush and Thomas Paine, different. Benjamin employees were altogether to the ruling oligarchy in who helped to lead the patriot challenge Paine's first American Pennsylvania, were both early critics of slavery; the slave trade.34 of 1775 included an attack on slavery and on the slave writings assembly passed a Bill banning In 1771 the Massachusetts enacted a prohibitive trade entirely. In 1772 the Virginia which Burgesses it denounced as a 'trade of tariff on the importation of slaves initiatives were both predictably great inhumanity'. These legislative Congress met in 1774 refused the Royal Assent. When the Continental with other resolution banning the slave trade, together it adopted a The Patriots undoubtedly saw the ban measures of commercial boycott. --- Page 103 --- Hanoverian Britain moral as well as economic pressure on on slave imports as combining of rallying the 'common people' to a cause the metropolis and as a way proved themselves The southern planter-magistrates led by gentlemen. natural doctrine. A widely published eloquent exponents of the rights proclaimed that *all men first draft of Virginia's Declaration amended of Rights in the version adopted on are born equally free'; a statement civil that it might give rise to convulsion. the grounds crisis of the 1760s and 1770s was a The British social and imperial self-confidence and metropolitan compound of many elements: colonial the rising incidence of blundering, commercial booms and fluctuations, the growth of taxation and new demands made by government, merchants, sercommunications and urbanisation, producers against of market relations masters, the increasing penetration the vants against methods, and demands for and the introduction of proto-industrial the of popular living representation of new interests and protection conceived of in terms standards. Many of the conflicts of the time were and slavery. between freedom and tyranny, liberty of the opposition mercantile monoStanding armies, taxation without representation, endebtedness were all thought to polies, abuses of executive power, The opposition between freedom embody the threat of enslavement. discourse, as it had been and slavery was absolutely central to radicals political fought for representative for more than a century. While the wide scope of social freedom. government conservatives pointed to had justified itself domestically as The regime of illegitimate monarchy' each rank and condition its due order that allotted to a political free-born Englishman did not necessarily share measure of liberty. The he did live in a free country'. The imperial crisis in political power but to the test at a time when economic put this justificatory system tested to its limit the primitive and localistic commotion and insecurity state. welfare arrangments of the Hanoverian politics were to develop an Those hostile to, or suspicious of, Both patriot in Britain and in North America anti-slavery critique of their own. Patriots as crude and vulgar demagogues, there were those who saw the base interests and disrupt the vocabulary to pursue using an overblown distrustful of patriotism - the last peace. Samuel Johnson was famously was also consistently as he put it - and he refuge of a scoundrel" free blacks. His pamphlet of 1775 denying sympathetic to slaves and ended with that North American colonists should expect the representation loudest yelps for liberty How is it that we hear the pointed query: among the drivers of negroes2us the of those of anti-slavery proto-abolitionism As in the case patriot politics was no mere political gambit but who looked askance at patriot --- Page 104 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery conviction. he put it - and he refuge of a scoundrel" free blacks. His pamphlet of 1775 denying sympathetic to slaves and ended with that North American colonists should expect the representation loudest yelps for liberty How is it that we hear the pointed query: among the drivers of negroes2us the of those of anti-slavery proto-abolitionism As in the case patriot politics was no mere political gambit but who looked askance at patriot --- Page 104 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery conviction. The rise of patriotic politics, often a matter of deep led to wars, increased taxation, beginning in Britain in the late 1730s, The more of political and economic disruptions. and a variety oligarchy itself had opposed the conservative wing of the Hanoverian like Pitt the Elder. The belligerent venture of patriot politicians had been backed by, amongst campaigns of the 'Great Commoner' Beckford. Those who opposed others, the West Indian magnate William fastened on colonial slavery as patriot plans of colonial aggrandisement of the imperial mission. a particularly disreputable accompaniment dimension there was also a basis While patriot politics had a popular colonial adventures; in the short to military and for popular opposition higher taxes and a swollen National run they led to more press-gangs, West Indian sugar planters was Debt. The protection afforded to British by Joseph Massie in 1759 as a attacked in a well-informed pamphlet the of the British subsidy extended to British slave-owners at expense of 1760 by J. consuming public. 37 A pseudonymous London pamphlet and radical Philmore' attacked slavery in the most uncompromising terms concluding: who are by unjust force And SO all the black men in our plantations, as they have none upon earth to deprived of their liberty, and held in slavery, force with force, and to recover their appeal to, may lawfully repel that and not only sO but it is the duty of others, liberty, destroy their oppressors; those miserable creatures, if they can, in white as well as blacks, to assist of and to rescue them out of the their attempts to deliver them out slavery, hands of cruel tyrants. 38 antagonism to all factions of Such sentiments would seem to express Patriots each had a discourse of the oligarchy. Tories, Whigs and of support. But liberty and no doubt a real measure popular the menacing popular of opinion which was aghast at there was also a strand trend of politics and economics. this time faced ancient tribulations - People in the Atlantic world at as the trials of early death, physical danger - as well epidemics, boom and bust, intrusive commercialisation, capitalist modernity: scale. The family and religion had to respond to migrations on a new identity and definition as the more insistent demands for personal did not cancel out familiar social landscape shifted. A new prosperity and North the common people of England uncertainty but encouraged identity. This was a time of America to assert a new civic and personal and Methodism, *Great Awakenings', 9 evangelism revivalist movements, Atlantic. In different ways patriotism and antion both sides of the correlates to this search for new slavery may both be seen as secular --- Page 105 --- Hanoverian Britain order, alike in the public and meanings and a more stable and satisfying and The challenge to empire was accompanied private spheres. malaise, what might be called the 'legitimapreceded by a generalised monarchy, evoked by Oliver Goldsmith's tion crisiss of illegitimate in 1763-4: "The Traveller; or, A Prospect of Society', published Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms, when fast-approaching danger warms: Except contending chiefs blockade the throne, But when to stretch their own, Contracting regal power When I behold a factious band agree To call it freedom when themselves are free; Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, the and rich men rule the law; Laws grind poor, where savage nations roam, The wealth of climes, Pillag'd from slaves to purchase slaves at home; Fear, pity, justice, indignation start, Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart . my soul, nor apt to rise in arms, when fast-approaching danger warms: Except contending chiefs blockade the throne, But when to stretch their own, Contracting regal power When I behold a factious band agree To call it freedom when themselves are free; Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, the and rich men rule the law; Laws grind poor, where savage nations roam, The wealth of climes, Pillag'd from slaves to purchase slaves at home; Fear, pity, justice, indignation start, Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart . class there were to be some whose sensibility Even within the ruling trade and its toleration by a braggart was affronted by the slave have been the first member of the patriotism. Horace Walpole may - his distaste. During oligarchy to record - in private correspondence session of 1750 he wrote: the parliamentary this fortnight on the Africa Company, we, the British We have been sitting bulwark of Protestant Christianity, have this Senate, that temple of liberty, effectual that horrid traffic fortnight been pondering methods to make more thousand of these It has appeared to us that six-and-forty of selling negroes. to our plantations alone! - it chills one's wretches are to be sold every year I voted for it for the continent of America." 40 blood. I would not want to say abstention reflected a wider distaste for prevailing Walpole's private trends but led to no further action; the first social and political in the slave trade was parliamentary challenge to British participation reverses in the American not to be made until 1779 when, following reform also Yorkshire MPs favourable to parliamentary war, some proposed a ban on the slave trade. unsuccessfully North American Patriots had, at best, a deeply ambivalent British and and the slave trade. Yet their and inconsistent record on slavery doctrine and anti-slavery rhetoric did sporadic recourse to natural rights in a new way. others to address the slavery question encourage --- Page 106 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery bodies which took up the anti-slavery cause were those The religious the rise of patriotism and those most responsive to most challenged by attentive to secular events and saw the diffuse social crisis. They were the route to salvation. The two good works, rather than faith alone, as to anti-slavery were denominations which proved most open Christian Methodists. For both a commitment to antithe Quakers and the allowed them to retain slavery, and a concern with social amelioration, be tempted by radical democratic the confidence of members who might source of Both regarded worldly riches as a dangerous habits of politics. at the same time, by a familiar paradox, accumulators their or corruption; and self-denial made them successful thrift, industry alienation from the state, and links disciplined employees. The Quakers' radicalism, disposed them to be to the heritage of seventeenth century and the Methodists, by contrast, active in the anti-slavery cause. Wesley and were respectful of property, initially inclined to Tory politics Their identification though regarding riches with the greatest suspicion. between them and the new with the British monarchy put a distance American slaveholders; while Republic declared by, amongst others, measures their evangelism led they could not support expropriatory the souls of both slaves and them to be concerned with saving slaveholders. colonial slavery and violence did much to The patent link between The pacifist Quakers were to play an provoke the Quaker reaction. agitation. Between 1755 and outstanding part in pioneering anti-slavery in Philadelphia and London 1761 the Yearly Meetings of Quakers of slave-traders to outright moved from disquiet at the activities had been individual Quakers who disavowal. holders; while Republic declared by, amongst others, measures their evangelism led they could not support expropriatory the souls of both slaves and them to be concerned with saving slaveholders. colonial slavery and violence did much to The patent link between The pacifist Quakers were to play an provoke the Quaker reaction. agitation. Between 1755 and outstanding part in pioneering anti-slavery in Philadelphia and London 1761 the Yearly Meetings of Quakers of slave-traders to outright moved from disquiet at the activities had been individual Quakers who disavowal. In each generation there manifestations of corruption attacked 'man-keeping' as one of the worst from their CObut such had quickly been isolated and sin; prophets bankers or merchants with a stake in religionists, many of whom were to make real headway in the Atlantic system. The first Quakers themselves from slave-trading persuading the Friends to disassociate tailor, husbandman and were John Woolman, a and slaveholding both of Philadelphia. scribe, and Anthony Benezet, a school-teacher, that slaveholding and slave They were men of modest means who urged of life and an offence trafficking were incompatible with a which Christian should way be recognised in every against that 'sweetness of freedom' slaveholders in Pennsylfellow creature. Not only were there Quaker in their hands. In vania, but the Government of the colony was largely influential Quakers were the years 1754-7 the pacifist scruples of these the Indians and patriotic severely tested by a bloody border war against Years War. All Quakers were mobilisations preparatory to the Seven of their local Society. asked to live in conformity with the Discipline' --- Page 107 --- Hanoverian Britain of the duties of Quaker witness all members were After a discussion first from the Council and then from the ordered to withdraw that the time had come for a more farAssembly. Woolman urged the inclusion of advice against slavereaching rectification and secured the Yearly Meeting in 1755. By trading in the letter sent out following that slaveholders would not be 1758 the Philadelphia Society decided within the Church. Woolman permitted to hold positions of authority class struggle within the ranks of and Benezet pursued a sort of saintly brethren into abandonment of manthe Friends, shaming their richer defend slaveholding were keeping. The Quakers most inclined to of a few slaves was a farmers of middling wealth for whom artisans possession were less likely to own a valuable economic resource; urban of their wealth in other forms. slave, while urban merchants had most if he found himself Woolman was an itinerant minister as well as he tailor: would always insist on billeted in a house where there were slaves that the money be given to paying for his board and lodging, suggesting decade of the 1750s Woolman the slaves. During the troubled of the Pembertons, one of the richest succeeded in gaining the support 41 Quaker families in America. reinforced, and helped to justify, their Quaker rejection of slavery who can have numbered rejection of war. In 1761 the London lent Quakers, their influential support to the few slaveholders within their ranks, However, it was not until 1770 that lead of the Philadelphia Quakers. adopted a rule against slave-trading. In the Quakers in New England the buying and selling of this first instance Quakers sought to prohibit But Woolman within their own ranks. slaves, and then slaveholding, for allies outside Quaker ranks. Woolman and Benezet also looked all Christians as early as 1754 and 1756. wrote pamphlets addressed to developed the anti-slavery case on the In the subsequent decade Benezet his writings on the subject drew on broadest humanitarian grounds: and Wallace as well as travellers' accounts of Montesquieu, Hutcheson adopted as Quaker policy conditions in Africa. England the buying and selling of this first instance Quakers sought to prohibit But Woolman within their own ranks. slaves, and then slaveholding, for allies outside Quaker ranks. Woolman and Benezet also looked all Christians as early as 1754 and 1756. wrote pamphlets addressed to developed the anti-slavery case on the In the subsequent decade Benezet his writings on the subject drew on broadest humanitarian grounds: and Wallace as well as travellers' accounts of Montesquieu, Hutcheson adopted as Quaker policy conditions in Africa. With manumission for the former to establish a school in Philadelphia Benezet helped On the other hand, few blacks were admitted slaves and their children. 42 to Quaker membership." colonial opposition to the British governThe eruption of militant since their the American Quakers in a very awkward position, ment put them from giving support to colonial revolt; many pacifism prevented elite which did not favour a break belonged in any case to a commercial of slavery helped to embody the with the metropolis. The rejection of Quakers at a time when they special destiny and spiritual purity The slave trade was a particularly shunned the patriotic cause. since it evidently rested on violent and vulnerable target of criticism --- Page 108 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Even if the slave-traders acquired their human cargoes arbitrary acts. little imagination to see that a huge traffic in through purchase, it took and tyranny in Africa and captives required wars, raids, kidnapping and constraint during the middle harsh measures of intimidation furnished details of what was involved in his passage. Anthony Benezet Guinea published in 1773. In this he influential Historical Account of anti-slavery pamphlet of J. reprinted passages from the radical for slave insurrections to be Philmore', despite the latter's call War another boost to supported. The onset of the Independence slaveholding gave was rejected in anti-slavery within Quaker ranks until who refused to divest would be principle by all societies; those members excluded. 43 In the postvisited, reproached, and eventually become even outstanding proselytisers revolutionary epoch Quakers were to trade and, later, slavery. Yet slavery of the movements against the slave where Quakers had ruled SO long, by was to be ended in Pennsylvania, when the Friends had withdrawn from secular radicals at a time of Benezet and Paine in this will be political life; the respective roles considered in the next chapter. in a rhetorical or Prior to 1776 the Patriots were only anti-slavery slaveholding for themselves instrumental sense. The Quakers renounced against slavery. Granville but did not yet undertake public campaigns in England in the Sharp, who became the first anti-slavery campaigner between political radicalism 1765-72, occupied a middle ground years Sharp came from a distinguished ecclesiastical and religous evangelism. His father was an archdeacon and his grandfather and musical family. conventional ambitions Sharp became a Archbishop of York. Lacking devoting much of his time to a succession clerk in the Ordnance Office, constitutional reform in England, of good causes. He supported should be brought closer to the authentic believing that government liberty'. He eventually resigned his post in principles of Anglo-Saxon of to the American war. the Ordnance office because opposition despite the radical flavour of Thereafter his family supported him and, him even from the his eccentricity and piety set apart his convictions, In later years he drew up a plan for a co-operative bourgeois radicals. based on outlawing slavery and other commonwealth in Sierra Leone, all citizens would be guaranteed a forms of accumulated private wealth; could only claim goods in decent livelihood though the able-bodied radical social and political proportion to their labour. in principles of Anglo-Saxon of to the American war. the Ordnance office because opposition despite the radical flavour of Thereafter his family supported him and, him even from the his eccentricity and piety set apart his convictions, In later years he drew up a plan for a co-operative bourgeois radicals. based on outlawing slavery and other commonwealth in Sierra Leone, all citizens would be guaranteed a forms of accumulated private wealth; could only claim goods in decent livelihood though the able-bodied radical social and political proportion to their labour. belief Sharp's in the 'Mosaic Law' understood as convictions were inspired by a 44 a sort of primitive communism. first been moved to contest the actions of Granville Sharp had when he was concerned in the case of English slaveholders in 1765 --- Page 109 --- Hanoverian Britain Jonathan Strong, a runaway slave who was by the man who claimed to be his beaten up and kidnapped from the clutches of his owner, but owner. he Sharp helped Strong to escape English courts were was shocked to discover that personal liberty. In this prepared to equivocate on the vital question of upon the legality of slaveholder case Sharp failed to obtain rulings which bore owner only fitfully pursued his claim powers as such in Britain; Strong's slaveholding undetermined. leaving the issue of the legality of prosecution that slave-owner Sharp was outraged to learn from the Lord Chancellor rights had been specifically endorsed Hardwicke. Convinced that by tolerated by Britain's constitution he combed slavery could not be books for supporting evidence. the statute books and law Blackstone's apparently He found at least some comfort in As we have seen, central sweeping declarations concerning slavery. Revolution Settlement of 1688 to the justificatory system of Britain's by parliamentary law and was the view that power was restrained Representation of the civic liberty. Sharp's first pamphlet, A Injustice and Slavery; Or of Admitting the Least Dangerous Claim Tendency of Tolerating Persons of Men, in England (1769), of Private Property in the patible with English liberty and argued that slavery was incomAs well as developing this necessarily led to great inhumanity. took legal and up a number of other cases of those humanitarian argument Sharp supposed owners. While pamphlets could resisting enslavement by their taken up by Sharp demanded a be ignored the legal cases and attracted the notice of an aroused practical response from the authorities approached by James Somerset in 1771-2 public opinion. Not until he was would test fundamental did he find a legal case which customs official who wished principles. Somerset was the slave of a Boston Sharp's own to force him to return to the colonies. single-mindedness and create a sympathetic climate for unworldly dedication helped him to London, where there was already much vindication of Somerset's right in liberties. concern with the fate of English Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice who had in the Wilkes taken unpopular decisions when called controversy, was again put in a most awkward upon to adjudicate the Somerset situation fact that he owned property himself in case. Quite apart from the a judgement in the Somerset Virginia, he was loath to deliver it in the hope that it could case and several times sought to be resolved postpone slave-owners in Britain of their full without depriving all thousand slaves in the rights as masters; there were several master metropolis at this time. were prepared to compromise and both Neither Somerset nor his support in pursuing the case to a final received considerable owner's costs were met by West Indian judgement. While the slaveplanters Somerset's cause was --- Page 110 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of supporters which included radical artisans, taken up by a coalition members of the liberal professions. fellow blacks and concerned from individuals willing to buy his Somerset received dubious offers he insisted freedom but in his concern to vindicate the general principle Seven lawyers himself to the risks of a judicial hearing. on exposing the defence and a large crowd attended the donated their services to ruled that English law could not hearings. Mansfield eventually of a servant by a master: 'So high an act of countenance the deportation if any such it has, from the law of dominion must derive its authority, The state of slavery is of such a the Kingdom where executed . fellow blacks and concerned from individuals willing to buy his Somerset received dubious offers he insisted freedom but in his concern to vindicate the general principle Seven lawyers himself to the risks of a judicial hearing. on exposing the defence and a large crowd attended the donated their services to ruled that English law could not hearings. Mansfield eventually of a servant by a master: 'So high an act of countenance the deportation if any such it has, from the law of dominion must derive its authority, The state of slavery is of such a the Kingdom where executed . introduced by justice upon nature, that it is incapable of being now it must take its rise from positive law"s mere reasoning . . of the Somerset case revealed Conducted as it was in a glare publicity of the slaveholder, given the how difficult it was to defend the full rights in England at this and the aroused state of public opinion cult of liberty be ready to confront rebellion and time. Britain's rulers might but they knew that to do SO while subversion at home and abroad, unwise. Moreover the 'high defending slavery would be most of openly the slaveholder was disturbing to the power dominion' claimed by of the metropolis. the state as well as to the harmony concerned a particular slaveholder Mansfield's judgement essentially his slave back to the colonies. It did right - that of being able to deport slaves brought to England were bound not remove the presumption that its loose ends Mansfield's decision was to serve their masters. Despite in England because it denied undoubtedly a heavy blow to slaveholding needed. It did not only free a the positive support they to slaveholders weakened the position of all particular individual but gravely went somewhat further in slaveholders in England: the Scottish courts could be upheld in that country. 1778 ruling that no slaveholder rights zone where it was in any case These blows to slavery in a metropolitan modest beginning, but a completely marginal were only a very directly as a result of slave beginning none the less, and one achieved argument of James Somerset - and anti-slavery resistance - the courage - that of Granville Sharp. slavery, and the example of the The secular controversy concerning denominations to declare their Quakers, put pressure on other religious the Methodist leader John position. One of the first to do SO was From the very beginning the Wesley in his 1774 Thoughts on Slavery. American connection but evangelical movement had had a strong had somehow managed to George Whitfield and the young Wesley --- Page 111 --- Hanoverian Britain avoid taking a stand on the question: indeed influential preacher, had himself become Whitfield, the single most pronouncement followed the consolidation a slaveholder. Wesley's in jurisprudence, moral of the anti-slavery Its immediate occasion philosophy and in the witness of the critique the escalating conflict was supplied by the Somerset case of 1772 Quakers. with the North and not a pioneer of anti-slavery American colonies. Wesley was and focused a species of thought but his adhesion both reflected While popular abolitionism. many Quakers were well used open air established in business John preaching to reach the Wesley populations created by the new neglected and displaced Wesley's pattern of economy and message was politically conformist and demography. drawing on Anglicanism, Quaker theologically eclectic, and the redemptive message of the doctrine, Moravian pre-millenarian revivalism highly impressed by the Christian Brethren. Wesley, though communities, thought the 'dung and dross communism of of the Moravian sloughed off by sufficiently intense riches or honour' could be and good works. He offered a personal commitment to salvation message to the new heightened of but not unfamiliar religious populations the districts, a more flexible and open manufacturing and mining to democratic agitation. Methodism organisation, and a visceral hostility tion to its followers, but it also recommended a dour subordinaself-help; loans to those in distress, encouraged collective self-respect and advice on a host of practical problems. primitive 46 medicine for the sick and Wesley's attack on slaveholding their main rivals in the evangelical distinguished the Methodists from Calvinist doctrine of the elect, such movement, those who adhered to the Whitfield. religious populations the districts, a more flexible and open manufacturing and mining to democratic agitation. Methodism organisation, and a visceral hostility tion to its followers, but it also recommended a dour subordinaself-help; loans to those in distress, encouraged collective self-respect and advice on a host of practical problems. primitive 46 medicine for the sick and Wesley's attack on slaveholding their main rivals in the evangelical distinguished the Methodists from Calvinist doctrine of the elect, such movement, those who adhered to the Whitfield. Methodism had as the followers of the slaveholding the first North American Methodist significant transatlantic connections, though 1784; some of its 15,000 American Conference did not take place until credentials, whether as recent arrivals adherents from lacked proper patriotic outright loyalists. The Methodist Britain, former Anglicans or doctrines of the 'Great message had chimed in well with the Methodism's moral Awakening" in the American colonies. in Virginia because critique of of slaveholding could attract its stern repudiation of support even brutality. There were many, especially licentiousness and rue the encouragement given to the 'boisterous women, who had good cause to ing (the phrase was passions' by slaveholdslaveholders, Jefferson's). The wives and together with many of the daughters of their society was marked by violence, drunkenness common people, knew that Evangelical religion and lewd behaviour. conduct promised to establish more even when slavery was not at issue. restrained patterns of womenfolk who made sure that the And often it was the men kept to the straight and --- Page 112 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery shunning rudeness, brawling, fecklessness narrow path of righteousness, dancing, drinking, bad language and and viciousness, including fiddling, whites were attracted to the evangelical fornication. Blacks as well as preachers." 47 of evangelical religion for Wesley's Thoughts evoke the message economic advance or by migration, shoved aside by those uprooted The slave suffered an extremity of abuse, buffeted by political conflict. Wesley insists that only exhibited a fatal and false pride. the slaveholder offer salvation. His pamphlet directly right conduct and penitence addresses the slaveholder: Love constrains me; Love to you, as well May I speak plainly to you? I must. You know there is. Is He with. Is there a God? as to those you are concerned state of retribution; state wherein the just a just God? Then there must be a his works. Then what reward will God will reward every man according Before to you drop into eternity! Think he render to you? O, think betimes! that shewed no mercy. Are you now, He shall have judgement without mercy heart. But have you indeed? What a man? Then you should have an human as compassion there? Do heart made of? Is there no such principle is your you never feel another's pain? slaveholders to mend their ways Wesley also While appealing to the of their redemption by a consoles the suffering slave with prospect merciful God: of one blood, all the nations upon earth: Have Thou who hast mingled of men, who are trodden down as dung compassion upon these outcasts these that have no helper, whose blood is spilt upon the earth! Arise and help these also the work of thine hands, the upon the ground like water! Are Stir not them to cry unto thee in the land of purchase of thy Son's blood? up before thee; let it enter into their captivity; and let their complaint them come up captive to pity them, and thine ears! Make even those that lead South. away O burst thou all their chains in turn their captivity as the rivers of the their sins: Thou, O Saviour of all, make sunder; more especially the chains of them free, that they may be free indeed!ts addresses, awakening the soul of the In addition to such dramatic mundane political and economic believer, Wesley also introduces more that slavery was those which tend to show arguments, especially and contract, and to England's contrary to equitable exchange Wesley is happy to and common law. ine ears! Make even those that lead South. away O burst thou all their chains in turn their captivity as the rivers of the their sins: Thou, O Saviour of all, make sunder; more especially the chains of them free, that they may be free indeed!ts addresses, awakening the soul of the In addition to such dramatic mundane political and economic believer, Wesley also introduces more that slavery was those which tend to show arguments, especially and contract, and to England's contrary to equitable exchange Wesley is happy to and common law. As a good Tory constitution challenges to the established Blackstone. At a time of distressing his followers quote content to identify a cause to which order Wesley was themselves with little danger of aiding the could wholeheartedly commit --- Page 113 --- Hanoverian Britain the British monarchy. It would, of course, be revolutionary threat to denunciation of slavery as no more than a wrong to construe Wesley's for radical politics or the colonial cause; device to undermine sympathy indicted the wickedness and vanity of yet his Thoughts on Slavery planter politicians were calling into slaveholders just at the time when question British monarchy. colonists moved into open rebellion Lord As the North American decided to issue an open Dunmore, royal Governor of Virginia, desert their masters and join the invitation to slaves owned by rebels to had been mooted as early as April forces loyal to the Crown. This plan and as it happened slave-owners would not be threatened; 1775. Loyal found away from the tidewater region much loyalist support was to be In November 1775 Dunmore, where slaveholding was concentrated. in the Chesapeake, issued a was now aboard a ship whose headquarters freedom to all slaves of rebels who deserted. proclamation offering of this offer and those who About eight hundred slaves took advantage white-officered regiment. 49 could bear arms were formed into a the colonial patriots and drove scandalised Dunmore's proclamation of for the first moderates to embrace the cause independence to many of the numbers of blacks ready time. There were alarmed reports vigilance prevented an even larger answer Dunmore's call; only patriot underlined that slavery could be a response. 50 The governor's action the moral credentials of the rebels. source of weakness and threatened the Declaration of Independence When Thomas Jefferson came to draft of George III and the British he included in it a denunciation government for having human nature itself, violating the most sacred rights waged cruel war against of a distant people who never offended him of life and liberty in the persons in another hemisphere . he has prostituted and carrying them into slavery legislative attempt to prohibit or to his negative for suppressing every and that this assemblage of horrors might restrain this execrable commerce: die, he is now exciting these very people to rise want no fact of distinguished that liberty of which he has deprived in arms among us, and to purchase whom he also intruded them, thus them by murdering the people upon against the liberties of one people, with paying off former crimes committed commit the lives of another." crimes which he urges them to against did not accept this clause of the The Continental Congress rejection of slavery. But Declaration, verging, as it did, on an outright slave imports, as a war southern it accepted a ban on with support Patriotic rejection of the slave trade helped to measure, in April 1776. gentry and those who cement an alliance between the slaveholding --- Page 114 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery since small men were prone to see the slave owned few or no slaves, that enabled them the large planters with a facility trade as furnishing unfairly to overbear their neighbours. Jefferson's slavery parashrank from endorsing Just as Congress shrank from generalising Dunmore's graph, SO the British authorities side could afford to challenge slavery, appeal for slave revolt. otic rejection of the slave trade helped to measure, in April 1776. gentry and those who cement an alliance between the slaveholding --- Page 114 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery since small men were prone to see the slave owned few or no slaves, that enabled them the large planters with a facility trade as furnishing unfairly to overbear their neighbours. Jefferson's slavery parashrank from endorsing Just as Congress shrank from generalising Dunmore's graph, SO the British authorities side could afford to challenge slavery, appeal for slave revolt. Neither were created for the Revolution unfolded new opportunities but as making a breach in the slave regime. Notes Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, 1. For 'parcellized sovereignty' see Perry Max Weber, The Theory of Social and London 1974; for Weber on the state see 154. Economic Organization 7 New York 1966, p. Hill, The Century of 2. For the Revolutionary foundations 220-69; see Christopher for the centrality of independent Revolution: 1603-1714, London 1980, pP. Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth to eighteenth century politics see Roy of see W.A. Speck, property London 1982, pP., 113-58 ; for the residue particularism 11-30. Century, and Strife: England 1714-1760, London 1980, pp. that law became the central Stability 3. Edward Thompson, following Douglas Hay, argues ruling class, and that it elicited a legitimating ideology of Britain's eighteenth Hunters, century London 1975, pp. 258-69. The term degree of popular consent, in Whigs William and Cobbett, but it echoed Tory critiques of the 'Old Corruption' was first used by times. For a brilliant discussion of the eighteenth establishment in early Hanoverian Thompson, "Peculiarities of the Whig British political order using this term see Edward pp. 311-62, see especially century originally published in The Socialist Register London 1965, 1978. For a critique of English', 319-26, reprinted in The Poverty of Theory, within English Marxism, London pp. Thompson's analysis see Perry Anderson, London Arguments 1992. John Brewer notes that venality in 1979, pP. 88-97 and English Questions, in Britain than in France The Sinews of Power, public office was much less marked Cambridge (Mass.) 1988, pp. 19-21,72-3. History of England, vol. 1, London 1913, p. 23-5; 4. Thomas Babington Macaulay, 169-84. subject Speck, Stability and Strife, pp. to the doctrine of the Trinity were S. Those Dissenters who did not subscribe and privilege is described by discrimination. The structure of Anglican power see Michael R. Watts, to the most and Strife, pp. 91-119. For the limits of toleration Oxford 1978, pp. Speck, Stability From the Reformation to the French Revolution, The Dissenters: 169. For a 259-67. see Speck, Stability and Strife, P. 6. According to one calculation, in modern British history see Tom discussion of the wider meaning of monarchy Review, 129 (1981). Nairn, "The House of Windsor', New Left London 1981, pp. 550-55; Richard Pares, 7. Angus Calder, Revolutionary London Empire, 1963, p. 68. War and Trade in the Caribbean, and Popular Politics at the Accession of 8. Quoted in John Brewer, Party Ideology George III, Cambridge 1976, pp. 243-4. for no less than 70 per cent of all revenues in the 9. Customs and excise accounted contributed about a fifth of revenues. See Peter 1750-80; in France indirect taxes France, 1715-1810, Journal of years and Patrick O'Brien, "Taxation in Britain and p. 617. Mathias History, vol. 5, no. 3, Winter 1976, pp. 601-50, especially European Economic Brooke, History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 10. Lewis Namier and John 1754-1790, London 1964, pp. of all revenues in the 9. Customs and excise accounted contributed about a fifth of revenues. See Peter 1750-80; in France indirect taxes France, 1715-1810, Journal of years and Patrick O'Brien, "Taxation in Britain and p. 617. Mathias History, vol. 5, no. 3, Winter 1976, pp. 601-50, especially European Economic Brooke, History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 10. Lewis Namier and John 1754-1790, London 1964, pp. 234 et seq. American Freedom, New York 1975, PP. 11. Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, the politics of colonial Virginia. 263-93. This work is fundamental for understanding --- Page 115 --- Hanoverian Britain 12. Bryan Edwards, quoted in 13. K.G. Davies, The Royal Africa Calder, Revolutionary Empire, pp. 479-80. 14. A. Leon Higginbotham, In the Company, Matter London 1957, Pp. 122-35. 327; Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The of Color, New York 1978, pp. pp. 114-15. History of Black People in Britain, London 313-70, 15. William Blackstone, 1984, 123; in the second edition of Commentaries 1766 the On the Laws of England, Oxford 16. William Blackstone, 'Of Master revised and formula appears on p. 127. 1765-9,1,p. and England, I, London 1773, 9th edn, pp. 423-4. Servant', Commentaries on the Laws of be found inviolable rights of private property' (p. 140). Blackstone The elsewhere refers to the 'sacred within this work were examined in various contradictory formulas to Commentaries, London 1775; for criticism of Jeremy Bentham, A Comment on the the King latter can do no wrong, that he can do no civil act Blackstone's ingenious paradox that the 17. are accountable for their actions, see pp. except 179-83. through his ministers and that West Indies Higginbotham, 1739-1763, In the Matter of Color, pp. 53-61; Pares, War and 18. Brewer, pP. 70-2. Trade in the Ideological Origins Party of the Ideology American and Popular Politics, p. 208; Bernard 19. Quoted in Hugh Brogan, Revolution, Cambridge 1967, pp. 167-9. Bailyn, The London 1985, P. 80. Longman History of the United States 20. Robert W. Tucker and David of America, Empire, Baltimore 1982, pp. 187-211. C. Hendrickson, The Fall of the First British 21. About half of all adult white half owned a slave. Charles S. Sydnor, males Gentlemen qualified for the vote, and of these only about Washington's Virginia, Chapel Hill 1952, Freeholders: Political Practices in 22. Jack Greene, "Virtus et Libertas': p. 31. of the American Revolution in Political Culture, Social Change, and Southern Experience in the American Virginia', in Jeffrey J. Crow and Larry E. Tise, the eds, Origins The especially pP. 64-5. Revolution, Chapel Hill 1978, pp. 55-108, 23. Bailyn, The Ideological Origins the 24. The salience of these terms is noted of American Revolution, pp. 8, 35-9, 43. American Revolution, p. 245. by Bailyn, The Ideological 25. Quoted in Rhys Isaac, The Origins of the 26. Tucker and Hendrickson, Transformation The Fall the of Virginia, Chapel Hill 1982, 109. 27. Edmund S. Morgan, The of First British Empire, 106-45, p. Pp. 139-73; T.H. Breen, Tobacco Challenge Culture, oft the American Revolution, R York 28. Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Princeton 1985, pp. 124-59. 1976, 145-82. Revolutionary America, New York 1976, Pp. 29. Calder, Revolutionary 71-106, 30. John C. Miller, The Wolf Empire, by the p. Ears: 631. 1977,pp. . Edmund S. Morgan, The of First British Empire, 106-45, p. Pp. 139-73; T.H. Breen, Tobacco Challenge Culture, oft the American Revolution, R York 28. Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Princeton 1985, pp. 124-59. 1976, 145-82. Revolutionary America, New York 1976, Pp. 29. Calder, Revolutionary 71-106, 30. John C. Miller, The Wolf Empire, by the p. Ears: 631. 1977,pp. 7-8; for the southern paternalist ethos Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, New York Family and Values in Jefferson's see Jan Lewis, The Pursuit of of slave trade bans to unify the slaveholders Virginia, Cambridge 1983, pp. 221-2. On the Happiness: American Revolution, see Duncan MacLeod, Slavery, Race tendency 31. Edgar J. Cambridge 1974, p. 11. and the also Gary Nash, McManus, The Urban Black Bondage in the North, Syracuse, NY Origins of the American Crucible: Social Change, Political 1973, p. 166. See 343-5. And Revolution, Cambridge, Mass. 1979, Consciousness, and the the Boston massacre Higginbotham, of March In the Matter of Color, pp. 84-5. On a later pP. 109-10, 320-1, soldiers, partly to demonstrate fair 1770, Adams undertook the legal defence occasion, of that of the patriot mob, 'a motley rabble of play but also because he disapproved of the the conduct English outlandish Jack Tars'. Hiller Zobell, saucy The boys, Negroes and mulattoes, Irish and of 32. James Otis, The Rights of the British Boston Massacre, New York 1970, teagues p. 292. p. 24. Colonies Asserted and Proved, Boston 33. Otis, The Rights and Duties the 1764, 34. Roger Bruns, Am I Not a Man of and a British Colonies, p. 29. reliably reported to have written an anti-slavery Brother, article pp. 224-45, 376-9, 385-6. Paine is in 1775 though some conventional --- Page 116 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery attributions, as in this 35. W.E.B. DuBois, compilation, The strike an of America, New York 1904, Suppression of the uncharactistically African Slave pious note. outlook of the southern patriot pp. leaders 15, 25-6, 37-8, 41-2. The Trade to the United States Blackstone, colony where but it will also have been may have reflected their natural rights discourse needed the often formed by an reading of or to be corrected by inappropriate practices and apprenticeship as Hutcheson in common people, if white. more generalised principles precedents of of English magistrates Common Law a though its protective Virginia the justice and greater of society'" thus clauses were extended promulgated first American Bill of respect for the Virginia, Pp. 134, excluding women, Indians only and to 'men . when they Rights in 1775 36. Samuel 309. slaves. Isaacs, The enter into a state but is given in Johnson, its Taxation no Tyranmy. This Tranuformation of York 1975, P. 311. political context in Marshall B. text may be found in many 37. Joseph Massie, A Davidson, The World in places upon the People of Great Computation of the Money 1776, New this see Peter Mathias, Britain by the that hath been 38. David Brion The Transformation Supar-Planters, of London 1760. eshorbitantly For a Raised and Mary Davis, 'New England, London discussion of 593-4. Quarterly, 3rd series, Sidelights XXvill, on Early Antislavery 1979, pp. 71-89, 39. Jurgen October 1971, pp. 585-94, Radicalism', William Habermas has Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, especially pp. it has a different developed sense in this concept in relation London to modern 1976, pp. -Planters, of London 1760. eshorbitantly For a Raised and Mary Davis, 'New England, London discussion of 593-4. Quarterly, 3rd series, Sidelights XXvill, on Early Antislavery 1979, pp. 71-89, 39. Jurgen October 1971, pp. 585-94, Radicalism', William Habermas has Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, especially pp. it has a different developed sense in this concept in relation London to modern 1976, pp. 1-8, 11-12, course of a vigorous and social formations where capitalism capitalist societies and 69-75, clearly concerning of social discrepancies between many-sided 'life class struggle. was still emerging in the and system world' and Nevertheless his and observations on modernity the first integration nation clearly have a 'system", between the sovereign power in Hanoverian to experience it. The bearing on the impact achievement of activity and Britain put an relatively weak capitalist there was no. enterprise to furnish its own extra obligation on each legitimation of the social relations. longer an englobing whole intrinsic constituent social And on which bore justification. In not the other for Hanoverian Britain correspond to traditional hand, new social responsibility relations the whole of Blackstone and Bentham ideologics. The were developing which pattern did jurisprudence, but did not responded to this interrogations as of the Scottish 40. Calder, thereby meet the affective a problem for school, of on imprisonment Revolationary for debtors Empire, Pp. 453-4. and existential philosophy and the English making 'such in the course of which Walpole was to launch problem. a for the sum of forty a fanfaronade about liberty' he reflected on the absurd public attack French and shillings. Horace yet a spectacle of 41. Thomas English in regard to Cruelty, Walpole, Reflections condemning on the person to prison 51-61. See also E. Drake, Quakers and by a Man, London 1759, Different p. 10. Ideas of the For the Jean Soderland, Quakers and Slavery in America, New and British development of Christian Slavery: a Divided Haven 1950, pp. 42. The Abolition, London 1975, anti-slavery see Roger Anstey, The Spirit, Princeton 1985. impact of pp. 200-38. Atlantic Slave Slavery in the Age of patriotism on the Quakers is Trade 43. Drake, Ouakers Revolation, and Pp. 213-254. explored by Davis, The Problem 44. E. Lascelles, Slavery in America, of pp. 22-50. Sharp's Granville Sharp: The Freedom pp. 71-6, 84. property is strictly limited plans for a settlement in which oft the Slaves, London Short Sketch of and lands are worked for labour tokens replace 1928, especially Settlement of the Temporary Grain Regulations (until better the shall common good will money be , private discussion of Sharp's Coast of Africa, Near be proposed) for the found in A Slavery in the Age of mixture of radicalism and Sierra Leone, London 1786. Intended 45. For an account Revolution, of Pp. 375-6, 388-98. traditionalism see Davis, The For a London 1974, pp. 82-124. the Somerset case see F.O. Problem of 46. John Wesley, Shylon, Black Slaves in S7. For the Thoughts Upon Slavery, Britain, background to Wesley's London and writings on the slave Philadelphia 1774, pp. trade, and his 51-2, detestation of --- Page 117 --- Hanoverian Britain idleness and luxury, see Stanley Ayling, John Wesley, London 1979, pp: 206-7, 262-3, 281-8; Wesley's doctrinal conflict with Calvinist predestinarianism had flared up after 1768, see pp. John Wesley, Shylon, Black Slaves in S7. For the Thoughts Upon Slavery, Britain, background to Wesley's London and writings on the slave Philadelphia 1774, pp. trade, and his 51-2, detestation of --- Page 117 --- Hanoverian Britain idleness and luxury, see Stanley Ayling, John Wesley, London 1979, pp: 206-7, 262-3, 281-8; Wesley's doctrinal conflict with Calvinist predestinarianism had flared up after 1768, see pp. 269-77. Methodism in the American colonies a 47. The spread of evangelicalism and posed challenge to gentry hegemony until planter patriotism found a popular voice with men like Patrick Henry: see Isaacs, The Transformation of Virginia, pp. 243-69. 48. Wesley, Thoughts Upon Slavery, P. 36. 49. Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution, Chapel Hill 1961, pP. 19-32, 50. Merrill 111-33. Jensen, The Founding of a Nation, London 1968, p. 645. See also Peter Wood, 'Black Freedom Struggles on the Eve of White Independence', in Gary Nash, ed., Retracing the Past, New York 1986, pp. 132-41. 51. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, p. 273. --- Page 118 --- --- Page 119 --- III Slavery and the American Revolution As negroes in Virginia, In Maryland or Guinea, Like them I must continue To be both bought and sold. While negro-ships are filling I ne'er can save one shilling, And must, which is more killing, A pauper die when old. At every week's conclusion New wants bring fresh confusion, It is but mere delusion To hope for better days; While knaves with power invested, Until by death arrested, Oppress us unmolested By their infernal ways. An hanging day is wanted; Was it by justice granted, Poor men distressed and daunted Would then have cause to sing: To see in active motion Rich knaves in full proportion, For their unjust extortion And vile offences, swing. From The File Hewer's Lamentation (1784), Joseph Mather --- Page 120 --- --- Page 121 --- The American Revolution insisted that *all men are created When the Declaration of Independence right to 'life, liberty, and the equal"' and endowed with an inalienable the particularistic of happiness' it took a historic leap beyond pursuit there were radical implications notion of the 'rights of Englishmen'; rather than 'property'. in the choice of the words 'pursuit of happiness' and universalistic The Declaration was at least open to a generous democratic moment in Its secular cadences inaugurated a interpretation. revolution. But in context it had a predominthe cycle of bourgeois significance and intended no challenge antly, even exclusively, political The Declaration was asserting of the institutions of civil society. to any not proposing a programme of principles that regulate government of men's inalienable rights it social emancipation. After speaking immediately proceeded to the conclusion: Governments are instituted among Men, deriving That to secure these rights, of the That whenever any their just powers from the consent of these ends, governed, it is the Right of the People Government becomes destructive laying its foundations to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, in such form, as to them shall on such principles and organizing its powers most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. seem revolutionaries were prepared to A few of the most enlightened of all humanity and that permanent argue that liberty was the birthright the of liberty that ought with principles enslavement was incompatible of the Republic. rights, of the That whenever any their just powers from the consent of these ends, governed, it is the Right of the People Government becomes destructive laying its foundations to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, in such form, as to them shall on such principles and organizing its powers most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. seem revolutionaries were prepared to A few of the most enlightened of all humanity and that permanent argue that liberty was the birthright the of liberty that ought with principles enslavement was incompatible of the Republic. But for the great to provide the proper foundations 'all of us'; it did not include majority of Patriots *all men' meant When the Declaration asserted Indians, Negroes, women or children. this referred only to the that the North Americans were 'one people' echoed the Virginia The fine words of the Declaration white population. saw as a challenge to slavery. Bill of Rights which no one implying intended; to most white Negroes were not fully 'men' in the sense (like women or colonists they were not only without civic competence (like Indians), but also and dangerous children), or untrustworthy or even a sexual threat to good colonial essentially alien and primitive, attribute modern racism to the stock. It would be anachronistic to German or Dutch settlers entirely founding fathers yet they did find American-born and Christian acceptable; and since many blacks were reference to their enslavement or exclusion by they could not justify who did not approve of slavery might still African heathenism. Those black men. Even Paine had argued, refuse full and equal citizenship to had decreed America as a country in Common Sense, that providence for Europeans. ideology stemmed from its The exclusions implicit in revolutionary --- Page 122 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of civil society against a tyrannous state. The starting-point as a revolt constituted collectivities, of colonial rebellion was one of already into new states and a Congress. They assemblies forming themselves inherited from the colonial epoch. In the brought with them an identity Massachusetts the continuity was two key states of Virginia and clause in its integral. The only state to adopt an anti-slavery not one Vermont in 1777; Vermont was a break-away, constitution was colonies, and it was not admitted to Congress of the original thirteen against slavery, until 1791. The first state to adopt legislation and the structure was one where social turmoil was great Pennsylvania, most extensively transformed. The of political representation an arduous and protracted business. Founding new states proved dislocation sometimes threw up strains of war and of economic of the American conditions in which the implicit ethnic assumptions universalism of the opening identity could be challenged by the latent black and white children on the words of the Declaration. After all, easily play together. In the plantation, or in the port towns, milieux might of the ports free blacks faced cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic who them as fellow discrimination but also found some accepted measures did not citizens. And the progress of individual anti-slavery for black citizenship or immediate emancipation. usually entail support partly because he agreed that they Jefferson saw blacks as dangerous a new nation the presence of had been wronged. To those constructing welcome. The suspension of slave a mass of captive blacks was further not Africans as well as hurting British imports stopped the arrival of bonus. White trade; its abolitionist significance was a and propaganda aroused by the universal radicals and philanthropists, challenged struggle, hoped to see slavery ended, appeals of the independence full citizenship on the existing though not always in terms of conferring who slavery, hoped Jefferson, like many deprecated slave population; could be settled somewhere outside the United that emancipated slaves joined the Quakers in urging States. Some secular philanthropists their slaves for freedom. The balance individual slave-owners to prepare towards slavery and blacks of shifting and contradictory feelings until the main lines of a changed several times in the early years Convention in emerged around the time of the Constitutional settlement 1787. slave emancipation was generally avoided by To the surprise of some Dunmore's appeal to the slaves of rebel both sides in the war. Lord anxiety: *If that man, Dunmore, masters at first provoked Washington's he will become the most dangerous is not crushed before the Spring will increase like a snowball running man in America. The balance individual slave-owners to prepare towards slavery and blacks of shifting and contradictory feelings until the main lines of a changed several times in the early years Convention in emerged around the time of the Constitutional settlement 1787. slave emancipation was generally avoided by To the surprise of some Dunmore's appeal to the slaves of rebel both sides in the war. Lord anxiety: *If that man, Dunmore, masters at first provoked Washington's he will become the most dangerous is not crushed before the Spring will increase like a snowball running man in America. His strength on which side can arm the Negroes down hill. Success will depend --- Page 123 --- Revolution The American Bunker's Hill': the black Trumbull's The Battle of Poor Detail from soldier is thought to be Salem --- Page 124 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery faster.' 71 This alarm proved unfounded drew aboard a British ship and both because Dunmore withconcerned not to alarm loyalist because British commanders were arm some blacks, they did SO with slaveholders. Though both sides did modest numbers of black recruits great caution and assigned the and loyalist commanders chiefly to support roles. Both Patriot to play the decisive role in counted the on white recruits and white deterred by war and they knew that these support any wholesale policy of would be man with a gun was a arming blacks. The sight of a black whether North or South, Patriot disturbing one to North American whites, and both sides or Tory. As the struggle experienced a of dragged on, were sometimes neutralised by shortage force of manpower, such prejudices In the Northern colonies the Patriot necessity but never abandoned. blacks, whether slaves or forces probably enlisted more Southern plantation freedmen, than the British while in British forces zone the use of black soldiers was the and loyalist militia. confined to the Each of the protagonists looked far and wide for allies struggle unfolded. as the mortal believed that Confronting Britain's formidable the they were justified in allies power rebels find them; the vital assistance of seeking wherever they could hereditary foe and Catholic France made the Patriots allies of a appealing to the Indians and tyrant. The British had no scruple in though Indian 'savagery' had inciting them against the Patriots even Britain's colonising mission. traditionally been cited in justification of there was to be resolute refusal By comparison with these bold strokes thousands of black slaves on both sides to rouse the hundreds of In the North a number of to any active role in the conflict. free blacks took in Congress at first forbade the enlistment part early clashes, but army. The New of blacks in the Continental its England state of Rhode Island, militia, was permitted in 1777 to form acutely short of men for war dragged on the commanders of the two black regiments. As the state militias found that Continental Army and of the problem; the states resorted maintaining to levies troop strengths was a major and to fill the ranks of the to raise their Continental slaves militias. In a number quota were accepted as substitutes; in of Northern states automatically manumitted. The Connecticut slave draftees were was untenable, but Congressional ban on black owners. great care was taken not to alarm Southern recruitment Eventually about 4,000 blacks served slavearmy, some in an auxiliary with the Continental that enemy capacity. Both sides in the conflict and property was forfeit; as a declared put to work as sappers or officer's consequence slaves were seized, to military manumission the British did servants. Despite their recourse Brazil in the 1640s, or even the not imitate the Portuguese in Spanish in the 1760s, who had formed --- Page 125 --- The American Revolution in black-officered this military units. Southern recruitment Eventually about 4,000 blacks served slavearmy, some in an auxiliary with the Continental that enemy capacity. Both sides in the conflict and property was forfeit; as a declared put to work as sappers or officer's consequence slaves were seized, to military manumission the British did servants. Despite their recourse Brazil in the 1640s, or even the not imitate the Portuguese in Spanish in the 1760s, who had formed --- Page 125 --- The American Revolution in black-officered this military units. The Patriots of the Northern respect, slightly bolder since there were states were, officers, such as Salem Poor of a few black junior In the Southern zone the economic Massachusetts.2 fear of slave insurrection, and significance of the plantations, inhibited both sides. But the British respect for the established racial code to break the costly had less to lose and were defeat war of attrition which desperate at Saratoga in October of 1777. plagued them after their plantations was seen as the rebel's most Virginia with its slave advance in the South in 1779-80 vulnerable flank. The British thousand slaves provided conditions in which Charleston escaped to British lines. The British several sought to take advantage of this commander at generalised slave unrest; he declared that without provoking masters would be returned, while those slaves who had left loyal become public property and would be owned by rebel masters would ceased, when they might put to work until hostilities loyalist militias in South Carolina expect freedom. The British Army and the hoc and subservient capacity. and Georgia recruited blacks in an ad The Tory leader Banastre Tarleton family and had no intention of came from a major planting irregular war proceeded loyalist contesting bands slavery. But as a desperate blacks with no questions asked. were willing to enroll suitable better chance of securing freedom Runaway if slaves realised that they had a few also offered to serve the French. they For went to the British; though a were less attentive to established their part the British partisans slaveholding widow in Charleston racial boundaries. A wealthy visited by 'abusive' loyalists, wrote that when her house was 'trembled SO with terror, that I accompanied could by armed Negroes, she 'gave way to a violent burst of grief.3 not support myself, and later In the Southern theatre the Patriots though some marched down from New recruited no black soldiers 1781 while a few were attached York to besiege Yorktown in capacity. In the difficult period before to the Patriot forces in a menial the ablest young American Yorktown John Laurens, one of should be freed and formed commanders, into proposed that 3,000 slaves command; Laurens a black battalion which he trader from was the son of a slave-owner and would South Carolina who now former slaveAfrica trade. Astonishingly repented his involvement with the Congress for this scheme, but enough it Laurens obtained a majority in victory at Yorktown in October was vetoed by South Carolina. The while John Laurens himself 1781 removed the military pressure, significant that South was killed in a skirmish. It is doubtless should have produced the Carolina, the one state with a slave South's most radical anti-slavery Patriot majority, and --- Page 126 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery that its assembly should have blocked his The partisan war in the South, boldest proposal. 4 large part in thwarting Britain's sustained by white militias, played a eventual defeat. In all the rebel southern strategy and encompassing its political authorities short of cash. states soldiers were promised land by offered their soldiers a slave to Virginia, with the Carolinas and Georgia wealthy slaveholders go the land. Mixed feelings about co-existed with a poorer whites to own a slave; the slave widespread aspiration among colonising impulse to the birth of the bounty scheme harnessed the When the British left Charleston Republic.5 five thousand blacks, many of them they were accompanied by about several thousand more blacks former slaves of rebel masters; Savannah and New York. British accompanied British departures at fugitive slaves would not be evacuated promises at the peace talks that received in time or were simply with the British troops were not there were a few areas where the ignored. In South Carolina and Georgia momentarily. isted with a poorer whites to own a slave; the slave widespread aspiration among colonising impulse to the birth of the bounty scheme harnessed the When the British left Charleston Republic.5 five thousand blacks, many of them they were accompanied by about several thousand more blacks former slaves of rebel masters; Savannah and New York. British accompanied British departures at fugitive slaves would not be evacuated promises at the peace talks that received in time or were simply with the British troops were not there were a few areas where the ignored. In South Carolina and Georgia momentarily. An irregular loyalist plantation regime broke down at least active in South Carolina in 'Black Dragoon' was reported to be withdrew behind Savannah 1782-3; later some black irregulars Georgia's border lands or marched southwards to witnessed a continuing Florida; Americans in 1785-6 waged by black guerrilla war against the But the majority of slaves 'Soldiers of the King".6 communities seem to have proved wary of the British and most slave prospects of the Tories did decided that the very doubtful not justify promises and overall impact of the seven years abandoning their plantations. The or on slave war, whether on the numbers, was small. plantation regime caused great material surprisingly The fighting in the South 30,000 slaves escaped devastation, and Jefferson was to claim that the slave bondage as a result of the conflict in system survived in reasonable Virginia. But growth of the slave population working order. The natural white society during the replenished losses. The militarisation of countryside, conflict, with trigger-happy bands trade was a potent deterrent to slave revolt roaming the in plantation produce was badly hit or slave escape. The simply withdrew into the shell of by the war, but planters tobacco but increasing output of other 'natural economy', stockpiling commodity production made for less crops. Easing of the pressure for greater concentration on subsistence overwork on the plantations and in charge, which would have cultivation; women were often left brutality, always a danger in the reduced the incidence of drunken The Patriot plantation zone.' 7 constitutional struggle against the British was and legislative process which offered accompanied by a anti-slavery in the Northern states. When the some openings to devising state constitutions and the framework revolutionaries came to of a continental --- Page 127 --- The American Revolution Confederacy, the issue of slavery could slaves were seen simply as scarcely be avoided, even if the scope for manumission property, also while the rights of free blacks and slaves had to be some bold spirits did considered. In states with few legislative means. Emboldened suggest that slavery should be ended black slaves by the constant talk of liberty, by of freedmen petitioned state assemblies for their groups demanded the civic rights freedom, while farmers and urban artisans often enjoyed by white men. Up-country patriotic and enlightened planters distrusted the slaveholder; and tion and reduced reliance would favour individual from blacks on Africans. The wording of the emancipanatural typically drew attention to the logic of the petitions rights doctrine: We are endowed with revolutionary our masters and the more we consider the same faculties with convinced of our right to be free. 8 the matter, the more we are The radical "Constitutionalists' of the first to move against slavery. Vermont and Pennsylvania were after echoing the opening words Vermont's of the Constitution of July 1777, added that Declaration of 'therefore' no man older than Independence, older than eighteen years could be held twenty-one years or woman apprentice', unless by their own 9 as a 'servant, slave or a Philadelphia radical and agreement, This clause was drafted no doubt by patriotism of the Green Mountains; corresponded to the radical their reincorporation by the it also acted as a barrier against There were very few slaves in government of slaveholding New York. were after echoing the opening words Vermont's of the Constitution of July 1777, added that Declaration of 'therefore' no man older than Independence, older than eighteen years could be held twenty-one years or woman apprentice', unless by their own 9 as a 'servant, slave or a Philadelphia radical and agreement, This clause was drafted no doubt by patriotism of the Green Mountains; corresponded to the radical their reincorporation by the it also acted as a barrier against There were very few slaves in government of slaveholding New York. are unknown; however, the Vermont and the numbers freed, if any, was indeed outlawed courts did subsequently rule that indentured by the state constitution. The slavery service points to the existence of banning of inforcing anti-slavery. 9 'anti-master' feeling, reIn 1780 the Constitutionalist of which Paine was majority of the Pennsylvania Secretary, an Assembly, one to twenty-four votes; the adopted emancipation law by thirtyPhiladelphia unanimously, but some Constitutionalist delegation supported the law farmers voted against. The radical representatives of German fighting a rearguard struggle against Constitutionalists the were by this time failed to sustain the Republican opposition, having experiment with emancipation measure will have price-fixing committees. The discord in the Republican helped to boost morale, and SOW of the wealthier citizens camp. The Republicans enjoyed the Benjamin and numbered among their support Rush, a veteran anti-slavery leaders both whose extensive mercantile interests advocate, and Robert Morris, trade. At this time there were included involvement in the slave was very cautious; nevertheless some 6,000 slaves in the state and the law adopted anywhere and it this was the first law of its type to be was a product of public debate. According to --- Page 128 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery born of slave mothers would be free once they its terms children until then they they would have to toil reached the age of twenty-eight; him for the cost of their for their mother's owner to recompense their slaves by a upbringing. The law required masters to register forfeited their date; some masters refused to do SO and thereby certain ultra-democratic Constitutionalists, title to their slaves. The supposedly 2.5 cent of the population in a state where slaves comprised a mere nourished per by Benezet and the and where anti-slavery had been long for twentythus postponed the beginnings of emancipation the Quakers, compensated the masters; only eight years and generously more immediate effect to this intransigence of many slave-owners gave radical; it modest measure. In one respect the law was genuinely under its provisions. conferred full civic rights on all blacks freed property to the law focused both on the slaveholders' them to Opposition of blacks and permitting rights and on the danger enfranchising answered by an join the militia. These objections were vigorously himself 'A Liberal', an pamphleteer (possibly Paine) signing Constitutionanonymous to Although the early use of this term as applied politics. to reverse the law were alists were soon removed from power, attempts of the Assembly Anthony easily defeated. Though not a member of emancipation. When he Benezet had lobbied energetically in defence crowd of mourners, died in 1784 his funeral was attended by a large both black and white. 10 were made to ban slavery when In most Northern states proposals case save that of Vermont were constitutions were adopted, but in no Island convention a vague adopted. At the Rhode such proposals look at the matter when 'some favourable promise was made to Rhode Island and Connecticut, two states Occasion may offer'. In 1784 emancipation laws which had been earliest to recruit blacks, adopted occasion the slaveholders similar to that of Pennsylvania, only on this The aid the abolitionists by flouting the registration procedures. both black and white. 10 were made to ban slavery when In most Northern states proposals case save that of Vermont were constitutions were adopted, but in no Island convention a vague adopted. At the Rhode such proposals look at the matter when 'some favourable promise was made to Rhode Island and Connecticut, two states Occasion may offer'. In 1784 emancipation laws which had been earliest to recruit blacks, adopted occasion the slaveholders similar to that of Pennsylvania, only on this The aid the abolitionists by flouting the registration procedures. did not that of respecting the slave-owner's right to solution adopted was again born, but only after they had his living chattels, 'freeing' those not yet their The age worked off their notional debt to oppressors. themselves were to be freed was somewhat lower at which those born to slaves for women in twenty-one for men, eighteen than in Pennsylvania: for both men and women in Connecticut. Rhode Island; twenty-five at times when prevailing property These measures were adopted from advocates of debt concepts faced a fundamental challenge radicalism. Wartime cancellation, paper money and anti-mercantile merchants and induced many dislocation had fanned the animus against measures for relieving the farmers and artisans to consider extreme shortly before the adoption of problems of debtors; in Rhode Island, --- Page 129 --- The American Revolution the emancipation law, the legislative had been scheme for taking into common asked to consider a ships as a means of striking down ownership all wharves, warehouses and extreme demands were mercantile profiteering. While these remained in the hands of rejected, radicals the government of Rhode Island their obligations with who allowed debtors to discharge short shrift, because their depreciated claims paper money. Creditors were given small producers who had been hit threatened to overwhelm farmers and Rhode Island emancipation law by the post-war economic crisis; the weaken, also allowed personal though not cancel, property rights to the more impressive in that the rights. Rhode Island's option was slaves. The relatively small state did still contain a few thousand made it a less fraught number of slaves remaining in issue. The Connecticut to a fundamental statute without emancipation measure was introduced loyalists were being admitted fanfare at a time when former not as agitated as those of Rhode to politics; though the state's politics were Shays's Rebellion in neighbouring Island, the discontents which led to were also present. 11 regions of Massachusetts in 1786 In some parts of New England judicial decisions path towards furnished a different but avoiding emancipation, one building on the earlier freedom suits Massachusetts legislative controversy. The case of had some similarity with that Quock Walker in The first ruling on the case in 1781 avoided of Somerset in England. issue and it was only because of the pronouncing on the general eventual judgement of 1783 persistence of both parties that the Justice had to make was made on wider grounds. The a decision in default of Chief guidance. In 1777 an attempt had been made any clear legislative Massachuserts Assembly to free children of by some members of the date, but this had failed on the slaves born after a certain brethren in other colonies'. In the Walker grounds that it might offend 'our Justice found against the case the Massachusetts Chief because he could find master, who had assaulted his alleged no law which slave, behaviour typical of the slave-owner. permitted the high-handed gentlemen had been permitted law John Adams commented: 'If the would have the by to hold slaves the The put Negroes to death, and their common people veteran Patriot's masters too, perhaps." slavery sentiment judgement as to the social location of the antimay have been more acute depreciation of popular motives. Walker grounds that it might offend 'our Justice found against the case the Massachusetts Chief because he could find master, who had assaulted his alleged no law which slave, behaviour typical of the slave-owner. permitted the high-handed gentlemen had been permitted law John Adams commented: 'If the would have the by to hold slaves the The put Negroes to death, and their common people veteran Patriot's masters too, perhaps." slavery sentiment judgement as to the social location of the antimay have been more acute depreciation of popular motives. In the than his implicit judgement masters continued to claim aftermath of the Walker there is even a record of some slave sales. authority over black servants and had no public sanction in Massachusetts. But henceforth slave-owning state with very few In New Hampshire, another slaves, a similar decision slaveholding in 1783, though once undercut lawful again some slaveholders may have --- Page 130 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the The ending of slavery by judicial found ways of evading precedent. emancipation in that no full slaves were decision differed from gradual less deliberate and clear-cut, leaving left in the area affected; but it was The Northern laws ambiguities which masters were able to exploit. slaves out of the slave-trading usually included a ban on selling 12 against but such bans could be quite easily flouted.' for threestate, crucial Northern states, which together accounted In two outside the South, slavery survived both quarters of all slaves challenges in the revolutionary and constitutional and legislative New York, with 20,000 slaves, immediate post-revolutionary period: In these states the assemblies failed to and New Jersey, with 10,000. law in the 1780s. There was agree even a moderate emancipation freedmen and over the form of compensation dispute over the rights of the that the abandoned also concern at possibility to slaveholders; become a charge on the tax-payer. Slaveholders children of slaves might influential to secure passage of a slave in New York were sufficiently the number of slaveholders in the state code in 1788; at around number 5,000 of artisans in New York City. Political was roughly equal to the retarded by British occupation during the life in New York had been and conservative war and by the influence of well-entrenched resisted by the landowners and merchants. Emancipation was only openly owned a few slaves representatives of Dutch farmers; though they of their estate. The failure apiece, this would constitute a valuable the part tactics of false friends, like of abolition probably also reflected Hamilton. Burr Aaron Burr, and of feeble friends, like Alexander bill but may have radical amendment to the anti-slavery secured a very this would doom the measure. 13 known that patronised the New York Alexander Hamilton and John Jay the Society charged a high Manumission Society, founded in 1785; bar slaveholders from membership subscription and did not even Federal Constitution, was Hamilton, one of the authors of the joining. needed more authoritative national convinced that the Republic fitted in well enough with this institutions; a vague abolitionism 1787-9 Hamilton's main efforts programme in New York. In the years for the Constitution against were directed at securing who acceptance did not wish to see their state lose its conservative landowners since this might lead to a tax on land. Abolitionism customs revenues, 'Federalist' cause but was not allowed to jeopardise dignified the for protective tariffs and national ratification; because of its Federalism support was at this point a cause with development Hamiltonian 14 which artisans could identify. formed in several states in the aftermath Manumission societies were and the Baptists, with their growing of the war. The Methodists --- Page 131 --- The American Revolution Southern membership, took up an official stand though the task of persuading individual against slaveholding, left to local congregations. . Abolitionism customs revenues, 'Federalist' cause but was not allowed to jeopardise dignified the for protective tariffs and national ratification; because of its Federalism support was at this point a cause with development Hamiltonian 14 which artisans could identify. formed in several states in the aftermath Manumission societies were and the Baptists, with their growing of the war. The Methodists --- Page 131 --- The American Revolution Southern membership, took up an official stand though the task of persuading individual against slaveholding, left to local congregations. In the slaveholders to conform was championed mainly by urban early 1780s emancipation had been taken up by the great and the good. radicals; In the subsequently it was as often came to be patronised by North manumission societies respectable members slavery as an unnecessary, primitive and of society who saw opposing it men like John Jay, the first Chief vexatious institution. In their own openness to peaceful and Justice, also advertised Free blacks in the North responsible reform. attachments and because championed emancipation because of family they knew the prejudiced their position; continuance of slavery colour bar they often lacked however, the even where there was no formal holding, which in most states were qualifications still for voting or officeproperty or paying certain limited to those owning some participated in the Revolutionary taxes. Several thousand blacks had but no black person reached War; some of these acquired the vote other towns black an elective post. In Philadelphia and some people formed their own response to the slighting treatment Churches, partly in religionists: the African Methodist they received from white COresult and Baptist connections developed a strong following and formed as a Afro-American evangelicalism. 15 gave expression to a distinctive North. Manumission societies were formed in the South Patriot leaders deprecated the moral as well as the lauded the sturdy independence of effects of slaveholding and Assembly legalised the farmer. In 1782 the urged slaveholders private manumission and the Virginia to take advantage of this. Manumission Society more slaves were to be manumitted In fact during the 1780s the South than were to be freed as a result of individual initiative in Most Southern by the emancipation laws in the North. supporters of manumission measures and advocated eventual favoured very gradual removal outside the United States. 'colonisation' of blacks, that is their South for more consequent But there was also support in the forthcoming from teachers emancipationist and tradesmen measures; this was chiefly from a small number of religious who owned no slaves and tionists bravely took enthusiasts. These Southern and up individual cases of mistreatment, emancipare-enslavement of blacks; for a time, but with kidnapping promoted black education. 16 great difficulty, they Until 1787 supporters of anti-slavery could abolition was in tune with the spirit of the times assure themselves that triumph. Perhaps for this reason the and would be bound to of their energies to local cases and did abolitionist societies devoted much co-ordinate any wider not set up a nation-wide body to campaign. The setbacks in New York and New --- Page 132 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and the famous leaders of the Revolution Jersey were seen as temporary of anti-slavery, almost to a man. were known to be patrons welled up in the midAcceptance of the need for a national government within and between the 1780s following the eruption of severe conflicts British West Indian markets states. War losses and the closing of radical experiments in created economic difficulties for many, while failures by the and Rhode Island were deemed dangerous alarmed Pennsylvania citizenry. The outbreak of Shays's Rebellion more comfortable under the terms of the Confederacy there the leaders of the revolution; centre to contain or armed force or authoritative was no national The lack of national institutions risked suppress riot and insurrection. the midAcceptance of the need for a national government within and between the 1780s following the eruption of severe conflicts British West Indian markets states. War losses and the closing of radical experiments in created economic difficulties for many, while failures by the and Rhode Island were deemed dangerous alarmed Pennsylvania citizenry. The outbreak of Shays's Rebellion more comfortable under the terms of the Confederacy there the leaders of the revolution; centre to contain or armed force or authoritative was no national The lack of national institutions risked suppress riot and insurrection. needed support to economic or territorial inter-state strife and denied framed the Constitution was to expansion. The aim of those who prevailing social framework that would guarantee furnish a political them. The constitutional relations without shackling or constraining debate created a national structure arrived at after much hard armed forces, to levy customs with the competence to raise SO mixed and government new territories - but otherwise revenue, and to organise or change the society divided against itself that it could never challenge notions of the which had produced it. In contrast to the unicameral was divided radicals, the elective component of the government Painite with different franchises, and an indirectly into two legislative chambers Standing apart as arbiter of the whole was elected head of the executive. Court. Also standing apart with their body, the Supreme an appointed and elective systems were the individual own separate powers Union. These elaborate checks and balances constituent states of the but reconcile established would, it was hoped, not only represent and the dangerous implications interests while frustrating factionalism rule. The forms of government should for property-holders of majority design political passions and far as discourage by their very SO possible opinions' including that very generalising 'the zeal for different of the Revolution to have impulse which it had been the grandeur creditor, to The relations of debtor to propertyless blocks promoted. were to be the unquestioned building propertied, slave to master, and elective principles of the of the state. The impeccably republican it algebraic form constitution elaborately reinvented - in, as were, In both cases the the devices of Britain's illegitimate monarchy'. to interfere with the nominal sovereign was to be denied the power mixed institutions of civil society. Just as Britain's government crucial it in the hands of his Ministers, took the power of the monarch, placed --- Page 133 --- The American Revolution subjected them to the rule oflaw, erected invited Ministers to be answerable judges as arbiters of that law, to public dependent on a hereditary as well as opinion, made legislation of government could erect itself into elective chamber, until no branch the United States started a 'tyranny'-s SO the Constitution out from popular of distributed and divided the sovereignty, then multiplied, it to the rule of law, made judges sovereign power against itself, subordinated forth until there could be little risk arbiters of that law, and SO on and SO ever rule as well as reign. The that the nominal sovereign would American forms of similarities between the British and observers, such as government were SO striking that some authoritative course, the structure John Adams, thought them to be the of American same. Of logical - since it had dispensed with government the was tidier and more of monarchy itself, save in its elective central absurdity and mystery was a problem. While colonial presidential form - but this itself patchwork of the British slavery could be tolerated in the difficult problems for those Empire, the holding of slaves presented representation and seeking to devise equitable taxation without giving systems of attempts to tamper with prevailing any openings 17 to future In the constitutional debates property forms. Adams, thought them to be the of American same. Of logical - since it had dispensed with government the was tidier and more of monarchy itself, save in its elective central absurdity and mystery was a problem. While colonial presidential form - but this itself patchwork of the British slavery could be tolerated in the difficult problems for those Empire, the holding of slaves presented representation and seeking to devise equitable taxation without giving systems of attempts to tamper with prevailing any openings 17 to future In the constitutional debates property forms. indirect but insistent fashion the question of slavery arose in an attributes of representation and precisely in regard to these crucial against the British had been 'no taxation. The key slogan in the struggle of the most delicate issues taxation without representation". One constitution was the which confronted those devising a between the different apportionment of representation and taxation as political states and regions. The of arrangements invented by the rebels were representivity the legitimacy in their struggle against Britain's their prime claim to of the Confederacy established 'Royal Brute'. The Articles far as representation a crude equality between the states smaller was concerned, but SO states refused to accept that they naturally the poorer and the larger and richer states. Slaves should be taxed as heavily as population and the wealth of one contributed of largely to both the Northerners were content to see slaves part the new country. While most wealth, they were loath to see them counted included as indices of Southern representation to the size of population. in any system for relating early as 1775 when a Northern These differences surfaced as expenses should be shared delegate in Congress proposed that all population of each colony. Samuel proportionally to the size of the total riposted that Chase of Maryland Negroes were property and should immediately a population count than horses no more be included in eventually chose the value of land or livestock. The Confederacy problems of valuing land as the basis for taxation, but the uniformly made this unworkable, In 1783 --- Page 134 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery as the basis for Congress eventually sought to return to population the interests of North apportioning taxation. As a compromise each between slave would count as only and South it was eventually agreed 18 that three-fifths of a free person." to resolve the problem of This 'Federal ratio' was eventually the states in the House of apportioning political representation amongst Convention of 1787 it Prior to the Constitutional basis for Representatives. to reach any other agreement on a the proved impossible system of allotting representation than the manifestly inequitable of its size. In the debates to every state regardless slaves same representation the Southerners argued that on population and representation only qualified free white should be fully counted; though, of course, allotted. Southerners were males would vote for the representatives SO since they constituted particularly concerned to establish this principle Union and could foresee that 41 per cent of the free population of the delegates found it difficult to might shrink. Northern this proportion slave wealth should be awarded extra representaagree that Southern counted for nothing. Only the taxation tion, while their own wealth that a solution must be found or no precedent, and their awareness persuaded them to accept that the Union would survive, eventually representation. three-fifths rule should also govern Congressional should entitle Southern voters The acceptance that slaves as wealth of slavery into the built an acknowledgement to extra representation When Lafayette later chided Madison with heart of the Constitution. emancipation, he was the Convention's failure to consider even the gradual you have SO much at told: 'any allusion in the Convention to subject powder."' >19 heart would have been a spark to a mass Franklin of gun made no attack on In the interests of the Union even instead with the wry observation Southern property, contenting himself since 'sheep will never make any that Northern property was different, resorted to shamefaced ? slaves as wealth of slavery into the built an acknowledgement to extra representation When Lafayette later chided Madison with heart of the Constitution. emancipation, he was the Convention's failure to consider even the gradual you have SO much at told: 'any allusion in the Convention to subject powder."' >19 heart would have been a spark to a mass Franklin of gun made no attack on In the interests of the Union even instead with the wry observation Southern property, contenting himself since 'sheep will never make any that Northern property was different, resorted to shamefaced ? 20 The text of the Constitution insurrection' . the dreaded words 'slave' and "slavery': circumlocution rather than use and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several Representatives within this Union, according to their respective states which may be included adding to the whole Number of free Numbers, which shall be determined Service by for a Term of Years, and excluding Persons, including those bound to three fifths of all other persons. Indians not taxed, clause in which specific provision was made for This was not the only slaveholder interests. that persons 'held to service or labour' The Constitution stipulated to the party to whom such who absconded should be delivered up --- Page 135 --- The American Revolution service or labour was due, whatever the local territory in which they were laws of the state or slaveholders saw this apprehended. Once again Southern of their special interests provision and for runaways as a vital interest. Aware to limit the power of the Federal vulnerability the Southern delegates sought affairs of the constituent authority to interfere in the domestic states. However measures of the North might be, they moderate the emancipation similar laws could not be imposed intended to make quite sure that majority. Many Southerners upon them by a Congressional be denied hoped that the Federal any authority to regulate the slave government would regulation was one of the few trade, but since trade lot. The Union would scarcely have powers it possessed this was asking for a if its government could not make been competent as a sovereign state by simple Congressional majorities. commercial Most arrangements, preferably maintained a ban on slave in states, including Virginia, had to return to boom conditions imports; a planting economy that had yet all inconvenienced by this. many slaveholders found they were not at governing representation the Following acceptance of the Federal ratio Northern interest in stopping any further influx representatives of perceived an However, slave dealers in South slaves into the South. wished to protect their business and Carolina and some Northern ports who did not wish to entrust found some support from others Federal government. The Convention any powers relating to slavery to the according to which eventually reached a slave Congress would be prohibited compromise trade, or placing a prohibitive tariff from banning the years. Delegates were united in the upon it, for a period of twenty been unshakeably established conviction that slaveholding had by the point which it coSt the Southern Constitution, though this was a when they got back home. Great talents delegates much trouble to explain form that would consecrate had gone into devising a state political expression of class prevailing social relations and frustrate the Madison could entirely succeed antagonisms; in but not even the genius of a The such an enterprise. preamble to the Constitution declared that secure 'the blessings of liberty to ourselves its intention was to declined to echo the assertion of a universal and our Posterity' and freedom made in the Declaration. In human right of equality and agreement was reached on July of 1787, the month in which tional arrangements for including slaveholdings in the representaOrdinance which favoured Congress, the agreement was secured to an Ordinance ended slave entries generality of the free The west, thus giving to the Federal territories citizenry. of the greater scope to the smallholder Northpopulation. secure 'the blessings of liberty to ourselves its intention was to declined to echo the assertion of a universal and our Posterity' and freedom made in the Declaration. In human right of equality and agreement was reached on July of 1787, the month in which tional arrangements for including slaveholdings in the representaOrdinance which favoured Congress, the agreement was secured to an Ordinance ended slave entries generality of the free The west, thus giving to the Federal territories citizenry. of the greater scope to the smallholder Northpopulation. The North-west territories aspirations of the free plantation were not development, SO the concession did thought suitable to not appear a large one; it --- Page 136 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery South-west. On the other hand, the North-west did not apply to the associated with it, did offer real Ordinance, and the land legislation most of the North-west had settlers; and since benefits to intending Virginia the passage of this Ordinance did formerly been claimed by slaves were to be sent to concession. While no more embody a symbolic settlers also did their best to exclude free the North-west the white blacks." of the American Revolution nor the conservative Neither the travail had effected a weakening of the consolidation of the early Republic the careful observer these North American slave system - indeed to and resilience. Endorsedemonstrated the slaveholders' tenacity events in the Constitution represented a strategic ment of the arrangements abolitionism. In the aftermath of the defeat for North America's diffuse of the states passed legislation Constitutional Convention most a in the slave trade or imposing prohibitory outlawing participation assumed that Congress would tariff on slave imports. It was generally to do sO; but 1808 was a ban slave imports as soon as it was permitted off and much could happen in the meantime. long way were aware that a decisive battle had Radical opponents of slavery dogma that Southerners had established as constitutional been lost; in the domestic affairs of the Congress had no power to meddle of the young Republic constituent states. Nevertheless the dispositions The Revolution and its looked different from across the Atlantic. definite anti-slavery immediate aftermath provided Europe with a laws had been and manumission message or challenge. Emancipation or not seen as limitations. It passed; their limitations were not studied, black writers and men known that there were some free preachers, as was that free blacks were often denied the same rights of learning, but not had been launched on the world; the white citizens. Resounding slogans made less of an impression. The slave fine print of the Constitution and then banned by most trade had been suspended for many years In their dealings with the it could be banned completely in 1808. the states; of the New Republic conveyed outside world the representatives institution of diminishing consequence impression that slavery was an famous Notes on Virginia deplored for North America. Jefferson's effects even if it also suggested that Negroes slavery and its corrupting in response to a request from inferior; it was composed were racially Barbé de Marbois. Many of the Republic's most the French ambassador Franklin, Jay, Hamilton - illustrious representatives - Jefferson himself, societies. Washington was one gave their patronage to the manumission the matter and even he wrote privately of the few to keep his counsel on and degrees. emancipation by 'slow, sure imperceptible of achieving views on slavery in the decade The evolution of Thomas Jefferson's --- Page 137 --- The American Revolution after the end of the 'planter abolitionism' Revolutionary in North War already show the limits of American Revolution America. In the heroic period of the with the anti-slavery Jefferson evinced a cautious but definite and the passage deleted impulse. The freedom suit he had taken on sympathy in 1770 to the latter. The Notes by Congress from the Declaration both on Virginia, published in testify years earlier, summoned up the rhetoric 1785 and written two attacking luxury imports from of revolutionary virtue, eloquent passage Jefferson Europe as well as the slave trade. Revolution after the end of the 'planter abolitionism' Revolutionary in North War already show the limits of American Revolution America. In the heroic period of the with the anti-slavery Jefferson evinced a cautious but definite and the passage deleted impulse. The freedom suit he had taken on sympathy in 1770 to the latter. The Notes by Congress from the Declaration both on Virginia, published in testify years earlier, summoned up the rhetoric 1785 and written two attacking luxury imports from of revolutionary virtue, eloquent passage Jefferson Europe as well as the slave trade. In an warned his expect sanguinary retribution if they countrymen did that they could attenuating slavery. Around this time he also not find some way of excluded from the North-western proposed that slaves be for white settlers and land sales territory; the territory was to be kept education system. Jefferson's were to be used to finance a public desire to retain and fortify the writings were always animated by a keen farmers. These smallholders allegiance of the mass of were not smallholding there were prone to resent both the anti-slavery in any pure sense but arrogance of gentleman planters. presence of blacks and the of the latter but like Patrick Jefferson was himself, of course, one of the Henry he saw preservation and farmer-planter axis as vital to the health, cultivation Republic. White Southern farmers even the survival, of the slaveholdings but they disapproved were prone to disapprove of large the slaves unless they even more of schemes for were to be freeing distant destination. Jefferson, in immediately transported to some remained a convinced and effective tune with such sentiment, always war and its immediate aftermath foe of the slave trade. During the slavery sentiments was at its height Jefferson's and willingness to avow antisensitive to the opinion of non-slaveholders in this he was probably Following his return from France in in the slaveholding states. public criticism of slavery. He politely 1789, Jefferson offered no further out on the subject, on the grounds that declined all invitations to speak The eruption of a slave revolt in St the time was not yet ripe. certainly encouraged Jefferson's Domingue in August 1791 refugees from the French colonies, reserve. The arrival of a stream of slave revolt, hardened the white many with stories to tell of bloody and for restrictions on the activities citizenry's support for black slavery, United States. Early of free blacks, the rumours that the slaves of St throughout encouraged by royalist agents Domingue had been their leaders enrolled in the forces provocateurs of were given colour when As Secretary of State in 1789-93 the Spanish King. representative in London to demand Jefferson instructed the American value of the slaves taken from North that Britain should offset the debts owed by America in 1783-4 Americans to British merchants. against the Jefferson had himself --- Page 138 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery when the British occupied one of his estates. However, lost thirty slaves away nor did he ever demean he would not criticise slaves for running the question of the their return. In taking up himself by proposing slaves Jefferson was, as a politician, British 'abduction' of American the heart of many white adopting a cause he knew to be dear to known that the British Virginians; as a statesman he must have Neverthless Jefferson's would never entertain his demand. with his government take this issue in the early 1790s contrasts willingness to up earlier silence on the matter.2 Convention and the awesome The debates of the Constitutional in 1791 marginalised North spectacle of slave revolt in St Domingue the a vociferous proabolitionism while bringing into open American Southern states. ' of American the heart of many white adopting a cause he knew to be dear to known that the British Virginians; as a statesman he must have Neverthless Jefferson's would never entertain his demand. with his government take this issue in the early 1790s contrasts willingness to up earlier silence on the matter.2 Convention and the awesome The debates of the Constitutional in 1791 marginalised North spectacle of slave revolt in St Domingue the a vociferous proabolitionism while bringing into open American Southern states. With the birth of the United slavery sentiment in the had appeared, offering States a new and vigorous slaveholding power elsewhere in facilities and a political ideal to slaveholders commercial merchant marine soon matched British the hemisphere. The Republic's with Spaniards or Cubans in the tonnage in the Atlantic; partnerships branch of the Atlantic slave trade.24 mid-1780s led to the rise of a new for abolition were not good In North America itself the prospects 1776 there had been less than and the slave population was growing; 1790 in there were 698,000 slaves, 500,000 slaves in North America; by of measures of the disruption of the war and the passage were despite But however cleverly the cracks emancipation and manumission. effectively blocking slavery from the new order was a hybrid, concealed, zones of the country - New England, Pennsylvania developing in major territories. In this sense the abolitionist and the North-western in Europe was not wholly reputation or aura of the Republic unwarranted. Notes S. Foner, Labor and the American Revolution, Westport forces SO 1976, also 1. Quoted in Philip over slave recruitment to the patriot had p. 178. Just as there was controversy, of indentured servants. By 1783 indentured service was there over the enlistment to be attempts to resuscitate it, as Foner notes. disappeared, though there were in the American Revolution, Chapel Hill 1961, pp. 2. Benjamin Quarles, The Negro and 19-32, 111-33. "What an Alarming Crisis This Is": Southern Women 3. Mary Beth Norton, J. Crow and Larry E. Tise, The Southern Experience the American Revolution', in Jeffrey, Chapel Hill 1978, pp: 203-34, 216. in the American Revolution, The Negro in the American Revolution, PP. 60-67. to 1860, New York 4. Quarles, Jr, Liberty and Slavery: Southern Politics S. William J. Cooper, 1983, p. 35. Caribbean and North American Slaves in an Era of Revolution', 6. Mullin, "British The Southern Experience, pp. 240-41. in Crow and Tise, --- Page 139 --- The American Revolution in the course of the war see Allan Kulikof-Uprooted American Peoples', 7. For slave escapes Hoffman, eds, Slavery and Freedom in the Age oft the the in Ira Berlin and Ronald 143-74, p. 144. For the resilience of slave Revolution, Charlottesville 1983, pP. British Caribbean and North American Slaves in an system during the war see Mullin, Crow and Tise, The Southern Experience, PP:, 235-67. Era of War and Revolution', in bondage in South Carolina than in any other state, Proportionately more slaves escaped but perhaps also because of its special pattern of partly because of heavy fighting culture of Charleston and by large rice plantations slaveholding, influenced by the urban work autonomy. (See Mullin, Pp. 236, 240-41.) on which slaves enjoyed considerable there were few outbreaks of collective slave rebellion, 9 However, even in South Carolina also Peter Wood, - "Taking Care of Business' in most of them at the close of the war. See and Tise, The Southern Experience, pp. 268-93. Revolutionary South Carolina', in Crow in the North, p. 169. 8. McManus, Black Bondage Brother, 429-32. 9. Bruns, Am I Not a Man and a pp. The Abolition of Slavery in the 10. Arthur Zilversmit, The First Emancipation: unsettled condition of Pennsylvania on the eve of North, Chicago 1967, pp. 124-32. The Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, p. 133, 184. Tise, The Southern Experience, pp. 268-93. Revolutionary South Carolina', in Crow in the North, p. 169. 8. McManus, Black Bondage Brother, 429-32. 9. Bruns, Am I Not a Man and a pp. The Abolition of Slavery in the 10. Arthur Zilversmit, The First Emancipation: unsettled condition of Pennsylvania on the eve of North, Chicago 1967, pp. 124-32. The Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, p. 133, 184. abolition is clear from Éric Foner, 139-67; Jackson Turner Main, The 11. Zilversmit, The First Emancipation, pp. 333-40. Connecticut and Rhode Sovereign States 1775-1783, New York 1973, crisis pp- of the 1780s, and acquired more Island were more deeply affected by the post-war New For radical politics in Rhode than New York or Jersey. New York 1974, PP. radical state governments, The American Revolution within America, Rhode Island, Island see Merril Jensen, nearly a tenth of the population of colonial the war either 82-3. Slaves had comprised had been freed in the course of though, as also in Connecticut, many because they had fought in the militia. because they were the property of Tories the Structure or of American Politics, New York 1970, 12. Donald Robinson, Black Slavery Bondage in in the North, P. 166. pP. 13. 24-8; Zilversmit, McManus, The First Emancipation, P. 166. the Society; his attitude to his personal 14. John Jay was one of the slave-owners remark, in made in 1798: 'I purchase slaves, and slaves is illustrated by the following when their faithful services shall have afforded a manumit them at proper ages, and Zilversmit, The First Emancipation, P: 167n. On reasonable retribution."' Quoted in the late 1780s see Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: artisanal support for Hamilton in American Working Class, 1788-1850, New York New York City and the Rise of the 1984, pp. 67, 87. Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South, in 15. Ira Berlin, Slaves Mathews, Slavery and Methodism: A Chapter Oxford 1974, pp. 79-107; Donald Princeton 1965, pp. 293-9. American Morality, Slaves 1780-1845, without Masters, P. 89. planters 16. Berlin, really mattered to them, in their own state, Virginian 86, 17. Where government of powers (see Sydnor, Gentlemen Freeholders, PPdid not tolerate a separation the United States and Britain the nominal sovereign, though 92-5). Of course in both restraints, did exercise some real power. James Madison's of the hobbled by oligarchic Paper furnished an extraordinarily lucid account that celebrated Tenth Federalist however, its account of the rival interests and reference views to purposes of the Constitution; apart manages to omit any direct must not be allowed to tear society See Jacob E. Cooke, ed., The Federalist, Cleveland by slaveholders, slaves or abolitionists. That fears for slavery did loom large is argued and New York 1965, pp. 56-65. and the United States Constitution, New York Staughton Lynd, Class Struggle, Slavery features of the Constitutional Convention 1967, PP: 159, 161-2, 201. Other conservative Revolution in America, pp. 167-220. are noted by Jensen, The American Structure of American Politics, PP. 131-58. Though the 18. Robinson, Slavery in the in 1783 the tax measure of which it was a part principle of the 'Federal ratio' was agreed failed to gain the necessary majority for implementation. 56-65. and the United States Constitution, New York Staughton Lynd, Class Struggle, Slavery features of the Constitutional Convention 1967, PP: 159, 161-2, 201. Other conservative Revolution in America, pp. 167-220. are noted by Jensen, The American Structure of American Politics, PP. 131-58. Though the 18. Robinson, Slavery in the in 1783 the tax measure of which it was a part principle of the 'Federal ratio' was agreed failed to gain the necessary majority for implementation. in 1830, is quoted by Lynd, Class Struggle, 19. Madison, recollecting these events 161. The point made by Madison explains Slavery and the United States Constitution, p. --- Page 140 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery why, as recent historians have noted, slavery questions were not openly and debated at the Convention. vigorously 20. Franklin's remark is quoted in Robinson, Slavery in the Structure of American Politics, P. 148. Robinson has a good account of the Constitutional Convention's deliberations relating to slavery, pp. 168-206. Opponents of the Constitution in the South argued that the very existence of a Federal government with powers to promote national defence and welfare might be turned at some future date against slaveholding (see, for example, Patrick Henry's warning quoted by Robert McColley, Slavery in Jeffersonian Virginia, Ithaca 1978, p. 169). In 1790 Franklin challenged the consensus that had no powers relating to slavery by presenting it with an abolitionist petition; Congress this provoked a bitter debate, until the issue was dropped when the Southerners made it clear that they would withdraw from the Union rather than admit Congressional over their 'species of property'. Likewise the amendments embodying a Bill jurisdiction of steered clear of slavery, concentrating instead on the rights of free persons and Rights of constituent states. the 21. Eugene H. Berwanger, The Frontier Against Slavery, Urbana 1967, 7-36; Robinson, Slavery in the Structure of American Politics, pp. 378-91. For the pp. slavery compromises of the Convention see Lynd, Class Struggle, Slavery and the United States Constitution, pp. 153-216. 22. Quoted in Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 170. Unlike some other slaveholders who paraded their anti-slavery sentiment at this P. time (such as Jefferson), Washington was at least to free his own slaves in his will and furnish them with the wherewithal to make a living as free people. 23. Miller, The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, New York p. 118. 1977, 24. Manuel Moreno Fraginals, El Ingenio, I, pp. 65-7. --- Page 141 --- IV British Abolitionism and the Backlash of the 1790s On those vast shady hills between America and Now barr'd out by the Atlantic Albion's shore, Because from their bright summits sea, call'd Atlantean hills, Here on their you may pass to the Golden world.. magic seats the thirteen For clouds from the Atlantic hover Angels sat perturb'd, o'er the solemn roof. Fiery the Angels rose, and as they rose Around their shores, indignant deep thunder roll'd And Boston's Angel cried aloud burning with the fires of Orc; He cried: 'Why trembles as they flew thro' the dark night. Why seeks he refuge from the honesty, frowns and like a murderer Must the generous tremble and leave his of his immortal station? That mock him? who commanded joy to the idle, to the pestilence, To keep the gen'rous from this? what God? what Angel? Are unrestrain'd experience till the ungenerous Till pity is become performers of the energies of nature; That men get rich by; and a the trade, and generosity a science What God is he writes laws of sandy desart is giv'n to the strong? What pitying Angel lusts for peace and clothes him in a tempest? What crawling villain tears and fans himself with sighs? In fat of lambs? no preaches abstinence and wraps himself more I follow, no more obedience pay!" America (1793), William Blake --- Page 142 --- ? what Angel? Are unrestrain'd experience till the ungenerous Till pity is become performers of the energies of nature; That men get rich by; and a the trade, and generosity a science What God is he writes laws of sandy desart is giv'n to the strong? What pitying Angel lusts for peace and clothes him in a tempest? What crawling villain tears and fans himself with sighs? In fat of lambs? no preaches abstinence and wraps himself more I follow, no more obedience pay!" America (1793), William Blake --- Page 142 --- --- Page 143 --- British Abolitionism in North America had been the cause of a few Organised anti-slavery of free people of colour and of a dedicated individuals, of a layer associations. To become a number of sedate and exclusive abolitionist a hefty subscription member of the New York Society required not and only seconders. In Britain but the endorsement of respectable proposers abolitionism was to be born. But in the 1780s a different species of it will be appropriate to sketch in before examining this phenomenon of the British body politic at the time. the delicate, 'post-operative' state America was a heavy blow to the The war and defeat in North were at first morale and credibility of Britain's rulers. Contemporaries markets and at the heavy exercised at the prospect of losing American of British capital expense of military operations. Yet the domestic momentum markets absorbed ever was such as to take these in its stride; while there was larger quantities of the new textiles and manufactures, funds. Once peace was made no dearth of subscribers to the national found that they could reconquer British manufacturers and merchants ease. The North American North American markets with surprising the forward surge of industry and war proved the merest hiccup in defeat at the hands of a patriot commerce. But political and military wound. The triumph of the rabble was an intimate and lasting Britons' inflated self-regard American Revolution took a heavy toll on democratic alternatives to to radical, and gave some encouragement first placed oligarchy and corruption. The parliamentary and his opposition leading minister, Lord responsibility for the débâcle on the King unpopular deal with North North, but then stitched up a disastrously coalition. The collapse allowing them a share of power, the Fox-North disenchantment with oligarchic of this coalition betokened widespread that fundamental reforms were politics. The ruling classes saw democracy was not to necessary if the contagion of revolutionary spread. itself influential proprietors from Yorkshire, During the war formed an association to press for reforms England's largest county, and the administrawhich would make Parliament more representative manufacturers and merchants had tion more economical. The Yorkshire The American suspension of found their trade hit by colonial resistance. dominant role in the traffic; the the slave trade had highlighted of Britain's the slave trade had been introduced by 1779 bill for the suppression the moderate and responsible Yorkshire a Yorkshire Member. While Hanoverian oligarchy to reform itself, the Association appealed to the Information, of which the Society for Promoting Constitutional member, began to canvass a wider abolitionist Granville Sharp was a Yet these opposition forces felt public with more radical proposals. with caution than had been obliged to advance their ideas greater --- Page 144 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of the 1760s. The empire faced displayed by the oppositionists felt that they should tread carefully. disintegration and even reformers areas of discussion, the While ministers sought to curtail the permitted and uncertain; in 1780 the temper of the populace was both unsteady week of rioting as anti-papist centre of London had been ravaged by a alleviate the disabilities of Irish mobs protested at modest proposals America to reflected most directly on the Catholics. obliged to advance their ideas greater --- Page 144 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of the 1760s. The empire faced displayed by the oppositionists felt that they should tread carefully. disintegration and even reformers areas of discussion, the While ministers sought to curtail the permitted and uncertain; in 1780 the temper of the populace was both unsteady week of rioting as anti-papist centre of London had been ravaged by a alleviate the disabilities of Irish mobs protested at modest proposals America to reflected most directly on the Catholics. The disaster in North the of official administration and on system structure of imperial the initiative to the King and sustained Lord patronage that had given buoyancy of the economy itself North in office. The underlying and for an administraencouraged the demand for fairer representation and manufacture; at the tion more attuned to the needs of commerce and cross-currents of the first same time the unexpected concomitants even some of its beneficiaries, capitalist 'modernisation' left many, feeling bemused, anxious and vulnerable." 1783 by William Pitt the The government formed in December reflected the oligarchy's Younger, a man of only twenty-three, Pitt inherited the lustre of his awareness of the need for a new broom. had demonstrated father's name and, in a short spell as Chancellor, Pitt presented himself as a in financial administration. some expertise reform. In the election of 1784 Pitt champion of economic and political Association. His friend William received the backing of the Yorkshire of Yorkshire, won a famous Wilberforce, Member for the West Riding connection in the county. victory over the candidate of the freeholders Whig and manufacturers gave Yorkshire's large electorate of Endorsement from the reformers popular prestige to its representative. parliamentary majority, enabled Pitt to stitch together a precarious franchises, City interests which included Members elected by popular place-holders looking for more effective and economical and government, Tories anxious to settle keen to keep their jobs, dissident Whigs accounts with Whig corruption. overhaul and rationalisation Pitt's government embarked on a major and system of financial of Britain's cumbersome tariff structure of Adam Smith: the administration. He had absorbed the teachings for free trade Anglo-French Trade Treaty of 1787 was a breakthrough boom. The device of a principles and fostered a welcome export the that the Fund' restored public credit and gave impression 'Sinking Debt was to be repaid. Though Pitt's parliamentary managers National of official patronage, some notorious skilfully deployed the resources the Prime Minister himself refused the sinecures were suppressed and had accepted. After lucrative emoluments which his predecessors proceedings consultations with Wilberforce Pitt supported impeachment and one of the East India Warren Hastings, Governor of Bengal against --- Page 145 --- British Abolitionism effective officials. In the new scheme of Company's richest and most important role and there was empire India had an extraordinarily by the greed or arrogance anxiety that this should not be compromised of individuals. administration were marred by a complete The successes of the Pitt of parliamentary reform. Pitt's failure to push through a single measure attain the necessary majorities. distinctly moderate proposals failed to most vested interests Even those measures which appeared to respect how far, and on within Parliament raised awkward issues concerning The very wealthy representation should be extended. what principles, influence. However, those of middling wealth were could buy political and Dissenters formally excluded, though only modestly represented taking the Anglican communion through the net by some slipped North American events had stimulated the expectaoccasionally. The who were largely excluded from tions of artisans and small producers attracted to the Nonconformist political life and many of whom were commercial growth boosted the Churches. The vigour of industrial and them to the roller coaster importance of such people but also exposed ride of the trade cycle. Pitt's reformist supporters just The blockage on reform disappointed The approach of the at the time when their expectations were of rising. 'revolution societies'. . The centenary of 1688 inspired the formation in the United States, and the holding of the Constitutional Convention ancien régime in France, stimulated onset of the last crisis of the principles. Britons could popular interest in political and representative the freest and most no longer be SO sure that they world. and them to the roller coaster importance of such people but also exposed ride of the trade cycle. Pitt's reformist supporters just The blockage on reform disappointed The approach of the at the time when their expectations were of rising. 'revolution societies'. . The centenary of 1688 inspired the formation in the United States, and the holding of the Constitutional Convention ancien régime in France, stimulated onset of the last crisis of the principles. Britons could popular interest in political and representative the freest and most no longer be SO sure that they world. possessed But if foreign events whetted representative government in the alarmed many members of for political reform they the popular appetite who believed that the onset of heavy weather was the ruling oligarchy, with the rigging of illegitimate monarchy". the worst time to tamper the civic disabilities of Nonconformists Pitt's failure to alleviate over confessional privileges and caused special bitterness; controversy of political overtones in a country where proscriptions carried a freight vital phase of the bourgeois revolution Puritans had carried through a them. In the 1784 election many of but had seen its fruits taken from themselves in favour of religious reform, Pitt's supporters had declared that his administration would immediately but the Prime Minister knew with the privileges of the Church of fall if he sought to interfere the House of Lords, with its bench of England; the King and court, and borough Members of Parliament Bishops, and the mass of county an essential the demands of the Nonconformists as undermining to saw order. Thus Nonconformists were obliged pay bulwark of the ruling while Nonconformist ministers were tithes to the established Church; --- Page 146 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery exempted from such payments, any more have offered a fiscal inducement general concession would question of how otherwise the to Nonconformity and raised the The Nonconformist Churches established Church was to be financed. of independent opinion. The were distrusted because they were centres ity were designed to insulate disqualifications and imposed on Nonconformprevented from acting as legal discourage it; Dissenters were as barred from office-holding. trustees, In the guardians and executors as well had suspended particular course of the century the Whigs while never granting penalties and prohibitions imposed on Dissent been positive civic equality. Thus permitted to organise their own schools Nonconformists had had far more enlightened curricula and "academies'; the latter included the study of the new trends than Oxford or Cambridge, and philosophy. Blackstone in political economy and moral 'criminal' pointed out that technically even if Parliament had generously Nonconformity was consequent penalties in view of the serious agreed to suspend any Dissenting convictions. Lord Mansfield and sober' nature of had ruled in Nonconformity was no crime, but he left in 1767 that disabilities imposed on its adherents. place most of the practical ist demand for civic From the 1760s the Nonconformequality was couched less in theological terms and more in terms of particularistic and radical spokesmen of the general human rights. The more Nonconformist Priestley and Richard Price, insisted that cause, men like Joseph 'all modes of thinking' and that there should be toleration for itself of the services of a free constitution should not his any man of ability and 'deprive religious opinions any more than on integrity on account of hair',2 The assertion of religious liberties account of the colour of his Nonconformist in the United States tion resentment at the limited but heightened to which they were subject. Most real forms of discriminasocial equality and religious had Nonconformists realised that skill to avoid arousing the furies liberty to be pursued with caution and general 'human rights' was deemed of popular prejudice. The appeal to harping on the special interests of by many to be more promising than Anti-slavery became a popular movement Nonconformity. tion just at the time when radicals and with a national organisadisappointed with the Pitt administration. Nonconformists were becoming ary reform was defeated in 1785 and Pitt's motion for parliamentthe Test Act, opposed by Pitt in the a motion repealing provisions of 1787, was defeated. that skill to avoid arousing the furies liberty to be pursued with caution and general 'human rights' was deemed of popular prejudice. The appeal to harping on the special interests of by many to be more promising than Anti-slavery became a popular movement Nonconformity. tion just at the time when radicals and with a national organisadisappointed with the Pitt administration. Nonconformists were becoming ary reform was defeated in 1785 and Pitt's motion for parliamentthe Test Act, opposed by Pitt in the a motion repealing provisions of 1787, was defeated. Pitt defended the parliamentary debate of March expediency rather than Test Act on the grounds of forward to further principle and supporters of repeal looked their case. attempts to persuade Parliament of the justice of A Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was set up in --- Page 147 --- British Abolitionism Granville Sharp and others with leanings April 1787 by the Quakers, Christianity. Sharp urged that the towards social reform and evangelical but the other should declare itself for slave emancipation, the Society committee believed that suppression of members of the founding first step. The Quakers had already slave traffic was an adequate against the slave traffic in 1783; the presented a petition to Parliament Information found it appropriate Society for Promoting Constitutional Granville Sharp, the Society's first Chairman, to support this petition. the scandal of the slave ship Zong; in order to had recently publicised of this ship had thrown overboard sick collect insurance the master deaths. Thus the Society was slaves rather than risk uncompensated some public debate on the launched at a time when there was already for Sufferings had set up an slave trade." The London Quaker Meeting 1783; it was this committee which Abolition Committee of its own in Abolition Society four years later, drew together the founders of the supplying nine out of its twelve members. themselves debarred from politics, The Quaker abolitionists, though well-connected to begin the task of were sufficiently wealthy and circles. The exclusion of making converts to abolition within ruling effect of Quaker from political life, and the character-forming Quakers doubt made its own contribution to their extraordinary disciplines, no century such leading Quaker business success. By the late eighteenth Gurneys and Pembertons families as the Darbys, Barclays, Lloyds, combined prosperity as bankers, formed a sort of bourgeois elite. They for civic and the with concern regeneration merchants or manufacturers to the new economic order. spread of social institutions appropriate law reform, and the promotion of They worked for prison reform, poor and Sunday schools. The campaign libraries, hospitals, Bible societies place in Quaker concerns. Many against the slave trade had a special involvement in the triangular Quakers had enriched themselves through assuaged their sense of guilt and trades. In rejecting the slave trade they faculties which they feared would combated the dulling of the moral While much Quaker social result from devotion to business activity. for Sufferings - to which work was undertaken by women, the Meeting men could emulate the women did not belong - showed that Quaker As abolitionists and social charity and good works of their womenfolk. creation of a new social framework reformers Quakers stood for the to the needs of the which would adapt commerce and accumulation tendencies at order. identified easily with the cosmopolitan human They their international contacts at the work in the Atlantic world and put did not want to became office service of abolitionism. The Quakers violated their pacifism and ban on oathholders - to do SO would have offer moral leadership and to use their taking - but they did wish to --- Page 148 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery if this showed the absurdity of wealth and influence in godly ways; discrimination against them SO much the better. the needs of the which would adapt commerce and accumulation tendencies at order. identified easily with the cosmopolitan human They their international contacts at the work in the Atlantic world and put did not want to became office service of abolitionism. The Quakers violated their pacifism and ban on oathholders - to do SO would have offer moral leadership and to use their taking - but they did wish to --- Page 148 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery if this showed the absurdity of wealth and influence in godly ways; discrimination against them SO much the better. the cause who helped The Abolition Society won two new recruits to Thomas Clarkson, a its political work and influence: to transform and William Wilberforce, the West Riding recent Cambridge graduate, Minister. Granville Sharp, Clarkson MP and confidante of the Prime of the Church of England; but they and Wilberforce were all members failed to match the all also believed that their Church had lamentably That the Anglican Society for piety and good works of many Dissenters. itself owned slaves was particularly the Propagation of the Gospel repeal of the to them. While Clarkson and Sharp supported mortifying spoke against it in Parliament. Test Act Wilberforce of existence the society directed most of its In its first year or SO of the government and preparing attention to lobbying members Thereafter in the years 1788-92 arguments that could inform policy. of British political life and abolitionism suddenly moved to the centre This was due the for a novel type of reform movement. set pattern in the methods of the society and partly to the parallel partly to changes forces in Manchester and other northern towns. initiative of anti-slavery as a full-time organiser and Thomas Clarkson was engaged to the abolitionist cause propagandist for the society. Clarkson brought and agitation. The dedicated in research, organisation be a professionalism deplored, was still believed to an slave trade, though widely wealth and strength. The slave-trading source of national circle of important claimed that it was a 'nursery of seamen'. - The small interests this belief; one of them, John abolitionists were the first to question while another, Sir Newton, had formerly been a slave-trading captain, of the Navy. Clarkson Christopher Middleton, was Comptroller of the slave-traders engaged in detailed investigation of the operations a public campaign. in visits to Bristol and Liverpool prior to launching vessels enabled him to Scrutiny of the manifests of the slave-trading Africans suffered appallingly show that both British seamen and captive British seamen lost their life high mortality rates. He showed that branches more of British commerce put on the slave ships than in all other less valuable and less profitable together, and that the slave trade was In the first fifteen months of its than had generally been supposed. 15,000 copies existence the society spent more than £1,000 and producing 1,500 copies of Anthony of Clarkson's pamphlet on the slave Guinea." trade 4 But the society's impact was Benezet's Historical Account of of a committee in Manchester to be transformed by the appearance and which caused to be published a which attracted widespread support statement in a string of provincial papers. summary Clarkson had received a warm welcome On a visit to Manchester --- Page 149 --- British Abolitionism leaders of the Society for Constitutional Information, from the local manhood suffrage. Together with other forces which stood for universal had been formed and by November 1787 an abolitionist committee gathered for a petition to be submitted to over 10,000 signatures be gauged from the fact that Parliament. The breadth of support half may of the adult males living in the the petition had been signed by over commercial and Manchester stood at the centre of a burgeoning it city. received a warm welcome On a visit to Manchester --- Page 149 --- British Abolitionism leaders of the Society for Constitutional Information, from the local manhood suffrage. Together with other forces which stood for universal had been formed and by November 1787 an abolitionist committee gathered for a petition to be submitted to over 10,000 signatures be gauged from the fact that Parliament. The breadth of support half may of the adult males living in the the petition had been signed by over commercial and Manchester stood at the centre of a burgeoning it city. had doubled in fifteen years, yet industrial network; its population The representative or municipal corporation. had no parliamentary of commercial petitions in the midtown had sponsored a number petition it made a bid to bring together 1780s, but with the anti-slavery formal of political representaother forces excluded from the system despite advice from the tion. The public petition had been drawn and up that resources should be London Society that this might be unwise Parliament. Manchester's concentrated on individual lobbying of to be followed were and advertisements calling for its example and other petition Evening Post, Lloyd's Evening Post, placed in the General Without losing its air of leading national and provincial newspapers. cause. Local committees were respectability abolition became a popular Worcester, Sheffield, formed in such towns as Birmingham, York, and Exeter; large meetings Leeds, Norwich, Falmouth, Nottingham Edinburgh formed a held and petitions displayed in public places. were was limited in 1788. A small committee but Scottish participation in though general hostility abolitionist circle developed even Liverpool, obliged its members to be discreet. in the slaving port African in chains bearing the The anti-slavery emblem 1 a kneeling became a familiar sight on motto 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother? Wedgewood, who marketed plates, broaches and pendants; Josiah device. cups, with his customary flair, designed the anti-slavery these items and religious reform were prominent in the Supporters of both political Wyville and other leading members of ranks of the society. Christopher the cause. Nonconformists of every the Yorkshire Association endorsed in the provincial societies; the denomination were well represented men who had been members of the local committees included many the Scottish universities. educated at the Dissenting Academies or lawyers, clerks and Manufacturers, tradesmen, doctors, of clergymen, these local committees. Often artisans constituted the membership Abolition Society and local philosophical there was a link between the and literary societies. the country to spread the word and to Clarkson travelled throughout to Parliament. So far as ruling-class co-ordinate a campaign of petitions less threatening than other opinion was concerned abolition was such as that of the petition, campaigns for reform. Some of its tactics, --- Page 150 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery PAH ANL - - - - - The Anti-Slavery device derived from time-honoured redress of rights of the subject, available for grievances or the defence of the the lobby. The loyal petition did not interests of a commercial indeed, to become thoroughly question ruling institutions and was, required extensive parliamentary in its orientation. But it the usual pattern in extra-parliamentary that the petitions organisation and departed from general inhabitants of the were presented in the name of the trade, guild or community, not from some specific corporation as was more normally the interest, campaigning also spoke directly to case. Abolitionist echoed both an evangelical popular sentiment in a way that Clarkson meeting and patriot was only one of a number of politics. interests of a commercial indeed, to become thoroughly question ruling institutions and was, required extensive parliamentary in its orientation. But it the usual pattern in extra-parliamentary that the petitions organisation and departed from general inhabitants of the were presented in the name of the trade, guild or community, not from some specific corporation as was more normally the interest, campaigning also spoke directly to case. Abolitionist echoed both an evangelical popular sentiment in a way that Clarkson meeting and patriot was only one of a number of politics. slaves and former slave-traders would itinerant speakers. Former Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus testify at abolitionist gatherings. slaves who had both suffered Vassa) the and Ottobah Cugoano, former horrors with the authority of middle passage, could relate its been raised in North America experience. it While the African voice had on public platforms. was now accorded an honoured trade in 1787, while Cugoano published a pamphlet against the place slave Equiano's Life, an abolitionist classic. 6 At abolition published in 1789, was to become captain turned preacher, also insisted meetings John Newton, the former effect of the slave traffic on the brutalising and Abolitionist on the white men who took corrupting agitation made a direct part in it. appeal to the conscience and to a --- Page 151 --- British Abolitionism beyond caste distinctions. The African was sense of common humanity terms, as a man on his knees; but portrayed, in what seem patronising outcasts and supplicants, abolitionists also felt themselves with many disabilities; they identified labouring under civic or religious of the commerce in humanity and the Equiano's impressive indictment The combination of a moral and a political degradation of enslavement. enabled it to bridge the gap that appeal in the abolitionist campaign constituencies and reform politicians. was opening between reform abolition were Altogether one hundred and two petitions supporting presented to Parliament during its 1788 session. interest in the slave trade Political leaders responded swiftly to public head off the agitation Sir question. In what was possibly an attempt to bill to regulate the slave William Dolben introduced a parliamentary ratios for the slaving ships; this trade, establishing maximum loading Dolben had been one of the leading became law in the 1788 session. the session. The Prime of repealing the Test Act in previous could be opponents himself expressed the hope that an end to the trade Minister was approached to explore the devised; the French government ban. No doubt Pitt was as affected possibility of a joint Anglo-French conditions on the slave-trading vessels. But as many others by reports of easier one for him to take up than political the issue was certainly a far as distinct from the planters, had reform. The slave-traders, or religious West Indian planters did not favour few parliamentary representatives. sentiment animating the abolition, since they saw anti-slavery British slave trade of the mid-1780s campaign. On the other hand, the of slaves to the French islands and was supplying large numbers of the British planters. A joint undercutting the competitive position have hit the French planters much Anglo-French ban would certainly considerations did not require Pitt to harder than the British. Such cautious, they did endorse abolition but, SO long as he was sufficiently statesman. that he could do SO while still appearing a responsible mean or restrain the slave trade in turn Parliamentary willingness to regulate live question and helped to lend credibility to abolition as a political Radicals and representations. thereby to stimulate extra-parliamentary difficulty in expressing a heart-felt detestation Nonconformists had no West Indian interests were close to the of slave trading; they knew that delighted to discover that antiheart of 'Old Corruption' and they were with a vigour that would have slavery agitation could be undertaken and high-minded cause. statesman. that he could do SO while still appearing a responsible mean or restrain the slave trade in turn Parliamentary willingness to regulate live question and helped to lend credibility to abolition as a political Radicals and representations. thereby to stimulate extra-parliamentary difficulty in expressing a heart-felt detestation Nonconformists had no West Indian interests were close to the of slave trading; they knew that delighted to discover that antiheart of 'Old Corruption' and they were with a vigour that would have slavery agitation could be undertaken and high-minded cause. been impossible in a less disinterested with political reform put Pitt's failure to make any headway situation. In the early months of Wilberforce in a particularly Parliament difficult and underwent a conversion to 1787 he withdrew from his seat. Wilberforce was evangelical Christianity, though not resigning --- Page 152 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of the Abolition Society during its first not involved in the activities devote himself to the 'reformation year. During this time he decided to which would act as of public manners' by means of a new association the The energies of the religion and morals of people'. the 'guardian by the parliamentary strength of Old which had been frustrated into an overhaul of the nation's Corruption were to be redirected Wilberforce to issue a moral life. The King was prevailed upon by on June 1st 1787. Proclamation against Vice and Immorality Royal furnished the Charter for a Proclamation Society This Proclamation subjects were invited to join. One of which god-fearing and law-abiding Wilberforce's biographers writes of this society: Wilberforce took a vigorous part for many years, were Its activities, in which and indecent publications, but it busied mostly directed against blasphemous a stricter observance of Sunday among itself also with attempts to enforce rustic festivities as 'wakes', and SO the poor, to suppress such indecorous taken by the better known Society for the forth. In 1802 its place was if as the butt of Sydney Smith's Suppression of Vice - better known only he called it, 'supported by mordant humour. 'A corporation of informers', not the vices of the rich but the large contributions' and bent on suppressing their life 'to its regular standard of pleasures of the poor, on reducing houses of St James remain untouched'. decorous gloom', while 'the gambling hit the Proclamation Society as surely These were well aimed shafts and they that Wilberforce's fine enthusiasm as its successor. It was fortunate, surely, field.7 was soon to find a wider and worthier Wilberforce's evangelical conversion, urged him Pitt, disconcerted by that he might take up the cause not to abandon politics and suggested been by Clarkson to abolition. Wilberforce had already approached of Wilberforce began by going take an interest in the slave trade question. further information from Clarkson's researches and obtaining the over became convinced that he should lend official quarters. He though not, to begin with, as a formal Abolition Society his support, to local abolition member. While Clarkson toured the country the speaking work of preparing a Wilberforce threw himself into societies out an economic as well as moral parliamentary bill and to making Wilberforce's bill was eventually argument against the slave traffic. public attention. brought before the House in 1789, arousing great from the three Despite powerful advocacy by Wilberforce, and support and Pitt - and orators - Fox, Burke most renowned parliamentary of testimony from former participants, despite an impressive barrage obtained postponement of a the opponents of abolition successfully to hear more evidence. until Parliament had had the opportunity vote tactic had the disadvantage that the evidence This effective delaying --- Page 153 --- British Abolitionism the House by the Abolition Society and others diligently presented to received considerable publicity. attention. brought before the House in 1789, arousing great from the three Despite powerful advocacy by Wilberforce, and support and Pitt - and orators - Fox, Burke most renowned parliamentary of testimony from former participants, despite an impressive barrage obtained postponement of a the opponents of abolition successfully to hear more evidence. until Parliament had had the opportunity vote tactic had the disadvantage that the evidence This effective delaying --- Page 153 --- British Abolitionism the House by the Abolition Society and others diligently presented to received considerable publicity. election consideration of the bill to Partly because of an intervening until the early months of 1791. abolish the slave trade was not resumed the House of Commons by 163 Following a two-day debate it failed in in favour of abolition he votes to 88. Though Pitt spoke once again of his colleagues and refused to make it a government measure; many the bill. Dundas was, notably Henry Dundas, voted against and supporters, Secretary to the Pitt administration controlled in effect, patronage MPs. An important part of Dundas's job was all but one of the Scottish programme with influential for the government's to negotiate support lobbies. Dundas supervised Indian affairs parliamentary and imperial of British imperial interests towards and championed the reorientation reason to ditch wealthy West Asia; but he did not see this as a good to the sustenance of the who could contribute Indian proprietors member of Pitt's Cabinet was Lord administration. Another key who was the administration's Hawkesbury, later the Earl of Liverpool, and himself a West Indian chief expert on overseas commerce of 1790 there were two or three dozen proprietor. In the Parliament They were advised by the Society Members with West Indian interests. the bill on the of West Indian Planters and Merchants to oppose British gesture principle and because a unilateral grounds of general the French The West would simply give a free run to competition. to Parliament was effective in rallying opposition Indian group in because of its size as because of its ability to abolition not SO much it would be wrong for them to sacrifice persuade other MPs that West Indian estates. One MP national advantage, and cast a doubt on for Abolition. But the minor declared: "The leaders, it is true, are this day in carrying the case orators, the pygmies, will, I trust, succeed West Indians is at stake; and though against them. The property of the they should not be SO be with their own property, men may generous of others.' ,8 with the property House of Lords the pro-slave-trade lobby also At court and in the and the Duke of Clarence - the found powerful champions. The King the slave trade and made members future William IV - both defended with their views. The King saw of both Houses of Parliament familiar the Duke to national and imperial strength; the slave trade as essential in the Caribbean and of Clarence had served as a naval commander there. At a time when there was testified to the humanity of the planters that abolition of clamour for reform in every field it appeared order's popular be seen as a sign of the established the slave trade might In view of the forces ranged against weakness rather than strength. might well fall if he sought abolition Pitt knew that his administration --- Page 154 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery measure. On the other hand, by expressing his to make it a government traffic he was able to salvage something personal opposition to the slave held by reform opinion." 9 of the esteem in which he had been of 1789 and the defeat of 1791 in The parliamentary procrastination. for abolition outside Parliament. the campaign tied no way dampened defeat energies which had been Indeed, following the parliamentary evidence were released for up in the laborious business of preparing Wilberforce announced that he would agitation in the country at large. Colonial Slavery measure. On the other hand, by expressing his to make it a government traffic he was able to salvage something personal opposition to the slave held by reform opinion." 9 of the esteem in which he had been of 1789 and the defeat of 1791 in The parliamentary procrastination. for abolition outside Parliament. the campaign tied no way dampened defeat energies which had been Indeed, following the parliamentary evidence were released for up in the laborious business of preparing Wilberforce announced that he would agitation in the country at large. of the French Revolution was present another bill in 1792. The course reform movement; indeed all not yet such as to divide the British belief that a new era reform currents drew strength from the widespread became the reform had dawned. For a time abolition the of progress In the early 1780s measure that commanded most support. reform had presented 50 association movement for constitutional abolitionist petitions of 1788 were petititions to Parliament. The 102 and 187 from exceeded by the 519 of 1792: 312 from England of greatly several hundreds or thousands signatures. Scotland, each bearing of 75,000, sent a petition to Parliament Manchester, with a population 1791. Throughout Britain as a whole signed by over 20,000 people in rose from 60,000the number of signatories to abolitionist petitions 1792. Abolitionists were in 100,000 in 1788 to 380,000-400,000 nation, though still observing the boundaries of the political widening adult males were invited to sign. Pro-slavery certain inhibitions: only of supposing that the views on advocates poured scorn on the absurdity Cornish miners' had commercial question of a group of 'enlightened of a of a similar number of burghers of the City the same weight as that in 1789 and 1791 had The debates on abolition London. parliamentary in the stony façade of the ruling appeared to open up a breach of all descriptions sought to press the oligarchy; radicals and reformers Even the most advantage and widen the space for popular claim agitation. that meetings held in nervous Justice of the Peace could scarcely Minister was seditious or of a cause endorsed by the Prime support that inevitably attended parliamentary treasonable. The publicity and focus the disparate had a tendency to centralise reform proceedings favourable to radical or politics. concerns and constituencies Committee to adhere strictly to Wilberforce urged the Abolition worried when Clarkson expressed constitutional channels. He was when for the French Revolution and was even concerned enthusiasm advocated a consumer boycott of West some local abolition societies the that this might, if and other slave produce, on grounds Indian sugar out of Parliament's hands. Wilberforce's successful, take matters movement's achievement was to have biographer comments that the opinion outside the 'how much could be done to mobilize public shown --- Page 155 --- British Abolitionism but within the liberties of the constitution"." walls of parliament doubled within a decade to The Methodists, whose membership identified strongly with abolition reach over 77,000 in the mid-1790s, reform questions. Yorkshire while abstaining from involvement in other about a quarter of all its was a stronghold of Methodism, containing ranks included large numbers of British members. The Methodist SO far as the female membership artisans, miners, small masters and, before Wesley's death in domestics. In the last years was concerned, Wilberforce became firm friends; Wesley supported 1791 he and and requested him to use his influence with Wilberforce's moral crusade preachers were not impeded by local Pitt to make sure that Methodist Justices. 11 conjuncture became steadily more In the years 1791-2 the international difficult objections with which favourable to abolition. included large numbers of British members. The Methodist SO far as the female membership artisans, miners, small masters and, before Wesley's death in domestics. In the last years was concerned, Wilberforce became firm friends; Wesley supported 1791 he and and requested him to use his influence with Wilberforce's moral crusade preachers were not impeded by local Pitt to make sure that Methodist Justices. 11 conjuncture became steadily more In the years 1791-2 the international difficult objections with which favourable to abolition. One of the most unilateral British action would abolitionists had to contend was that colonial rivals, especially France. simply strengthen the hand of Britain's more of the Revolution made France appear preoccupied The progress affairs and more willing to consider anti-slavery with internal domestic preoccupations and planter measures. For nearly two years National Assembly from debating issues interests prevented the French 1791 supporters of the connected with colonial slavery. But in May Noirs of the Abolition Society - the Amis des French equivalent through a measure favourable to eventually succeeded in of pressing 1792 Brissot de Warville, a leading supporter mulatto rights; by May French These developments of the Amis, was leader of the government. would be reciprocated by the seemed to promise that any British action of the slave insurrection in St French authorities. The outbreak the view that Britain Domingue in August 1791 could only strengthen and that it was in the had little to fear from French colonial competition not to further enlarge the best interests of both colonial powers held on the small islands of the numbers of raw and hostile captives Caribbean.' 12 states of North America had already By 1792 the main seafaring in the slave trade. In March banned their citizens from participating announced that the slave trade to 1792 the royal Danish government be ended within ten years. The Dutch trade the Danish islands would while Portugal represented had already dwindled to small proportions Britain. the least of all to no threat to larger powers, itself reflected the rise of The cautious decree in Denmark by some planter interests. abolitionism elsewhere and its endorsement anxious to avoid The absolutist government in Copenhagen clash was with other powers. The revolutionary turmoil and any maritime --- Page 156 --- The Overtbrow of Colonial Slavery was himself the owner of large First Minister, Ernst Schimmelman, shareholder in the slave estates in the Danish islands and a prominent believed that the Danish Danish slave-trading company. Schimmelman nor necessary, nor morally justifiable; slave trade was neither profitable, when addressing official he would cite the first two considerations with his evangelically inclined bodies, the latter when communicating Danish colonial sister. Schimmelman set up a commission to investigate confirmed that the slavery and the Danish slave trade. This commission that the slave population of trade made losses and detected a possibility itself without new slave imports. It the Danish islands could reproduce of the Schimmelman estates were was pointed out that the slave crews due to good treatment. The themselves naturally close to reproducing also pointed to the high mortality among seamen Danish Commission In view of such findings the commission who sailed in the slaving ships. trade be ended within ten years, the recommended that the Danish slave balanced slave crews. In accepting interval to be used to secure properly hoped to retain control the commission's report the Danish government more secure basis; as it and Danish colonial slavery on a of events place Danish islands long survived the decree against turned out slavery in the the action of the Danish governthe slave trade. However cautious, of the British Parliament, announced shortly before the opening 13 ment, to the abolitionist cause. was encouraging abolition in April 1792 reflected the pressure The Commons votes on of opinion on the subject. The exerted on MPs by the impressive growth speeches from debate on the bill was marked by powerful for free two-day consonant with his support Wilberforce and Pitt - the latter, relations between states would trade, looked forward to the day when Africa redeemed by means of be governed by law and morality, and to be going badly for peaceful commerce. The debate appeared that the word defenders of the trade. Towards its end Dundas proposed was carried "gradually' be inserted in the abolition bill; this Wilberforce amendment and Pitt. The exerted on MPs by the impressive growth speeches from debate on the bill was marked by powerful for free two-day consonant with his support Wilberforce and Pitt - the latter, relations between states would trade, looked forward to the day when Africa redeemed by means of be governed by law and morality, and to be going badly for peaceful commerce. The debate appeared that the word defenders of the trade. Towards its end Dundas proposed was carried "gradually' be inserted in the abolition bill; this Wilberforce amendment and Pitt. The from by 193 votes to 125, against opposition abolition, was then passed by 230 amended bill, providing for gradual voted by 151 votes votes to 85. In a subsequent session the Commons this was to be the only slave that the trade should end by 1796; for to 132 found himself in a minority. When the bill trade vote where Dundas the Lords it met fierce opposition; but gradual abolition reached the Lords insisted that all the evidence instead of simply voting it down in their own chamber. The given to the Commons should be repeated thus for at least a year. whole question was postponed movement went into in 1792 the abolitionist After its near-triumph France in 1793 and the onset of decline. Britain's declaration of war on --- Page 157 --- British Abolitionism the Jacobin phase of the Revolution divided radicalising many democrats but abolitionist ranks, further mobilisation which drew provoking a Wilberforce himself showed on support from every counser-revolationary level of rise of distaste for the revolution society. Robespierre and was, indeed, to become long before the Jacobin; he was, however, not enthusiastic a ferocious antiWilberforce conceded that for war with France. connection between abolition ruling-class and radical opinion had reason to see a true,' he wrote,'and perfectly republicanism: It is certainly to Abolition; and it is no less natural, true and that these Jacobins are all friendly injury of our cause. 15 natural that this operates to the The London Corresponding Society and others in January 1792. The was founded by Hardy, Paine committees was thus swiftly taken precedent set by local abolitionist people. Equiano, a friend of up, sometimes by the very same abolitionist Hardy's, used contacts he had speaking tours to spread the work of made on Society in the North of England. Thomas the Corresponding Rights of Man 'are not confined to this Hardy declared that the the whole human small island but are extended The British race, black or white, high or low, rich or to 16 Jacobins often invoked poor'. attack on the British anti-slavery themes as part of their meeting in Sheffield in April government 1794 and monarchy. A large radical for emancipation of the slaves in the passed West unanimously a motion calling democrats and 'rational Dissenters' Indies. However, the radical tion of a new political system would be tended to argue that the introducbe effected and that necessary before abolition could overthrown. The slavery, not simply the slave trade, could then be Quakers and the more concerned with abolition than Methodists, in contrast, were far positively hostile to reform, any other issue; most became seceded from the main though in 1797 some radical Methodists The abolitionist connection. tions produced by the movement Revolution could not rise above the harsh in the latter half of 1792 in France. Events across the polarisa- Channel circles and steadily prompted increasing alarm in reformers and opened a breach within the ranks of ruling-class democrats: these months witnessed the formation radicals, counter-revolutionary coalition led by the Duke of of a sacking of the Tuileries, the fall of Brunswick, the the abolition of the Verdun, the September that France monarchy, the trial of Louis XVI. connection. tions produced by the movement Revolution could not rise above the harsh in the latter half of 1792 in France. Events across the polarisa- Channel circles and steadily prompted increasing alarm in reformers and opened a breach within the ranks of ruling-class democrats: these months witnessed the formation radicals, counter-revolutionary coalition led by the Duke of of a sacking of the Tuileries, the fall of Brunswick, the the abolition of the Verdun, the September that France monarchy, the trial of Louis XVI. It massacres, was not moving towards a became clear model. The famous polemical limited monarchy on the British made it seem that a choice had exchanges between Burke and Paine republic and an oligarchic to be made between a democratic 'the rights of man'. While radical monarchy, the 'rights of Englishmen' and Nonconformists became semi-Jacobin --- Page 158 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery republicans, moderate reformists, senters, rallied to the status including the main body of Disassailed those who quo. Already in April 1792 Burke had proposed reform of the Test Act gateway to 'conspirators' who would 'seize the as opening the the magazines it contains, murder the Tower of London and seize upon the King's person, drive governor and mayor of London, your gallery, and out the House of Lords, these hysterical thence, as from an high tribunal dictate to occupy words Burke had achieved the you'. With the moral panic which now virtual representation of commitment to abolition also gripped the Hanoverian order. Burke's 'the cause of humanity would be suffered and by 1792 he was of the trade and servitude, far more benefited by the continuance declaring, destruction of both or either'. regulated 17 and reformed, than by the total Those identified as Jacobins or 'Church and King' mobs; Priestley's Republicans became the target for down and his laboratory house in Birmingham was burnt America. The key demands smashed of the - before long he emigrated to Parliamentary reform, abolition of the reformers - repeal of the Test Act, mass of the populace; the slave trade offered little to the republic, manhood suffrage, programme of the democratic radicals - a more generous poor relief, the public end of education, all progressive taxation, more seriously by those who would lose types of slavery - was taken might gain. In the parliamentary from it than by those who defend the reform arena only the Foxites continued to the Scheldt and programme. The French Republic's to execute Louis XVI led Pitt decision to open in February 1793. Pitt took this to support war against it already highly successful step reluctantly since it threatened his belligerent consensus of commercial policy, but the aroused and fighting France Hanoverian ruling-class opinion gave him no choice. ÎIn taneously exorcise the Britain could, it was believed, simulmercial and imperial spectre of Jacobinism and make major gains at French expense. A compatriotic support could be guaranteed degree of popular and Britain's traditional for the return bout against antagonist. The domestic was stern repression of every type of malcontent correlative of this policy only at open Republicans, or at home. This hit not Dissenting ministers who instigators of strike action, but also at a Unitarian minister continued to uphold the reform Baptist minister was sentenced to seven years' programme: to four years' deportation, a fourteen years' transportation imprisonment and a Scottish advocate to the outbreak of before the end of 1793. war, the main bodies of However, with haste to declare: "That we hold and ever Dissenting ministers made and veneration that excellent have held in the highest form of respect Commons which hath obtained from government by King, Lords and time immemorial in this country --- Page 159 --- British Abolitionism attached to his present Majesty . - That we That we are firmly tending to subvert this our excellent abhor all seditious practices 18 The Coercion Acts of 1795 Constitution : . . and SO on and SO forth. of However, with haste to declare: "That we hold and ever Dissenting ministers made and veneration that excellent have held in the highest form of respect Commons which hath obtained from government by King, Lords and time immemorial in this country --- Page 159 --- British Abolitionism attached to his present Majesty . - That we That we are firmly tending to subvert this our excellent abhor all seditious practices 18 The Coercion Acts of 1795 Constitution : . . and SO on and SO forth. political wide powers to stamp out unauthorised gave the government Wilberforce played a crucial role in reassuring meetings or publications. that such drastic measures were necessary. He the freemen of Yorkshire that the right of petition was also interceded with Pitt to ensure invasion loomed there was a safeguarded. As the threat of French following his illness in patriotic rallying to illegitimate monarchy'; liberties or 1788 the King was no longer seen as a menace to and popular honourable man government but rather as a decent constitutional misfortune. 19 Pitt had not produced political battling with private evident distaste for personal corruption. reform but he had an later Wilberforce wrote:'I Looking back with hindsight many years which lasted SO many that the war with France, am myself persuaded of blood and treasure, would years and occasioned such an expense influence with Mr Pitt and never have taken place but for Mr Dundas's and at a be able with ease promptitude, his persuasion that we should take the French West Indian small expense of money and men, to Indian had the Islands. ,20 It is difficult to believe that West acquisitions issues were at Wilberforce here accords them since such large Indian primacy itself. But there can be no doubt that the West stake in Europe for the British Cabinet. Dundas and theatre was a major preoccupation that priority must be given to Hawkesbury persuaded their colleagues For nearly two years of large forces to the Caribbean. the dispatch had pleaded with the London representatives of the French planters affliction of republicanism, to save them from the triple French government Giving succour to the planters slave revolt and the exclusif. monarchists, suppress would, it was hoped, encourage constitutional fields for investment and trading. slave insurrection, and open up new the British proceeded to occupy In the course of 1793 and 1794 and most of the west coast of Martinique, Guadeloupe, St Lucia saviours by most French The British were greeted as St Domingue. stiff resistance from the beleagured planters, though they met cause with the forces who increasingly made common of republican Convention proclaimed the end slavery insurgent slaves. The Jacobin in all French colonies. albeit with misgivings, and remained Wilberforce supported the war, It seem that his terms with Pitt and his Cabinet. might on intimate discrepant with British war abolitionist convictions were hopelessly no contradiction view there was probably aims. Yet in Wilberforce's slave trade and his willingness to go along between his desire to end the roll back servile revolt and with the government's attempt to --- Page 160 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Indies. He had never supported slave republicanism in the West for the expropriation of slaveresistance or rebellion, or any plans He seems to have and revolutionaries. owners. He loathed regicides Crown and Parliament would be persuaded himself that the British and rivalry in brought to accept abolition if French power more easily there was, in fact, substance in this view. the West Indies were broken; of evidence the Lords had killed the After the protracted hearing bill of 1792. Even though Wilberforce did parliamentary abolition bill before the 1794 think it to put an abolition not appropriate he devised what he saw as a useful partial parliamentary session bill which would end the supply of slaves by measure. He proposed a including those recently occupied. British traders to foreign colonies, from West Indian proprietors, who This measure received some support French islands grow at their expense; had no wish to see the Cabinet backing, this bill was also nevertheless, after failing to gain as an abolitionist defeated in the Lords. 2. Even though Wilberforce did parliamentary abolition bill before the 1794 think it to put an abolition not appropriate he devised what he saw as a useful partial parliamentary session bill which would end the supply of slaves by measure. He proposed a including those recently occupied. British traders to foreign colonies, from West Indian proprietors, who This measure received some support French islands grow at their expense; had no wish to see the Cabinet backing, this bill was also nevertheless, after failing to gain as an abolitionist defeated in the Lords. Wilberforce's could reputation otherwise have been seen probably hindered acceptance of what In the aftermath of this new defeat, measure. as a simple protectionist of opposition to the war in Yorkshire and and with the emergence to call for the opening of peace elsewhere, Wilberforce began neither at this time nor later did he negotiations with France; however, French territories - call for British withdrawal from the occupied effective prop of the slave territories where British arms were the only system.2 presented a general abolition bill but it In 1795 Wilberforce again 61. In the following year a similar bill lost was defeated by 78 votes to close scores give a misleading by only 74 votes to 70. These apparently trade lobby would have impression since Dundas and the pro-slave defeat on a first reading. The mobilised more forces if they had suffered holding few meetings in Abolition Society itself lost much of its vigour, From 1797 to 1804 the 1794 and only two in the following three years. Society did not meet at all. National Committee of the Abolition demoralisation in 1794; he Clarkson was overtaken by illness and difficult or even impossible retired from abolitionist campaigning, now devoted himself to historical to sustain outside Parliament, Wilberforce and was still able to lend the researches. In Parliament semblance of life but debates on the question were abolitionist cause a Commons victory would have been ill-attended; since an unlikely Lords could barely be kept alive followed by certain defeat in the hopes advocate of abolition by the ritual of introducing bills. Burke, a leading slave trade in declared himself content with a regulated in earlier days, 1804 Wilberforce himself became sufficiently 1792. Between 1799 and of the annual abolition bill, discouraged to abandon the practice --- Page 161 --- British Abolitionism though he did introduce some partial 1802,22 proposals and one general bill in The fate of the first wave of British abolitionism essentially by the interplay between the had been determined international situation. Abolition domestic political crisis and the and a following in the had gained a foothold in Parliament and the breadth of the country because of the narrowness of its target Stopping short of constituencies which could identify with it. radicalism with expropriation it had momentarily united distracted bourgeois reformism. But once the plebeian or repressed, and abolitionism reduced popular element was parliamentary caucus, it ceased to make to the dimension of a retreat remained as a symbolic link with the headway. idea Abolitionism in bourgeois order and an advance for of a more coherent the constitution; for this morality and reform in the heart of reason it could continue to parliamentary cause even after the onset limp along as a and at a time when hope for all other of the anti-Jacobin reaction extinguished. reform measures was completely Wilberforce continued to act as the unofficial Parliament and the Pitt conscience of censured their actions; since administration, Wilberforce even though at times he political establishment he was manifestly in and of the time when this helped to conserve its moral was fundamentally contested. title to rule at a advisability of peace with France but In 1795 he spoke of the Jacobins at home. When the government promoted war against the during the crisis of 1798, seemed seriously threatened, as responsible strongly to it; Wilberforce middle-class opinion rallied loyalty to the established order. the Pitt conscience of censured their actions; since administration, Wilberforce even though at times he political establishment he was manifestly in and of the time when this helped to conserve its moral was fundamentally contested. title to rule at a advisability of peace with France but In 1795 he spoke of the Jacobins at home. When the government promoted war against the during the crisis of 1798, seemed seriously threatened, as responsible strongly to it; Wilberforce middle-class opinion rallied loyalty to the established order. helped to express and cement this profound attuned to those of the new His reactions and reflexes were closely Yorkshire manufacturers he bourgeois public. To the satisfaction of the combinations of workers. When sponsored the an act in 1799 of Bank of was outlawing defaulting on its payments Pitt turned England on the point its operations and restore public to Wilberforce to investigate Wilberforce, from a gentlemanly confidence. It is scarcely surprising that become such a virulent mercantile background, should have by huge meetings of anti-Jacobin in the 1790s, that he was alarmed mutiny in the fleet, revolt Republicans in in Islington, the stoning of the King, needed, at whatever Ireland, or that he felt that Britain's and cost, to reassert moral rulers threatened social order. In deference leadership over a turbulent Pitt was to continue his ineffectual to Wilberforce's judgement day. The warmth of Wilberforce's support for abolition to his dying however, appreciably diminished by the relationship with his friend was, Dundas and the imperial lobby, knowledge that Pitt deferred to by making abolition refusing ever to risk his a government measure. Wilberforce administration never --- Page 162 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Pitt; on his death he paid tribute in Parliament to a publicly reproached from 'the revolutionary spirit that has man who had saved England the whole civilised world'2 convulsed France and alarmed of the early British abolitionist David Brion Davis has written for reforms, they were diffusing movement that, in their broad concern order' and experiment- 'the needs and values of the emerging capitalist have the effect of ensuring the ing with 'new methods that would class'.24 Davis's judgement is a partial hegemony of an emerging ruling of subsequent even if a final verdict must await a consideration one Abolitionism was both less and more than the instrudevelopments. The radical anti-slavery of Wallace or ment of a rising bourgeoisie. first and foremost an attack on a Sharp, or of Equiano or Hardy, was that was still highly congruent branch of commerce and colonisation abolitionism of Manchester and the with capitalist accumulation. The character and looked to a broad northern towns had a partly bourgeois the oligarchy. But it proved popular alliance to reform or even replace its own hegemony. the challenge or to promote unable to sustain different again; it helped an old ruling Parliamentary abolitionism was of democracy, and to establish class to absorb and deflect the challenge forces. its hegemony over emergent bourgeois and Wilberforce were the leading In their different ways Pitt politics that was deferential to the representatives of a British bourgeois for the work of old ruling class while reserving its militant qualities Wilberforce was to suppressing democratic and republican opinion. by he would write of Pitt: *If only he had tried to "govern body principle", would have And then the whole British politic have succeeded. Even SO great a cataclysm as the French been cleansed and strengthened. As his biographer Reginald revolution would have left it unshaken." here on the observes, Wilberforce was not speculating Coupland rightly alliance between 'the real democratic possibilities of an historic ideas in France', but rather 'would movement in England' and 'the new the more or less have us believe that, working within political structure, system, Pitt, singleunchanged, of the old eighteenth century 25 Moral hegemony was a handed, could have moralised British Wilberforce's politics' indulgence of Pitt sprang sort of anti-politics in this view. left it unshaken." here on the observes, Wilberforce was not speculating Coupland rightly alliance between 'the real democratic possibilities of an historic ideas in France', but rather 'would movement in England' and 'the new the more or less have us believe that, working within political structure, system, Pitt, singleunchanged, of the old eighteenth century 25 Moral hegemony was a handed, could have moralised British Wilberforce's politics' indulgence of Pitt sprang sort of anti-politics in this view. shared commitment to Britain's from friendship but from a not simply ruling institutions. also supported anti-slavery, sometimes For their part Republicans did the champions of than parliamentary more consequentially bourgeois radicals, attracted by abolition. While some were of essentially the virtues of the wages system, others were abolitionism's celebration of an almost utopian small producers, or clerks or artisans, possessed which was usually meant the belief in the power of free labour - by --- Page 163 --- British Abolitionism owning or controlling his own labour of a masterless man, a producer that the abolitionist impulse of It was for this reason antimeans production. limits of purely bourgeois reform. In the popular could outrun the than in Granville Sharp's pamphlets, it is slavery campaign, no less capitalism as well as to often possible to detect hostility to commercial seen as the former's most the latter is certainly the slave trade, though idealisation of family life also monstrous product. The abolitionist their wives and daughters. to these free workers and to appealed though they could not sign petitions Women attended some meetings, Middleton and Hannah More abolitionist committees; Lady or join advocates of the cause, the latter writing several were influential of some women to work for the cause pamphlets. The willingness Wilberforce: *All private exertions for such an aroused mixed feelings in but for ladies to meet, to go from house object become their character, me unsuited up petitions - these appear to proceedings to house stirring in scripture.' 26 to the female character as delineated mainstream and radical abolitionism The basic options of both So far as Wilberforce and contributed to the decline of the movement. threatened the integrity the Methodists were concerned, if anti-slavery have to be postponed until it of Britain's established order then it would the withWilberforce decided to oppose did not. Symptomatically, Domingue in 1797, since this would be drawal of British troops from St John Wesley had exhibited a ceding ground to French republicanism. his followers to make sure to when he advised one of similar priority candidate at Bristol in the election of 1789, vote for the government apologist for despite the fact that this man was a leading parliamentary abolitionist. For its part the slave trade while his opponent was an commitment to became submerged within a general of radical anti-slavery with France; in the face the democratic programme and to harassment, peace it survived as little more these concerns, and of widespread than rhetoric. abolitionist challenge and its defeat led to As might be expected the ideology. The elaboration of an important mutations within pro-slavery at a short interval, by the anti-slavery critique was followed, ideology for slaveholding. During development of a new justificatory colonial systems slavery had the epoch of the making of the European relations were fairly well been justified in traditional ways. Paternalist it was claimed, saved entrenched in social life; slavery in the Americas, blacks were 'sons of Ham', Africans from captivity and heathenism; and SO forth. Defoe's highly condemned to bondage by a biblical curse; Colonel lent themselves to novels Robinson Crusoe and Jack influential enslavement. But Defoe was not a consistent ideologue justifications of --- Page 164 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Johnson' (see p. 45) he publicised the of slavery: if he was "Captain while even his fictions implied that a anti-slavery pirates of "Libertalia' enslavement. Robinson Crusoe voluntary service was better than violent accumulation' but also a 'colonial romance', a parable of 'primitive was survival strategy and search for allies. Crusoe and Jack influential enslavement. But Defoe was not a consistent ideologue justifications of --- Page 164 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Johnson' (see p. 45) he publicised the of slavery: if he was "Captain while even his fictions implied that a anti-slavery pirates of "Libertalia' enslavement. Robinson Crusoe voluntary service was better than violent accumulation' but also a 'colonial romance', a parable of 'primitive was survival strategy and search for allies. the tale of an individual's of more than one genre, bears comparison Robinson Crusoe, 'lives' source of those who had experienced enslavement. with the narrative novels and plays racial stereotypes were still In eighteenth century of led to a certain The eruption anti-slavery naive and onsystenatics universalism implicit in the anti-slavery polarisation. The human even 'scientific', racial critique was challenged by a more generalised, In one of the first signs doctrine which supposedly justified slavery. added a footnote 'learned' racism David Hume lengthy of a new inferiority of Negroes to his essay on 'National on the probable natural observations in The Character' published in 1755; Montesquieu's this.28 The first sustained Spirit of the Laws may well have prompted the that blacks of slavery on grounds attempt to supply a justification Edward Long; it was initially composed were sub-human was made by subsequently incorporated to Granville Sharp. Long as a response of Jamaica (1774), a work which this racial doctrine in his History useful data certain authority because it gathered together enjoyed a argument has been summarised as follows on the slave colony. Long's work: by the most recent editor of this trade in slaves and in goods produced by slaves was immensely That the West Indies, but to Britain itself and that it greatly profitable, not only to the walks of life; that West Indian slavery was, on the enriched Englishmen in all institution and that slaves were better off than whole, a mild and benevolent that slavery was inevitable and necessary the lowest classes in Britain; negro that the slave trade benefited and helped in certain regions of the world; convicted criminals; civilize Africa; that virtually all slaves were originally inferior to white that in every mental and moral way negroes that were could absolutely happen to them was to men, and that the most constructive 29 thing be compelled to work productively. that Africans should not be brought to England, Long conceded indeed he played on sexual fear of blacks and whether free or enslaved; intermixture. Though Long's racialist encouraged horror of racial and sometimes utterly bizarre, they notions were thoroughly fanciful, of the Enlightenment; did chime in with some of the 'scientific' thinking of slavery. The Long made no appeal to biblical justifications in the 1760s, and notion of a classifications of Linnaeus, first published of a hierarchy within *Great Chain of Being', involved the postulation Some, like Lord Kames, homo sapiens as well as between the species. --- Page 165 --- British Abolitionism of the Scottish Enlightenment, argued that the highly influential patron creations and constituted the different races of mankind were those separate of mixed blood were infertile different species; Long's claim that was to be cited in support of this view. but was far more The new racism drew on age-old prejudices, conceits that abound in the purposive and polemical than the ethnic idle prejudice but served to literature of earlier times. It was not simply discrimination. It was held that justify enslavement, exploitation and since they were childlike, lazy and blacks must be kept in bondage calculated to justify functioning slave dangerous. Racist doctrines were the slave trade were less clear cut since it systems; their implications from for them that a country would be unwise to could easily be concluded Jefferson's Notes on import blacks. Despite its abolitionist reputation low intelligence and Virginia contained reflections on the probable smell of Africans which were often taken up by pro-slavery all distinctive tentative formulation made them seem the and racist writers; their more reasonable. and systematic than However, if racism was more generalised the humanist and philosophical traditional ethnic particularism SO were human unity had, of abolitionism. acist doctrines were the slave trade were less clear cut since it systems; their implications from for them that a country would be unwise to could easily be concluded Jefferson's Notes on import blacks. Despite its abolitionist reputation low intelligence and Virginia contained reflections on the probable smell of Africans which were often taken up by pro-slavery all distinctive tentative formulation made them seem the and racist writers; their more reasonable. and systematic than However, if racism was more generalised the humanist and philosophical traditional ethnic particularism SO were human unity had, of abolitionism. The idea of an essential În the assumptions in the universalistic world religions. of course, been prefigured like the Scottish divine and anti1770s and 1780s Christian apologists, defended monogeneticism - a single slavery advocate James Beattie, of separate racial origins. However, creation - against the proponents accorded superior human value to the the world religions usually the chosen or elect, while denying those outside community of believers, extended, at least in theory, to those such categories the protections century no religion had ever within them. Prior to the mid-eighteenth In different ways abolitionism, denounced slavery in general terms. philosophy all contained within democratic politics and Enlightenment doctrine of universal human them a potential to develop a secular checked or confused, as it was in both rights. But this impetus could be the last decade of the eighteenth the United States and Britain during French Revolution and the eruption century. The radicalisation of the aroused the most intense of the great slave rebellion in St Domingue both sides of the Atlantic. alarm amongst the possessing classes end on the slave trade, an intellectual While it might still seem prudent to had the initiative climate was created in which abolitionists no longer headway. Linnaeus's and in which the new racism could make edition in were rendered in an English derogatory racial stereotypes Literary and Philosophical 1795. In this same year the Manchester was treated to a Society, previously hospitable to anti-slavery, by Charles White, a local disquisition on the inferiority of Negroes --- Page 166 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery physician, in which it was asserted that 'in differs from the European, the whatever respect the African ape'. This lecture, particularity brings him nearer to the reference point for British published in 31 1799, was to become a standard racism. This new racism was an affair of the than of the common people. British educated and official elite rather curiosity and jocular condescension plebeians still treated Africans with blacks would be rather than hatred or judged as much by their contempt; by their skin colour. Some, like clothes, speech and beliefs as time when even Philadelphia Equiano, married white women at a marriage. Following the Quakers looked askance at racial interversion of Oroonoko eruption of anti-slavery the popular the was adapted to give a more dramatised mass of enslaved blacks. 32 The sympathetic view of rictus as British national sentiment mid-1790s witnessed a chauvinist but at the popular level white was mobilised against the French, However, within ruling circles the racism had little relevance to this. of colonial slaveholders, new racism did justify both tolerance beckoning destiny of empire. whether British or French, as well as the racism could easily assume a Without Long's phobic intensity this the rule of whites over lesser paternalist or dominative form, justifying of colonialism in Africa and Asia. breeds, and foreshadowing the extention was in some The notion of a ways more congruent with the biological hierarchy class and empire than with slaveholder elaboration of doctrines of American pattern. The British lower orders democracy on the North restraint and discipline: Hume believed were also seen as needing between labourers and persons of there was a natural gulf blacks. The Jacobin threat quality as well as between whites and traditionally been used was identified in terms which Regicide Peace' of to justify enslavement: in his had 1796 Burke reported with horror Letters on a revolutionaries were addicts that the French a nutrient of their of'cannibalism':" I mean their as murdered; ferocity, some part of the bodies of devouring their drinking the blood of their victims. Hume believed were also seen as needing between labourers and persons of there was a natural gulf blacks. The Jacobin threat quality as well as between whites and traditionally been used was identified in terms which Regicide Peace' of to justify enslavement: in his had 1796 Burke reported with horror Letters on a revolutionaries were addicts that the French a nutrient of their of'cannibalism':" I mean their as murdered; ferocity, some part of the bodies of devouring their drinking the blood of their victims. 33 those they have hierarchy also allowed the imperial mind Notions of racial colonial rule - superior racial to identify local allies of There was a strand in castes, warrior peoples and the like. influential within ruling abolitionism, especially the variant most circles, which saw necessary corrective to chaotic and destructive imperial power as the The war in North America had ended commercial rapine. victory in the Caribbean: the West with a signal British naval loyal throughout while British Indian slave colonies had stayed trade routes to Africa and Asia. maritime While strength stood athwart the Benezet argued that the natural the North American Anthony had been traduced by the virtue of African states and societies European slave traders, the more respectable --- Page 167 --- British Abolitionism abolitionism inclined to argue that Africa needed varieties of British mid-1780s Pitt's government had supported a European tutelage. In the black refugees from North America in philanthropic scheme to settle and some of the leaders of the black Sierra Leone; Granville Sharp scheme for a 'free colony' in West Africa. community supported this summoning up the potential Pitt had urged the case for abolition by for abolitionism wealth of a pacified Africa. As the tide of abolitionism mass support were transmuted ebbed the idealistic elements in colonial of Britain's divine right to rule into imperial realpolitik and notions planter MP Bryan Edwards other lands and peoples. The 'enlightened' abolition in Parliament; but he helped to thwart the progress of trade and believed that both it and deprecated the violence of the slave abuses. His argument for slavery were in need of regulation to prevent by the notion of and control of blacks was permeated the invigilation and antagonism." 34 an essential racial hierarchy of the eighteenth century it seemed that anti-slavery In the last years In the renewed conflict with France the had reached its limit in England. to smother revolutionary British ruling class had seen an opportunity of French empire and to rally popular politics, to acquire the remnants Yet the advances of British patriotism in support of the government. had made a large and in Parliament anti-slavery in public opinion America. For a moment it seemed that impression in Europe and North abandon the slave traffic, with a large Britain really was about to by 1796. There were Commons majority promising abolitionism its extinction in the 1790s in North echoes of the rise of British the Connecticut assembly America: in 1792-4 an attempt to persuade emancipation only just to move from the 'free womb' to complete abolition societies came together failed; in 1794 the various American co-ordinated activity; in New for the first time in Philadelphia to discuss were made to devise an acceptable York and New Jersey new attempts North America the parliament of Upper emancipation law. ÎIn British law in 1793.35 Canada adopted a gradual emancipation campaign against the In Britain there had been an unprecedented British slave traffic had grown to slave trade yet by the 1790s the first motion for dimensions. Between the parliamentary were extraordinary slave traffic and 1800 about one million captives an end to the British traders. 36 The chief success that taken from Africa by a measure of emancipaabolitionists could claim was to have brought England, where slavery had been of very small importance: tion to areas and Pennsylvania. law in 1793.35 Canada adopted a gradual emancipation campaign against the In Britain there had been an unprecedented British slave traffic had grown to slave trade yet by the 1790s the first motion for dimensions. Between the parliamentary were extraordinary slave traffic and 1800 about one million captives an end to the British traders. 36 The chief success that taken from Africa by a measure of emancipaabolitionists could claim was to have brought England, where slavery had been of very small importance: tion to areas and Pennsylvania. The main centres of Scotland, Canada, New England --- Page 168 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery World remained not only unscathed but slaveholder power in the New largely unchallenged. of the 1790s would be broken not by The anti-slavery impasse but by revolutionary struggles in petitions to Parliament or Congress anti-slavery had acquired the slave zone itself. In the Caribbean of slaveholding was champions of a new sort, for whom the destruction committed to it life and death matter, and who were consequently a body and soul. Notes impact of the American War see John Derry, English 1. For the immediate political Revolution, London 1976, pP. 174-96. Granville annual Sharp Politics and the American of political reformers in the 1780s arguing for belonged to the more radical wing that 'the principle of representing property Parliaments and claiming rather improbably to the principles of the English Constitution' instead of persons' was "entirely contrary The significant overlap between abolitionism and (Lascelles, Granville Sharp, P. 105). direct of the 'legitimacy crisis' of political radicalism was, of course, a attention product to the social tensions that supplied 'illegitimate monarchy". Drescher has drawn but he is wrong to counter-pose the background to the rise of abolitionism morale. as a movement In his discussion of the background to the this polemically to factors of political that British opinion, like the British economy, had abolitionist take-off in 1788 he implies the American war. But defeat in North America was by this time entirely recovered Britain's from rulers and made a deep impact on every layer of public to to be a lasting trauma for in a few years it was to rankle and inspire for decades two opinion; SO far from evaporating complex of sentiments that has yet to disappear entirely in come, and to bequeath a Capitalism and Antislavery: British mobilization centuries later! Seymour Drescher, London 1986, see in particular pp. 140-2. The Problems social in dimension the Age Comparative Perspective, Fladeland, Abolitionists and Working Class is also stressed in Betty London 1984, PP. 1-16, for early British anti-slavery. who Conducted the of Industrialization, Priestley, A Letter of Advice to those Dissenters Citizenship and 2. Joseph London 1773, quoted in Richard Burgess Barlow, in during Appeal to Parliament, and Practice of Religious Toleration England Conscience: a Study in the Theory 197. For Blackstone's dictum and Mansfield's the 18th Century, Philadelphia 1962, P. judgement see Barlow pp. Abolition 160-6. of the Slave Trade in England, Hamden 1970, pp. 3. D.H. Porter, The 36-7. The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, pp- 233-54. of the Slave 4. Roger Anstey, The North of England Agitation for the Abolition 1-3. 5. E.M. Hunt," University M.A. thesis, 1959, especially chapters Trade, 1780-1800', Manchester see 244-5. , P. judgement see Barlow pp. Abolition 160-6. of the Slave Trade in England, Hamden 1970, pp. 3. D.H. Porter, The 36-7. The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, pp- 233-54. of the Slave 4. Roger Anstey, The North of England Agitation for the Abolition 1-3. 5. E.M. Hunt," University M.A. thesis, 1959, especially chapters Trade, 1780-1800', Manchester see 244-5. Hunt notes that the fustian For the breadth of social support for abolition while 'the opponents pp. to abolition in Manchester manufacturers supported abolition as well as the dealers in African goods' (P. 77). tended to be the dyers and calico printers in Capitalism and Antislavery, pp. Drescher brings out the innovatory role of Manchester 67-88. and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of 6. Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts Human Species, London 1787, and The Interesting the Slavery and Commerce of the Or Gustavus Vassa, the African: Written by Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, brief biographies of these outstanding anti-slavery Himself, London 1789, 2 vols. For 98-112. advocates see Fryer, Staying Power, Wilberforce. pp. A Narrative, Oxford 1923, p. 55. 7. Reginald Coupland, 144-5. 8. Coupland, Wilberforce, pp. --- Page 169 --- British Abolitionism and opponents, of abolition see 9. For analysis of the parliamentary and British supporters Abolition, pp. 281-5 and G.M. Ditchfield, Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Trade in the Interaction of Reforming Movements in the "Repeal, Abolition and Reform: a Study eds, Anti-Slavery, Religion and Parliament of 1790-6', in C. Bolt and S. Drescher, Reform, PP. 101-18. 160. The extent of Scottish support for abolition 10. Coupland, Wilberforce, contribution p. to the anti-slavery critique but, more generally, reflected not only the Scottish and resentment at the workings of the patronage and the strength of Nonconformity there, activity see Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Trade system. For other aspects of abolitionist British Abolition, pp. 289, 304-6, 315. 311n. 11. Ayling, John Wesley, pp. 263-4, briefly favoured abolition is clear from David 12. That the revolt in St Domingue of Haiti', in James Walvin, ed., Slavery in Geggus, "British Opinion and the Emergence 1982, 123-49. British Society 1776-1846, London Abolition pp. of the Danish Slave Trade, Louisiana State 13. Joseph Evans Loftin, The 73-4; and Svend E. Green-Pedersen, The University PhD thesis, 1977, see especially Danish PP. Abolition of the Negro Slave Trade', in Economic Considerations behind the Uncommon Market, pp. 319-418. Gemery and Hogendorn, eds, The Trade and British Abolition, pp. 286-320; Ditchfield, 14. Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Religion and Reform, in Bolt and Drescher, Anti-Slavery, 'Repeal, Abolition or Reform', 276. PP. 112-13. The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, p. a 15. Quoted in Anstey, the slave trade earned him an undeserved reputation as Wilberforce's opposition to National Assembly elected him as an honorary supporter of revolution. The French times he is numbered by French historians as a member and down to the most recent example, M. Vovelle, La chute de la foreign sympathiser with the revolution (for of Burke, Wilberforce joined a monarchie, Paris 1974, p. 159). At the suggestion Wilberforce, p. 158). committee to aid French émigré priests (Coupland, Sentiment for Abolition', in Bolt and 16. Quoted in James Walvin, 'British Popular 152-3. Drescher, Anti-Slavery, Religion and Reform, pp. by French historians as a member and down to the most recent example, M. Vovelle, La chute de la foreign sympathiser with the revolution (for of Burke, Wilberforce joined a monarchie, Paris 1974, p. 159). At the suggestion Wilberforce, p. 158). committee to aid French émigré priests (Coupland, Sentiment for Abolition', in Bolt and 16. Quoted in James Walvin, 'British Popular 152-3. Drescher, Anti-Slavery, Religion and Reform, pp. The Problem of Slavery in Western 17. For Burke on the slave trade see Davis, proposal to repeal the Test Act see Barlow, Culture, p. 398. For Burke on the outrageous From the standpoint the Church of Citizensbip and Conscience, p. 287. of the regime's greatest moment. After all the most England's privileges and position were a matter Parliament, had been brought to an radical phase of the Commonwcalth, the Barebones to the Church (Watts, The Dissenters, pP. end by a proposal to abolish the tithes payable success in disestablishing the Church was an 146-51). The American revolutionaries" ominous precedent. p. 289. For divergent reactions to the French 18. Barlow, Citizenship and Conscience, Nonconformists see Watts, The Dissenters, PP: Revolution within the ranks of abolition the was one of the few questions which united 478-87; Watts points out that 'rational Dissent' and Methodism. of George III: Loyalty, Royalty and the British 19. Linda Colley, The Apotheosis 1984, 94-129, especially pp- 114-16. Nation', Past and Present, 102, pp. David Geggus, who has made a thorough study of 20. Coupland, Wilberforce, that P. 188. British strategy in the West Indies was 'undoubtedly War the British archives, concludes for the costs of the war'. Slavery, and providing an indemnity 85. aimed at annexation of Saint Domingue, Oxford 1982, p. and Revolution: The British Occupation that the West Indian theatre had primacy for the However, Geggus disputes the idea British government. not to rock the boat, was cautious and intermittent 21. Wilberforce, anxious as ever good relations with Pitt (Coupland, to the war and strove to maintain to the in his opposition 198-9, 209). He signally failed to combine his opposition of British Wilberforce, pp. 184, the slave trade by supporting the withdrawal war and his opposition to this was left to the Foxite Opposition who tabled occupation troops from St Domingue from the supposed champion of abolition such a bill in 1797 but only to meet opposition 213). (Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution, P. --- Page 170 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and 22. British Coupland, Abolition, Wilberforce, pp. 213-28, 270-74; Anstey, The Atlantic 23. PP. 329-42. Slave Trade 24. Coupland, David Brion Wilberforce, P. 324. 355. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 25. Coupland, Wilberforce, pp. 350, 26. Quoted in Leonore Davidoff pp. 325-7. Women of the English Middle Class and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and 27. Compare C. Duncan Rice, 1780-1850, London 1987, p. 429. to Slavery', in Bolt and Drescher, 'Literary Sources and the Evolution of British Attitudes especially pp. 323-5. See also Hulme, Anti-Slavery Religion and Reform, pp. have suggested that imperialist and racist Colonial Encounters, pp. 175-224. Some 319-34, of their travelogue form. One might as notions were implicit in Defoe's fictions critics form of Equiano's memoir. In fact the easily argue the opposite and cite the because have shared the common narratives of both Defoe and travelogue 28. David Hume, 'Of inspiration National of Dissenting personal witness and Equiano may well 29. George Metcalf, Introduction Character', Essays, London 1875, I, testifying. and Reform, pp. have suggested that imperialist and racist Colonial Encounters, pp. 175-224. Some 319-34, of their travelogue form. One might as notions were implicit in Defoe's fictions critics form of Equiano's memoir. In fact the easily argue the opposite and cite the because have shared the common narratives of both Defoe and travelogue 28. David Hume, 'Of inspiration National of Dissenting personal witness and Equiano may well 29. George Metcalf, Introduction Character', Essays, London 1875, I, testifying. 252. 1970, I, p. xi. to Edward Long, History of Jamaica, p. London 30. Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: 1500-1800, Fryer, Staying Harmondsworth 1984, Pp. 135-6; Jordan, White Changing Over Attitudes in England London 1982. Power, pp. 165-9; Nancy Stepan, The Idea Race Black, Pp. 482-511; of in British 31. Charles White, An Account of the Science, 32. Generalising about popular racial Regular Gradation in Man, London 1799. easy; but see Jack Gratus, The Great attitudes in eighteenth century Britain is Racial Attitudes, who notes the still White Lie: Slavery, Emancipation and not time, see p. 188; see also Drescher, comparatively 'innocent' stereotyping of blacks Changing at this Quaker qualms at racial Capitalism and Antislavery, and the American inter-marriage at this time see Duncan pp. 33-4, 228; for 33. Quoted in Revolution, Hulme, Cambridge 1974, p. 160. MacLeod, Slavery, Race Benedict Anderson, Imagined Colonial Encounters, p. 327. On class elements in racism observed: 'The skin, pores, muscles, Communities, and London 1983, p. 136. David see of a man of quality; SO are his nerves of a day labourer are different Hume life influence the whole fabric, sentiments, actions and manners. The different from those necessarily, because external and internal; and these different stations of nature.' David Hume, uniformly, A Treatise from the necessary and uniform stations arise 34. Bryan On Human Nature, Oxford principles of human West Edwards, The History, Civil and 1983, p. 402. Indies, 4 vols, London 1801. Commercial, of the British Colonies in the (2nd 35. For Canada see John Hope Franklin, From revised edn), Pp. 357-61. Slavery to Freedom, New York 1964, blacks 36. Though one French traveller, Brissot de by white 'public opinion' Warville, did note the Revolutionary America, Princeton (quoted in J.T. Main, The Social depreciation of discrimination see Jordan, White Over 1965, p. 1981). For a discussion of the Structure of of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, Black, pp. 406-26, and Leon Littwack, pattern North of 1790-1860, Chicago 1961. --- Page 171 --- The French Revolution and the Antilles: 1789-93 Our very good friend the Marquis de la Fayette has my care the key of the Bastille C as a entrusted to I feel myself happy in being the present to your Excellency Marquis has conveyed this early person thro' whom the and the first ripe fruits of trophy of the spoils of despotism, American principles Europe, to the great master and transplanted in America opened the Bastille is patron . That the principles of not to be doubted, and the key comes to the right place, therefore (Tom Paine to George Washington, May 1st 1790) Soon, to announce morn the sun will arise on her golden path, soon shall superstition disappear, soon the wise man will conquer. The Magic Flute (1791), Mozar/Schickaneder The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen The grave is burst, the leave their stations; The bones of death, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up; Reviving shake, cov'ring clay, the sinews shrunk and dry'd Spring like redeemed inspiring move, breathing, awakening, Let the slave captives when their bonds and bars are burst. ) Soon, to announce morn the sun will arise on her golden path, soon shall superstition disappear, soon the wise man will conquer. The Magic Flute (1791), Mozar/Schickaneder The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen The grave is burst, the leave their stations; The bones of death, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up; Reviving shake, cov'ring clay, the sinews shrunk and dry'd Spring like redeemed inspiring move, breathing, awakening, Let the slave captives when their bonds and bars are burst. Let him look grinding at the mill run out into the up into the heavens and field, laugh in the bright air; America (1793), William Blake --- Page 172 --- Port de Paix Le Cap Français Môle St Nicolast NORTH WEST NORTH Les Gonaivese ARTIBONITE SANTO Saint-Marc DOMINGO Jeremie WEST Port au Prince SOUTH Jacmel Les Cayes The colony of St Domingue --- Page 173 --- The French Revolution ancien régime was one of its most The colonial system of France's colonists and merchants had built splendid achievements. Government, advanced and well-fortified slave the most diversified, technically World. They had pioneered New World coffee plantations in the New of cane used for sugar-making, and cultivation, improved the variety elaborate irrigation works. A extended St Domingue's capacity through of duty on colonial re-exports had slave trade bounty and remission of the French slave plantadevelopment promoted an extraordinary them Europe's chief suppliers of plantation tions, helping to make the slave population of the French produce. Between 1770 and 1790 while their exports reached Antilles rose from 379,000 to 650,000, the 1789, compared with 217.5 million liures (£9 million) in year by 480,000 British West Indian exports of about £5 million, produced as the British. in land area the French islands were twice as large slaves; meant that as much as a half of the value The workings of the exclusif to metropolitan colonial accrued as mercantile profits of produce received premium prices for their sugar interests; while British planters commercial exploitation. the French were subjected to monopolistic and Nantes derived from colonial The brilliant prosperity of Bordeaux slaves St Domingue was the largest and commerce. With some 465,000 in the Caribbean in 1789; it had served as most productive slave colony the century without ever itself suffering a privateer base throughout whites and 28,000 or more free people of invasion. The colony's 30,000 defend slavery. Guadeloupe and colour were organised and armed to and stable of the Martinique were amongst the most productive together with its small colonies of the Lesser Antilles. On Guadeloupe, nearly 14,000 whites and island dependencies, there were 90,000 slaves, there were 83,000 slaves, 3,000 coloured affranchis; on Martinique Nearly all free males between 10,600 whites and 5,000 affranchis. colonial militias acted as auxiliaries sixteen and sixty were armed. The troops in St Domingue and the to the regular garrisons - roughly 3,000 French Guyana number in the Windwards - and naval squadrons. fewer same of a backwater with only 10,000 slaves; even remained something Ste Lucie and Trinidad, colonies turned over to were to be found on despite its French links, had France by the treaty of 1783. Louisiana, the vigour of the island colonies been ceded to Spain; nevertheless could be stepping stones to a new empire nourished the dream that they on the mainland.' terms French participation in the In purely military and diplomatic had achieved all that was hoped of it, American War of Independence Since France was the isolating and defeating the traditional tobacco enemy. of a backwater with only 10,000 slaves; even remained something Ste Lucie and Trinidad, colonies turned over to were to be found on despite its French links, had France by the treaty of 1783. Louisiana, the vigour of the island colonies been ceded to Spain; nevertheless could be stepping stones to a new empire nourished the dream that they on the mainland.' terms French participation in the In purely military and diplomatic had achieved all that was hoped of it, American War of Independence Since France was the isolating and defeating the traditional tobacco enemy. there was commercial main customer for North American alignment. Whatever the underpinning to the diplomatic and military --- Page 174 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery in the Old World, in the New World impasse of the French monarchy Revolution had been an astonishingly its alliance with the American crowned with great success. bold stroke of policy and one apparently reform of the political and financial The partisans of an enlightened by American and colonial structures of the monarchy were encouraged even admiration, from successes. Nor did they withhold respect, defeat with decorum, regained Britain's rulers who had acknowledged markets and financed with ease commercial access to North American French achievements overseas the heavy costs of the war. By contrast effects and implications as the proved to be almost as disruptive in their in France itself. stubborn structures of privilege and caste power their own spectacular Colonial and American entanglements made and the travail of the contribution to the crash of the ancien observers régime missed the obsession revolutionary order. Few contemporary characteristic of French statesmen, with the New World which was century, nor the impact philosophers and economists in the eighteenth The decision on alignments in the metropolis. of colonial controversies thirteen English North American colonies to back the revolt of the of the old order, with the huge disastrously compounded the problems the final of war across the Atlantic directly precipitating costs waging finances and the example of representative government agony of royal in the French colonies as well as metropolis.: stimulating expectations France's slave colonies in the years before 1789 The rapid growth of the of the ancien régime. made its own contribution to instability of fractious and antagonistic Colonial wealth was a nesting ground afterwards it proved a precarious and interests prior to the revolution; Colonial wealth encouraged the unreliable support of the new system. of the absolutist order while pretensions of some awkward components fostered the opposition of the the problems of colonial trade The Duc d'Orléans, whose commercial and manufacturing much bourgeoisie. mischief to the royalist cause, drew self-seeking demagogy caused and stimulated the intrigues of a large revenues from the Antilles which did SO much faction there. The Parlement at Bordeaux, planter for reform and rationalisation, numbered to obstruct royal plans interests in its ranks. Almost to the last several important colonial believed that large revenues, or fabulous loans, some royal financiers the basis of the colonial boom. The dimensions could be raised on been increased by a decree of 1784 which of the colonial trade had the colonists to buy a wider range relaxed the exclusif, permitting and ending the special status of of supplies from North America merchants also saw their interests Bordeaux and Nantes. Most French Trade Treaty of 1786-7, since threatened by the Anglo-French the colonial trade with their new this permitted the British to encroach on --- Page 175 --- The French Revolution manufactures and their growing demand for raw modifying the exclusif were cotton. The measures maritime centres in the cahiers they "generally drew and violently criticised' by the problems of the monarchy up for the Estates General.3 If perity, then the fault lay with the were former compounded by colonial prosrégime was a fortress of privilege and not the latter. The ancien reconciling opposed not a forum for interests, such as those articulating and ment of the colonies. Some of those generated by the developaccess to the privileges bestowed enriched by the colonies enjoyed the increasing difficulty of by the ancien régime, others resented way colonial interests added gaining entry to the charmed circle. criticised' by the problems of the monarchy up for the Estates General.3 If perity, then the fault lay with the were former compounded by colonial prosrégime was a fortress of privilege and not the latter. The ancien reconciling opposed not a forum for interests, such as those articulating and ment of the colonies. Some of those generated by the developaccess to the privileges bestowed enriched by the colonies enjoyed the increasing difficulty of by the ancien régime, others resented way colonial interests added gaining entry to the charmed circle. Either incoherence of the different to 'the disparity, the disaccord, the Calonne wrote in his ministerial parts of the monarchy' about which was only natural, those involved memorandum in to the King of 1786.4 As to be deeply influenced by the institutions American properties or trade tended States. The aristocrats with colonial and example of the United roots or well-founded bourgeois estates lacked genuinely feudal part of a new world in the stability, but they felt themselves to be military career often enlisted in making. the Those creoles who pursued a colonial proprietors wavered artillery regiments. In politics models, admiring the between British and North American many tempted by the oligarchic solidity of 'illegitimate monarchy' but occupation of expansive republicanism of the Guadeloupe and Virginians. British had greatly benefited Martinique during the Seven Years War recent alliance with the many North planters and merchants, while the more commercial contacts. Colonial American rebels had nourished further clubs set up in the metropolis in proprietors 1787-8. subscribed to the political an excited but inconstant radicalism: A youthful minority tended to wished to be distinguished by bearing ancient names they rather than inherited enlightenment and political influence proprietors whose volatile privileges. Among the noble young colonial were Charles Lameth, Alexandre commitment was to mark the Revolution Colonial proprietors resident Beauharnais in the and Louis Philippe Ségur.5 more content with the relaxation of Antilles were understandably merchants of the metropolis. But the the exclusif than were the liberalised trade were decrees of 1784 which had and their accompanied by regulations managers to give a stricter requiring of planters transactions and of the treatment of their accounting their financial very unpopular with the colonial slaves; these regulations were complained of the tyranny exercised proprietors. The colonists habitually the effectiveness of by royal officials though in practice and by a rapid turnover metropolitan in the rule was greatly reduced by corruption had eleven different Governors higher posts. In the 1780s St and five different Intendants. Domingue The last --- Page 176 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Intendant, Barbé de Marbois, displayed an efficiency pre-revolutionary zeal which alarmed the planters and estate managers. and reforming a reform of the laws which guaranteed the Barbé de Marbois proposed seizure for debt. He also suspended the planters' property against after it had repeatedly refused to register conseil at Cap Francais to channel their metropolitan edicts. The planters were Chambers encouraged of Agriculture and representations through newly created than the Conseils Commerce, but these were granted weaker further powers resented what they Supérieurs. The colonists of St Domingue and Guadeloupe. On saw as official favouritism towards Martinique newly established these two islands the colonists were Assemblies granted had little power the representative Assemblies. Though these a startling innovato them proved process of electing representatives registered male habitans of tion; the vote was given to all properly sixteen years or over, a surprisingly low age limit. of Agriculture and representations through newly created than the Conseils Commerce, but these were granted weaker further powers resented what they Supérieurs. The colonists of St Domingue and Guadeloupe. On saw as official favouritism towards Martinique newly established these two islands the colonists were Assemblies granted had little power the representative Assemblies. Though these a startling innovato them proved process of electing representatives registered male habitans of tion; the vote was given to all properly sixteen years or over, a surprisingly low age limit. influential exponent of Antoine Barnave, who was to be the most wrote that the colonial policy in the early years of the Revolution, and of the manufacturing tremendous growth of maritime commerce feudal with its ruling centres had upset the equilibrium of distribution a society, of wealth involves a order based on landholding: *a he new declared. 7 For the most part the new distribution of power', the growing challenge to royal maritime bourgeoisie did indeed support after his visit in 1788: 'Nantes is as authority. Arthur Young noted town in France can be.' A recent enflamée in the cause of liberty as any of its citizens historian of the port points out that a demonstration Estate was led by one Cottin, raising the classic demands of the Third A recent historian of the who owned valuable property in the colonies." Third in Bordeaux showed a Revolution in Bordeaux writes, 'the The subsequent thrusting and persistent desire for representation'." much to the commercial nexus spread of revolutionary clubs owed this was as true of the spreading out from the major maritime ports; as of the Girondins, with Jacobins, with their roots in a Breton society, the maritime As the Revolution developed their links to Bordeaux. would find themselves increasingly at bourgeois of the metropolis in the colonies. The latter's unpaid debts logger heads with their clients mercantile hostility. For the maritime and zest for smuggling aroused spelt a mortal threat to the bourgeoisie projects of colonial autonomy there were bonds of exclusif. Yet in the early stages of the Revolution colonial Both merchants and proprietors. common interest uniting and both had a stake in the colonial wished for political representation merchants owned a share in a plantation, system. Furthermore many living in the metropolis, while many colonial proprietors, as absentees colonists. opposed the autonomism of the resident --- Page 177 --- The French Revolution source there were no less than one According to one contemporary amongst the thousand or hundred and fifty owners of colonial property of 1789. The numbers of SO members of the Constituent Assembly commerce or administration those with interests linked to colonial observations of Barnave quoted would have been even larger. The of Marx's above have seemed to some historians a striking anticipation are rather revolution'. . Yet in fact the implications concept of 'bourgeois of the French the economic vulnerability different, since they highlight Assembly was indeed a predominantly bourgeoisie. The Constituent the with a significant bourgeois body, in the most literal sense of term, members dependent on proportion of its urban-based, property-owning lacked the broad base and overseas trade. 10 But the French bourgeoisie rival. The salience of commerce security of its more developed British weakness of the internal market and colonies reflected the comparative and domestic circuits of accumulation. the Antilles were split into two broad The planters and merchants of those whose primary links were camps on the eve of the Revolution: who aspired to autonomy with the metropolis and those, often creoles, complex included absentee The pro-metropolitan or even separation. the principals and agents of the proprietors and their representatives, members of the civilian apparatus of French merchant houses, and the senior military officers, while colonial administration. Governors and It was not often had ties to the large planters. loyal to the Crown, senior colonial posts to acquire plantauncommon for those holding list of the colonial tions and other property: the membership Massiac - reads like a roll club formed in 1789 - the Club with such proprietors for French colonial administration, call of those responsible Gallifet, Du Chilleau, and Malouet. rietors and their representatives, members of the civilian apparatus of French merchant houses, and the senior military officers, while colonial administration. Governors and It was not often had ties to the large planters. loyal to the Crown, senior colonial posts to acquire plantauncommon for those holding list of the colonial tions and other property: the membership Massiac - reads like a roll club formed in 1789 - the Club with such proprietors for French colonial administration, call of those responsible Gallifet, Du Chilleau, and Malouet. The names as Choiseul, Bongars, of the metropolitan complex were Cap main Caribbean strongholds and St Pierre, in Martinique. The former, Français, in St Domingue, and the rich northern plain of with a population of 15,000 the most well-appointed of the St Domingue as its hinterland, was could seat 1,200 people. However, French Caribbean ports: its theatre was Port au Prince in the the administrative capital of St Domingue medium-sized properties and a where there were more West, a region St Domingue's main smuggling centres larger free coloured population. development was still in an were found in the South, where plantation early phase. 11 commanded a formidable armed force; the The French Governors recruited troops, such as the coloured regular garrisons included locally which had acquitted contingents of the Légion de St Domingue of colonial well in North America. The whole apparatus themselves sub-branch of the Navy Ministry. The colonial government was a --- Page 178 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery had swollen during the years of war with Britain slave establishments and seemed more than adequate to maintain (1777-83) invasion. Colonial administrators tended to subordination and to deter the white colonists were prone to envy the distrust the white creoles and colour. While the great majority of success of the free people of owned by whites about 2,000 St Domingue's 780 sugar estates were owned people of colour; coffee estates in the West and South were also by more likely to be estates were far more valuable though sugar often existed between encumbered with debt. A tacit understanding since both officialdom and the free coloured population colonial of the white colonists. distrusted the proclivities in the French Antilles included most The white creole grouping with merchants engaged in cultivateurs, or resident planters, the together United States or Britain. A high the legal or illegal trade with or a profession while by proportion of white creoles had some property who, though extention this 'creole' grouping also included proprietors in the colonies. The born in France, had decided to settle permanently clearly aligned with either the petits blancs were, to begin with, not they included many recent metropolitan or the creole groupings; and return to France. While immigrants who hoped to make money usually had little blancs cherished links with France, they many petits officials, whom they associated with ministerial love for metropolitan towards mulattos. For the creoles 'despotism' and favouritism of the 1760s had been reactivated by memories of the clashes Commercial contacts with the British and confrontations of the 1780s. the desire for free trade and political North Americans stimulated heavily indebted to French autonomy. Finally there were planters from the metropolis. merchants, who dreamed of separation of colour were almost as numerous as In St Domingue free people numerous. The size of the free white colonists, indeed possibly shown more official figures, which placed coloured population is not fully by certificate of manumission was it at 25,000 because acquiring a proper in addition to those who held a cumbersome and expensive business; of persons of colour who were such certificates there were thousands of the former were known as the free de facto rather than de jure; some within a given region but still libres de savane, who were free to move manumitted them. The beholden to a master who had not formally runaway slaves and maréchaussée, a force devoted to catching from the free supplementing plantation security, was recruited also largely included a layer of people of colour. it at 25,000 because acquiring a proper in addition to those who held a cumbersome and expensive business; of persons of colour who were such certificates there were thousands of the former were known as the free de facto rather than de jure; some within a given region but still libres de savane, who were free to move manumitted them. The beholden to a master who had not formally runaway slaves and maréchaussée, a force devoted to catching from the free supplementing plantation security, was recruited also largely included a layer of people of colour. The free coloured population them owned about 100,000 proprietors who in St Domingue between did those of partly African descent slaves; nowhere else in the Americas of the classes. The petits in the ranks propertied figure SO importantly --- Page 179 --- The French Revolution to resent the success of the blancs and white cultivateurs were prone was not diminished if coloured proprietor or lawyer, and their rancour name of a French often bore the distinguished the latter, as happened, Antilles the free population of colour was father. In the Lesser in St Domingue and racial tensions proportionately not SO large as But while racial the free correspondingly less pronounced. amongst theme of colonial society, rivalry was already a well-established free people of colour were still an especially in St Domingue, the class and of the apparatus of integral component of the slave-owning slave subjection." of the slave economy, there was a complex of Thus clamped on top fields of force of a colonial and interests, formed by the intersecting order, a racial caste mercantile system, an aristocratic distribution political of private property within hierarchy, and a highly unequal In the French Antilles of both the white and free coloured population. and oppression rooted in slave exploitation 1788 the social antagonisms from this interlocking superwere overlaid by conflicts stemming weakened the grip of the structure of control. The revolution factional strife, but this was a metropolis and stimulated fierce colonial had survived The regime protracted and complex process. of the previous century; repeated battering in the wars and commotions be abandoned until that it would not and it was SO vastly profitable had been exhausted. every resource and expedient in the French Antilles in the There were no major slave uprisings stream of runaways took 1770s and 1780s. In St Domingue a interior and extensive and mountainous advantage of the colony's Maroon bands operated common border with Spanish Santo Domingo. in the area known as Plymouth in in the Artibonite in the North-east, Smaller, but also more oppositional, the South, and along the border. bands of St Domingue still equivalents, the maroon than their Jamaican the slave order in 1789. Guadeloupe and appeared to pose no threat to of the islands of the Lesser Antilles; the Martinique are the largest where maroons held out while on former had a rugged interior zone in 1789. But once again the Martinique there was a plantation uprising social formation were quite formidable resources of the colonial 13 sufficient to contain such challenges. unfolded, an abolitionist society, the In 1788, just as the pre-Revolution and began to circulate anti-slavery Amis des Noirs, was set up in Paris the Amis des Noirs supposedly literature. Unlike the colonial factions interest. Not only did they represented a general rather than particular but if there was a "hidden interest' declare themselves philanthropists, that of the of the nation and animating their activities it was integrity --- Page 180 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery with these entities being understood in an inclusive Empire as a whole, Abolitionism was a cause that drew support rather than exclusive sense. olution and began to circulate anti-slavery Amis des Noirs, was set up in Paris the Amis des Noirs supposedly literature. Unlike the colonial factions interest. Not only did they represented a general rather than particular but if there was a "hidden interest' declare themselves philanthropists, that of the of the nation and animating their activities it was integrity --- Page 180 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery with these entities being understood in an inclusive Empire as a whole, Abolitionism was a cause that drew support rather than exclusive sense. with caste distinctions, financial from radical aristocrats impatient colonial officials worried bureaucrats hostile to corporate obstruction, and the loyalty of the planters, clerics by the security of the plantations of a more humane social order, and concerned with the construction committed to progress. The initial members of the liberal professions inclined to be somewhat eccentric supporters of organised abolitionism with several being of Protestant members of the ruling order, the world of high finance and many extraction, others linked to the United States. But while the enjoying personal links with England or accused of being English agents, the Amis des Noirs were sometimes of a truly themselves as the most enlightened representatives they saw civic belonging to all inhabitants of the national interest, extending of separated orders and estates, Empire. In a social formation rigidly those to and exemptions, sympathetic each with their own privileges of an overriding national abolitionism were also the champions Naturally before which every citizen would have equal rights. 14 authority, French tradition. the Amis laid claim to the anti-slavery had often been more radical, The tenor of French writing on slavery be found in Britain or the United if also more rhetorical, than that to form of the systematic moral tract. States, and less inclined to take launched the in the best-known works of Attacks on slavery had been The Abbé Raynal saw himself as Montesquieu, Rousseau and Raynal. interests. He claimed that slaves of France's true colonial an exponent in the French than in the British colonies but he was were treated better of plantation slaves nevertheless concerned that huge While aggregations he urged a relaxation of trade endangered the colonial order. In a new restrictions, he was not sympathetic to colonial he added independence. some proposals for edition of his History published in 1781 of slaves by freeing those born to achieving the gradual emancipation apprenticeship period; Pechmeja's slave mothers after a twenty-five-year retained as a warning of what might extreme anti-slavery passages were The measures proposed happen if a moderate reform was not adopted. and authority in its by Raynal would give the colonial state new power terms with senior dealing with the planters. Raynal was for on time good in receipt of a subsidy officials of the Colonial Bureau and of 1784 a fell well short of Raynal's from this quarter. The regulations was by the to them provoked proposals, but planter opposition the first instalment of a perilous official suspicion that they were simply is experiment in philanthropy. abolitionism received more disinterested . The practical bent of French Condorcet, and in particular in an essay expression in the writings of --- Page 181 --- The French Revolution reprinted by the Amis des first published in 1781 and subsequently in 1788. Condorcet united Noirs, of which he was a founder member, French abolitionism in his person the various strands which comprised of Protestant revolutionary period. He was an aristocrat in the early the Secretary of the Academy, an extraction and, prior to Director Revolution, of the Mint, and an outstanding associate of Turgot, briefly reform. One of the last of the advocate of social and educational part in the politics of philosophes, Condorcet lived to play an important Assembly, and the revolution, as a writer, as President of the Legislative Like other enlightened and educational authority. founder member, French abolitionism in his person the various strands which comprised of Protestant revolutionary period. He was an aristocrat in the early the Secretary of the Academy, an extraction and, prior to Director Revolution, of the Mint, and an outstanding associate of Turgot, briefly reform. One of the last of the advocate of social and educational part in the politics of philosophes, Condorcet lived to play an important Assembly, and the revolution, as a writer, as President of the Legislative Like other enlightened and educational authority. as a constitutional seeing in them trammels of the aristocrats he detested caste privileges, though grounded in a ancien régime. Condorcet's essay on slavery, concerned with the realities of humanist universalism, was far more of Millar social life in the colonies than the philosophical disquisitions injury to human and Beattie. He argued that slavery was an intolerable should be nature but that, for this very reason, Slaves emancipation would need a lengthy approached with great circumspection. the responsibilities of tutelage before they were ready to exercise conditions for their freedom. Planters should be obliged to improve of age, freeing those born to slave mothers at twenty-five years or slaves, pattern in which tenant and laying the basis for a new agro-industrial cane or unhusked coffee to smallholding cultivators supplied sugar insisted that it was social environplanter-manufacturers, Condorcet He concluded his which shaped human potential. ment, not ethnicity, for the removal of the disabilities placed on Jews pamphlet with a plea blacks. 16 and Protestants as well as sponsors of the Amis were senior About a quarter of the original Tax Farmers-General, two Underfinancial officials, including five and five senior officials of the Régie Secretaries of the Finance Ministry, themselves under attack as social General. Presumably these men, their benevolence and public-spiritedparasites, hoped to demonstrate have seen slavery and the slave trade as ness. More specifically they may the old order, the perfect symbol of its the unacceptable face of As nobles most slave traders were only infestation by special under interests. the acquits de Guinée bounty arrangement, lightly taxed; indeed, substantial subsidy, rising from 1.5 million they were in receipt of a million in 1788. The Amis called for the livres in 1786 to over 2.8 abolition of the slave trade immediate ending of this subsidy pending authoritative with Britain. Doubtless a more itself by negotiation also derive more revenue from the booming metropolis would commerce of the colonies. intellectual sponsor of the Amis, If Condorcet was the most eminent Brissot de Warville, whose visits to its first organiser was the journalist --- Page 182 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery England and the United States had currents in those countries. He acquainted him with financier of Protestant was also a close associate of anti-slavery extraction. Brissot's links Clavière, a finance did not inhibit him from with the world of high which stressed their arbitrary social composing an essay on property rights anticipating Proudhon's formula that character - indeed he got close to ancien régime, of course, legal 'property is theft'. Under the public offices as well property rights included as human chattels.' 18 Brissot seigneuries and visionary social philosopher and, beyond the aspired to be a he received from Clavière, convenience of the retainer kindred may have felt that in this spirit to the high financier, as the capacity he was a over the awkward clumps of speculations of both vaulted With the calling of the Estates property built into the ancien régime. anti-slavery circular to General the Amis des Noirs sent an Partly as a result every baillage responsible for electing doléances forty-nine out of about six hundred deputies. visionary social philosopher and, beyond the aspired to be a he received from Clavière, convenience of the retainer kindred may have felt that in this spirit to the high financier, as the capacity he was a over the awkward clumps of speculations of both vaulted With the calling of the Estates property built into the ancien régime. anti-slavery circular to General the Amis des Noirs sent an Partly as a result every baillage responsible for electing doléances forty-nine out of about six hundred deputies. contained some proposal directed cahiers de favouring gradual emancipation. at the slave trade or these attacks figured in cahiers submitted Perhaps significantly, twenty-eight of were rarer in the cahiers submitted by the nobility or clergy and Third Estate. The maritime by otherwise radical sections of the towards abolitionism.' 19 bourgeoisie had little inclination at this time These first representations were to be the strictly anti-slavery work of the Amis des high-water mark of the deplore the excesses of slave-traders Noirs. While continuing to the Society henceforth concentrated and slave-owners, the members of the slave trade subsidy, and their main attacks on the cOst of colour from political and social on attempts to exclude free people of campaigning body like its English rights. In fact the Amis never became a from the salons of polite counterpart. Its members were drawn their name to the Society's society and their chief activity was to lend representing the colonial propaganda. In fact the Massiac Club, campaigning force, proprietors, was to be far more active as a important sending out a stream of pamphlets and political centres. Brissot, the Abbé agents to the prominent members of the Amis advanced its Grégoire and other activity as leading protagonists of the aims in the course of their reason for the Society's low level of revolution. Indeed part of the occupations of those who had founded activity was certainly the wider presaw in abolitionism a it. If in the early months monarchy, symbol of the struggle to they they were soon caught in purify the French the regime had to be addressed up events in which the nature of controversies were important because quite directly. Henceforth colonial suffrage rights rather than because they tested the scope of civic and 1789-93 the British Parliament slavery was at issue. In the years repeatedly debated the slave trade --- Page 183 --- The French Revolution action. During these same years the without taking any consequent of the colonial regime French assemblies discussed almost every aspect decreed by the time the Convention other than slavery. Paradoxically in 1794 the Amis des Noirs no longer the abolition of colonial slavery members no longer played a role. It is functioned and most of its former of the old order abolitionism was as much part almost as if enlightened de Guinée. Only once this whole superas the exclusif and the acquits be adopted in the structure was in ruins could slave emancipation the multiTo explain why we must turn to complex, metropolis. cornered contest of the intervening years. was shocked at the insolence and The Governor of Guadeloupe of the colony's new Assembly in 1788. But assertiveness of the members politics were those from the first colonists to seek a role in metropolitan the of the conseil the north of St Domingue who, angered at suspension of colony-wide supérieur of Cap Français and the absence any in the Estates assembly, petitioned in 1788 for colonial representation linked to General. The Marquis Gouy d'Arsy, an absentee which proprietor associated itself formed a committee in Paris the Duc d'Orléans, Lodge of the Freemasons, of which with this demand; the Oriental involved in this faction. politics were those from the first colonists to seek a role in metropolitan the of the conseil the north of St Domingue who, angered at suspension of colony-wide supérieur of Cap Français and the absence any in the Estates assembly, petitioned in 1788 for colonial representation linked to General. The Marquis Gouy d'Arsy, an absentee which proprietor associated itself formed a committee in Paris the Duc d'Orléans, Lodge of the Freemasons, of which with this demand; the Oriental involved in this faction. The Orléans was president, was heavily Governor of ministry, headed by La Luzerne, formerly colonial successfully opposed this petition, anticipating St Domingue (1786-7), would simply undermine ministerial that colonial representatives interests above the need for rational authority and put their own special had enjoyed a veto over fiscal reform - the former conseil at Le Cap several thousand white innovations. Notwithstanding this opposition to elect deputies for St Domingue. other colonists proceeded in 1789 Gouy d'Arsy and When the Estates General met May made a direct supporters of the proposal for colonial representation of the colonists were nobles), appeal, first to the Second Estate (many accepted the principle of and then to the Third. The latter eventually Gouy d'Arsy and his friends colonial representation largely because Third in its battle with the King for were prepared to support the themselves ready to swear the majority representation; after declaring admitted as suppléants and tennis court oath the colonial deputies were from the was commissioned a report on colonial representation requested that St Domingue be Credentials Committee. Gouy d'Arsy the colony's commercial allowed twenty deputies to take into account who had endorsed the first importance and total population. Mirabeau, that echoed the debate statement put out by the Amis, made a response in the US Constitutional Convention: --- Page 184 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery proportionate to the number of inhabitants. The You claim representation and they have not been free blacks are proprietors and tax payers, either are yet men or they are not; if allowed to vote. And as for the slaves, them free they them and make them electors the colonists consider them men, let is the case, have we, in apportioning and eligible for seats; if the contrary of France, taken into consideration the deputies according to the population number of our horses and mules221 another of those aristocrats who had The Duc de la Rochefoucauld, the Amis des Noirs and to join the been prepared both to support or qualification, but the Third Estate, attacked slavery without irony such talk. Eventually the of the deputies were alarmed at full members and the generality Assembly voted to admit six colonial deputies as were also In subsequent sessions deputies remainder as suppléants. and the other French slave colonies, granted to Martinique, Guadeloupe colonial deputies. The deputies of until there were a total of seventeen the of the had triumphed not only over objections St Domingue and the Amis des Noirs but also over opposition Colonial Ministry Club Massiac. from the more conservative the Hôtel Massiac in July 1789 in the The Massiac Club, formed at comprised a aftermath of the first debate on colonial representation, distrusted Gouy d'Arsy's of the largest colonial proprietors who It the group for anti-ministerial rhetoric. opposed opportunism and penchant the that this would expose delicate call for colonial deputies on ground of debate in the Assembly. Several colonial issues to the hazards themselves members of the members of the Club Massiac influential were and felt quite competent to Assembly or otherwise politically themselves. These included represent colonial issues in the metropolis Malouet was to Pierre-Victor Malouet and Moreau de Saint-Méry. the destruction of leader of the monarchiens, who accepted emerge as a but thereafter rallied to the King as the feudal privilege and absolutism and order. would expose delicate call for colonial deputies on ground of debate in the Assembly. Several colonial issues to the hazards themselves members of the members of the Club Massiac influential were and felt quite competent to Assembly or otherwise politically themselves. These included represent colonial issues in the metropolis Malouet was to Pierre-Victor Malouet and Moreau de Saint-Méry. the destruction of leader of the monarchiens, who accepted emerge as a but thereafter rallied to the King as the feudal privilege and absolutism and order. Moreau de Saint-Méry, an essential guarantee of property and friend of the Abbé Raynal, was enlightened colonial magistrate of Paris. In this latter capacity Saint-Méry President of the Electors after its seizure (these keys formally received the keys of the Bastille George Washingshortly to be presented to another slaveholder, were offices of Lafayette and Thomas Paine). Despite ton, through the good credentials Saint-Méry was to remain a such liberal and revolutionary aside its reservations determined defender of the slave system. Putting decided that it must deputies the Club Massiac about the colonial under attack from members of the Amis defend them when they came absentee proprietors adhered to des Noirs. Some three or four hundred against the Amis. the club and enabled it to finance a press campaign --- Page 185 --- The French Revolution the Club Massiac rigorously abstained Unlike the colonial deputies and strove to maintain a common from criticism of the exclusif with deputies from the Atlantic ports. position the colonists of the The events of 1789 aroused great enthusiasm Bastille among had an electric effect on French Caribbean. The storming of the the colonies. According to the opponents of 'ministerial despotism' in one account: and blancs gathered in the streets of [Cap Français] Crowds of petits and what it meant for the colony. The tri-coloured discussed the Revolution amid wild transports of joy, and government officials cockade was adopted take the 'civic oath' were submitted to illwho refused to wear it or to the other hand, the mulattos were treatment and violence. But, on emblem. 23 forbidden by the petits blancs to wear the sacred Guard under the A of patriot planters formed a National soon group de Chevalrie. This 'turbulent nobleman' captaincy of Bacon The National Guard arrested the evinced autonomist inclinations. and him on board a boat for France. Intendant, Barbé de Marbois, put had been elected by the white By November 2nd a Colonial Assembly of internal self-government. habitans and vested itself with full powers soon followed Western and Southern provinces of St Domingue The hesitated formally to abrogate the exclusif, but suit. These assemblies prone to leaks. The henceforth the colonial system became which increasingly enabled them to import flour colonial assemblies invoked decrees since the metropolitan Assembly from North America in time of need; weak to object. The had banned the export of wheat it was in a position The officials who in the colonies was that of enforcement. real problem offend colonists who still declared remained were not prepared to In Martinique the threat formal allegiance to monarch and metropolis. bitter factional dispute between the came to the surface in a to exclusif from St Pierre and planter representatives mercantile representatives bid to secure an overall majority the from the rest of the island - in a be allotted representatives in planters suggested that the parishes should as in the United with slaves counting, proportion to their populations, In this island an interim Governor States, as three-fifths of a person. the tricolour was also driven out after who urged the mulattos to adopt of the work of the from the petits blancs of St Pierre. Reports objections much consternation in the islands.2* Amis des Noirs caused the impact of the The colonists tended to exaggerate latter greatly had lost the battle over propaganda produced by the Amis. The Assembly and failed even to colonial representation in the National trade. Colonial issues were obtain a debate on slavery or the slave --- Page 186 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery committees, on the grounds of their delicacy. who urged the mulattos to adopt of the work of the from the petits blancs of St Pierre. Reports objections much consternation in the islands.2* Amis des Noirs caused the impact of the The colonists tended to exaggerate latter greatly had lost the battle over propaganda produced by the Amis. The Assembly and failed even to colonial representation in the National trade. Colonial issues were obtain a debate on slavery or the slave --- Page 186 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery committees, on the grounds of their delicacy. referred to specialist like the Abbé Grégoire had to content themselves Abolitionist advocates in debates on other subjects, and were with anti-slavery interjections by other deputies. The Amis were then shouted down for their pains but their failure to make little more successful outside the ceased Assembly, to be a source of acute anxiety headway did not mean that they did circulate a new edition of to the white colonists. The society of pamphlets by Cugoano and Condorcet's essay as well as translations contributors to the Clarkson.2 Condorcet and Brissot were prominent that had where they were to publicise arguments revolutionary press, by its colonial by the Assembly to consideration been referred colonists were alarmed at the thought that copies committee. The white of issues of the Patriote Français, of the abolitionist pamphlets, or might find their way to the Antilles. the Amis was that of the civic The issue taken up most vigorously by assemblies, representing the rights of free people of colour. The colonial free mulattos were far more white colonists, were concerned because of the Amis than and be influenced by, the statements likely to read, The literary activity of the Amis slaves incarcerated on the plantations. and opinion rather than at was directed at metropolitan legislators but the colonists were concerned at inciting rebellion in the colonies; results not intentions. of the Amis in the National Assembly chiefly The ineffectiveness and manufacturing interests with a reflected the strength of commercial colonies. Such interests had a veto stake in the prosperity of the slave in the Clubs. A in the Assembly but also Revolutionary power not only historian of the latter writes: devotion for liberty and equality, the clubs In spite of their oft-expressed the horrors of slavery and the slave trade . I long remained indifferent to Jacobin Circle corresponded have unearthed no evidence that any provincial Indeed to have done SO in a port city with the Amis des Noirs prior to 1791. of the economy was colonial commerce where the foundation and sustenance would have alienated merchants and workers.30 towards the colonies was one of The attitude of commercial deputies well-informed watchful suspicion. The merchant houses were naturally aware of the in the islands and were perfectly about developments and separatism. But there was some danger represented by autonomism of planters and merchants based reason to believe that only a minority loose from the metropolis and that in the colonies were tempted to slip inclinations of the could be restrained by the patriotic be this minority officials. Abolitionist provocations were to majority of colonists and --- Page 187 --- The French Revolution the autonomist reflex. However, avoided since they would encourage white colonists was itself conditional on this willingness to defer to the by the latter, failing which loyal observance of metropolitan regulations sanctions would be looked to. white colonists and members of The initial rapport between many to both of revolutionary clubs reflected the appeal the metropolitan link of colonial interest. Many petits blancs ideology as well as the of the Revolution because they wished inclined to the more radical wing be decisive for the exercise of personal rather than property rights to qualification would have the political rights. In the colonies a property well-to-do free men of colour effect of enfranchising the stratum colonists. of So far as many colonial while disenfranchising many white of colour were a species of Jacobins were concerned, the people rights. Metropolitan Jacobins foreigner with no entitlement to political at least to begin with. accepted this in a more or less unthinking way, a few thousand, There were few blacks or mulattos in France; On perhaps the other hand, the fierce certainly less than England's circa 15,000. made them welcome anti-ministerial radicalism of the colonial Jacobins helped to of national identity that the Revolution allies. of So far as many colonial while disenfranchising many white of colour were a species of Jacobins were concerned, the people rights. Metropolitan Jacobins foreigner with no entitlement to political at least to begin with. accepted this in a more or less unthinking way, a few thousand, There were few blacks or mulattos in France; On perhaps the other hand, the fierce certainly less than England's circa 15,000. made them welcome anti-ministerial radicalism of the colonial Jacobins helped to of national identity that the Revolution allies. The new sense which oscillated between the inclusive foster had a messianic quality, When the Revolution and the exclusive depending on the conjuncture. all at its limit the offensive citizenship was open to mankind, was on as well; but as the revolutionary tide even to women and blacks identifications asserted themselves at the receded 'ready-made' social civic definitions. expense of the more generous new in the period from the autumn of 1789 The basic lines of colonial policy the so-called 'triumvirate' which to near the end of 1791 were set by Alexandre Lameth dominated the National Assembly. Adrien Duport, dint of a responsible and Antoine Barnave emerged as leaders well by attuned to the aspirapatriotism and constitutional of monarchism the latter's supporters in the other two tions of the Third Estate and to the aims of enlightened orders. These men were also sympathetic the exclusif. The SO long as they did not challenge American planters, held large estates in St Domingue. Lameth family itself, of course, living at their Paris Hôtel. Barnave attached himself to the Lameths, Bacon de Chevalerie, was a The leader of the patriots in St Domingue, the triumvirate an inside which may have given cousin to Barnave, Duport was a leading member of the perspective on colonial problems. of American models and ideals had Club of Thirty, whose propagation crisis of the old regime. made its own contribution to the ideological --- Page 188 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery colonial policy was to foster the The basic aim of the triumvirate's interests, as a bulwark alliance between commercial and planting of the Rights of Man against both King and populace. The Declaration it could not be ideal expression to the project of the triumvirate; for stable postgave without jeopardising the prospects a openly repudiated While colonial policy was important, it was subordinabsolutist order. of conserving the gains ate to the triumvirate's overriding preoccupation of 1789 and the fragile new ruling bloc. principles to protect Barnave was prepared to adapt revolutionary the 'external 'internal of the colonies but not to jeopardise the regime' and the principle of metropolitan regime' furnished by the exclusif, October 1789 La Luzerne, the Colonial sovereignty over them. In to the Assembly arguing for Minister, submitted a memorandum designed to safeguard their special separate colonial constitutions, to entertain such a property regimes. The triumvirate was prepared limited to internal proposal SO long as colonial powers were strictly from Guadeloupe, Louis affairs. Alexandre Lameth supported a deputy commission which would de Curt, who proposed the setting up of a would the for the colonies which guarantee devise constitutions of the Antilles - a pleasing "agricultural and commercial property' Some members of the Massiac euphemism for slavery and colonialism. colonial policy left entirely in the Club would have preferred to see coming in of unrest in the hands of the Ministry but, with reports the Assembly taking responsibility colonies, they were unable to prevent of Curt's proposal. The into its hands, at least to the extent accepting had twelve members, Colonial Commission established by the Assembly of the whole Assembly. Those each elected by a simple majority vote together with two colonial elected included Lameth and Barnave, four deputies from deputies, two absentee colonial proprietors, from Rennes. Barnave maritime centres, a naval officer and a deputy twenty-eight years of age he was selected as reporter for this committee; orators. The method of was already one of the Assembly's leading of the Amis had been elected to election had ensured that no supporter had scored a notable victory, though the new body. extent accepting had twelve members, Colonial Commission established by the Assembly of the whole Assembly. Those each elected by a simple majority vote together with two colonial elected included Lameth and Barnave, four deputies from deputies, two absentee colonial proprietors, from Rennes. Barnave maritime centres, a naval officer and a deputy twenty-eight years of age he was selected as reporter for this committee; orators. The method of was already one of the Assembly's leading of the Amis had been elected to election had ensured that no supporter had scored a notable victory, though the new body. Colonial interests all this fact. 27 factional tension meant that not established appreciated on March 4th 1790 and The Committee on Colonies was within four days. News recommendations produced its constitutional of Petitions from the from the islands had prompted a sense demanded urgency. repudiation of the colonies and from the maritime centres trade by the abolitionist and the slave implied threat to slavery the Assembly was warned that servile sentiments of some deputies; would result if such repudiation was not revolt and colonial secession in the Paris press warning that the forthcoming. Articles appeared --- Page 189 --- The French Revolution overthrow of colonial slavery would lead to the distribution of property in France. the break-up of estates and not be satisfied until five It was said that Brissot would France,28 Bordeaux or six enfants du Congo sat as legislators of dispatched a squadron of its capital to demand assurances that the social Patriotic Army to the safe from any tampering by the order of the colonies be introduced by Barnave contained Assembly. The colonial report studious avoidance of a guarantee no less categorical for its does not intend to make embarrassing references: 'the National Assembly commerce between France any and innovations in any of the branches of it puts colonists and their the colonies, whether direct or indirect; nation and declares guilty of property under the special safeguard of the against them.' 29 The treason whoever seeks to foment report granted internal risings colonies, but insisted that they could make sclf-government to the commercial regulations without the sanction no permanent changes in and that the political of the National duly process should be conducted under the Assembly appointed colonial officials. tutelage of When presented to the Assembly the 'indirect trade' and to the colonists' pledge given to the colonies' enthusiasm by the deputies linked to 'property' was greeted with noisy Two supporters of the Amis tried colonial and commercial interests. shouted down with calls for to speak on the report but were forthwith adopted by acclamation. an immediate vote. The report was proceeded to draw up instructions The Committee on Colonies now decree. The most delicate concerning implementation of the adopted in the election of question the concerned the procedures to be Assembly had received a number of colonial assemblies. The National people of colour, urging that representations on behalf of the free citizenship' on the same terms they be given the right to active well-established mulatto as white colonists. There was a small but Amis des Noirs, ensured grouping that the in France which, with the help of the the Assembly. Among the leaders question of of mulatto rights came before Raimond and Vincent Ogé. These this group were two lawyers: Julien respectable - Raimond was the men were well educated and planter and a legitimate son of a marriage coloured woman - but nevertheless the between a advocate were engaged to place the petition before services of a white Colonial Committee. It was couched in the Assembly and its persuasive terms to make an sufficiently moderate and colour were impact on both bodies. The free evidently a crucial of people of The maréchausée and the component the colonial social order. parts of the south and west Légion of St depended upon them, while in some were in the hands of coloured Domingue the majority of estates who met the financial criteria for proprietors. To exclude men of colour 'active' citizenship (that is, voting and --- Page 190 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery to a section of the office-holding) would be a gratuitious for provocation loyalty to the metropolis. bodies. The free evidently a crucial of people of The maréchausée and the component the colonial social order. parts of the south and west Légion of St depended upon them, while in some were in the hands of coloured Domingue the majority of estates who met the financial criteria for proprietors. To exclude men of colour 'active' citizenship (that is, voting and --- Page 190 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery to a section of the office-holding) would be a gratuitious for provocation loyalty to the metropolis. But colonial population with a reputation from St Domingue and the as soon as this issue was raised the should deputies be referred to the colonial Club Massiac argued that it should not try assemblies themselves and that the National warned Legislature that the good effect such sensitive questions. They to adjudicate would be entirely undone if of the declaration on colonists' property The triumvirate wished to mulatto rights were foisted on the colonies. their authority. Barnave defer to colonial anxieties without formula sacrificing relating to the colonial franchise eventually produced a vague reference to racial distinctions, did not which, since it avoided direct nor concede a free hand to the positively endorse caste discrimination assemblies were to be voted on by white colonists. The colonial and upwards, possessing parishes: 'All persons aged twenty-five years domiciled for two years in the real estate or, in default of such property, and form the parish assembly." ,30 parish and paying taxes, shall meet notables could be left to exclude those The colonial officials and local deputies remained who did not fit. Nevertheless some colonial in excluding the dissatisfied and warned that failure to be quite specific have disastrous de couleur from 'active citizenship' would these progens Neither Barnave nor the Assembly heeded consequences. The full fury of the racial animosities of the colonial the phetic warnings. The social formation of whites may not have been appreciated. of communal antagonism. As metropolis did not generate this species who resided in France often sounded, for the colonial proprietors, those of the Amis des Noirs. Moreover the as did Lameth, like members Arthur Dillon from Martinique colonial deputies were not unanimous. no in his cause would problem colony:31 declared that mulatto rights fateful decision on this matter, also had to Barnave, in making his to flout ideals, and practical consider the political cost of appearing Giving direction and recently agreed for the metropolis. as arrangements, of such a large and inexperienced body coherence to the deliberations task. The Declaration of the Rights the National Assembly was no easy Charter. It conferred of Man had been adopted as the Assembly's central to the so-called 'national legitimacy on the new order and was instructed.? 32 With some catechism' in which citizens were to be of Rights to majority reconciled the Declaration difficulty the Assembly and a rule whereby only propertya franchise restricted to tax-payers than 52 livres yearly in taxes, could owners, or those paying democratic more objections of the Abbé Grégoire qualify as a deputy. The answered by the argument that 'active and of Robespierre were conceded to shareholders in the citizenship' could only be responsibly funds could only be conceded national enterprise and control of public --- Page 191 --- The French Revolution to those who principally provided them. The confused its followers and triumvirate would have the Assembly compromised its credibility if it had openly to flout the 'national catechism' urged recommended constitutional principles for the or if it had replaced the property qualification by that of colonies which explicitly token many of the leaders of the skin colour. By the same Robespierre, Reubel and others democratic opposition - Grégoire, defeats on the definition of 'active were in a position to avenge their of mulatto rights. The sincerity of citizenship' by their vigilant defence Man' only added to the zeal with which their commitment to 'the Rights of or inconsistency in the formulas of the they assailed any equivocation compromise was eventually colonial committee. Barnave's able debate. Though its studied accepted by the Assembly after a considerand abolitionists it did not supply ambiguity the was attacked by democrats white colonists with the guide-lines they were seeking and was bound clear-cut between rival colonial factions. eats on the definition of 'active were in a position to avenge their of mulatto rights. The sincerity of citizenship' by their vigilant defence Man' only added to the zeal with which their commitment to 'the Rights of or inconsistency in the formulas of the they assailed any equivocation compromise was eventually colonial committee. Barnave's able debate. Though its studied accepted by the Assembly after a considerand abolitionists it did not supply ambiguity the was attacked by democrats white colonists with the guide-lines they were seeking and was bound clear-cut between rival colonial factions. to stimulate conflict The planter faction in old Louis-Francois Du Buc. Martinique This was skilfully led by the the man was a thirty-yearGaoulé - a famous colonial rebellion descendant of the leader of Jean-Baptiste Du Buc, a friend of of 1717 - and the son of colonial department in Choiseul's Raynal and premier commis of the Francois Du Buc and other Ministry in the 1760s. Louissucceeded in large planters on Martinique dominating the island's eventually of the Governor and in Assembly, in winning the decreeing, with the latter's support suspension of many of the provisions of the support, temporary provoked intense hostility from the exclusif. This latter action that planters like Du Buc merchants of St Pierre, who merchants, and were seeking to evade their debts to alleged French latter opposition from the Intendant, was son of the Comptroller General of Foullon d'Ecottier - the When a detachment of the mulatto militia Finances in the metropolis. blancs in St Pierre, Du Buc was able was massacred by the petits in garrison troops to arrest those to persuade the Governor to send were deported to France on the responsible. Sixty of the petits blancs without a domicil in the grounds that they were recent arrivals dignified the Intendant colony. Though his departure was Du Buc's was also persuaded to return to the more success was soon menaced, however, metropolis. amongst the garrison troops who by a patriotic sedition had been dealt with in an were persuaded that the petits blancs and Colonial Assembly that unjust had and arbitrary fashion by a Governor Following this mutiny the Patriots little loyalty to France or its revolution. Colonial Assembly and the Governor regained possession of St Pierre; the island's interior. On neighbouring were obliged to withdraw to the between grands blancs and Patriots Guadeloupe there were also tensions but there was no powerful --- Page 192 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery mercantile faction; St Pierre was, in effect, the French Iles du Vent, serving commercial centre of the the French at this time these Guadeloupe as well as Martinique (to with the Leeward' St were both Windward Islands, compared Domingue). The colonial Guadeloupe was also weaker: in establishment in and the militia any case the Governor, De commander, De Clugny, The arrival of the decree and Gommier, were both themselves creoles. comfort to Du Buc and the Colonial instructions of March 1790 brought more faction since they had Assembly than to the mercantile responsible for already won over the Governor, who would applying the be the creole planter faction had metropolitan measures. In the Iles du Vent few wealthy mulattos and no objection to conceding civic rights to a colour as a was quite prepared to use the free counter-weight to the patriotic 33 people of In the French Windwards the March petits blancs.3 compatible with planter decree and instructions proved mulattos and a moderate hegemony, some concessions to the free tion of the main autonomism because this suited the inclinaconcessions, whether metropolitan officials there, But in St to the mulattos or to Domingue more explosive implications given the planter autonomism, had of its free mulatto larger absolute and relative size its trade. was quite prepared to use the free counter-weight to the patriotic 33 people of In the French Windwards the March petits blancs.3 compatible with planter decree and instructions proved mulattos and a moderate hegemony, some concessions to the free tion of the main autonomism because this suited the inclinaconcessions, whether metropolitan officials there, But in St to the mulattos or to Domingue more explosive implications given the planter autonomism, had of its free mulatto larger absolute and relative size its trade. In the French community and the vast commercial significance of colour by two to one. The Windwards whites outnumbered free people of who were richer position of the mulattos of as well as more St Domingue, return to the colony of several wealthy numerous, was strengthened by the as Pierre Pinchinat, J.B. coloured proprietors - men such accustomed to respectful Lapointe and J.B. Villatte - who had been who had treatment in France. Vincent the sought to vindicate mulatto Ogé, lawyer Assembly, also returned to the rights before the National money from Clarkson and the colony via London, where he raised United States where he Abolition Society. Ogé also visited the facilitated by Masonic purchased arms. These travels seem to have been October 1790 connections. Ogé arrived back in St in demanding new elections Domingue with full rights for qualified free based on the March decree, predictable refusal from the Governor people of colour. When this met with a raised the standard of and Assembly of the North Ogé revolutionary revolt, with support from a Freemasons, both mulatto and white. group of swiftly overwhelmed; he and his followers Ogé's revolt was trial, torture and execution in a were subjected to summary fate encouraged the leading mulattos display of'exemplary" justice. This grim effective preparations; the mulatto of the South to make more arming and training their proprietors fortified their estates, veterans and under-officers of slaves, and conspiring with the mulatto one of the larger the Legion and maréchaussée. proprietors, had himself fought in North America, Villatte, The --- Page 193 --- The French Revolution potential strength of the mulatto and West; not in the North where community was based in the South revolt. 34 Ogé had raised the standard of In St Domingue all factions the metropolis. They amongst the white colonists distrusted régime intérieur suspected it of radicalism with regard to the conservatism vis-à-vis (slavery the and the caste system) and of a rigid accompanying apparatus of régime extérieur (the exclusif and its ate planter faction came to administration dominate and invigilation). A moderNorth, meeting in Le while the provincial assembly of the colony-wide General Cap, a radical faction dominated the first coast, in February 1790. Assembly, In all which met in Saint Marc, on the West cultivateurs, evinced provinces the resident or and to colonial hostility to absentees, to commercial planters, officialdom. Those with the restrictions ministerial despotism, or those with the heaviest strongest animus against merchants, were likely to be among the debts to French planter class of St Domingue, by more politically active. The or Guadeloupe, was weakened comparision with that of Martinique regional interests and a higher by divisions there were different proprietors. No single leader proportion of the of both absentee and mulatto St Domingue and planter stature of Du Buc emerged in The relative weakness of the hegemony of the countryside was less secure. demagogic appeals and planters of St Domingue led them to make volatility of the political concessions to the petits blancs: given the game. It also carried with passions of the latter this was a the relatively it the danger of driving into dangerous St large group of propertied mulattos. The open opposition Domingue were largely drawn from the political leaders in of the petits blancs was encouraged by planter class, but the support whites with one year's residence in the granting voting rights to all male they owned property or paid direct colony, regardless of whether St Marc organised new elections taxes. to make volatility of the political concessions to the petits blancs: given the game. It also carried with passions of the latter this was a the relatively it the danger of driving into dangerous St large group of propertied mulattos. The open opposition Domingue were largely drawn from the political leaders in of the petits blancs was encouraged by planter class, but the support whites with one year's residence in the granting voting rights to all male they owned property or paid direct colony, regardless of whether St Marc organised new elections taxes. The General Assembly at and instruction but, while following receipt of the March decree the wide franchise for whites. rigorously Thus excluding mulattos, they retained St Domingue led it to a swifter 'democratisation' the peculiar régime intérieur of among whites than was seen in the of the political process of the petits blancs were metropolis. The patriotic sentiments outraged that the passed a decree which clearly deprived National Assembly had while being ambiguous many of them of voting The enough to enfranchise the rights radically autonomist and propertied mulatto. ated the St Marc Assembly mobilised anti-ministerial planters who dominwithout necessarily feeling them the prejudices of the petits blancs of the revolution the cultivateurs SO intensely. At earlier and later stages themselves ready to make of the West and South showed agreements with mulatto proprietors. The --- Page 194 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery agreed by the St Marc Assembly legislation and the bases constitutionels far-reaching rights within the concerned with asserting were chiefly and not with racial questions. The framework of the monarchy body entitled to negotiate Assembly acted as if it was a sovereign of the colonial magistrature directly with the monarch. The functions and the Assembly arrogated to and judiciary were entirely suspended legislation and to reorganise the itself the right to propose commercial to discuss the future scope colonial garrison. By expressing a willingness will have hoped to keep alive the of the exclusif the St Marc Assembly vivendi with the metropolis. Some possibility of achieving a modus already have wished for complete members of the Assembly the may outlook of the majority. However, their separation, but this was not the Governor and the more decrees went quite far enough to antagonise of the North at Le Cap. cautious faction that dominated the Assembly the acts oft the St Marc Assembly In August 1790 the Governor denounced and dispatched troops against as a virtual declaration of independence Governor mounted an effective blockade it. The forces assembled by the found that its patriotic rhetoric and of St Marc, while the Assembly the of the former civil and programme for dispensing with entirety stratum of grands administration had alienated an important religious and in Port au Prince. A number of the deputies blancs in the North The remainder, eighty-five out of slipped away to their plantations. advantage of a mutiny aboard the more than two hundred, took Marc's harbour, to make their escape. warship Léopard, then in St sailors to take them to France where They persuaded the revolutionary the National Assembly and to public they could appeal directly ministerial to despotism and as the legitimate opinion as victims of Patriotism. When the léopardins, as they representatives of colonial were accepted as heroes of the came to be called, landed at Brest, they off further mutinies on two Revolution. The arrival of their ship sparked both the National Assembly ships of the line of the Brest squadron. But of colonial liberty coolly and the triumvirate received these partisans his kinsman, Bacon de Despite the fact that and suspiciously. Barnave denounced the bases Chevalerie, was one of the léopardins, Assembly while praising the constitutionels adopted by the St Marc the St Marc deputies loyalty of the Assembly of the North. Eventually before the Committee on Colonies; forty-five were permitted to appear the more extravagant claims of the of them were persuaded to disavow St Marc Assembly. 35 Windward Islands and in St Domingue put the The events in both the The commercial and manufactriumvirate in a very difficult position. , Bacon de Despite the fact that and suspiciously. Barnave denounced the bases Chevalerie, was one of the léopardins, Assembly while praising the constitutionels adopted by the St Marc the St Marc deputies loyalty of the Assembly of the North. Eventually before the Committee on Colonies; forty-five were permitted to appear the more extravagant claims of the of them were persuaded to disavow St Marc Assembly. 35 Windward Islands and in St Domingue put the The events in both the The commercial and manufactriumvirate in a very difficult position. trade knew that the colonists were turing interests involved in colonial of colonies and metropolis to exploiting the disturbed condition --- Page 195 --- The French Revolution North American, British and Dutch practise a large-scale contraband. massive and brazen encroachments on the merchants were now making Barnave and the triumvirate had French colonial trade. Though manifestations of planter patriotism they repudiated the more extreme This failure was the critical defended the exclusif. had not successfully interests of the metropolis. Towards the concern for the commercial Governors were dispatched to the close of 1790 fresh forces and new authority. La Luzerne Caribbean in an attempt to restore metropolitan his officials had been notably was replaced as Colonial Minister; had by support for the indulgent to grands blancs who Colonies reciprocated now assumed more direct monarchiens. The Committee on the Governor in Martinique responsibility for colonial policy. The who new had the island well under swiftly came to terms with Du Buc, autonomism in control. With the dispersal of the St Marc Assembly time from the had acquired new sponsorship - this in the St Domingue from Gouy d'Arsy Assembly of the North, with fulsome backing in the colonies was National Assembly. Metropolitan authority commanders who lacked both represented by Governors and military the commercial regulations the means and the desire to enforce the Committee on the The distinction insisted on by rigorously. 'exterior and an 'interior regime' proved Colonies between an regime' of the two crucial Intendants - artificial. The forced departure by quite and Foullon d'Ecottier - had been accompanied Barbé de Marbois of metropolitan regulation of colonial the disintegration of the system the 'exterior' regime simply could commerce. Without 'interior' support commanders had always not be enforced. The Governors and aristocratic military caste. They tended to been drawn from the military blancs and not with the more uncouth sympathise with patrician grands included many of the clerks, Patriots of the towns; yet the latter commercial system notaries and petty officials upon whom an effective to resolving this The triumvirate in Paris was not suited had to depend. and inclinations aligned them problem, since their own background planters rather than with with the more respectable and enlightened mutiny and insubordination. Patriot enthusiasts prone to fomenting conduct of colonial By the early months of 1791 the triumvirate's Clubs and in the affairs came under attack in the Revolutionary Committee on the Colonies Constituent Assembly. Barnave and the be in the could be criticised for permitting Patriots for to giving persecuted a free hand to colonies, for failing to enforce the exclusif, mulatto rights. aristocratic royal officials and for failing to uphold another but were criticisms might not be consistent with one These for that. The collapse of the commercial system none the less damning uniting different constituencies had a particularly damaging impact, --- Page 196 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery for it. The political clubs against those who were seen as responsible lost trade and of the urban reflected the anger of the port cities at produce, as sugar, coffee and populace at rising prices for plantation by the higher prices in were diverted from the French entrepôts cacao and London. failing to uphold another but were criticisms might not be consistent with one These for that. The collapse of the commercial system none the less damning uniting different constituencies had a particularly damaging impact, --- Page 196 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery for it. The political clubs against those who were seen as responsible lost trade and of the urban reflected the anger of the port cities at produce, as sugar, coffee and populace at rising prices for plantation by the higher prices in were diverted from the French entrepôts cacao and London. Before the end of the year there New York, Amsterdam The commercial interests knew had been several sugar riots in Paris. for most of the shortages. well that contraband was the explanation those in the maritime centres, The Revolutionary Clubs, especially of royal officials, aristocratic began to denounce a criminal conspiracy interest: they urged the dispatch of planters, and traitors to the national troops to the Antilles.3 Colonies were themselves anxious to Barnave and the Committee on the of the exclusif, since authority and provisions assert metropolitan outset had been to reconcile the interests of planting their aim from the and metropolis. In a report to the National and commerce, colonies Barnave had admitted that: "The Assembly of November 29th 1790, The old laws are administration of the colonies is going to pieces. established." 37 He without force and the new are infinitely slow in being critical blow to the the of the Intendants as a pointed to expulsion the attempt by colonial assemblies to colonial system and attacked the drawing up of administrative functions. He recommended usurp to be enforced by specially selected Commissioners. new Instructions of patriotism made by the colonists Barnave knew that the parade of metropolitan authority. The brought into question the legitimacy entrusted with the power commissioners would be plenipotentiaries, itself in an effort to meet this and prestige of the National Assembly that the Commissioners should problem. Moreover he intended individuals: thus Mercier de la themselves be prominent and respected and former Intendant at Martinique, Rivière, the eminent Physiocrat him from sailing. Barnave's though ill health prevented initial was nominated, the colonial situation had the desperate attempt to recoup Instructions would have to be disadvantage that the nature of the new whole. to this point the agreed by the National Assembly as a Up a general discussion Committee on the Colonies had been able to avoid reports and within the Assembly on colonial affairs discussion. by presenting This tactic had moving that they be accepted without vociferous minority prepared worked because the Assembly contained a which did not wish to be the Committee and a majority to support discussion of the colonies, with their peculiar embarrassed by a detailed and May 1791 the Committee on 'internal' regime. Between January difficult to gain acceptance for its the Colonies found it increasingly controversy centred on proposals without a discussion. Once again regime, or on slavery mulatto rights rather than on the commercial --- Page 197 --- The French Revolution itself, or even on the precise assemblies. Indeed in the end powers to be allotted to the colonial restricted aspect even of the controversy issue of was to centre upon a very sympathetic to the Amis des Noirs, mulatto rights. Deputies proposed that the new Instructions supported by a number of Jacobins, those free people of colour who should extend political rights to both of whose parents had themselves were otherwise qualified to vote and there were very few free mulattos been free-born. It was clear that it transpired about four hundred or blacks who met this criterion - as in St Domingue. 38 Evidently this battle over the rights of a colour reflected and symbolised other handful of free people of of metropolitan responsibility issues. It highlighted the principle issue on which they could embarrass and gave the revolutionary democrats an was taboo for the great Barnave. The question of slavery Assembly, while majority of deputies to the Constituent metropolitan most colonial representatives. The sovereignty was a taboo question for the return of a profitable colonial Constituent deputies wished to see attacking slavery was the system and did not believe that the other hand, desired way to achieve this. vidently this battle over the rights of a colour reflected and symbolised other handful of free people of of metropolitan responsibility issues. It highlighted the principle issue on which they could embarrass and gave the revolutionary democrats an was taboo for the great Barnave. The question of slavery Assembly, while majority of deputies to the Constituent metropolitan most colonial representatives. The sovereignty was a taboo question for the return of a profitable colonial Constituent deputies wished to see attacking slavery was the system and did not believe that the other hand, desired way to achieve this. The leading planters, on themselves to be French self-government, and to be but most of them still felt looked to the subjects of the French bound metropolis to maintain order in the King. They to it by personal ties. They colonies and they felt principle of metropolitan generally avoided open attacks on the themselves with regulation of commerce and contented that the exclusif rendering it ineffective. Some planters have was a price worth for may felt with the wider French paying the benefits of association to provoke into empire; others that it would be tactically unwise opposition the entire commercial metropolis. The mulatto issue had the lobby of the Constituent deputies of posing the advantage for both colonists and colonial policy without question of the ultimate control of raised by broaching the even more delicate slavery or the commercial system. So questions were concerned the far as the petits blancs mulattos would be the enfranchisement thin end of the of even a small number of cultivateurs did not see in mulatto wedge. The grands blancs and position but they definitely did rights a mortal threat to their from the outside; given the not want to see such rights imposed always spoke of their opportunity the planter representatives when great benevolence towards the denying rights to them. So far as the mulattos, even the enforcement of mulatto rights, Constituent was concerned number of mulattos, would even the rights of a very small tive structure require the rehabilitation of an responsible to the administraundercut the moral and political metropolis. Moreover it would without threatening credentials of the colonial Patriots slavery. French 'patriotism' was defined by civic --- Page 198 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery as it had been for British or North virtue and love of country, just of the nation and who American Patriots; but what were the boundaries could be bourgeois or racist conceptions enjoyed civic rights? Narrowly denounced as the confection of a new aristocracy. Constituent Left was not Thus the decision of the Jacobins and interest. The issue simply prompted by political calculation or economic enshrined in the of mulatto rights put to the test the Citizen. principles Of course the issue of Declaration of the Rights of Man and the could persuade slavery did as well but the abolitionist-minded however deputy modest these might himself that conceding rights to mulattos, the condition of the coloured be, was the first step towards improving perceived in this question an people of the Antilles. Jacobins of 1789, expose the inconsistency opportunity to affirm the principles of the nation and pursue a policy of the triumvirate, assert the integrity risks. The gruesome news of that had economic advantages as well as when distrust of the martyrdom arrived in Paris at a time popular of Ogé's it was widely attacked as a barbarous example King was mounting; justice. In the Revolutionary Clubs as royal the caste revenge masquerading of the 'aristocracy of the skin' in and newspapers denunciations privilege in the suggested parallels with the struggle against colonies metropolis. 39 debated the colonial Instructions for five The Constituent Assembly deputies, the Massiac Club and the days in May 1791. The colonial the that would arise from even léopardins united in warning of dangers Moreau de Saint Méry, now a the smallest concession to the mulattos. for a motion to the effect deputy for Martinique, secured acceptance in the status of slaves (amended to that no change could be made West Indies that had not been formally 'persons not free') in the French colonial assemblies themselves. But and spontaneously demanded by the divided. colonial Instructions for five The Constituent Assembly deputies, the Massiac Club and the days in May 1791. The colonial the that would arise from even léopardins united in warning of dangers Moreau de Saint Méry, now a the smallest concession to the mulattos. for a motion to the effect deputy for Martinique, secured acceptance in the status of slaves (amended to that no change could be made West Indies that had not been formally 'persons not free') in the French colonial assemblies themselves. But and spontaneously demanded by the divided. A the mass of deputies was now seriously the opinion among white lynch law in the colonies was read to mulatto petition against the motion that 15th after Reubel, a Jacobin, proposed Assembly on May mulattos born of free parents. voting rights be given to qualified by acclamation. this motion was passed Despite Barnave's opposition of the Gironde, and the Within days the directory of the department the Assembly on its decision. Jacobins of Bordeaux, had congratulated in the Constituent Assembly But the radical Jacobins had no majority triumvirate. In an attempt to of displacing the and no prospect advantage the supporters of mulatto rights consolidate their temporary which was to accompany the of motives' presented a *declaration by Dupont de Nemours and approved decree to the colonies. Drafted the formula that 29th this document theorised compromising to on May declaring that the Constituent was not competent had been adopted, --- Page 199 --- The French Revolution accord civic rights to unfree members of a "foreign nation'. persons, Such or freedmen, since these were the colonial representatives, who did concessions all made little impact on sabotage implementation of the in their power to oppose and Ministry and the Committee May 15th decision. The Colonial Governor of St on Colonies were equally obstructive. The Domingue sent a letter to the warning that introduction of the decree would Constituent Assembly secession or even an invitation to the British fleet. provoke civil war, The extent of colonial undermine support for it in resistance the to the decree of May 15th began to Assembly. But the maritime centres and in the course of colonial Constituent determined solely by colonial events. The policy was by no means the popular demonstration which flight of the King in June, and escorted him back to apprehension at Varennes, created a Paris after his intrigues of the King created new political situation. The identified with the of problems for the triumvirate, who were still the objective of project the a constitutional monarchy. The latter was monarch could majority of the possessing serve as a rallying point for the classes since the property and commerce, for colonial disparate forces of merchants, for landowners and planters and metropolitan members of the peasants, for regular officers and monarchy burgeoning National Guard. But a required a constitutional monarch and constitutional Louis XVI and the more ardent this was a role which King's flight and the growing royalists were unprepared to play. The strength of the encouraged some leaders of democratic counter-revolution canvass the republican alternative. But opinion, such as Condorcet, to ent Assembly were more most members of the Constituof democratic frightened of the populace and of the hazards Barnave and the experiment than they were of the "Lamethists' formed a bloc with Malouet counter-revolution. monarchiens in an effort to shore the and many of constitutional monarchy. This new up crumbling project of a powerful backing from colonial grouping, the Feuillants, had with the Massiac Club. The interests, including those associated mood of the Constituent triumvirate had skilfully interpreted the even if not the true Assembly, and of much of bourgeois intentions of their opinion, proceeded to repress democratic sovereign. The Feuillants control of colonial policy. The or republican agitation and to regain 15th with consequent failure to follow up the decree of May remained Instructions had stalled its an embarrassment. On application, but it motion which referred the decree September 7th Barnave introduced a by the Committee on the Colonies. including those associated mood of the Constituent triumvirate had skilfully interpreted the even if not the true Assembly, and of much of bourgeois intentions of their opinion, proceeded to repress democratic sovereign. The Feuillants control of colonial policy. The or republican agitation and to regain 15th with consequent failure to follow up the decree of May remained Instructions had stalled its an embarrassment. On application, but it motion which referred the decree September 7th Barnave introduced a by the Committee on the Colonies. on mulatto rights for reconsideration withdrawal and had scathing words Barnave presented this as a tactical colonies and for ill-considered both for the social regime of the attempts to change it: "This regime is --- Page 200 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery handle it roughly without unloosing the greatest absurd, but one cannot but it gives a livelihood to several disorder. This regime is oppressive, is barbarous but a still greater million Frenchmen. This regime interfere with it without the necessary barbarity will result if you could disguise the craven knowledge. 40 But such rhetoric scarcely recommending. On interests that he was capitulation to colonial formally rescinded the decree on September 24th the Constituent the moral and political mulatto rights . C.L.R. James has underlined the decree of May 15th: significance of the failure to implement which demoralised the Constituent. Jaurès, SO It was the colonial question on Parliamentary assemblies, has weak on colonial events, but SO strong insight of a great parliamentraced this demoralisation with the profound bourgeoisie had been tarian. Hitherto, says Jaurès, the Socialiste revolutionary de la Revolution Francaise, Vol. reasonably honest (Jaurès, Histoire limited the franchise at least they had done so II, pP. 225-6). If they had Mulattoes the Rights of Man they had to openly. But to avoid giving the which destroyed their descend to low dodges and crooked negotiations conscience of the Constituent on the revolutionary integrity. It was the guilty of the reactionaries when Louis colonial question that placed it at the mercy of Barnave and all his party on fled. "Undoubtedly but for the compromises attitude of the Assembly after the flight to the colonial question, the general 141 Varennes would have been different." which was cause and which effect there While it is difficult to be certain cemented the ill-fated can be little doubt that colonial compromise Feuillant bloc. decree of May 15th was almost the last act of The rescinding of the Assembly, which met the Constituent. In the newly elected Legislative and reremained the largest grouping on October 1st, the Feuillants through a new Committee on tained nominal control of colonial policy But though a constructed along similar lines to its predecessor. Colonies remain in office until March of 1792 it was Feuillant ministry was to by events. Barnave and his colleagues already beginning to be overtaken the military resources to either the financial or did not possess in the colonies. Their effort to appease the command the situation calm. The vacillations on mulatto colonial establishment failed to bring had of the royalist counter-revolution rights and the conspiracies In Le Cap and Port au Prince intensified the struggle in St Domingue. clashed with royalist gangs, the patriot bands, the pompons rouges, of 1791 the patriot committees, pompons blancs. In the summer dominated new elections to a supported by most resident planters, the decree of May 15th mulatto general colonial Assembly: despite from these elections. The officers proprietors were completely excluded --- Page 201 --- The French Revolution and of the royal squadron inclined to intransigent of the garrison number of the agents of metropolitan inmonarchism as did a the mulattos, who had terests. The decree of May 15th encouraged their rights arms in hand. The already begun to mobilise, to assert of loyal lacked either clear instructions or reinforcements Governor troops. by most resident planters, the decree of May 15th mulatto general colonial Assembly: despite from these elections. The officers proprietors were completely excluded --- Page 201 --- The French Revolution and of the royal squadron inclined to intransigent of the garrison number of the agents of metropolitan inmonarchism as did a the mulattos, who had terests. The decree of May 15th encouraged their rights arms in hand. The already begun to mobilise, to assert of loyal lacked either clear instructions or reinforcements Governor troops. following nearly two years of uncertainty and These ragged conflicts, by market pressures that made revolutionary rhetoric, and accompanied created the conditions planters and managers avid for increased of slave output, rebellion ever seen in the for the most remarkable explosion conflict had involved the fortification of French Caribbean. Factional slaves. The revolt took place and the arming of some some plantations the close of the harvest season. White employees in August, towards left the for recreation in the would, in many cases, have plantations, conditions had promoted a towns. Economic as well as political of the slave regime. Elite slaves contradictory relsaton/imtenaification flourished and the markets in slave produce circulated more freely, distracted. Yet working conditions for maréchaussée and police were anxious to push their the mass of slaves were no better, with overseers the elaborate apparatus of slave crews to the limit. On the one hand, On the other, some slaves was weakened and divided. slave subjection for meeting, for comparing experihad unprecedented opportunities ences and for arming themselves. the of August 21st in the vicinity The slave uprising began on night between colonial factions. A newly of Le Cap, the epicentre of struggles white Patriots was just about to meet in elected Assembly dominated by the outbreak was planned at the northern capital. According to legend on the stormy night of meeting of elite slaves held in the Bois-Caiman the a Boukman Dutty, a coach-driver, presided over August 14th. that there would be a simultaneous revolt gathering and it was agreed Clement, Flaville, Gallifet, and on a series of major plantations: Limbé and Noé, Acul. At a voodoo ceremony the others in the region of another and to victory over the conspirators pledged themselves to one 'Couté la Liberté dan whites and their evil God, crying out in Kréyole: which speaks in the hearts coeur à nous', (Listen to the voice of Liberty of all). 42 the northern plain, involving tens of The revolt spread rapidly across Assembly, now besieged in Le Cap, thousands of slaves. The Colonial and 900 coffee and indigo estates was to claim that 180 sugar estates slaves affected; though they were engulfed by the revolt, with 100,000 like this had been seen in probably exaggerated certainly nothing --- Page 202 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Patriots insisted that royalist officials or rebellious St Domingue before. revolt and had distributed arms to the slaves mulattos were behind the The rebel leaders manoeuvre. as part of a counter-revolutionary of and some did claim that the adopted the style and uniform generals hated overseers King wanted to help the blacks. The rebels slaughtered and doctors were said who stood in their way. A few priests or whites the black generals. The to have been spared; some even joined and withdrew to refuge in the insurgents set fire to plantation buildings, loath to abandon a place surrounding hills and forest; others remained, made common cause with the they thought of as home. behind the The rebel leaders manoeuvre. as part of a counter-revolutionary of and some did claim that the adopted the style and uniform generals hated overseers King wanted to help the blacks. The rebels slaughtered and doctors were said who stood in their way. A few priests or whites the black generals. The to have been spared; some even joined and withdrew to refuge in the insurgents set fire to plantation buildings, loath to abandon a place surrounding hills and forest; others remained, made common cause with the they thought of as home. Some rebels number and in size. The garrison maroon bands, which mushroomed in reluctant to venture far into the held Cap Français but was initially black leaders wrote to the devastated Northern plain. One of the in which peace 4th saying that the only way Governor on September whites evacuated the entire region including could be secured was if the them their gold and jewels. The only Le Cap: "They may take with The Governor's forces gradually precious object we covet is liberty." from the main plantation zone. In drove back the black columns column; the officer November Boukman was killed by a regular and a white man with reporting this noted the presence of five cannon there were now at least half Boukman's force of several hundred.4 But active in the North and the a dozen large rebel and maroon South forces and West there were also borderlands. In parts of the militia assumed control. disturbances; in these regions a free coloured Governor of Jamaica for help. The Colonial Assembly appealed to led the white and mulatto proprietors to The seriousness of the slave revolt of areas - but the concordat' in self-defence in a number reach a when they heard that the mulattos were to remember their resentments The Constituent Assembly had May 15th decree had been rescinded. mulattos in September 1791 before delivered this rebuff to the free slave revolt in St Domingue. When anyone in France was aware of the free of colour they were withdrew rights from people the triumvirs assuming the continued subordinappeasing white colonists and simply ation of the slaves. that the rising of August 1791 was the With hindsight we know But this was not at all beginning of the end of slavery in St Domingue. than The revolt had been far more widespread clear to contemporaries. but once the insurgents had retired to any previously seen in the colony, semblance of order returned to many the hills and frontier zone a liberty, others remained to plantations. While some rebels had achieved battles the militia or negotiate with the planters or overseers. In of pitched Boukman was believed to regulars would usually prevail. The black death insurgence. As yet it was not have dealt a crushing blow to the --- Page 203 --- The French Revolution clear that a new power had been born; the rebels general programme or plan. When themselves issued no reached France at the beginning of proper reports of the insurrection of the matter in the eyes of November the most alarming aspect metropolitan appeal to the Governor of observers was the - planters' fact that the London Jamaica an alarm that was increased by the newspapers seemed much better developments in St Domingue than the informed about metropolitan suspicions were, in fact, ministry in Paris. These member of the Colonial Assembly, eminently justified, since a leading Governor of Jamaica but also Cadusch, not only contacted the government to occupy St sent a letter to Pitt inviting the British supplies Domingue. A British at Cap Français on warship arrived with enthusiastic welcome by the white September 22nd and was given an events as this reached France inhabitants. Reports of such ominous the insurrection itself. Those more or less at the same time as news of that colonists most interested in colonial affairs such always exaggerated the extent of slave rebellions and believed outbreaks, even when serious, could that or later - separatist always be contained sooner movements, as the North were a graver threat to metropolitan 44 Americans had proved, interests. Cap Français on warship arrived with enthusiastic welcome by the white September 22nd and was given an events as this reached France inhabitants. Reports of such ominous the insurrection itself. Those more or less at the same time as news of that colonists most interested in colonial affairs such always exaggerated the extent of slave rebellions and believed outbreaks, even when serious, could that or later - separatist always be contained sooner movements, as the North were a graver threat to metropolitan 44 Americans had proved, interests. Following the insurrection in St slaves left their estates and formed Domingue about 20,000 former surrounding the Northern plain and encampments in the foothills The Northern at Ounaminthe near the capital at Le Cap remained in border. and the white Patriots of the the hands of the Governor West there were smaller outbreaks Assembly. In some parts of the South and were not as extensive of slave rebellion. Such or as destructive of outbreaks insurrection in the North. plantation property as the Throughout the colony slaves who had were often reluctant to leave the family ties and garden plots rudimentary existence of the plantation for the uncertain and acknowledged changed maroon. The planters or their conditions - by managers an extra free day per week, or more making concessions to their slaves in this way retained a work-force. In extensive cultivation rights - and concessions could be made because of some parts of the country such the North they might be made because high prices for sugar; in much of to resume output in any case. The the sugar mills were in no state surrounding woods and hills existence of rebel columns in the was itself an managers to be attentive to their crews. Most inducement to plantation risings, large or small, were of the leaders of the slave political authorities prepared to negotiate with to secure liberty for planters and immediate followers, and better conditions themselves, and their slaves. The leaders of the for the mass of rebellious Biassou, Jean François, insurrectionary columns in the North Toussaint Bréda - described themselves as --- Page 204 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery sometimes claimed that the whites had soldiers of the King: it was the slaves an extra free day per week. concealed a royal decree granting by the National Assembly arrived in A Civil Commission dispatched of November 1791 and soon opened St Domingue at the end of the Northern revolt. The latter negotiations with the leaders but also full political rights, demanded not only freedom for themselves decrees had left this to the discretion pointing out that the metropolitan leaders declared that SO long as their own of local authorities. The black was formally guaranteed, freedom, and those of some 400 followers, their they slaves allowed more time to work plots, and the mass of enforce a return to the plantations. C.L.R. James would be prepared to yet it would count as describes this as an 'abominable leaders, betrayal', with, perhaps, a dimension standard conduct for past maroon of the revolt were predominantly of servile trade unionism. The leaders The elite slaves already enjoyed former elite slaves, or even affranchis. the mass of slaves might be more privileges and aspired to full freedom; The main black leaders spoke willing to settle for improved conditions. contrast, many of their followers French. Jean François claimed that, by words of French; by implication were Africans who spoke only two about French legal formulas, and these followers were not bothered time to work their plots. While could be satisfied by promises of more which merits the black leaders did display an egoism and the condescension uneven and incomplete James's scorn it is probable that it revolt was which made this possible. 45 development of slave resistance and the terms offered The Civil Commissioners were prepared to accept by the black leaders, but prospects for a deal were sabotaged by the of the North, which refused to countenance it. by words of French; by implication were Africans who spoke only two about French legal formulas, and these followers were not bothered time to work their plots. While could be satisfied by promises of more which merits the black leaders did display an egoism and the condescension uneven and incomplete James's scorn it is probable that it revolt was which made this possible. 45 development of slave resistance and the terms offered The Civil Commissioners were prepared to accept by the black leaders, but prospects for a deal were sabotaged by the of the North, which refused to countenance it. The provincial assembly the to impose their will on Civil Commissioners did not have strength forces of the garrison were the mass of white colonists: the depleted of the colony slave outbreaks outnumbered by the militia. In other parts 'concordat' between whites helped to bring about an uneasy truce or 'combined' force of whites and and free people of colour. In the West a rouges to seize free mulattos defeated an attempt by assisted patriot pompons in this by a young black control of Port au Prince; they were following among the rebel who had established a named Hyacinth of the West: 'there are really no insurgent slaves. An official wrote been armed by the two parties." 1 The South slaves but those which have and mulattodivided into a patchwork of white-controlled was But in the hills of Les Platons a stubborn slave revolt controlled areas. and an official reported the following was only contained with difficulty the attackers:" <, nous après rebel reaction to peace feelers put out by and we will cut off is to say, we had expected you, tandé zaute", 2 which and that this land is not for you it is for your heads to the last man; --- Page 205 --- The French Revolution resisted civic concessions to us."' ,46 So long as the colonial power it was not well placed to regain mulatto proprietors and commanders, of the colony. its influence over the different regions the developments within the metropolis strengthened Meanwhile, with the Amis des Noirs and further position of those associated of the Antilles. Brissot and Condorcet antagonised the white planters while all former members of the were both members of the Legislative themselves as candiConstituent had been debarred from presenting des Noirs was growing, as dates. In the clubs the influence of the Amis and racist discredited by his capitulations to arrogant Barnave was the most effective opposition leader in colonists." 47 Brissot now became forward policy which would and the champion of a new the Legislative in Europe and would reassert metropolitan take France to war a rehabilitation and authority in the Antilles. Both objectives required administrative machine. of the nation's armed forces and the expansion for such aims could be aroused by proclaiming foil Popular support of the counter-revolution and need to end foreign encouragement and colonists. The King, foolishly the plots of aristocratic emigrés the formation of a new du pire, permitted devoted to a politique 'Brissotin' led by Roland and ministry committed to the programme, of the Amis. The Jacobin' Clavière, the latter, of course, a 15th sponsor 1792. One of its first acts was to ministry was formed on March full civic and political rights introduce a decree on April 4th conceding of colour. to all free adult males in the colonies, colonial regardless factions and looked to the Brissot did not trust the white In St Domingue support from de couleur to recoup the situation. the restoration of gens of colour would be essential to the free people of the colonial system. In much of the authority and the rehabilitation white and coloured proprietors had West the 'concordat' between of the necessity to unite the free already been based on recognition in the face of slave insurgency. civic and political rights introduce a decree on April 4th conceding of colour. to all free adult males in the colonies, colonial regardless factions and looked to the Brissot did not trust the white In St Domingue support from de couleur to recoup the situation. the restoration of gens of colour would be essential to the free people of the colonial system. In much of the authority and the rehabilitation white and coloured proprietors had West the 'concordat' between of the necessity to unite the free already been based on recognition in the face of slave insurgency. The population, whatever their colour, situation in which both metropolitan slave revolts had created a new of enlisting the support of and creole interests recognised the advantage had been devised with the the free people of colour. The 'concordat' by municipal help of the Civil Commissioners but implemented without reference to a authorities who increasingly acted for themselves were and distant metropolis. So far as many proprietors weakened towards self-reliance and self-government; and concerned, it was a step of free trade. Several these consorted happily with their practice merchants decided that their important mulatto proprietors and --- Page 206 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery served aligning themselves with creole interests would be best Thus by in the West the royalist pompons autonomism and royalism. 'combined force' acted together, led by the blancs and the leaders of the and the mulatto planter J.B. white planter Hanus de Jumécourt autonomism were prepared to Lapointe. Some planters who favoured Princes, because the latter were in work with the counter-revolutionary despotism on the Antilles. Indeed it no position to impose ministerial which could be used as a rather than patriotism was now royalism creole faction's aversion to metropolitan regulascreen to defend the British material support as the critical tions. Such planter royalists saw received from the Governor of factor and were grateful for the help Spain might supply Jamaica in the aftermath of the slave uprising. Britain's commercial and flanking support in St Domingue but it lacked help to restore royal maritime strength. Austria or Prussia might the situation in the in France but had no purchase on authority Caribbean. did not control the state apparatus: within the Navy The Brissotins monarchism remained a powerful and its dependencies unreconstructed the adhesion of colonial grands blancs force and was strengthened by Barnave and Lameth. A and cultivateurs who had earlier supported would give Brissot the allies he conception of citizenship more generous colonial order. The Brissotin programme needed to fashion a new of colonial commerce as well as would, it was hoped, restore the flows mulattos and loyal whites would repromote plantation security; free administration and police. The now establish a functioning colonial French colonies and the North American or booming trade between redirected the back to Bordeaux and Nantes. British ports would be for running their own affairs stopped The planters' growing appetite Under the impact of just short of a desire for full independence. had fragmented into a score or SO revolution and slave revolt the colony assemblies, meeting in port towns and local of separate municipalities Jérémie and Léogane, as well as the provincial such as St Marc, Jacmel, Prince and Les Cayes. The planters and capitals of Le Cap, Port au assemblies that some sort of merchants who dominated the recognised the activities of rebels and central authority was needed to check British might A constitutional monarchy or protectorate but runaways. To renounce France was not easy, supply the back-up they required. ledgers and warehouses to the prying they did not wish to open up their and customs officials, whatever their eyes of colonial tax inspectors disenchanted with the confusions of patriot colour. Many planters were to be by the admission democracy and thought these likely compounded White proprietors were of all free people of colour to citizenship. but this did not mean that prepared to work with mulatto proprietors, --- Page 207 --- The French Revolution similarly the grands they accepted other men of colour as their equals; resentments of the petits blancs had been prepared to exploit the racial positions of influence. they did not wish to open up their and customs officials, whatever their eyes of colonial tax inspectors disenchanted with the confusions of patriot colour. Many planters were to be by the admission democracy and thought these likely compounded White proprietors were of all free people of colour to citizenship. but this did not mean that prepared to work with mulatto proprietors, --- Page 207 --- The French Revolution similarly the grands they accepted other men of colour as their equals; resentments of the petits blancs had been prepared to exploit the racial positions of influence. blancs but did not wish to see them occupying had dominated the colonial Up to this point the larger planters securely in Martinique than assemblies - though admittedly been more allowed to vote but they had not St Domingue. Petits blancs had blancs but also lawyers, stood as candidates; indeed not only petits from in the and clerks had been largely absent representation excluded priests The Brissotin programme allowed these colonial assemblies. official posts at the risk of further layers of the white population to gain merchants, together with their alienating the richer planters and and merchants could hangers-on. It was hoped that the creole planters colonial state, since this be brought to accept the newly refurbished subordination. Much as planters would offer them a guarantee of slave that security would the profits of contraband it was hoped appreciated be their overriding consideration. that the colonial system could not The Legislative Assembly, aware metropolitan presence in St be rebuilt without a much stronger Commission and an expeditionary Domingue, dispatched a new Civil of the line and 4,000 National force of 6,000 men - 2,000 troops force was sent to the Windwards in Guards - in July 1792; a smaller Commissioners for St Domingue, of the following month. The Civil entrusted with very wide powers by the whom there were three, were or dismiss the colonial Legislative Assembly enabling them to summon branch of adminisassemblies and to investigate and restructure every members: Sonthonax, tration. The Commission comprised three Polverel and Ailhaud. lawyer and journalist, was a Sonthonax, a twenty-nine-year-old friend of Brissot and a supporter of the member of the Jacobin Club, a count on the support of another, Amis des Noirs. He could generally Polverel. Ailhaud was to return more cautious, Brissotin Commissioner, orientation. The France before revealing a distinctive political and to by a new military commander expedition was accompanied to be subordinate to the CommisGovernor, Desparbès, who was moment. A The left France at an extraordinary sioners. expedition at the head of a counter-revolutionary Prussian general was poised of the King and court, underlined army to invade France. The intrigues officers, had created an by the wholesale defection of royalist Brissot had declared atmosphere of the greatest alarm and suspicion. had joined with him to that 'La patrie est en danger and Robespierre 28th. The fédérés who call for a united patriotic mobilisation on June of the fall of the Bastille converged on Paris to celebrate the anniversary and Queen. The Patriots of denounced the treason of the King --- Page 208 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Marseilles began their march on the for the arming of all citizens, abolition capital and demands were raised and passive citizens, overthrow of the distinction between active National Convention of the monarchy and on the basis of universal election of a King's refusal to sanction a number of manhood suffrage. The inflamed the Patriots. Indeed the emergency measures further Commissioners for St royal licence issued to the Civil Louis XVI. The fact that Domingue was amongst the last official acts leave France an expedition of 6,000 of at this juncture was itself troops was allowed to attached to the colonies. a tribute to the importance Notwithstanding their royal sanction the chosen for their loyalty to the Commissioners had been Antilles the spirit of patriotic Assembly and took with them to the Club that had yet to vigilance and the fervour of a incoherence split. Indeed the emergency measures further Commissioners for St royal licence issued to the Civil Louis XVI. The fact that Domingue was amongst the last official acts leave France an expedition of 6,000 of at this juncture was itself troops was allowed to attached to the colonies. a tribute to the importance Notwithstanding their royal sanction the chosen for their loyalty to the Commissioners had been Antilles the spirit of patriotic Assembly and took with them to the Club that had yet to vigilance and the fervour of a incoherence split. But they also had to Jacobin at the heart of the Brissotin contend with an rehabilitate the state administration programme. Brissot wished to constitutional monarchy, he failed yet, clinging to the dead formula of an authoritative new to base his plans from the outset on June he was still sovereign power. Having denounced the in the prepared to negotiate with him in King arrest of the royal family and the July. And even after insurrection of August 10th Brissot and triumph of the Republican leading the government of a the Girondins seemed to be The Civil Commissioners Republic in which they only acted with half-believed. by the problem of the ultimate resolution, but they were dogged Commissioners themselves had legitimacy of their acts. The declared in no difficulty in accepting the September or accepting the Republic elected in the same month, which authority of the Convention, overthow of the renewed their Commission. But the throughout the French monarchy was the signal for a royalist Antilles as creole fronde on a ready-made justification for their planters and merchants seized The Civil Commission arrived in St autonomist aspirations. and was welcomed by the colonists of Domingue on September 17th strong forces they brought with them. Cap Français because of the plunged in a succession of difficult The Commission was soon regular troops, D'Esparbès, resented situations. The commander of the Commissioners and the powers conferred on the Civil campaign displayed little zeal for his against the insurgents leading troops in a outset he revealed royalist holding out in the interior. From the when news arrived in October sympathies, that winning some planter became bolder in his defiance a Republic had been declared support; he announced that the of the Commissioners. Sonthonax Commissioners fully property and that they were determined respected the colonists from the slaves or from the royalist to stamp out rebellion, whether counter-revolution. In a swift coup --- Page 209 --- The French Revolution the Commission and colonial managed to win over most of the militia; D'Esparbès, metropolitan troops twenty-five other together with his entire staff and Commissioners officers, were arrested and sent to were assisted by the arrival of France. The ranking metropolitan commanders reinforcements and two who stayed in St loyal to the Republic: Domingue from November to Rochambeau, Laveaux, a ci-devant noble and January, and Etienne victories at Valmy and participant in the recent Republican Jémappes. With this began to reconstruct metropolitan help the Commissioners lines embodied in their instructions. authority in the colony along the of the black revolt, An appeal was made to the leaders offering them their liberty in restoring order to the colony. But the exchange for help in who had just overthrown their black generals replied that those anyone freedom. The King were in no position to promise slaveholders of all colours, Commissioners, ordered hoping to attract the support of encampments. They were military operations against the rebel often prefer to withdraw than puzzled to discover that the blacks would Polverel and Ailhaud left to give battle. in their instructions. authority in the colony along the of the black revolt, An appeal was made to the leaders offering them their liberty in restoring order to the colony. But the exchange for help in who had just overthrown their black generals replied that those anyone freedom. The King were in no position to promise slaveholders of all colours, Commissioners, ordered hoping to attract the support of encampments. They were military operations against the rebel often prefer to withdraw than puzzled to discover that the blacks would Polverel and Ailhaud left to give battle. took for the West and South charge in the North. Because of the threat while Sonthonax rebels in the North none of the still posed by the black subtracted from this province, metropolitan reinforcements could be and West at the mercy of local leaving forces the Commissioners in the South Ailhaud found such resistance unsympathetic to the to his in Republic. decided to return to France to authority Port au Prince that he Polverel had warn of the colony's more persistence and won imminent defection. officers who welcomed the decree of support from coloured militia a desire not to antagonise the de April 4th. Fear of slave revolt and and merchants to feign gens couleur induced many planters there was a real acceptance of the Republican authorities prospect of replacing them. 48 until While wealthy mulatto proprietors intrigues of the autonomist continued to participate in the people of colour were attracted municipalities the majority of the free Republican Commissioners. by the anti-racist policies of the white emigration the free mulattos Because there had been a steady drain of whites by and blacks now outnumbered perhaps two to one. In many places the largest militia units. Coloured officers they already formed the the evident determination of Sonthonax and soldiers were impressed by discrimination. The Commissioners and Polverel to dismantle racial coloured veterans who had held had no hesitation in promoting Légion de St Domingue: commissions in the militia and in the the South, Chanlatte, Beauvais important commands were given to Rigaud in the North. The Légion de St and Pinchinat in the West and Villatte in Sonthonax defeated Domingue became the Légion d'Egalité. D'Esparbès with the help of the pompons rouges --- Page 210 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery club of radical white Patriots which committed but he dispersed a of 4th'. He then proceeded to form outrages against 'citizens April exclusively of gens de couleur. Making compagnies franches, composed dissolved all provincial use of their wide powers the Commissioners elections, pending a Republican educaassemblies and postponed new The Civil Commissioners tion and reconstruction of the colony. de la Convention, and clubs, the Amis sponsored new revolutionary executive Whites and free gens intermediary commissions with bodies powers. in numbers and de couleur were appointed to these investigating equal émigré estates charged with rooting out royalist suspects, spoke of liberating the and raising revenue. The Civil Commissioner extended to the true Third Estate of the colony. Despite the recognition succeeded in retaining the free people of colour the Commissioners notaries, of white colonists - petty officials, support of a layer merchants and even a few planters. While constitutional priests, some vociferous in their racialism, rallied to the some Patriots, formerly enemies of despotism, went over to Republic, others, formerly sworn the royalists. in the North around Le The new Republican order was strongest North-west was in Cap and Port de Paix, though the extreme Polverel the backing autonomist hands. the colony. Despite the recognition succeeded in retaining the free people of colour the Commissioners notaries, of white colonists - petty officials, support of a layer merchants and even a few planters. While constitutional priests, some vociferous in their racialism, rallied to the some Patriots, formerly enemies of despotism, went over to Republic, others, formerly sworn the royalists. in the North around Le The new Republican order was strongest North-west was in Cap and Port de Paix, though the extreme Polverel the backing autonomist hands. In the West and South contend enjoyed with municipal of the coloured commanders, but had to and no desire to see authorities with no commitment to the Republic of the West and South the colonial system rehabilitated. In much autonomism to Republican mulatto proprietors preferred 'royalist' Prince abandoned its 'equality". The municipality of Port au only but there were not defiance after a full-scale siege and bombardment, Coloured commanders enough troops to secure all outlying activities districts. of coloured proprietors. sometimes ignored the contraband St Nicolas, Jérémie and Jacmel openly The local authorities in Môle Republican municidefied the Republican authorities; even nominally with the British palities, like that of St Marc, traded and conspired be found. The Civil colonies where many émigrés were now to of plantation produce Commissioners sent some special consignments administration was not to Bordeaux from Le Cap but their emergency of commerce. Any move adequate to enforcing the colonial regulation brought howls of anger against suspected royalists and autonomists commitment to defend from other planters. The Civil Commissioners' control of the plantation militia slavery left economic power, and enemies. forces, in the hands of their political --- Page 211 --- The French Revolution 1S A VIVRE LTBRE, OU D MOURIR Republican emblem News from Europe encouraged the of the Windwards to declare for the planters and colonial establishment 1792. Significantly enough the King in September and October dominated as they were by the large assemblies of these two colonies, decree of April 4th when it arrived in planters, had meekly accepted the planters realised that it would be June. In a fraught situation the the free population. The folly to alienate a critical section of the Iles du Vent was that of news the which precipitated planter rebellion in patriot forces in July and confrontation between the King and the neigbouring British colonies led August. Garbled reports relayed by established his authority and that many the to believe that the King had rea victorious counteerevolutionary Duke of Brunswick, at the head of agitations of the Paris rabble. The army, had crushed the democratic believed that the time had come naval and garrison commanders King. The to honour their oaths of loyalty to the autonomist-inclined and persuaded to form a Federation of planter-dominated the Iles du assemblies were white flag. The more astute leaders of the Vent and to hoist the the rumours of royalist victory but planters may have discounted had arrived in which, with they clearly sensed that a moment with the British. Aware of the royalist help, they could negotiate a deal the Iles du Vent the Legislative unpatriotic disposition of the planters of of 2,000 men commanded Assembly had assembled an expedition by General Rochambeau to restore --- Page 212 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery there. This expedition left France on August metropolitan authority insurrection taking place in unaware of the Republican 10th, apparently arrived in the Windwards towards the end of Paris on the same day. It and the commanders of the garrison September. The local authorities, permission to land, informing him and squadron, refused Rochambeau by order of the King. that his instructions had been revoked contested landing and set sail Rochambeau decided against attempting October a 8th the Assembly of the for St Domingue. In a secret session on dispatched Du Buc on a Federation of Guadeloupe and Martinique to negotiate with the mission to Europe, with plenipotentiary powers The and the leaders of the counter-revolution. . It and the commanders of the garrison September. The local authorities, permission to land, informing him and squadron, refused Rochambeau by order of the King. that his instructions had been revoked contested landing and set sail Rochambeau decided against attempting October a 8th the Assembly of the for St Domingue. In a secret session on dispatched Du Buc on a Federation of Guadeloupe and Martinique to negotiate with the mission to Europe, with plenipotentiary powers The and the leaders of the counter-revolution. London government a commissioner of their own to émigré leaders themselves dispatched former member of the St Marc the Antilles, one Cougnacq-Myon, a in the Iles du Vent they Assembly. Though the royalists had triumphed warships were allowed to failed to consolidate their gains. Royalist them of the advantages of backing leave to join the British and persuade officials suppressed the the rebellion. On the islands themselves royalist colonial Patriots, forcing a municipality of St Pierre and persecuted Dutch or British islands number of them to seek refuge on neighbouring where the local on Ste Lucie, an island with few plantations or had remained faithful to the metropolis. commander Convention despatched an envoy, Captain The newly elected of the Iles du Vent of the proclamation Lacrosse, to inform the colonists December aboard the frigate Lacrosse arrived in early of the Republic. held the main French Windwards Felicité. Discovering that the royalists where he proceeded to engage in a Lacrosse sailed on to Ste Lucie, from and Martinique. the royalists in Guadeloupe pamphlet war against treason and join forces with Lacrosse urged all Patriots to reject royalist both invasion and slave the gens de couleur as an insurance against revolt. the bases of our It is to you, citizens of Equality, liberty, these are we are one government. and the same family, our union all colours, that I address myself; must be attached to his will be our strength; and the slave, your Are property, not afraid that your crews will labours by the example you give him. you France? Attacked from desert you at the first cannon shot fired against resistance you by would you be able to without and menaced from within, what afford?" commander brought news of the consolidation of The republican and of victories at Valmy and the new order in France impressive that forces were on the way. Jémappes. He assured the colonists larger of colour of Guadeloupe The whites of St Pierre and the free people --- Page 213 --- The French Revolution appeals. The patriot forces were proved sympathetic to the republican and by the return of refugees swelled by victims of royalist persecution of an armed clash the royalist from nearby islands. Fearing the outcome and then Guadeloupe. planters and officials evacuated first Martinique 7th with cheers the Felicité sailed into St Pierre on January To patriot on its mast; in a ceremony of welcome an enormous bonnet rouge coloured citizen. Lacrosse embraced a leading Iles du Vent, based on the support of The patriot order in the and the majority of petits metropolitan merchants, a few cultivateurs Republican blancs and free people of colour, developed a vigorous Clubs dedicated to culture. There were at least a dozen Revolutionary of de couleur were royalist treason. A number gens eradicating military commands, among them Magloire promoted to important Rochambeau returned to the islands in Pélage and Louis Delgrès. them against the expedition February and efforts were made to fortify all expected. It was which, with the outbreak of a wider war imminent, collaborators. Up to this now the turn of patriots to persecute had royalist remained quiet; but in March point the slaves of the Iles du Vent which were revolts in Guadeloupe and August there were plantation loss of life. 50 only suppressed with considerable of republican colonial policy were jeopardised The precarious successes which put France on a collision by the consequences of a war policy the autonomist planters course with Britain and Spain, thus furnishing that the defence of with the allies they sought. , with the outbreak of a wider war imminent, collaborators. Up to this now the turn of patriots to persecute had royalist remained quiet; but in March point the slaves of the Iles du Vent which were revolts in Guadeloupe and August there were plantation loss of life. 50 only suppressed with considerable of republican colonial policy were jeopardised The precarious successes which put France on a collision by the consequences of a war policy the autonomist planters course with Britain and Spain, thus furnishing that the defence of with the allies they sought. Brissot had Bourbons declared throughout Europe. the overthrow of French liberty required threatened the decrepit empires The rhetoric of Danton simultaneously commercial interests of Britain's of the anciens régimes and the vigorous of the Scheldt and plots to oligarchy. Republican advances, the opening bells ringing in London as well subvert Spanish America set the alarm November 1792, and his execution The trial of the King in as Madrid. denounced the British as well in January of the following year, was shocked by by the expansionism Spanish government. British ministers, the French Republic, and tempted by of and commercial protectionism were ready to encourage the prospect of Caribbean acquisitions, well as The Republican counter-revolution in the Caribbean as Europe. and March declare war on Britain and Spain in January decision to to British and Spanish collusion with 1793 was seen in part as a riposte counter-revolution and colonial revolt. he found that the When Du Buc arrived in London in early January lacked the resources to mount an independent royalist leaders --- Page 214 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the French colonies. The Princes had expedition to the Antilles to regain indeed they were borrowing money no funds for such ventures; who had represented themselves from de Curt, the wealthy planter without success to Guadeloupe. The royalist commanders sought Du Buc from the British government. extract a loan or supplies with the British government, which itself proceeded to negotiate directly deal with than prickly French ultras. found colonial royalists easier to it: "The chevalier Du Buc had As a historian of Martinique puts and realistic mind which had been inherited from his father that logical Together with MM. de Curt, de the admiration of the Abbé Raynal. and Malouet, he undertook Clairefontaine, de Perpigna, de Charmilly and soon concluded an negotiations based on the new situation III whose execution would, with the Ministers of George was thus arrangement 51 The team he hoped, "satisfy all interests". : negotiating (Du Buc and Perpigna), representative of the planters of Martinique St Domingue (Vernault de Guadeloupe (de Curt and Clairefontaine), and the Massiac Club (Malouet). The Charmilly, a former léopardin), with the British government on February agreement formally signed had declared war on Britain on January 31st 19th 1793 - the Republic Islands 'into the possession and under - placed the French Windward Majesty'. Britain undertook to restore the authority of His Britannic the end of the war, any of the them to France *in the case that at House of Bourbon present (to the exclusion princes of the French branch of the the throne'.32 So far as of Philippe Egalité and his race) regain was added. was concerned no such royalist qualification St Domingue until 'the allied powers' determined British possession was to continue the final form of this agreement ultimate sovereignty over the colony; until These agreements, or on St Domingue was not reached the April. colonial assemblies when propositions, were to be ratified by circumstances permitted. the leading French colonists in London The invitation issued by and substantial gains as well as greater seemed to promise Britain easy colonies. Long before the outbreak of security for its own West Indian plans for new acquisitions hostilities British ministers were drawing in up the New World could be in the Americas. ue until 'the allied powers' determined British possession was to continue the final form of this agreement ultimate sovereignty over the colony; until These agreements, or on St Domingue was not reached the April. colonial assemblies when propositions, were to be ratified by circumstances permitted. the leading French colonists in London The invitation issued by and substantial gains as well as greater seemed to promise Britain easy colonies. Long before the outbreak of security for its own West Indian plans for new acquisitions hostilities British ministers were drawing in up the New World could be in the Americas. The richest islands it was expected that acquired, it seemed, with little trouble or expense; through revenues and British occupations would pay for themselves, had the added had in 1757-63. St Domingue commerce, as happened supplier of cotton to Britain's interest that it had become a major defences were undermined by manufacturers. While French colonial British would be able to count on the disintegration and defection the Moreover there were plans for support of the planters and their militias. In February auxiliary regiments of French émigré planters. assembling --- Page 215 --- The French Revolution colonial émigrés then serving with the 1793 there were said to be 2,000 return to the Antilles. Montalembert, Princes in Germany and eager to canvassed as possible commanders Bouillé and even Dumouriez were between Britain and France for these French forces. As hostilities laid plans for an expeditionary commenced the British government the French islands; force to be sent to the Caribbean French to capture colonies would also, it was profitable in itself, the capture of the the weakness of hoped, place Britain in a good position to exploit the Spanish authorities Spain, now its nominal ally. For their part the future of intended themselves to have a hand in deciding St Domingue. the Bourbons had led to a state of The revolutionary threat French to St Domingue and Spanish Santo undeclared war between declaration of hostilities in March Domingo even before the formal Santo Domingo, the Marquis de 1793. The military commander on black soldiers who were fighting Hermonas, was quite prepared to help columns had been pushed back by a the French Republicans. The rebel months of 1792 and were desperately Republican offensive in the last the struggle. While Candy, the short of the supplies needed to maintain came to terms with the French mulatto leader of a maroon community, supplies from Spain and the principal black commanders accepted 1793. Jean François and eventually received commissions in July soldiers each, became lieutenantBiassou, commanding several thousand King. One of the most effective generals in the army of the Spanish an affranchi black commanders was Toussaint Bréda, or Louverture, of August 1791. A the rebels shortly afrer the uprising who had joined of with knowledge of medicine and man of about forty-six years age and aide-de-camp to Biassou; administration, he had become secretary of about six hundred men. In a he now commanded his own force as a colonel. negotiation Toussaint obtained a commission over a separate invaluable auxiliaries and an influence The Spanish had acquired officers and French potentially dangerous band of ex-slaves. Spanish While the Spanish royalists were assigned to advise the black freedom troops. of black soldiers, they authorities were happy to recognise the the regime of slave their new recruits strict instructions to respect gave subordination." revolution had unravelled the complex skein of Four wearing years of Royal power, the exclusif, the racial caste the French colonial regime. Beginning in August 1791 the slaves in hierarchy had all disintegrated. contest their subjection. The intensity St Domingue had begun openly to Patriots and monarchists, whites and of the factional conflicts between --- Page 216 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery autonomists and partisans of the exclusif had gravely mulattos, creole order. The tenacity of the rebels and the sheer size, weakened the slave of the slave population had concentration and numerical preponderance defeat. In the smaller Iles du Vent the free made the revolt impossible to weaker and the different factions had gens de couleurs had been much knowledge of what had happened not resorted to the arming of slaves; the avoidance of bloodshed in in St Domingue probably contributed to the tussles between royalists and Republicans. autonomists and partisans of the exclusif had gravely mulattos, creole order. The tenacity of the rebels and the sheer size, weakened the slave of the slave population had concentration and numerical preponderance defeat. In the smaller Iles du Vent the free made the revolt impossible to weaker and the different factions had gens de couleurs had been much knowledge of what had happened not resorted to the arming of slaves; the avoidance of bloodshed in in St Domingue probably contributed to the tussles between royalists and Republicans. uneven in extent and duration, The slave risings in St Domingue were revolt or not, sensed a new but the mass of blacks, whether in open the slave revolt had Like the first tremors of an earthquake but also power. colonial institution, levelling a few structures shaken every which remained standing. The argument about weakening those by the sight of smoke rising from mulatto rights had been transformed and cane fields. The autonomist burnt-out plantation buildings and their willingness to appeal for inclinations of the French planters, been by the spectre of help to Britain and Spain, had also encouraged seemed likely to be more slave revolt. These two colonial slave powers than the representatives of consistent and effective defenders of slavery turmoil. British and Spanish mired in revolutionary a metropolis had not waited for instructions before planters and officials on the spot conspiring with French royalists. for power in the French As of the spring of 1793 all contenders the defence of slavery: this was true Caribbean were still committed to protestations of Pitt and of the British, despite the abolitionist their bold alliance with black Wilberforce; of the Spanish, despite the fact that they were led by rebels; of the French Republicans, despite of the colonial Patriots, despite their self-styled 'Friends of the Blacks'; of the free people of colour, despite the vaunted detestation of tyranny; despite their resistance to calls of racial solidarity; of the black generals, their own enslavement. it might just have been possible to In peacetime conditions without a monarch and without reconstruct French colonial slavery it be done with the black rebels still racial privilege. But could conditions? In the early months of 1793 the undefeated and in wartime against the odds, to Republican order in the French colonies appeared, It had brought together a have staved off complete disintegration. blancs and free people of colour metropolitan-led alliance of petits The of war probably restored trade flows. prospect though not yet authorities in the short run, feeding colonial helped the Republican suspicion of the planters' plots. But patriotism and nourishing justified blockades and the virtual certainty of British naval power meant black allies, was poised in St Domingue to invasion. Spain, with its new --- Page 217 --- The French Revolution from within by planter treason and advance across the border. Sapped could save the Republicans. slave rebellion it seemed that only a miracle Notes P. Pluchon, ed., Histoire des 1. Pierre Pluchon, 'Les Révolutions à 265-328, l'Amérique', p. 267. 1 in The value of colonial exports Antilles et de la Guyanne, Paris 1982, pp. 217.5 million livres in 1789 according to the had risen from 136 million livres in 1776 valued to at metropolitan prices which were about official valuations. Colonial trade was selling their produce in the colonies: the gap twice as high as those obtained by planters and with a small amount of mercantile costs profits, together million between the two represented mercantile profits in the region of 100 livres, sugar refining and the like. Gross privileges, gave the French Caribbean planters a strong for stemming from near-monopolistic ended and the metropolis a correspondingly strong motive SO motive to see the exclusif of Antillean produce in 1789 ran at 161 million livres, is that defending it. selling their produce in the colonies: the gap twice as high as those obtained by planters and with a small amount of mercantile costs profits, together million between the two represented mercantile profits in the region of 100 livres, sugar refining and the like. Gross privileges, gave the French Caribbean planters a strong for stemming from near-monopolistic ended and the metropolis a correspondingly strong motive SO motive to see the exclusif of Antillean produce in 1789 ran at 161 million livres, is that defending it. French re-exports were re-exported. Another striking fact that 72 per cent of French colonial imports Africa for all imports from the Caribbean, French exports to the Antilles and to its paid trade. See Maurice Morineau, leaving France to garner a huge surplus on An Introduction re-export to the Sources in European 'France', in C. Wilson and G. Parker, London 1977, pp. 174-5; and Jean Tarrade, Le Economic History, 1500-1800, la Fin de P'Ancien Régime, Paris 1972, 2 vols, 11, pp. Commerce Coloniale de la France à 740-53. in the American war cost the incredible sum, of 1,063 million a sum 2. French involvement with service payments of 44 million in 1784, for livres over the period 1776-84, total revenues in 1776. The ministry responsible been slightly larger than the monarchy's and colonies, whose normal annual budget had these expenses was that of the Navy million came under the colonial department. While 27.9 million livres, of which 10.1 the regime it is also worth most historians stress that these expenditures colonial establishment, bankrupted with its retinue of officers, noting that they inflated the naval and while these interests did not act in concert clerks, contractors, financiers and merchants; well the crisis of 1787-9, as we will see. At they continued to make themselves felt for "" sterling; it has been estimated that all this the this time about 23 livres exchanged the 1770s was to the US$ of 1968. For purchasing power of the livre in and American equivalent Independence, Princeton 1975, pp. Dull, The French Navy see Jonathan 343-50. à la veille de la XIv, Godechot, 'La France et les problèmes de l'Atlantique 80. For the colonial 3. Jacques Révolutionaire, Paris 1980, p. Révolution', Regards SUT l'Époque William Doyle, The Parlement of Bordeaux and interests of the Bordeaux Parlement see London 1974, pp. 264-85. the End of the Old Regime, 1771-1790, of the French Revolution, Oxford 1980, pp- 43-52, 4. William Doyle, The Origins 69-95, 132-3. and the Rights of Nobles during the French 5. Patrice Higonnet, Class, Ideology, extensive noble involvement in the slave trade, Revolution, Oxford 1981, PP. 44-5; in Guy Chausinand-Nogparet, The French colonial trade and plantations is summarised Cambridge 1985, pp. 56-7, 92-101. Indeed colonial Nobility in the Eighteenth Century, excellence, of collaboration between nobles and development was the field, par merchants. the concise and well-judged account in David Geggus, 6. For St Domingue see The British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793-8, de Slavery, War and Revolution: and Torcuato Di Tella, La Rebelion de Esclavos Oxford 1982, especially pP. 33-4; 21-55. For Martinique, Henry Lémery, La Révolution Louis Haiti, Buenos Aires 1984, pp. Paris 1936, pp. 13-14 and Alfred Martineau and Française à la Martinique, d'Histoire Antillaise, Paris 1935, p. 90. Phillippe May, Trois Siècles à la Révolution Française, written in Paris in 1793, 7. Antoine Barnave, Introduction --- Page 218 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Revolution 1787-1799, New York 1975, p. Lémery, La Révolution Louis Haiti, Buenos Aires 1984, pp. Paris 1936, pp. 13-14 and Alfred Martineau and Française à la Martinique, d'Histoire Antillaise, Paris 1935, p. 90. Phillippe May, Trois Siècles à la Révolution Française, written in Paris in 1793, 7. Antoine Barnave, Introduction --- Page 218 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Revolution 1787-1799, New York 1975, p. 51; see quoted in Albert Soboul, The French and History: Joseph Barnave's Introduction to the also Emmanuel Chill, Power, Property New York 1971, especially pp. 6-9. French Revolution and Other Writings, France during the Years 1787-1788-1789, I, PP. 8. Arthur Young, Travels in Paris 1977, p. 247. But the Nantes cahiers were 104-5; Paul Bois, Histoire de Nantes, see Robert Stein, The French Slave mildly liberal and reformist rather than ultra-radical; Trade in the Eighteenth Century, pp. Politics 174-5. in Revolutionary Bordeaux, Oxford 1975, 9. Allan Forrest, Society and p. 33. in the Assembly see Journal des Etats-Generaux; Lehodey 10. For colonial proprietors in M.B. Garrett, The French Colonial Question, de Saultevreuil, XXXI1, p. 159; quoted 2. For the French bourgeoisie on the eve of the 1789-1791, New York 1970, P. Vovelle, La Chute de la Monarchie, 1787-1792, Revolution see the discussion in Michele assessments of recent debates on the social character Paris 1972, pp. 62-73; for Marxist Marxism and the Methodologies of History, of the Revolution see Gregor McLellan, Comninel, "The Political Context of the Popular London 1981, pp. 175-205, and George Krantz, ed., History from Below, Movement in the French Revolution', in Frederick Montreal 1985, PP. 143-62. and Revolution, pp. 34-5, 405; J. Santoyant, La 11. Geggus, Slavery, War 1789-99, Paris 1930, 2 vols, II, p. 425; Colonisation Française Pendant la Révolution, 41-2. La Révolution Française à Martinique, pp. Girod, La Vie Lémery, Couleur et Liberté, Paris 1967, pp. 82-3; François Paris 1972, 12. Yvan Debbasch, Creole: Saint Domingue au XVIII" siècle, pp. Quotidienne de la Societé by Léo Elizabeth in D. W. Cohen and J.P. Greene, eds, 190-200. See also the contribution 1972. Neither Slave nor Free, Baltimore Maroons: Liberty Or Death, New York 1981. 13. Jean Fouchard, The Haitian were common in the 1780s; but largeFouchard's information shows that slave escapes (see pp. 287-368), perhaps scale maronnage does not seem to have achieved grown in a consequence high level of mobilisation in the colony because the French military authorities withdrawn from North America. Individual runaways during, this decade as troops were to the towns. Slaves practising the petit often led to petits maronnages or flight far and often returned; since overseers and maronnage left the plantation but did not back go those who returned voluntarily, often after planters generally wanted their slaves be very harshly. The growth of the negotiation, via some third party, might have not made punished it easier for runaways to hide in them. black population of the towns seems to of resistance evident in large-scale Fouchard's book celebrates in lyrical vein the spirit maronnage; yet the latter would and sometimes appears to discount petit and contacts, yet a maronnage of slaves with outside knowledge, experience under the right produce a layer within the plantations, a combination that could, on the continuing presence revolts. Debien qualifies Fouchard's emphasis Les conditions, lead to plantation in St Domingue. third party, might have not made punished it easier for runaways to hide in them. black population of the towns seems to of resistance evident in large-scale Fouchard's book celebrates in lyrical vein the spirit maronnage; yet the latter would and sometimes appears to discount petit and contacts, yet a maronnage of slaves with outside knowledge, experience under the right produce a layer within the plantations, a combination that could, on the continuing presence revolts. Debien qualifies Fouchard's emphasis Les conditions, lead to plantation in St Domingue. See Gabriel Debien, revolutionary significance of the maroons 424, 466-8. The Maniel maroons appear to Esclaves aux Antilles françaises, pp. 412-13, in the 1770s to some 133 in 1785 when they have declined from a strength of 800 or so "Slave Resistance Studies and the Saint made a deal with the authorities. See Geggus, University, Winter 1983, P. 7. Domingue Revolt', Florida International des Amis des Noir and the Abolition of Slavery', 14. Daniel P. Resnick, The Société 1972, pp. 558-69. French Historical Studies, vol. VII, no. 4, Encounter with Africans: White Response to 15. See William Cohen, The French Indiana 1980, pp. 132-52; and Michèle Duchet, Blacks, 1530-1880, Bloomington, Siècles des Lumières, Paris 1971, pP. 151-60. Anthropologie et Histoire au X 'Réflexions sur l'esclavage des nègres, 1781', in 16. Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, Oeuures de Condorcet, Paris 1847, VII, pPO'Connor and M.F. Arago, A. Condorcet (with Condorcet's postscript, PP. 137-40). in Bolt and 61-140 *A Model of the French Abolitionist Movement', 66-7. 17. Serge Daget, Religion and Reform, pp. 64-79, especially pP. 182-215; Brissot's Drescher, Anti-Slavery, Brissot de Warville, Boston 1915, pp. 18. Eloise Ellery, as theft is developed in Recherches Philosophiques questioning of accumulated property --- Page 219 --- The French Revolution sur le Droit de Propriété et SUr le Vol (1780). Norman Hampson, Will and Circumstance, London For an ntdlectualhiographical sketch see capitalism of this bourgeois spokesman is 1983, Pp. 84-106, 171-92; the anti19. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the noted on pP. 186-7. scope of the activities of the Amis des Noirs Age of Revolution, P. 97. For the limited Resnick, "The Societé des Amis des Noirs and after this carly enthusiasm see Daniel P. Studies, vol. 7, no. 4, Fall 1972, the Abolition of Slavery', French 20. Gabriel Debien, Les Colons Pp. de 529-43. Historical Massiac, Paris 1953, pp. 60-7. Gouy Saint-Domingue et la Révolution, Essai Sur le Club of considerable wealth, with estates in d'Arsy, St sometimes spelt d'Arcy, was himself a man Chausnand-Nogarer (French Domingue worth 3 million livres annual income of3 million livres. Nobility, His PP. 56-7). However, the Duc d'Orléans according to was very great, with the Palais Royal contribution to destabilising the in 1787-90 had an in Paris. While it is difficult becoming the main centre of regime revolutionary to prove the role of the revolutionary agitation more generally agitation in the colonies, it seems to have Freemasons in promoting and the see the unbalanced, but not totally mistaken, been considerable. For their role the 'conspiracy theory of history', John Robison, classic of counter-revolution 21. . 56-7). However, the Duc d'Orléans according to was very great, with the Palais Royal contribution to destabilising the in 1787-90 had an in Paris. While it is difficult becoming the main centre of regime revolutionary to prove the role of the revolutionary agitation more generally agitation in the colonies, it seems to have Freemasons in promoting and the see the unbalanced, but not totally mistaken, been considerable. For their role the 'conspiracy theory of history', John Robison, classic of counter-revolution 21. Religions and Governments of Europe, London and Proofs ofa Conspiracy against All Quoted in C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: New York 1798. Domingo Revolution, London 1980 (revised Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San 22. Debien, Les Colons de edn), 60. 23. Garrett, The French Colonial Saint-Domingue et E Révolution, pp. 67-78. see Anne Pérotin-Dumon, Etre Patriote Question, p. 35. For similar scenes in pp. 107-36. sous les Tropiques, Basse Terre Guadeloupe 24. Geggus, Slavery, War and 1985, Française pendant la Révolution, 1789-1799, Revolution, pp. 34-5; J. Santoyant, La Colonisation Révolution Française à la Martinique, Paris 1930, 2 vols, II, p. 425; La 25. Ottobah Cugoano, "Reflexions pp. 21-42. Lémery, EDHIS (Editions d'Histoire sur la traite et Paris 1968, 12 vols, X. Social), La Révolution Française l'esclavage' et l'Abolition (1788), de reprinted in 26. Michael L. Kennedy, The lEsclavage, Years, Princeton 1982, p. 202. Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution: The First 27. Garrett, The French Colonial Question, Domingue et la Révolution, Pp. 187-9. pp. 35-48; Debien, Les Colons de Saint28. This racist jibe came from the Paris and shows that it was not only pen of the patriot Loustalot in Les Club Massiac; c.f. Debien, Les Colons colonial de reactionaries who played the Révolutions of de writer who compromised himself Saint-Domingue et la game the Laclos (p. 135). on this issue, though less Révolation, p. 84.Another 29. Garrett, The French blatantly, was Choderlos 30. Garrett, The French Colonial Colonial Question, p. S1. 31. Lémery, La Révolution Question, p. 53. 32. Georges Lefebvre, The Française French à la Martinique, PP. 80-1. subsequently observes: "The universalist Revolution, London 1962, p. 145. men of colour mulattoes and free claims of the Declaration of Lefebvre Since property qualifications for the Negroes - would lay claim to its Rights benefits' indicated that right to be a representative, had right to vote, with even stiffer (p. 172). rights of slaves. In fact some three already been accepted it was easier qualifications to overlook for the from the franchise (c.f. Soboul, The million French French men, and all women, were the civic of the. Amis des Noirs tended to Revolution, 1787-1799, p. 180). excluded (for example, the Abbé Sièyes who oppose invented property qualifications, but there were Supporters there were some democrats who did the concept of 'active exceptions Loustalot). not sympathise with the Amis citizenship"), (for just as 33. Lémery, La Révolution instance, 34. James, The Black Française à la Martinique, pp. 67-86. St Domingue, as in Philadelphia lacobins, in the pp. 73-4. irs tended to Revolution, 1787-1799, p. 180). excluded (for example, the Abbé Sièyes who oppose invented property qualifications, but there were Supporters there were some democrats who did the concept of 'active exceptions Loustalot). not sympathise with the Amis citizenship"), (for just as 33. Lémery, La Révolution instance, 34. James, The Black Française à la Martinique, pp. 67-86. St Domingue, as in Philadelphia lacobins, in the pp. 73-4. Some of the Masonic took part in Ogé's revolt as well as 1780s, had a racially mixed Lodges in gens de couleur. Ogé opposed a membership; whites suggestion by a CO209 --- Page 220 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Chavannes, to invite slave support. See Jean-Philippe 44-73. Garron-Coulon, conspirator, troubles de Saint Domingue, Paris 1797, vol. II, pp. Rapport SUT les de Saint Domingue et la Révolution, pp. 210-34; Saintoyant, 35. Debien, Les Colons pendant la Révolution, II, pP., 22-32. La Colonisation Française Clubs in the French Revolution, p. 82. 36. Kennedy, The Jacobin The French Colonial Question, p. 82. 37. Quoted in Garrett, et la Révolution, pp. 262-90; Garrett, 38. Debien, Les Colons de Saint-Domingue The French Colonial Question, pp. 77-97. notes: 'Slavery was an economic issue; 39. James, The Black Jacobins, p. 75. humanitarian Kennedy one. The provincial Jacobins could mulatto franchise was basically an and support this cause with little appparent danger 205). indulge their humanitarian proclivities of their fellow townsmen' (The Jacobin Clubs, P. to their pocket books or to those and humanitarian issues is too neat, since, as The counter-position here of economic authority in the colonies had economic suggested above, the assertion of metropolitan Not only did "humanitarianadvantages too, sO far as maritime interests were it concerned. also promised to secure allies for this, embellish defence of the exclusif ism' usefully the mulattos themselves. namely 40. James, The Black Jacobins, p. 80. As James himself comments: 'Slavery : had 41. James, The Black Jacobins, p. in 81. the first flush of its political inheritance." Debien now corrupted the French bourgeoisie 'Le redressement - Avec Barnave vers le Roi (16 entitles this section of his monograph: La Chute de la Monarchie, pp. 163-7. The 1791). See also Vovelle, a decree mai - octobre their consciences or their supporters, endorsed on mulatto triumvirate, to appease of slavery in France a few days after their reversal suppressing the remnants 340-41, rights. account is given in Fouchard, The Haitian Maroons, pp., that a 42. The traditional which planned the uprising and concedes 358. Geggus cites evidence for a meeting He speculates that the uprising may have benefited 'the voodoo ceremony is quite plausible. though curiously concludes that, if true, manoeuvre which backfired, War and from a royalist slave insurrection is considerably diminished' (Slavery, slave unrest autonomy of the Fouchard also accepts that royalist intrigues to stimulate for themselves. Revolution, p. 40). 98), though in the end the slaves acted were abroad at this time (p. dated September 4th is cited in Pierre Pluchon, the 43. The letter to the Governor Paris 1979, p. 26. The report on Toussaint Louverture, de l'esclavage au pouvoir, The Haitian Maroons, pp. 342-3. The killing of Boukman is cited at length in Fouchard, that 12,000-15,000 slaves were involved by French official report on the revolt estimated SuT les Troubles de Saint Domingue, II, p. the end of August, Garran-Coulon, Rapport colonel of the 214. uchon, the 43. The letter to the Governor Paris 1979, p. 26. The report on Toussaint Louverture, de l'esclavage au pouvoir, The Haitian Maroons, pp. 342-3. The killing of Boukman is cited at length in Fouchard, that 12,000-15,000 slaves were involved by French official report on the revolt estimated SuT les Troubles de Saint Domingue, II, p. the end of August, Garran-Coulon, Rapport colonel of the 214. Slavery, War and Revolution, pp. 52-3. Cadusch, white a and mulatto 44. Geggus, had helped to promote a 'concordat' between the British invasion. At this maréchaussée, and was later to play a major part in engineering proprietors views were not yet shared by most planters. though not time his P. 106. Biassou and Jean François, 45. James, The Black Jacobins, in a fairly active slave trade, thus richly Toussaint, were later involved as participants His Most Catholic Majesty to the meriting James's scorn. See David Geggus,From Louverture and the Ending of Slavery in Godless Republique: The Volte Face of Toussaint d'Outre Mer, no. 241, 1978, pp. 481-99, Saint Domingue', Revue Française d'Histoire Revolution', in P. 490. Fick, 'Black Peasants and Soldiers in the Saint Domingue This author reports 46. Carolyn From Below, PP. 243-61, on pP: 245-6. Platons. Fredrick Krantz, History known to the blacks as the Kingdom of that the rebel-held area was Clubs in the French Revolution, P. 208. The 47. Kennedy, The Jacobin see Robert Stein, Léger Felicité Sonthonax: 48. For St Domingue at this Madison period 1985, pp. 39-62; Di Tella, La Rebelion de Lost Sentinel of the Republic, Slavery, War and Revolution, pp. 46-67. Esclavos de Haiti, p. 83; and Geggus, Révolution Française à la Martinique, pp. 186-7. 49. Quoted in Lémery, Etre La Patriote sous les Tropiques, pp. 161-76. 50. Pérotin-Dumon, --- Page 221 --- The French Revolution 51. Lémery, La Révolution Française à la Martinique, p. 225. In the light of the author's evident sympathy for those French planters who collaborated with the British to save slavery iti is interesting to note that he became the Vichy government's first Minister of Colonies. For the agreements concluded see Lémery, La Révolution Française à la Martinique, p. 226, and Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution, pp. 395-99. 52. Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution, p. 100. 53. Saintoyant, La Colonisation Française pendant la Révolution, pP. 121-8. 54. José L. Franco, Historia de la Revolucion de Haiti, Havana 1966, pp. 229, 238-4. --- Page 222 --- --- Page 223 --- VI Revolutionary Emancipationism and the Birth of Haiti Que veut cette hordes d'esclaves De traitres, de Rois conjurés? Pour qui ces ignobles entravés, Ces fers des longtemps preparés Francais! pour nous, ah! quel outrage! Quels transports il doit exciter? C'est nous qu'on ose mediter De rendre a l'antique esclavage Aux Armes citoyens! formez VOS bataillons; marchons, marchons, Qu'un sang impur, abreuve nos sillons. La Marseillaise (1792) Dessalines sorti lan Nord, Vini compté ça li porte, Ça li porte. Li porte fusils, li porte boulets Ouanga nouveau! ers des longtemps preparés Francais! pour nous, ah! quel outrage! Quels transports il doit exciter? C'est nous qu'on ose mediter De rendre a l'antique esclavage Aux Armes citoyens! formez VOS bataillons; marchons, marchons, Qu'un sang impur, abreuve nos sillons. La Marseillaise (1792) Dessalines sorti lan Nord, Vini compté ça li porte, Ça li porte. Li porte fusils, li porte boulets Ouanga nouveau! (Dessalines is coming to the North Come see what he is bringing. He is bringing muskets, he is bringing bullets, These are the new talismans.) Haitian song (1803-42) --- Page 224 --- - I e --- Page 225 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism 1793 and 1794 the French Antilles passed through the During the years revolution to emerge with a radically new social furnace of war and made normal commerce and communicaorder. British blockade soon Caribbean possessions difficult and tion between France and its the sealing of a precarious but vital dangerous, but this did not prevent in the New World and the Jacobin alliance between black liberation Republic in the Old. in St Domingue by the middle of 1793 The position of the Republicans 3,500 of the troops sent from the metropolis was perilous. Only about were sick and others ready to desert. were still alive, and of these many exercised a precarious hold on the The Republican Commissioners this force and its major ally, the newly named major centres thanks to composed of'Citizens of units of coloured troops, the Légion d'Egalité, often veterans of the Légion April 4th', that is free blacks and mulattos, with their black commanders, de Saint Domingue. But the Spanish, the border while pockets of royalist were poised to advance across areas. The Republican authorities strength were to be found in many assignats further by a dearth of resources. Metropolitan were hampered in the Antilles, with the traditional colonial had little currency silver. The Commissioners decreed a property preference for gold and This measure, often implemented by levy on urban and rural estates. provoked bitter hostility from white newly appointed coloured officials, zone. The offensives undertaken proprietors still within the Republican with the latter abandoning against the black rebels proved indecisive, The Commissioners had territory but regrouping in more remote areas. six months later, with successfully disposed of Desparbès but nearly broken, they were to depleted forces and communications to France face another internal crisis.' General Galbaud, arrived at Le Cap In May 1793 a new Governor, evaded the British. Sonthonax was absent with a squadron that had the time and Galbaud, who had inherited from the Northern capital at the Commissioner by white property in the colony, was turned levies against and promotion of the gens de colonists who opposed his financial that he was not subordinate to the couleur. Galbaud publicly insisted their authority. He Commissioners and that they had been exceeding which he of plantation produce assembled a large consignment American merchants in order to obtain proposed to sell to North Polverel rushed to Le Cap and issued military supplies. Sonthonax and from his and ordering him to leave dismissing him post General a proclamation with conspiring against the Republic. for France, charged forces at Port de Paix, supported Laveaux, commanding the Galbaud Republican refused to comply with the deportathe Commissioners, but --- Page 226 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery tion order issued against him. In his defiance of received support from most of the French the Commissioners he harbour at Le Cap together with naval squadron in the Le Cap at this time most of the city's white militia forces. royalists and autonomists, contained large numbers of dissident whites, of mulatto power in the West, some having sought refuge there from areas States, and some sentenced others awaiting passage to the Galbaud's to deportation to France. After clashes United supporters the Commissioners with units of the Légion d'Egalité. The retired from Le Cap, with were too embattled to lend Republican enclaves in the South Le Cap there were rebel bands, any led assistance. the Le Cap at this time most of the city's white militia forces. royalists and autonomists, contained large numbers of dissident whites, of mulatto power in the West, some having sought refuge there from areas States, and some sentenced others awaiting passage to the Galbaud's to deportation to France. After clashes United supporters the Commissioners with units of the Légion d'Egalité. The retired from Le Cap, with were too embattled to lend Republican enclaves in the South Le Cap there were rebel bands, any led assistance. However, in the hills around who had stayed in the by such men as Macaya and Pierrot, vicinity of the authority of the planters or plantations while resisting the appeal to these black managers. The Commissioners decided to Those who partisans to help them regain control of responded to their appeal Le Cap. *We declare that the will of the would receive arms and liberty: delegates, is to give liberty to all French Republic, and that of its Republic under the orders of Negro the warriors who will fight for the thousand black fighters Civil Commissioner. 2 Several responded to this Cap on June 22nd and 23rd where appeal and descended on Le Galbaud was persuaded they threw back the white thousands of white to set sail, taking with him to Baltimore rebels; colonists. Much of Le was many fighting; in its aftermath the columns of Cap destroyed during the the countryside, leaving behind them the Macaya and Pierrot returned to splendid provincial capital. smouldering ruins of the once The Republican forces throughout the North was repossessed Le Cap, but their position erupted in their ranks. The critically black weakened by the division that had former owners or rebels had been ready to attack return, managers in Le Cap, as an their as a way of acquiring muskets and insurance against their plunder too; but afterwards, perhaps with the prospect of they dispersed, taking their muskets unwilling to accept Republican orders, forces advanced across a broad front with them. In July the Spanish commanded columns in the North, with their blackadvances cut off the reaching deep into French territory. Spanish Rumours of Republican garrisons in Le and an imminent British Cap Port de Paix. autonomist municipalities abounded. invasion and of collusion by Prince, now Port Républicain, but in the Polverel South returned to Port au Republic depended and West the writ In the North solely on the forces of the mulatto General ofthe Laveaux and Sonthonax were bottled Rigaud. enclaves, seeking to enlist such black up in their coastal the black generals fighting with soldiers as they could. They urged With the Republican forces Spain to join them, but to no avail. divided, Sonthonax was the supreme --- Page 227 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism the North. He sent a letter in early August to the National authority in that the time had come to proclaim the great Convention urging The municipality of Le Cap submitted a principle of emancipation. 25th in the name of the petition to the Commissioner on August that slavery must be ended. On cultivateurs of Saint Domingue', took saying the fateful step of issuing a decree August 29th 1793 Sonthonax The decree was published in Kréyole freeing all slaves in his jurisdiction. blacks. 3 In the North the slave to ensure that it could reach the mass of the South and weakened but in North-west, order was already greatly still hundreds of thousands of slaves, perhaps West there were certainly million. The Spanish occupying forces had as many as a quarter of a the slave regime. When the British occupied strict instructions to uphold and South in succeeding months, they found large tracts of the Centre the survival of the slave regime and of that planter militias had ensured commanders used columns of black plantation production. The Spanish Sonthonax's decree, troops but they guaranteed slave property. of June, was based on a following up the more limited appeal army from the mass judgement of the scope for building a Republican from various of black slaves. Sporadic slave rebellions were reported Sonthonax. as many as a quarter of a the slave regime. When the British occupied strict instructions to uphold and South in succeeding months, they found large tracts of the Centre the survival of the slave regime and of that planter militias had ensured commanders used columns of black plantation production. The Spanish Sonthonax's decree, troops but they guaranteed slave property. of June, was based on a following up the more limited appeal army from the mass judgement of the scope for building a Republican from various of black slaves. Sporadic slave rebellions were reported Sonthonax. of 1793 and this will have encouraged parts in the summer mulatto would be alienated by But he also took the risk that proprietors stationed in the South, had his action, as indeed many were. Polverel, those fighting with four named extended a promise of freedom to Formon and Bénnech - in maroon commanders - Armand, Martial, commissions, While the rebel chiefs were offered Republican late July. obtained muskets and powder, they were expected and their followers Rigaud attacked Formon for his to help maintain plantation this discipline; order. Though planters or managers failure to comply with faced widespread pressure for a remained in control in many areas they improvements in their five-day week, or for more far-reaching Polverel at first sought to limit labourers' working or living conditions. soldiers and slaves who were the emancipation offers to potential about Sonthonax's decree of property of émigrés. Despite reservations make provision for an August 29th, which he thought did not adequate it on September 21st. alternative labour regime, he decided to endorse was probably to defer to the mulatto proprietors His willingness that many of them were now colluding with lessened by the knowledge decree of general emancipation allowed the the Republic's enemies. The enlist some black soldiers and to present Republican authorities to regime which yielded themselves as the champions of a new plantation of the slave crews. The previous to many of the most common demands blacks had forced policy of offering freedom only to individual comrades which many had not potential recruits to abandon family and --- Page 228 --- The Overtbrow of Colonial Slavery remained legal newly freed been prepared to do. And SO long as slavery of the Spanish blacks would still feel insecure. Under the pressure further and Sonthonax had seen that it was essential to go invasion blacks. Sonthonax's decree, make a collective appeal to the enslaved of June, extended the scope for following up the more limited measure to the good will of blacks, allowed the Republicans to appeal the recruiting and conferred a moral advantage on Republican the black masses cause.t and commanders urged the black The Republican Commissioners the now that it offered generals fighting with Spain to rally to Republic Toussaint Bréda, now general emancipation and civic equality. to the effect that in the West, replied commander at Marmelade their King, were in no position to offer Republicans, having betrayed rejected French appeals he now liberty to his subjects. While Toussaint the other Spanish commanders by himself from began to differentiate with black resistance to enslavement. Some finding ways to identify Toussaint abandoned the name of time in the early months of 1793 born, and adopted that of Bréda, the plantation where he was he who makes an opening. Louverture', or more rarely "L'Ouverture', forces had swelled in the Spanish invasion in July Toussaint's Following much of the strategically important size and they had occupied from the North to the West. Artibonite, commanding the passage Toussaint enjoyed Operating at this distance from his commanders he was to issue an appeal considerable autonomy. ways to identify Toussaint abandoned the name of time in the early months of 1793 born, and adopted that of Bréda, the plantation where he was he who makes an opening. Louverture', or more rarely "L'Ouverture', forces had swelled in the Spanish invasion in July Toussaint's Following much of the strategically important size and they had occupied from the North to the West. Artibonite, commanding the passage Toussaint enjoyed Operating at this distance from his commanders he was to issue an appeal considerable autonomy. Significantly enough, given the same date as the of the colony, to the oppressed population decree issued by Sonthonax: Toussaint L'Ouverture, my name is perhaps Brothers and Friends. I am I want liberty and equality to known to you. I have undertaken vengeance. them into existence. Unite yourselves reign in San Domingo. I work to bring the same cause etc. Your very humble to us, brothers, and fight with us for General of the Armies of the and obedient servant. TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE, King, for the Public Good.* S Louverture had reason to treat with reserve the approaches Toussaint it was far from clear whether the made by the French Republicans: would ever be endorsed by their decrees of the Civil Commissioners Toussaint did admit into his camp home government. However, the French military, using them to train deserters and stragglers from work; French curés were employed as his soldiers and to provide staff forces were distinguished by secretaries. From the outset Toussaint's himself was an ex-slave of fifty their discipline and mobility. Toussaint and veterinarian. He had who had worked successively as coachman --- Page 229 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism and been read and write, acquired an estate by marriage, learned to responsibilities by the manager of the Bréda entrusted with considerable him in the first place. Toussaint is plantation, who had manumitted with its vigorous denunciation reputed to have read Raynal's History, relations with in the library at Bréda. He enjoyed good of slavery, manager, and ensured his family's Bayou de Libertas, the plantation Toussaint's lieutenants included safety in the aftermath of August 1791. who had been the Moyse, a former slave at Bréda; and Dessalines, of Toussaint's force menial slave of a freedman. It was characteristic As a former slave nowveaux libres held posts of command. that many understand the aspirations of the mass of blacks Toussaint could better commanders; as an affranchi he had more than did the mulatto and affairs than the other black generals. experience of administration well off and his estate At the time of the Revolution he was already quite the insurrection he worked by a dozen or more hired slaves. Joining was others and perhaps for that reason expected more risked more than Biassou's secretary and aide-de-camp before from it. He had acted as command and in the former capacities had acquiring an independent with the French authorities in participated in the dubious negotiations installed in the remote months of 1791. Not until he was the closing of the Artibonite did he reveal any broader and mountainous region vision. both understood that the slaves Toussaint Louverture and Sonthonax and that victory would belong were the key to the future of the colony the bearer of their will to freedom. to whoever was accepted by them as to them and directly But both men were exceeding the authority could given plead that the powers flouting their instructions. Sonthonax aside the instructions he had conferred on him allowed him to set he realised that this was a received from the Navy Ministry but he organised elections to fill precarious case to argue. ite did he reveal any broader and mountainous region vision. both understood that the slaves Toussaint Louverture and Sonthonax and that victory would belong were the key to the future of the colony the bearer of their will to freedom. to whoever was accepted by them as to them and directly But both men were exceeding the authority could given plead that the powers flouting their instructions. Sonthonax aside the instructions he had conferred on him allowed him to set he realised that this was a received from the Navy Ministry but he organised elections to fill precarious case to argue. In September Convention and made St Domingue's quota of delegates in the National of his emancipationist sure that those elected were firm supporters left for Philadelphia on policy. Because of the blockade the delegates the Spanish Paris. For his part Toussaint hoped to persuade their way to win control of St Domingue if they were prepared that they could only Commissioners' decree of general liberty. to match the Republican was prepared, as a military man, to While the Marquis de Hermonas his ablest black generals, the consider such a proposal from one of that would under no authorities soon made clear they Spanish political attacks on slavery. The Spanish circumstances countenance any whatever happened in Europe, St authorities were hoping that, would be reunited under the Spanish Domingue and Santo Domingo Crown as a flourishing slave colony. --- Page 230 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery a small British expedition - only 801 In the last days of September in the extreme Southtroops in the first instance - occupied Jérémie St Marc and other and Môle St Nicolas in the extreme North-west. west by the end of the year, usually at the Western ports were occupied the mulatto mayors of Arcahaie invitation of the municipality: welcomed the British. In a (Lapointe) and Léogane (Labissonnière) to work with powerful pragmatic way the British were prepared of colour were promised mulatto proprietors though other free people of course, maintained. The no security in their rights and slavery South was, and West - Rigaud, Pinchinat main mulatto commanders in the Nevertheless the faithful to the Republic. and Beauvais - remained with the Spanish free to move in Republicans seemed caught in a pincer, the British could use naval power to across the Eastern border while the Western seaboard. With this cover land wherever they wished on boldness, visiting summary justice French royalists acted with increasing and making clear to all their they captured on any Republican the slave regime. Substantial British and determination to uphold in the early months of 1794. royalist reinforcements were expected sailed to the Windward Islands the While the main British expedition grew to 3,600 men by April British occupying force in St Domingue the protection of the 1794; bridgeheads at half a dozen places enjoyed contrast, was almost Republican St Domingue, by Royal Navy. completely cut off from its metropolis." aboard eight ships of the line The main British expedition, 7,000 men Windwards in December 1793. and a dozen lesser vessels, reached the and Ste Lucie while blockading The British first captured Trinidad was captured in February, Martinique and Guadeloupe. Martinique and, finally, followed by Guadeloupe's small insular dependencies Rochambeau and Lacrosse Guadeloupe itself was taken on March 20th. forces, surrendered some resistance but, in the face of superior final British put up the British. In the last weeks before the the colony to decided to recruit a special black assault the Republicans of Guadeloupe slaves; 300 out of a projected 500 chasseur regiment from the colony's Apparently both sides were were enrolled prior to the final invasion. slaves in the Iles du Vent prepared to leave the main body of 170,000 was accompanied of the conflict. The British occupation as spectators who found their estates in reasonable by the return of many planters had secured the Windwards they could working order. Once the British where they planned to capture Port spare more forces for St Domingue, au Prince.' 7 in the fortunes of Republican St Domingue A crucial turning-point end of and the end of May 1794. from the colony's Apparently both sides were were enrolled prior to the final invasion. slaves in the Iles du Vent prepared to leave the main body of 170,000 was accompanied of the conflict. The British occupation as spectators who found their estates in reasonable by the return of many planters had secured the Windwards they could working order. Once the British where they planned to capture Port spare more forces for St Domingue, au Prince.' 7 in the fortunes of Republican St Domingue A crucial turning-point end of and the end of May 1794. On came about between the April St Marc learned that Toussaint, April 29th the British commander at --- Page 231 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism the commander at Gonaives forty miles the Spain and its royalist allies. On up coast, had broken with sent a petition to Toussaint's April 4th the planters at Gonaives had They complained that Toussaint Spanish did superior requesting his removal, the military posts that his forces not obey Biassou's orders and that for every type of black controlled had become places of miscreant and refuge had stolen from, or even murdered, runaway, including slaves who conflict Toussaint had clearly their masters. In the wake of the officer was now untenable. decided that his position as a Spanish ordered his forces, which Turning on Spain and its local allies he refuse further collaboration now numbered 4,000 seasoned to with the fighters, attack neighbouring Spanish Spanish authorities and prepare to had no difficulty in strongpoints. Toussaint's forces unclear whether accepting his volte-face. For some time apparently it Toussaint intended to was remain join the independent, as a number of black Republicans or to other parts of the colony. On May 24th commanders had done in to Polverel reporting: "Toussaint 1794 Laveaux sent a message the African royalists, in coalition Louverture, one of the three chiefs of last discovered his true interests with the Spanish Government, has at that and that of his kings can never be the friends of brothers; he has realised Republic at the head of an armed force.' liberty; 8 he fights today for the Toussaint and realise the full extent of the Laveaux had yet to meet In the conflict between the French improvement in his situation. forces the issue of slavery had surfaced Republicans and the invading Biassou had shown themselves irresistibly. Jean François and Toussaint refused to do willing to maintain the slave ofToussaint SO. Military clashes and the regime, but of and Sonthonax had helped to set competing appeals slave resistance. The early the scene for a new wave cracker chain of slave revolts in months the of 1794 had witnessed a fireWest. Toussaint had orders to North, spreading southwards to the gave shelter to the rebels. It stamp out such insurrections but instead protests. 9 was this that had provoked the planter Prior to May 1794 the did - they included Colonel Pierre Republic have some capable black officers the latter now seconded Michel and Captain Henry those forces to Toussaint's staff - but not the Christophe, thrown up by the revolt. If mainstream of his by now well-trained and Toussaint had not committed the surge of slave resistance increasingly effective forces to the British and would not by itself have Republic Spanish from completing their prevented the Toussaint's switch was soon followed occupation of the colony. course of which he by a lightning campaign in the Spanish recaptured most of the Northern occupiers. Between Toussaint's plain from the and his definitive adhesion abandonment of the to the Republicans had been a brief Spanish hiatus --- Page 232 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery neither side knew for sure what he was doing. The timing during which declaration for the Republic may have been of Toussaint's unequivocal from Europe: on February 4th the French influenced by news received in all the French colonies. Whether Convention decreed emancipation decree when he abandoned Spain it or not Toussaint knew of this alliance and a new Republican certainly cemented the basis for a fateful order in St Domingue. to the Republicans had been a brief Spanish hiatus --- Page 232 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery neither side knew for sure what he was doing. The timing during which declaration for the Republic may have been of Toussaint's unequivocal from Europe: on February 4th the French influenced by news received in all the French colonies. Whether Convention decreed emancipation decree when he abandoned Spain it or not Toussaint knew of this alliance and a new Republican certainly cemented the basis for a fateful order in St Domingue. 10 in 1793-4 was scarcely less troubled The condition of the metropolis The Brissotins had proved far more than that of the French colonies. than they were in the handling of decisive in foreign and colonial policy of the ancien régime and the the situation created by the disintegration 1792 had witnessed a new jacquerie in continuance of popular unrest. of colonial trade fuelled the far more the countryside. The disruption Brissotins had launched France on the serious revolt in the Vendée. The in the bud, path of war in the hope of nipping armed counter-revolution the basis for a new restoring initiative to the executive and laying the forces unleashed European order. But they proved unable to contain centre. Generals by the war or to construct an authoritative political disaster provoked whom they had chosen defected, while military levée of 1793 put half unprecedented popular mobilisations; the grande radical Jacobins of the million men under arms. Eventually the more a in the sections, amongst the soldiers, and Mountain gained ascendancy of Public Safety was set up in April in the Convention. The Committee the exclusion of the leading Girondins 1793. The Jacobins obtained 1793 and further consolidated their grip from the Convention in June which ensued. Under pressure from the following the Federalist revolt the needs of war the Jacobins began to popular movement and administration and to elaborate a new construct a revolutionary with the absolute guarantee to Declaration of Rights which dispensed of 1789. The radical contained in the Declaration to curtail private property to qualify the rights of the propertied, Jacobins were prepared new social rights; but not to tolerate market forces and to sanction the egalitarian doctrines combinations of workers or to countenance sans-culottes . It was at that now emerged amongst the more extreme forms of property were swept this time that the remaining non-capitalist the time Sonthonax was preparing to away. On July 17th, around the Convention finally decree the extinction of slave property, feudal rights. In abolished, without indemnification, all remaining secured the the Abbé Grégoire, as President of the Convention, August trade bounty. In October 1793 the revolutionary abolition of the slave the aspiration to make the world calendar was adopted, symbolising anew. --- Page 233 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism of revolution brought to the surface a subterranean The turbulence and hostility to wealth and current of rude popular egalitarianism tradition, reflecting the communal aspect commerce. This underground labourers and artisans had been expressed of the outlook of peasants, 'contumacious Abbés' than by the curés and better by communistic thought, with its anti-slavery essays and mainstream of enlightenment Meslier and the Observations of exclamations. The Testament of Jean on the false the Abbé Mably, with their attacks on large-scale property, of the rich, of the trading centres and the arrogance of the prosperity prejudices that undermined a crucial support articulated popular for the slaveholders' property colonial slave system, namely respect other curés rouges attacked property rights. In 1793 Pierre Dolivier and themes that were later to inspire the in the name of la justice primitive, the Hébertiste prosecutor of the Conspiracy of the Equals. Chaumette, to crush the rich before declared that it was necessary Paris Commune, Where the social regime of the metropolis was they starved the people. expression to this concerned Babeuf was to be closer to giving political or even the revolutionary undercurrent than were the Jacobins of it; in the legislators still had to take account Cordeliers. But Jacobin could do SO with few inhibitions. were later to inspire the in the name of la justice primitive, the Hébertiste prosecutor of the Conspiracy of the Equals. Chaumette, to crush the rich before declared that it was necessary Paris Commune, Where the social regime of the metropolis was they starved the people. expression to this concerned Babeuf was to be closer to giving political or even the revolutionary undercurrent than were the Jacobins of it; in the legislators still had to take account Cordeliers. But Jacobin could do SO with few inhibitions. case of colonial slavery they more to the popular The Jacobins were prepared to concede still far from satisfying it or movement than had the Brissotins, but were The abolition of slavery by the from solving the crisis of the economy. needed to when the Jacobin Republic Convention came at a point concentrate all energies on the overcome internal divisions and moment of destiny revolution's fight for survival. It came at a peculiar drama, signalling and exaltation in the unfolding of the revolutionary and of its preparedness to the high-water mark of its social aspirations end. subordinate propertied interests to a higher contribute to the disThe troubles in the colonies continued to The Brissotin policy of integration of the metropolitan social momentarily order. to contain planter defending mulatto rights had helped restore the colonial system to autonomism and royalism but not to 1793 those scant supplies of working order. From June in the proper which French merchants could acquire plantation produce the British blockade. Sugar and coffee became Caribbean had to break this time it was shortage of basic even harder to find - though by off riots. The political foodstuffs rather than sugar which sparked by the fiasco of the influence of the maritime bourgeoisie was destroyed of the traditional Federalist revolt in the summer and by the collapse trade. The infrastructure linked to the colonies and foreign from commercial Plot' which permeated factional conflict furore about the 'Foreign of defections in the colonies; November 1793 was fed by reports --- Page 234 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery slaveholding planters had placed themselves In Paris there were few interests outside the national fold. 12 but a dubious directly linked to colonial attempt to refloat the Compagnie des commerce, January 1794, tainted those who had Indes, exposed in and weakened the position of dabbled in colonial speculations time the sans-culottes Danton's friends, the indulgents. this and were inclined to suspect all merchants By unpatriotic activities. Writing of of vicious the very time when the Convention February 1794 - Pluviôse An II - colonial slavery, Soboul notes: addressed itself to the question of SO characteristic of the popular 'Hostility towards merchants, a hostility despite the enforcement of various mentality, remained as strong as ever, life of the nation. >13 The types of control over the economic international a leading role in the situation, with the British playing ing: but early victories counter-revolutionary and the coalition, remained menacdefinite revolutionary success of the grande levée induced a self-confidence. The national Convention came to decide before the purge of the Hébertistes and on colonial slavery just flight, Dantonistes but imprisonment or execution of most long after the des Noirs. The Amis had leading members of the Amis British Abolition never matched the public campaigns of the Yet the Amis had Society; by the end of 1793 it was effectively defunct. battle for mulatto helped to radicalise the revolution through their instrumental in rights; Sonthonax, one of their bringing the slavery supporters, was The three emancipationist question before the Convention. the Hébertistes and on colonial slavery just flight, Dantonistes but imprisonment or execution of most long after the des Noirs. The Amis had leading members of the Amis British Abolition never matched the public campaigns of the Yet the Amis had Society; by the end of 1793 it was effectively defunct. battle for mulatto helped to radicalise the revolution through their instrumental in rights; Sonthonax, one of their bringing the slavery supporters, was The three emancipationist question before the Convention. Sonthonax's initiative arrived delegates in Paris sent to the Convention at in late deputies - a black freedman, a mulatto January 1794. These new arrested on arrival at the and a white colon were Sonthonax but instigation of colonial they were soon released and Jacobins critical of Convention. The black deputy, presented themselves at the military commander of Le Jean-Baptiste Belley-Mars, formerly the deputy, delivered Cap, was loudly applauded. a passionate Dufay, the white II) defending the general speech on February 4th (Pluviose 16, An and urging liberty that had been decreed in St that, as an act of both justice and Domingue extended to the other French colonies. He military necessity, it be for a revolutionary counter-offensive pointed to the opportunities knowledge that a large British fleet in the Caribbean. It was common Indies. Dufay's declarations had been dispatched to the West Levasseur of Sarthe were met with rapturous proposed that the applause. abolish slavery in the colonies: 'Citizen Convention move immediately to Convention to demean itself President, do not suffer the thereupon carried by acclamation by a discussion.' The motion was Lacroix of the Eure and embodied in a decree et Loire which ran as proposed by Convention declares slavery abolished follows: "The National in all the colonies. In conse224 --- Page 235 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism without distinction of colour, domiciled quence it declares that all men, and enjoy all the rights assured in the colonies, are French citizens under the Constitution."1 Convention for ratification without any The decree came before the Committee of Public Safety; on this from the report or recommendation the delegates from St occasion Danton spoke. În all probability and unexpected reaction. Domingue had evoked a quite spontaneous Danton declared: people, until now we have decreed liberty as Representatives of the French universal liberty . Today the egotists for ourselves. But today we proclaim Pitt and his plots are done for! France, Englishman is dead! (Loud applause] it before the eyes of an astonished until now cheated of her glory, repossesses which must be assured her by her Europe and assumes the preponderance land and her population! Activity, energy, principles, her energy, her by the flame of reason, and regulated by generosity, but generosity guided thus assured forever of the recognition of the compass of principles, and posterity." 15 rhetoric of national messianism scarcely did Danton's overblown decree which did indeed deserve, but has justice to the Convention's of It is usually relegated to rarely received, the 'recognition whether posterity'. in histories of the French little more than a footnote New World slavery. The Convention was, Revolution or in histories of which had already been and generalising a decree it is true, confirming The Convention's confirmation gave issued locally by its Commissioner. the Sonthonax had already greater legal force and substance to be policy to the other French adopted and required that it should spread section of the it helped to convince a crucial colonies. In St Domingue was their ally. At the time the insurgent black forces that the Republic a British expeditionary Convention decreed the abolition of slavery of the French Windward its occupation force was just completing the Convention was, as yet, unaware. already been and generalising a decree it is true, confirming The Convention's confirmation gave issued locally by its Commissioner. the Sonthonax had already greater legal force and substance to be policy to the other French adopted and required that it should spread section of the it helped to convince a crucial colonies. In St Domingue was their ally. At the time the insurgent black forces that the Republic a British expeditionary Convention decreed the abolition of slavery of the French Windward its occupation force was just completing the Convention was, as yet, unaware. In islands, though of this had struck down, without any principle the decree of Pluviose form of colonial property. The compensation, the most important implications. If the execution of decree also had major foreign policy monarchies of Europe, the decree of Louis XVI had outraged the all the European Pluviôse ranged the new Republic not only against ally, the but also against its one remaining potential colonial powers of this fact had induced a certain caution in United States. Awareness overcome by the direct the Committee of Public Safety, which was only the spirit of deputies and general intercession of the St Domingue the Convention. revolutionary audacity which had gripped --- Page 236 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the decree of Pluviôse in a special The Commune of Paris celebrated Dame was now called, event held in the Temple of Reason, as citizens. Notre 16 Chaumette delivered with the participation of many coloured with other Hébertistes eulogy of the Convention's decree; together of a of the Cult of Reason he had adopted the cause and sponsors fervour. Whatever reservations may have emancipation with special of Public Safety concerning the been entertained by the Committee these did not stop it immediately decision of the Convention, World, with instructions to assembling an expedition to the New of the slaves. With the war for the liberation undertake a revolutionary had ceased to be an occasion for decree of Pluviose anti-slavery declamation; united with the philanthropic gestures and sentimental it became an active protagonist in the insurgent slaves of the Caribbean and the New World. For a brief but momentous conflicts of Europe radical abolitionism was fuelled by slave vital period the programme of rebellion and sponsored by a major power. Caribbean successfully evaded the British The expedition sent to the of the Windward Islands in April, a blockade and arrived in the vicinity date of the decree. The expedition little over two months from the five transports and one comprised 1,200 men aboard two frigates, It was under the command of two Commissioners both appointed brigantine. Victor Hugues and Pierre Chrétien, supporters by the Convention: discovered on arrival that the French islands of the Mountain. They who had occupied them with in the hands of the British, were entirely effected a landing on the active complicity of royalists. Hugues a part of the island and Guadeloupe and by April 23rd had liberated From this beach-head defeated a 700-strong detachment of royalists. the slave-owners unleashed a revolutionary war upon the Commissioner freeing the slaves and forming them into units and their British backers, created Bataillon des Antilles. of the Légion d'Egalité and the newly ejected the British and December the Republicans Between April of between 3,000 and 4,000 troops, capturing 2,000 occupying force Commissioners brought with them a rifles and 38 guns. The Republican both of which machines were set busily guillotine and a printing press, the prosecutor at Rochefort during to work. Victor Hugues, formerly in the Antilles, soon established the Terror and with prior experience of the Republican forces. Captured himself as the effective chief of the decree of Pluviôse, of royalists were summarily executed. Copies documents and addresses the Rights of Man and of other revolutionary Dutch and English and were translated into Spanish, Portuguese, of the Caribbean. The main British clandestinely introduced to all parts and well entrenched to be tackled forces on Martinique were too large --- Page 237 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism liberated the islands of Ste head-on, but expeditions from Guadeloupe 17 Lucie and Desiderade from the British. himself as the effective chief of the decree of Pluviôse, of royalists were summarily executed. Copies documents and addresses the Rights of Man and of other revolutionary Dutch and English and were translated into Spanish, Portuguese, of the Caribbean. The main British clandestinely introduced to all parts and well entrenched to be tackled forces on Martinique were too large --- Page 237 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism liberated the islands of Ste head-on, but expeditions from Guadeloupe 17 Lucie and Desiderade from the British. successful flotilla Over the next two years Hugues organised British, a highly Spanish and North of corsairs which proceeded to prey upon had such names as American shipping. These corsairs - their ships Le Terroriste and La Tyrannicide, L'Ami du Peuple, L'Incorruptible, to flaunt a species of buccaneering La Bande Joyeuse - continued of Robespierre in Paris. The Dutch Jacobinism long after the overthrow which had been in British hands, colonies of St Eustatius and St Martin, on behalf of the newly by the French Republicans were recaptured Slave conspiracies and maroon rebellion declared Batavian Republic. inspired by the events erupted in several colonies, directly or indirectly Jamaica and Cuba were all in the French islands: Venezuela, Brazil, chapters. affected, as will be recounted in subsequent struggles erupted in two islands, The most sustained and impressive had from France in the Grenada and St Vincent, which Britain acquired helped to create an extraordinary 1760s. Republican propaganda between a handful of Kréyole-speaking alliance in these colonies of slaves, most of whom also spoke mulatto proprietors and the mass Vincent the Republican forces were the French colonial patois. On St of the 'black Caribs' who had further strengthened by the adhesion The revolt in Grenada was led by resisted the British in the 1770s. who freed his own slaves prior to Julien Fédon, a mulatto proprietor standard, inscribed with the words raising the French Republican March 1st 1795. Five hundred Liberté, Egalité Ou la Mort, on St Vincent in September Republican reinforcements were landed Fédon on succeeded in confining the 1795; with this help from Guadeloupe around the town of St George's by British garrison to a tiny enclave battles and skirmishes. Over February 1796 after a series of hard-fought driven from most ofSt Vincent by this same period the British were also Republicans and black Caribs, the a combined force of revolutionary The Republican regimes not latter led by their chief Joseph Chatoyer. thereby creating a formidable only freed the slaves but armed them, barrier to the predictable British attempt at forces reconquest. were racially mixed On Guadeloupe the French Republican celebrated Captain Vulcain, with some liberated blacks, such as the the stratum of of command. However, experienced rising to posts in the key commands. Most of mulatto anciens libres predominated itself remained on the the 90,000 or SO former slaves on Guadeloupe work by regulations against plantations, where they were kept at the grounds to vagabonds and rules which restricted access to provision labourers the In principle the plantation those working on plantations. receive a share of the proceeds after could not be beaten and were to --- Page 238 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery often have been cheated by the sale of the harvest - however, they commandeurs may to whom plantation merchants, officials and former Night-work in the sugar mills was administration was entrusted. were somewhat softened suspended and the rigours of the new system to the Directory reliance on armed blacks. In a report their by Republican reported: "These new citizens calmly enjoy Victor Hugues blandly they work, in truth a little slowly, but new status: although not paid also to note: 'At St Vincent they work." ? The Commissioner was which happy bound us to the Caribs; we. have renewed the ancient friendship ,19 The more embattled Republican their chief is strongly attached to us.' had little possibility of maintaining forces in Grenada and St Vincent of subsistence output but they did encourage an expansion plantation cultivation. . In a report their by Republican reported: "These new citizens calmly enjoy Victor Hugues blandly they work, in truth a little slowly, but new status: although not paid also to note: 'At St Vincent they work." ? The Commissioner was which happy bound us to the Caribs; we. have renewed the ancient friendship ,19 The more embattled Republican their chief is strongly attached to us.' had little possibility of maintaining forces in Grenada and St Vincent of subsistence output but they did encourage an expansion plantation cultivation. main gains in 1794-5 were at the In St Domingue the Republicans' British Navy, enjoying naval supremacy expense of the Spanish. The bombard coastal strongpoints and concendespite the corsairs, could they chose. In St Domingue, with its trate forces at whichever coastline, point this was a considerable advantage. long and heavily indented of the South, 1794 the British captured Port au Prince, capital In June of its hinterland and a coastal strip, but thereafter together with some halt. The in St Domingue, their advance ground to a Republicans and armed with the decree of strengthened by the adhesion of' Toussaint forces of the British, the royalists Pluviose, stoutly resisted the combined Beauvais and Rigaud and the Spanish. The mulatto commanders British advances in the remained faithful to the Republic and checked 5,000 infantry and 1,500 South and West. Rigaud's force numbered the Artibonite and much of Toussaint consolidated his hold on with two cavalry. North: his forces grew from 4,000 to 10,000 infantry, the Toussaint also managed to win to the Republican cavalry regiments. led by Dieudonné. Laveaux in the cause a few thousand maroons, the independent black rebels of the North also won over new forces, time Pierrot, who had helped to defeat Gros Morne. From about this forces with the Republic. The mulatto Galbaud in 1793, aligned his faced the Spanish in the North-east." 20 General Villatte, based on Le Cap, fortunes, Sonthonax, who had done SO much to restore that Republican had been made of was recalled in June 1794 to answer criticisms the survived he might his conduct and administration. Had factionalism Jacobins since he could be have become a victim of murderous Danton or the Hébertistes. Jeanbon accused of being the tool of Brissot, of Public Safety linked to the Saint-André, a member of the Committee Sonthonax milieu, had supported the charges against colonial patriot --- Page 239 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism while Fouché was to defend the Commissioner. Directory Sonthonax's Brissotin With the advent of the in the course of a lengthy past no longer counted against him and St Domingue; the last act of the inquiry he vindicated all his work in was to exonerate its Commissioner revolutionary Convention of 1792-5 to congratulate him in St Domingue on all on the success of his charges and in Paris gave revolutionary St mission. Sonthonax's presence tial advocate; before long the Domingue a well-informed and influenwas to nominate him to head new Colonial Minister, Admiral Truguet, In the summer of 1794 a another commission to the colony. 21 across the Pyrenees. Spanish invasion of France was driven back formidable armies, Hoping to forestall attack by the and, by the Spain concluded peace with France in Republic's terms of the Treaty of Basle, ceded July 1795 to France, though no effective French Spanish Santo Domingo established there for some time. Biassou administration could be commanded several thousand and Jean François still they withdrew to Santo troops when news of the treaty arrived; Domingo, and were then leaving most of their followers behind. The evacuated to Cuba, victories in Europe thus reduced Directory's diplomacy and St Domingue. forestall attack by the and, by the Spain concluded peace with France in Republic's terms of the Treaty of Basle, ceded July 1795 to France, though no effective French Spanish Santo Domingo established there for some time. Biassou administration could be commanded several thousand and Jean François still they withdrew to Santo troops when news of the treaty arrived; Domingo, and were then leaving most of their followers behind. The evacuated to Cuba, victories in Europe thus reduced Directory's diplomacy and St Domingue. pressure on its still beleagured forces in Republican resistance in St Domingue and the ary counter-offensive in the Windwards, success of the revolutionmade a good impression in Paris. against heavy odds, must have Minister of Marine during much of this Admiral Truguet, the Directory's Republican convictions; he had been in time, Le was a professional of firm June 1793 and had supported Sonthonax. Cap as a naval captain in the Caribbean were spreading havoc The French Republicans in to assemble a large new West Indian amongst the enemy and forcing it itself was concerned the activities expedition. So far as the the further of the Antillean Directory advantage that they were not revolutionaries had activities of the corsairs enabled financially burdensome. The stream of prize goods, Hugues to send back to France a Hugues amassed a considerable captured treasure and plantation products. been above fortune for himself and would not maintaining his popularity in the have pay-offs in the right quarters. metropolis by discreet But over and above either Directory's commitment strategic or financial calculations to revolutionary the congruent with its claims to Republican anti-slavery was highly Reubel, one of the strongmen of the legitimacy. Jean François supporter of the Amis des Noirs and the Directory, had been a leading 1791 on mulatto rights. Condorcet author of the decree of May was declared the philosophical --- Page 240 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and his works published in an official edition; patron of the Directory whose practical prescriptions these included both the essay on slavery, and his classic Sketch found some echo in the new plantation regime, the Human Mind, written in Historical Picture of the Progress of for a and alloting an important role to slave emancipation prison in 1793 forward march. Historians and the redemption of Africa in humanity's and chaotic side of the rule of have been prone to dwell on the seamy free of such failings, its colonial the Directory. But, though not entirely virtue and coherence. In this policy drew strength from revolutionary rather than repressed the Jacobin area at least Thermidor stabilised which the Jacobins had impulse, and infused it with an internationalism plots. lacked at the time of the paranoia about foreign for sustaining Republican If the Directory can be given credit without the radical Jacobin emancipationism it is probable that as the decree of interlude such a sweeping measure enacted. of expropriation It was at this point that the Pluviose would never have been coincided. The members elemental upheaval of colony and metropolis Dufay's address had of the Convention who were SO overcome by to that spontaneous calculation to be subordinated allowed political in such characteristic expressions of the anti-slavery reflex found with its denunciation of popular mentality as the Marseillaise, slogans 'Live Freely or Die', l'esclavage antique', and the common of 1792 for the rights of 'Rather Death than Slavery. The victory the racialist justification for free blacks and mulattos had undermined With the ousting slavery, leaving only the mystique of private property. barrier to slave emancipathis remaining of the Girondin bourgeoisie be by the appearance of the tion was flimsy enough to swept away of black slavery in the delegation from St Domingue. The invention decision' epoch has been called an 'unthinking Americas in a previous also be applied to the approval of the and the description might sponsored by the apostles of Reason this emancipation decree. the racialist justification for free blacks and mulattos had undermined With the ousting slavery, leaving only the mystique of private property. barrier to slave emancipathis remaining of the Girondin bourgeoisie be by the appearance of the tion was flimsy enough to swept away of black slavery in the delegation from St Domingue. The invention decision' epoch has been called an 'unthinking Americas in a previous also be applied to the approval of the and the description might sponsored by the apostles of Reason this emancipation decree. Though affirmation of the revolutionary project. decree had been an existential of human nature had been Perhaps only those whose conception could see a general transformed by the revolutionary element experience of political strategy; at all emancipation decree as a rational to recruit slaves had never purely instrumental attempts events previous a call for general emancipation. been thought to require order in the Antilles faced a major British The new revolutionary British of colonial aggression had onslaught in 1796. The of the policy whole region faced a desperately backfired and the slave order St Vincent, Ste Lucie and most serious threat. The loss of Guadeloupe, of servile revolt, of Grenada, accompanied by the general instigation --- Page 241 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism Jean-Baptiste Belley: deputy in the Assembly, 1797 sounded the alarm; an alarm revolutionary agents, compounded by the activities of throughout the rumours of slave or maroon Caribbean. Dundas declaimed conspiracies, ordinary and unprecedented against 'the extraoverturning all regular Government system now adopted by the Enemy for of his colleague Lord and subordination'2 With the help persuaded the British Hawkesbury, a West Indian proprietor, Dundas West Indian theatre: Cabinet to dispatch a veritable armada to the for this nearly 100 ships and 30,000 men were purpose, equal in troop numbers alone assembled expedition and one of the largest ever to have to the Flanders objective was to regain the islands seized crossed the Atlantic. The the occupation of St by the French and to complete British islands which had Domingue. been The priority was to recapture the and to retake Ste Lucie. A largely lost - St Vincent and Grenada - 1796 established a British massive asssault on Ste Lucie in April of collapse despite the presence on this island, but resistance did not blacks', a British officer overwhelming superiority of the invaders: 'the British commander, observed, are 'to a man our enemies'. The Brigadier General famous in the Peninsular Moore, subsequently to become War, noted that 'men after they were free, and after carrying having been told slavery'.24 While Moore arms, did not easily return to placed much to the Republic' for blame on white people attached envenoming the situation, he also conceded that the --- Page 242 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery by numbers of blacks from the plantations; all Republicans were joined He concluded regretfully: "It was of that colour are attached to them'. with mildness, but I have been wish to have governed the colony and my the most violent measures from the perverseness forced to adopt to deal with.' 25 The British press bad composition of those I have Antilles the 'Brigands' War' and dubbed the conflict in the Lesser non-combatants in lurid detail. reported Republican atrocities against British also encountered vigorous and In Grenada and St Vincent the landed at Grenada in widespread resistance. A force of 5,000 men resistance in the woods March 1796 and forced Fédon into a guerrilla killed south of the Grand Etang. Fédon himself was probably and hills continued. There were further reports of in July but irregular warfare slaves and their Republican instigators; atrocities committed by former crushed a planter to death by in one case the slaves were said to have Aware that the the rollers of his own mill. feeding him through different islands were concerting their efforts Republican forces on the Vincent with 4,000 men in June 1796. The the British descended on St was killed in a clash in March veteran black Carib leader Chatoyer with their French allies under a 1795 but the black Caribs now fought slaves joined the Carib/Republican new chief Duvallé. and their Republican instigators; atrocities committed by former crushed a planter to death by in one case the slaves were said to have Aware that the the rollers of his own mill. feeding him through different islands were concerting their efforts Republican forces on the Vincent with 4,000 men in June 1796. The the British descended on St was killed in a clash in March veteran black Carib leader Chatoyer with their French allies under a 1795 but the black Caribs now fought slaves joined the Carib/Republican new chief Duvallé. While some and even helped the British. force, others remained on the estates caused by illness, and needing Faced with heavy losses, many of them from the brigands, the British large forces to patrol territory recaptured Despite planter misgivings it commanders called for reinforcements. batallions formed from specially was decided to raise black ranger and freedom. These West purchased slaves who were promised pay based in Jamaica, others India regiments were to total 7,000 men, forces some were sent in small units in the smaller islands. The black Anxious ranger to end a draining conflict the to root out guerrillas in the hills. the forces, treating some as British conceded terms to most of brigand' honours of war and persuading French soldiers surrendering with the allies. Thus on Ste Lucie those others to break with their French les bois who were not native to members of the Armée française dans French territory under a flag of truce; Ste Lucie would be repatriated to be allowed to remain without any free natives of the island would into a free black batallion sanction; former slaves would be integrated the close of 1797 the British forces and sent to serve in Sierra Leone. By of these concessions. Similar had regained control of Ste Lucie by means other islands. Under duress terms were offered to the 'brigands' on the resettlement black Caribs of St Vincent eventually agreed to accept the the coast of Honduras. While the plantation on the island of Rattan on the slaveholders of Grenada largely regime survived on St Vincent their lands and slaves to the less cultivation and devoted forsook sugar --- Page 243 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism cultivation of cloves and other spices. arduous and large-scale soldiers and sailors were lost in the campaigns At least 40,000 British 1796-1800, some killed in action, in the Lesser Antilles in the years as unfit for service. dying of disease and others discharged Events in Guadeloupe many and its smaller dependencies were not the regained. in the Lesser have tended to eclipse the memory of war St Domingue made a large contribution to British Antilles: yet the latter undoubtedly to draw off large British decisions concerning St Domingue, helping that could otherwise have been used there.2 forces match the British expedition sent to the The French Republic could not sizeable forces. In the course of 1796 Caribbean, but nevertheless it sent Lesser Antilles and 3,000 to some 6,000 troops were sent to the policy meant that În St Domingue the emancipation St Domingue. supplies rather than manpower; they were Republican forces required 400,000 lb of powder in 1796.27 sent 30,000 muskets and Laveaux had continued the Following the departure of Sonthonax, of a black military Commissioner's policy of promoting the growth foundation of Republican seeing the former slaves as the most of the power, of mulattos who had previously supplied strength. A layer and many senior posts in commanding officers of the Légion d'Egalité, of black commanders. În resented the promotion the municipalities, of Le Cap arrested Laveaux. March 1796 Villatte and the municipality of some commanders - However, this coup was foiled by the loyalty mulatto B. Léveillé - and by notably the black Pierre Michel and the the mulatto-led Louverture's dispatch of forces to quell a Toussaint hastened and formalised the very growth of rebellion. This incident that it had been designed to thwart. black revolutionary power Toussaint delegate of the Republic, appointed Laveaux, as the ranking and promoted several black to the post of Governor of the colony of installation of the officers to the rank of general. this coup was foiled by the loyalty mulatto B. Léveillé - and by notably the black Pierre Michel and the the mulatto-led Louverture's dispatch of forces to quell a Toussaint hastened and formalised the very growth of rebellion. This incident that it had been designed to thwart. black revolutionary power Toussaint delegate of the Republic, appointed Laveaux, as the ranking and promoted several black to the post of Governor of the colony of installation of the officers to the rank of general. At the ceremony Toussaint as a saviour of the Governor in April Laveaux hailed new the redeemer of the slaves predicted by Raynal. Republic and within the Republican zone was confirmed in The new dispensation Civil Commission, headed once again by May with the arrival of a new were Raimond, who Sonthonax. The other members of the Commission and Roume, mulatto rights in the National Assembly, had championed had helped to devise the Southern who in an earlier spell as Commissioner) mulattos in 1791-2. On his arrival in 'concordat' between whites and of the black population Le Cap Sonthonax received the acclamation 'fondateur de la liberté'. While the and was hailed by Toussaint as the its local forces Commission enjoyed similar powers to predecessors new over those sent from the metropolis. now greatly predominated --- Page 244 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery in Port au Prince and the Centre still divided The British presence joined by a disputed Republican St Domingue into two, precariously Rigaud's command, the neck of land. In the Southern area, under In the North the blacks and mulattos conserved an influential position. The French reinforcements who nouveaux libres were the main power. Le were commanded by arrived with the Commissioners at Cap that had taken place Rochambeau who became alarmed at the overturn Sonthonax soon in the colony's structure of power and later property. alleged that 'the war in ordered him back to France where he against the legitimate proSt Domingue is that of the propertyless this charge had some prietorst.a Though denied by the Commissioners substance. Commission wished to rehabilitate the plantation Formally the planters and dutiful freedmen; in economy with the help of patriotic former slaves to check practice, at least in the North, it relied on armed owners and managers. the treason and contraband of unpatriotic left estate for the areas of British Many legitimate proprietors' had or London. Rochambeau occupation, if not for Kingston, Philadelphia colonial in the metropolis, probably spoke most directly for proprietors mercantile interests with a lien on colonial properties, and for those the time had come when they could publicly demand who believed that within the Republican areas there were still a return to order. However, above all mulattos, and a layer of administrators some resident planters, But in Sonthonax's view many of these seeking to repossess estates. not only did they happily trade were not true friends of the Republic; hankered for a return of slavery. As he with the enemy but they also "The Revolution here has had the same explained in a letter to Truguet: the nobles in France and Europe. The bourgeois fought phases as in the men of colour wanted the humiliation order to oppress the people; the whites, but they abhored liberty. 29 and even the expulsion of slavery in the occupied zone, SO that The British presence shored up still seemed open. Many the future of emancipation in St Domingue including some gens de couleur, remaining proprietors and managers, where continued to took shelter behind the British lines plantations the in the Some 60,000 slaves still laboured in plantations function. les in France and Europe. The bourgeois fought phases as in the men of colour wanted the humiliation order to oppress the people; the whites, but they abhored liberty. 29 and even the expulsion of slavery in the occupied zone, SO that The British presence shored up still seemed open. Many the future of emancipation in St Domingue including some gens de couleur, remaining proprietors and managers, where continued to took shelter behind the British lines plantations the in the Some 60,000 slaves still laboured in plantations function. British had received 4,000 reinforcements in 1795 British zone. The 1796. As auxiliaries there were large units of and more than 10,000 in officers, leading an assortment of 'royalists': these comprised royalist mulattos and former members of whites fighting for pay and plunder, and blacks offered their freedom. the maréchaussé similarly motivated, which the British could offer The money, uniforms, food and supplies war-devastated land. With were a magnet for recruits in an increasingly the British and their their sea-power, artillery and reinforcements --- Page 245 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism royalist allies were in a strong position. the British ranks Disease was to take its but, even before it did sO, the British toll in extending the area of occupation regime's hope of slavery. No doubt was rendered vain by its defence of really only a minority of blacks in the enjoyed full civic rights but the Republican zone formalise and guarantee the end of ending of slavery there did direct producers. planter control over the life of the Official Republican efforts to rehabilitate using regulations similar to those in force in plantation production, indifferent results. Guadeloupe, met with issued by According to the original decree of Sonthonax, those former slaves not enrolled emancipation required to remain on their plantation for in the army were value of the harvest a period of at least a the was to be divided between the year; cultivators in the proportion of one to owners and the émigrés and royalists were seized two or three. The estates of under a system of and leased out to administrators hands fermage devised by the Civil were urged to remain ready for labour Commission. Field claim larger plots of land were denied. But and their attempts to effect, a stand-off between the in many areas there was, in with the latter Republican regime and the former beginning to construct an slaves, themselves and working only autonomous existence for let under the fitfully on the plantations. On the system of fermage the harvest estates between the cultivators, the administrators was to be divided up of 1796 created a rural and the state. A regulation discipline and to gendarmerie whose task was to enforce labour suppress vagabondage. Those without binding them to work on an estate would, in labour contracts provision grounds. Finding administrators theory, be denied access to difficult, since there were few with the for the estates was very and most of those who did necessary technical competence, possess such overseers or commandeurs who would be competence were former labourers. The year 1796 witnessed distrusted by the mass of to impose the new labour repeated conflicts over the attempts encouraged the former slaves regulations. of the Two years earlier Sonthonax had owners and managers North to defy the authority of arms in hand. It was now their dragoon the field hands back to the impossible simply to version of the labour plantations. In one Southern work a six-day week regulations if the labourers were told that they must of the But they wished to claim their full share crop. many preferred a half share of the sale no share for four days' work; in the latter for five days' work, or even land would be their sole case their access to a plot of Government 'payment' for four days' labour. defy the authority of arms in hand. It was now their dragoon the field hands back to the impossible simply to version of the labour plantations. In one Southern work a six-day week regulations if the labourers were told that they must of the But they wished to claim their full share crop. many preferred a half share of the sale no share for four days' work; in the latter for five days' work, or even land would be their sole case their access to a plot of Government 'payment' for four days' labour. for officials or army officers would take an estate, but even they had difficulty in on responsibility the producers. Sugar containing the resistance of output dropped sharply, with destruction of --- Page 246 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and of irrigation works, explaining part of the plantation equipment, suffered less of a decline. This crop could be grown fall. Coffee output authorities or their appointees on a small scale, with the Republican In a number of areas women cultivators claiming a share of the harvest. harvest unless they were refused to take part in the sugar or cultivators; coffee the original decrees of promised the same pay-out as male two-thirds of a male workers' emancipation had offered them only share.0 and 1798 the military capacity of the Republican Between 1796 enhanced. While there were still many black forces was considerably allegiance the regiments commanded by irregulars of indeterminate force but highly disciplined Toussaint were no longer a guerrilla to any part of the colony. contingents capable of strategic deployment and tactics of British officers paid tribute to the military capacity of St demi-brigades. 31 The social order Republican Toussaint's half-proletarian character of the Domingue reflected the half-peasant, however grudging, it could not former slaves, without whose support, has written of the 'proto-peasant' have survived. Sidney Mintz and there can be little doubt that aspirations of slaves in the Caribbean principally in of St Domingue's former slaves saw emancipation many to cultivate a plot of land, and raise a family, terms of their opportunity 32 On the other hand, the regime unmolested by their former overseers. and deracinated slavery had developed a disciplined of plantation former slaves had been themselves organisers, and labour force; some had not yet developed strong local indeed task-masters; many resistance largely thwarted attachments. Localistic, "proto-peasant' But those who to recreate a plantation regime. paradoxically attempts by the played a major part in sustaining had been formed plantations order. Ultimately it was the discipline and the new Republican political that of the plantations, which defeated coherence of the army, echoing 33 Black resistance to the British and to the partisans of re-enslavement. The majority of adult blacks had slavery drew on a variety of sources. African religious and political ideas been born in Africa; a synthesis of Some of those who led encouraged them to shake off enslavement. like Hyacinth, to bands and practised voodoo were prepared, chiefs maroon with the British. But however egotistical particular collaborate that alignment with the defenders of slavery might be they discovered blacks. Behind the British lines the was liable to alienate the mass of depended upon the attitude of the fate of particular plantations leave greatly SO would the rest ofthe crew. Asthe conslave elite,ifthey decided to be on 'loyal' plantations. flict dragged on security could not guaranteed British actually Having intervened to defend slavery the rooted resistance occupation to it. The provoked a more systematic and deeply --- Page 247 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism and Republicans prospered to the extent that lent coherence to, this elemental they allied themselves with, The last stages of the war social force. ofToussaint's independent against the British witnessed an assertion the black power and a certain general and his mulatto rapprochement between the South and West liberated slaves counterpart in the South, Rigaud. In the Republican forces, but in this also supplied the rank and file of ancien libres. The Republican zone most officers were mulattos or British to increasingly beleagured generals succeeded in confining the commanders was that of obtaining enclaves. lent coherence to, this elemental they allied themselves with, The last stages of the war social force. ofToussaint's independent against the British witnessed an assertion the black power and a certain general and his mulatto rapprochement between the South and West liberated slaves counterpart in the South, Rigaud. In the Republican forces, but in this also supplied the rank and file of ancien libres. The Republican zone most officers were mulattos or British to increasingly beleagured generals succeeded in confining the commanders was that of obtaining enclaves. A pressing problem for both troops. In this situation both resources with which to supply their advantages of that commercial Toussaint and Rigaud rediscovered the Antilles had SO often aimed. Their autonomy at which the planters of the access to at least some coffee, control of the countryside gave them merchants were sugar and cotton. North prepared to pay for these with American coin; the remaining mercantile military supplies or good British blockade, had little agents of the metropolis, to offer. impeded by the a different solution to the Sonthonax and Laveaux inclined to in Guadeloupe they problem of supplies and revenue; like there began to organise a Hugues was now a 'Quasi-War' between France revolutionary guerre de corse; President Adams had aligned his and the United States, as Commissioner nor country with Britain. But neither policy. general were any longer in a position to determine In March 1797 elections were held for a probably at Toussaint's new French Assembly; chosen as deputies for instigation St both Laveaux and Sonthonax were assignment with good grace; Domingue. he Laveaux accepted this new Toussaint and on his return to Paris transferred overall command to in St Domingue. Sonthonax refused continued to defend the new order the Civil Commissioner to leave. Tension mounted and the black Commander in between September Toussaint obliged Chief until in from Paris. Toussaint claimed Sonthonax to comply with a recall order St Domingue that Sonthonax was plotting to independent and to slaughter the make Toussaint who was taking a step towards whites. In reality it was his tracks with these distortions. independence while covering The departure of Laveaux and Sonthonax Toussaint and Rigaud were came at a time when occupied territories. But poised to roll back British control of the given the strength of British fortification of the occupied enclaves this sea-power and the operation. Via intermediaries the British promised to be a difficult would be willing to negotiate a withdrawal commander intimated that he The British were with Toussaint and beginning to realise that Rigaud. win in St Domingue; the there was no way they could occupation was costly and ineffective. The --- Page 248 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery commander with secret instructions to London government sent a new wholesale withdrawal; it was hoped to explore terms for a partial or withdraw support from the persuade the coloured commanders to Toussaint and offensive outside St Domingue. policy of revolutionary evacuation that would enable Rigaud were to be offered an orderly facilities and military them to take possession of the plantations, port for this the British installations in the British occupied zone. In return and revolutionary insisted that the activities of the Republican corsairs visit St that traders should be free to Domingue's agents should cease, who wished to remain should be ports and that those French planters to accept, and honour, permitted to do so. Toussaint was prepared hesitation. Neither Laveaux nor these terms; Rigaud agreed with some been to consider, would have been offered, or prepared Sonthonax such a deal with the British. the clash between A menacing turn of events in France complicated of March 1797 brought many Toussaint and Sonthonax. The elections of the colonial establishment, and former members covert royalists, of French political life. Barbé Marbois, the back into the mainstream became the president of the Five former Intendant of St Domingue, calls were made for the Hundred. In the opening sessions of this body disavowal of the of order in the colonies and for a restoration Rochambeau's reflections on the subject of extremism of Sonthonax. of events in France complicated of March 1797 brought many Toussaint and Sonthonax. The elections of the colonial establishment, and former members covert royalists, of French political life. Barbé Marbois, the back into the mainstream became the president of the Five former Intendant of St Domingue, calls were made for the Hundred. In the opening sessions of this body disavowal of the of order in the colonies and for a restoration Rochambeau's reflections on the subject of extremism of Sonthonax. by Viennot Vaublanc, who colonial anarchy were extensively quoted interest. There also seemed for the planter emerged as chief spokesman the contending powers in Europe. The a prospect of peace between of the British occupation of St Domingue, French royalist promoters believed that a royalist restoration and an Malouet and de Charmilly, Sonthonax and Toussaint were end to the war were now in prospect. of developments in alarmed by reports and rumours both greatly committed to both the Republic Europe. Sonthonax was thoroughly order in the colonies. Toussaint was more and to the new revolutionary defend the new order in St Domingue. If narrowly concerned to for St Domingue, as alleged, this Sonthonax did plan independence restoration in France; and his would have been in the event of a royalist referred to retribution for alleged plan to slaughter the whites probably with the British. Toussaint was less those planters who had collaborated in the metropolis, saw some committed to any particular regime and managers, and wished potential advantages in the return of planters with the British. Consethe possibility of negotiating to keep open with Sonthonax and, in James's phrase, 'threw quently Toussaint broke the Jacobin Commissioner's luck him to the wolves'".35 (Once more the intrigues of royalists and held; by the time he arrived back in France the coup of Fructidor.) had been foiled by colonial proprietors --- Page 249 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism Toussaint was prepared to disembarrass he compared to other extremists like himself of Sonthonax, whom simultaneously dispatched to Paris Robespierre and Marat, but he Vaublanc and Rochambeau. He an eloquent and vigorous riposte to know how to fight 'should General warned that the former slaves would head of an army in order to return the Rochambeau blacks . reappear at the The British position to slavery'.36 Some 20,000 British began to collapse in the early months of 1798. as unfit for service troopers had died or deserted or been by this date; total British discharged theatre were soon to reach 60,000. Disease losses in the Caribbean military operations in St had taken a heavy toll and no point had the occupiers Domingue had yielded very meagre results. At against the succeeded in mounting major the Republicans, nor had they extended the offensives boundaries that it had reached in its first occupation beyond French planter militias. The casualties of the months, thanks to the the Lesser Antilles were about twice British forces fighting in the British had not as great as those in St if suffered this Domingue; even have succeeded in stifling the distraction and depletion they might results and heavy revolt in the larger colony. The casualties of Britain's West poor encouraged anti-war sentiment and Indian operations opposition in Parliament. 37 gave openings to the Foxite Toussaint and Rigaud Following the departure of time the British kept up the pressure on the British forces. Sonthonax, hoped to retain control of the naval For a Nicolas, or of some other enclave. Not until base at Môle St agreement struck with Toussaint and July-August 1798 was an withdrawal. It was agreed that St Rigaud for a complete British a base for attacks on British Domingue would no longer be used as Those French planters who shipping or on the British slave colonies. Foxite Toussaint and Rigaud Following the departure of time the British kept up the pressure on the British forces. Sonthonax, hoped to retain control of the naval For a Nicolas, or of some other enclave. Not until base at Môle St agreement struck with Toussaint and July-August 1798 was an withdrawal. It was agreed that St Rigaud for a complete British a base for attacks on British Domingue would no longer be used as Those French planters who shipping or on the British slave colonies. had themselves recruited wished to do SO could remain. The British occupied black auxiliary forces for the zone; some of these forces defence of the Toussaint's army. were now integrated into Toussaint and Rigaud undertook these sanction from the Directory and several of negotiations the without proper were kept as secret clauses when the more delicate accords entertained Toussaint Treaty was signed. The British lavishly at the Môle St Nicolas departure and invited him to establish prior to their though gratified by these attentions he an independent kingdom in the British press hinted declined the invitation. at the agreements Reports mischievously encouraged the view that reached - indeed they France. The metropolitan authorities Toussaint was about to desert picious of their Governor in St were by now thoroughly susremained as titular Commissioners Domingue. Raimond and Roume advisers. In April 1798 another but had no power other than as Commissioner, Hédouville, was sent by --- Page 250 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery by troops. The new Commissioner Paris but he arrived unaccompanied version of the Treaty had little alternative but to approve an expurgated Toussaint of having comprowith the British. Hédouville suspected - - to the British, to former mised the Republic by a series of concessions and to the mass of blacks in émigrés, whom he had allowed to return, attention to the cash crops. The the North, who were fitful in their would henceforth be obliged Commissioner announced that labourers instead of one year. This labour contracts for three years to sign North and persuaded Hédouville that he should provoked revolt in the Rigaud full support if he retire to France. Before going he promised shot played upon Toussaint's power. This parting and should challenge and rivalry between the two generals, already existing antagonisms and mulâtres. After a period of tension between blacks more generally 1799. It took the black general a open civil war broke out in March and to eject Rigaud and other little over a year to establish full control While the latter sought refuge in leading mulattos from the island. by United Toussaint's advance on the South was facilitated France, administration followed the British States naval cover; the Adams Toussaint as less menacing to Caribbean government in regarding those who were more faithful to the French commerce and order than his some shreds of However, Toussaint tried to give regime succesRepublic. the title of Commissioner Republican legitimacy by attributing December 1800 his forces invaded sively to Raimond and Roume. half In of the island, and decreed the the still Spanish-administered 15,000 slaves. This action had no emancipation of the colony's undertaken in order to prevent Santo metropolitan sanction and was for a French expedition. Domingo being used as a staging post Bonaparte's rise to power Toussaint had attentively followed himself Napoleon and the First Consul. He still and saw some parallel between his conduct; one of them, sent occasional letters to Paris justifying 'From the First of the Blacks to destined to remain unanswered, began, the First of the Whites'. 38 . until the arrival of a large French Toussaint was ruler of St Domingue He a certain recovery expeditionary force in February 1802. supervised constitution. According and the introduction of a new of the economy the treasury of St Domingue exports in 1800 to figures assembled by volume achieved in 1789; because of higher ran at only one-fifth of the revenue was almost the same. The prices, and higher charges, customs understated to conceal the extent export volume figure may have been Nevertheless there is no of trade with the United States or Britain. arrival of a large French Toussaint was ruler of St Domingue He a certain recovery expeditionary force in February 1802. supervised constitution. According and the introduction of a new of the economy the treasury of St Domingue exports in 1800 to figures assembled by volume achieved in 1789; because of higher ran at only one-fifth of the revenue was almost the same. The prices, and higher charges, customs understated to conceal the extent export volume figure may have been Nevertheless there is no of trade with the United States or Britain. a major slump in doubt that revolution and war had produced plantation output. --- Page 251 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism of St Domingue, 1789 and 1800-1801 Table 2 Exports 1800-1801 lb '000 47,516 White sugar 93,573 18,519 Raw sugar 76,835 43,220 Coffee 2,480 7,004 Cotton Indigo Source: Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, P. 275. for which St Domingue was famous had been The irrigation systems destroyed. The population of the badly damaged and much equipment roughly two-thirds of its French part had dropped to under 400,000, from the cessation of slave previous level. Population decline resulted of children in the slave imports and the historically low proportion of war. The new peasantry was population as well as the devastation than producing cash crops. more interested in subsistence cultivation in the future but This held out hope of demographic In the recovery peasant saying Moin pas undermined the plantation economy. I don't have to work), the esclave, moin pas travaye' (I'm not a slave for others. About twowork referred to was essentially that performed held by the state, which had thirds of the surviving plantations were though confiscated the estates of émigrés and counterrerolatonuarien: their land. allowed those willing to do SO to return to reclaim Toussaint were leased out to private individuals or to The domaines nationaux Raimond and Roume had each army officers. The Commissioners General Dessalines controlled acquired, or leased, a string of estates; Christophe was reported to be thirty-three sugar estates, while General Under the system of fermage the worth more than $250,000 in 1799.39 to pay out a quarter leaseholders of domaines nationaux were expected over a half of of the harvest to the labourers and to hand of the value budget for 33 million livres was drawn all produce to the state. A state the fiscal authorities to make a levy of up for 1801. It was common for American traders would produce rather than cash; British or North for coffee or ammunition, textiles and equipment then exchange arms, financial balance the sale or exchange of sugar. According to the official raised more revenue than the produce of domaines nationaux customs. 40 estates because they were more Army officers or officials operated labour. The direct producers were likely to have access to disciplined --- Page 252 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery work their plots SO long as they contributed only permitted to garden of October 1800 placed all those in labour to the estates. A decree and proprietors under managers agriculture - labourers, overseers, adult had to be able to give proof of 'useful military discipline. Every and proprietors had to submit accounts employment', while managers of their district. A special rural guard, based to the military commander to enforce this decree. on units fifty-five men strong, was organised resembled a species of serfdom in Juridically the new labour regime be bound to their estates, and obliged that labourers were supposed to had access to means of subsistence, to labour, in return for which they notional share in plantation proceeds. managers agriculture - labourers, overseers, adult had to be able to give proof of 'useful military discipline. Every and proprietors had to submit accounts employment', while managers of their district. A special rural guard, based to the military commander to enforce this decree. on units fifty-five men strong, was organised resembled a species of serfdom in Juridically the new labour regime be bound to their estates, and obliged that labourers were supposed to had access to means of subsistence, to labour, in return for which they notional share in plantation proceeds. family life and a an autonomous must sometimes have been in a position In practice the direct producers of the labour decrees. Bands of to check or challenge the full severity of St Domingue owing no defined maroons still existed in many parts localities. The allegiance to the state and linked instead to particular Women made a maroons still tended to comprise mainly younger men. working in the fields large economic contribution in the settled areas, force an estate had local markets. To conserve its labour and organising and rights to the producer beyond the formal to offer some incentives the estates often had to be armed while ban on whipping. Labourers on measure from the ranks of the the army itself was recruited of in force large in the countryside, where many peasantry. The real relations the full reinstitution former slaves had been armed, virtually precluded often assessed and collected of slavery. On the other hand, the soldiery without regard to the producers' tribute in a rough and ready manner, formal rights. of rule echoed that of an autocratic and Toussaint's style Governor with the difference that he independent-minded colonial minister to dispute his authority. The had no Intendant or metropolitan now Port Républicain, served old Governor's Palace at Port au Prince, from which he set out on as his offical residence and headquarters, personal staffincluded four or repeated tours of inspection. Toussaint's who took down a stream of orders, five secretaries (usually whites) His entourage included several longdecrees, letters and proclamations. Among these standing white and mulatto advisers or administrators. curés who appear to have were five 'constitutional' priests, radical Other members identified with slave revolt from the outset. and important Pascal; Nathan, of Toussaint staff included the mulattos Raimond administrator; and Vincent, the juif interprète; Bunel, a former colonial of these men, despite French a French colonel of engineers. Many in his with the British nationality, loyally served Toussaint negotiations were blacks and former Most of the officers in the army or Americans. Christophe and Moyse. Among the few slaves; men like Dessalines, --- Page 253 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism Toussaint Louverture the white chief of staff, and white or mulatto officers were Agé, in the East. In the course of the Clairveaux, the mulatto commander mulatto officers dropped considerably. war with Rigaud the number of Claire Heureuse, the wife of Suzanne Simon, Toussaint's wife, and affairs, appealing for Dessalines, also played some part in public St Domingue. clemency in the bloody caste feuds which rent Palace, attended by Grand receptions were held at the Governor's who had returned officers of the new order, foreign traders and planters but was usually Toussaint would dress simply to their estates. honour guard. Toussaint imposed himself accompanied by a splendid of and by his control of the on his collaborators by his force personality French, and had read army. He spoke a vigorous but ungrammatical other public buildings were to be widely. In the Governor's Palace and rather than Rousseau or found busts and portraits of Raynal, who, of the new order. Grand receptions were held at the Governor's who had returned officers of the new order, foreign traders and planters but was usually Toussaint would dress simply to their estates. honour guard. Toussaint imposed himself accompanied by a splendid of and by his control of the on his collaborators by his force personality French, and had read army. He spoke a vigorous but ungrammatical other public buildings were to be widely. In the Governor's Palace and rather than Rousseau or found busts and portraits of Raynal, who, of the new order. Just as Condorcet, was adopted as the prophet planters as well work reflected the aspirations of enlightened to Raynal's SO there was a double quality slave emancipation, as championing It rested on the forces unleashed by slave revolt Toussaint's new regime. time it reflected or recreated the and slave emancipation; at the same administrators. ideals of the autonomist planters and enlightened former slaveholder. 41 Toussaint was a former slave; he was also a drawn up by a Central In July 1801 a new constitution was --- Page 254 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery members had been nominated by Toussaint. It Assembly whose ten for life. The Assembly comprised three proclaimed him Governor of the former Spanish whites, three mulattos and four inhabitants been drafted, in consultation colony. The text of the Constitution had Secretary, and Bertrand with Toussaint, by Raimond, the Assembly's planter and a former Borghella, its President. Borghella was a Conseil large Supérieur of Port au member of the notoriously autonomist St Domingue to be a self-governing Prince. The constitution declared of commerce. Toussaint had the colony of France enjoying freedom from amongst the army generals. right to nominate his successor the of every Freedom and French nationality were prerogative Toussaint himself inhabitant. Catholicism was to be the official religion. in which he had been always displayed a great respect for the offered religion for his victories and the brought up; Te Deums would be deliver admonitions to the general would himself enter the pulpit allowed to for a notional link congregation. The Constitution only resident agent of the metropolis was between metropolis and colony; no the Governor and the French envisaged, simply correspondence between Constitution did stop short of head of state. However, the Louverturian gesture, a copy was declaring outright independence and, as a placatory 42 sent to the First Consul for his endorsement. presided made massive and The new order over which Toussaint enemy was no longer prudent provision for defence. The prospective continued between Britain Britain but the metropolis itself. While war to send an expedition to and France the metropolis was in no position would soon be made. the Antilles. But by 1799 it was clear that peace in the election of of President Adams by Jefferson The replacement development for St Domingue, since it was 1799 was a further ominous of the so-called "Quasi-War' between likely to result in the ending Adams had favoured trade with France and the United States. in the and his Agent there had played an important part a St Domingue Jefferson was not only pro-French but negotiations with the British. be hostile to slave-owner and, as such, likely to particularly to Virginian in the Americas. Toussaint had been willing an adjacent black power other American territories, which end anti-slavery activity directed at that to his successor the very had pleased Adams; it was thought black state would be anathema. existence of an emancipationist would be welcome news the First Consul conveyed Calculating that this that insubordination in St Domingue a message to the new President mixture of motives to be explored in the would not be tolerated. iations with the British. be hostile to slave-owner and, as such, likely to particularly to Virginian in the Americas. Toussaint had been willing an adjacent black power other American territories, which end anti-slavery activity directed at that to his successor the very had pleased Adams; it was thought black state would be anathema. existence of an emancipationist would be welcome news the First Consul conveyed Calculating that this that insubordination in St Domingue a message to the new President mixture of motives to be explored in the would not be tolerated. From a the French. Jefferson did nothing to discourage next chapter of the Louverturian order in St Domingue is The militarisation who argues that it was both tyrannical and stressed by Pierre Pluchon, --- Page 255 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism was maintained at a regular strength of burdensome. Toussaint's army in the militia and gendarmerie. 20,000, with a similar number organised than a tenth of the total Certainly armed forces totalling more available resources. The population constituted a heavy charge upon civil revolution and by a decade of war, legacy of disorder bequeathed tested the new power and impelled it along foreign intervention severely Toussaint often found it the path of centralisation and militarisation. or defeated enemies free-lance military groups easier to incorporate them, leading to a further growth of the than to seek to disband danger of new interventions helped military establishment. The manifest to justify such a policy. Toussaint duly appeared at the The French expedition feared by comprised some 16,000 men beginning of February 1802. It initially and brother-in-law commanded by Leclerc, a noted Republican general as Governor Leclerc carried with him an appointment to Bonaparte. to the effect that France would always General and a proclamation The size of the expeditionary force respect the liberty of its new citizens. island's ports made it descent upon the principal and its simultaneous intention was to break the power of Toussaint's clear that Bonaparte's Leclerc's second in command was army and to reintegrate the colony. by the mulatto commanders Rochambeau; he was also accompanied Rigaud and Pétion. a new French empire in the Bonaparte was intent on creating treaty with Britain had Americas. The preliminary accord for a peace and other 1801. Under its terms Martinique been reached in September be returned to France or its allies colonies occupied by Britain were to though the First Consul regretted only Trinidad was retained by Britain, Louisiana from Spain even this. At about the same time France San acquired Ildefonso. The reconquest of by a secret clause of the Treaty of of this strategy. With some St Domingue was to be the centre-point the British and American success Bonaparte sought to persuade of black government' in St governments that the 'annihilation the 'necessity of stifling in Domingue was in their interest; he urged and trouble'. In France of the world every kind of disquiet every part influential lobby of colonial proprietors or merchants itself there was an The First Consul's wife, who wished to recoup their old prosperity. and Martinique. owned property in St Domingue Josephine Beauharnais, of the Council of State, as was Barbé Marbois was now a member of Martinique and Moreau de Saint Méry, the former representative to have felt that the member of the Club Massiac. Talleyrand outlet seems for the First Consul's Caribbean venture was a convenient blame 'the Council of State and his ambitions. Later Napoleon was to to St Domingue; they ministers' for having promoted the expedition --- Page 256 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the clamours of the colonists, who were, he thought, "hurried along by and were, besides - nearly all formed a considerable party at Paris, faction". ique and Moreau de Saint Méry, the former representative to have felt that the member of the Club Massiac. Talleyrand outlet seems for the First Consul's Caribbean venture was a convenient blame 'the Council of State and his ambitions. Later Napoleon was to to St Domingue; they ministers' for having promoted the expedition --- Page 256 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the clamours of the colonists, who were, he thought, "hurried along by and were, besides - nearly all formed a considerable party at Paris, faction". 44 Napoleon's attempt to royalists, or in the pay of the English at face value; nevertheshould not be accepted disclaim responsibility and merchants anxious to supply a large less the colonial lobby generally favoured the continental market with tropical produce relations with Britain and expedition, as did those who wished for good 'black in St United States. The destruction of government' the have earned Napoleon the gratitude of slaveholders Domingue would throughout the New World. in St Domingue by playing Toussaint had consolidated the revolution another. Now this was no off the major Atlantic powers against arrival one of the Leclerc expedition longer possible. At the time of the Some four months prior to Toussaint was also vulnerable domestically. wholesale of the arrival Toussaint had carried out a purge Leclerc's of Moyse, commander of the North. The army, involving the execution to establish but it was linked precise reasons for this purge are difficult the implementation of the unrest among the cultivators caused by to had failed to suppress this unrest, or even labour decrees. Moyse while his followers had charged that Toussaint positively supported it, labourers to being little more than slaves or intended to reduce the field even worse, of jumped-up serfs of their former owners or, According perhaps to a report made by the US petits blancs or army officers. had revealed a readiness to overthrow Consul at Le Cap, Moyse better relations with France. The summary Toussaint and to establish real or supposed supporters, was execution of Moyse, and some 2,000 decree on internal security. All followed by the adoption of a draconian official card and an citizens were required to possess established an over identity the movements of elaborate series of controls was with forced labour, labourers and soldiers. Idleness was to be punished be This with death and suspect foreigners were to deported. sedition the plantation regime; it desperately decree did not simply tighten up sought to stave off political disintegration. carried through with surprising Leclerc's landing on the island was Leclerc's authority was success in its first stages. In many places Paul Louverture and accepted by army commanders, including from their commanderClairveaux, who seemed to lack clearinstructions his supporters by a purge and in-chief. Toussaint had first demoralised invasion which everyone knew then left his generals unprepared for an Bonaparte to offer him a deal. was coming. Perhaps Toussaint expected ignored by some, that loyalty to the There was also the difficulty, people of colour no less Republic was still a powerful force, effective among resistance to Leclerc came than with most whites. The only --- Page 257 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism by Toussaint and Christophe in the North from the forces commanded his vocation as and Dessalines in the West. Toussaint now rediscovered of all that could help the He urged the destruction He a revolutionary. that they had come to restore slavery. appealed French and warned arming them and advocating a directly to the cultivators of the North, however, insisted on guerrilla strategy. Toussaint's principal lieutenants, and suffered a number of campaign fighting a more conventional Christophe and Dessalines offered to reverses. by Toussaint and Christophe in the North from the forces commanded his vocation as and Dessalines in the West. Toussaint now rediscovered of all that could help the He urged the destruction He a revolutionary. that they had come to restore slavery. appealed French and warned arming them and advocating a directly to the cultivators of the North, however, insisted on guerrilla strategy. Toussaint's principal lieutenants, and suffered a number of campaign fighting a more conventional Christophe and Dessalines offered to reverses. In the last days of April that they would retain their come to terms with Leclerc on condition this offer. In early May ranks and commands. Leclerc accepted make with the new Toussaint also indicated a readiness to could retire peace to his estates with Governor General, on condition that he would be integrated with the his personal guard and that his troops to agree, though he forces. Once again Leclerc was happy Republican intentions. Despite these capitulations irregular distrusted Toussaint's chiefs of maroon bands and of militia or warfare continued, led by the commander or no prospect units who had no faith in the French as army deal with him. Leclerc's aim was to disarm and disband of striking a and to leave no black officers in many of the black troops as possible of The continuation of the army with a rank above that captain. this plan. Probably resistance made it impossible for him to implement other black generals of with good reason he suspected Toussaint Toussaint and was arrested and insurrection. On June 6th plotting transported to France. Leclerc urging him to arrest all the On July Ist Napoleon wrote to France before the end of black generals and deport them to done nothing, and an immense 'without this we will have September: will be poised on a volcano and fail to inspire any and beautiful colony 46 Leclerc explained confidence in capitalists, colonists or commerce. such measure and that the that he was now far too weak to take any of the loyal black could only be held with the assistance colony Leclerc had received some reinforcements, his troops generals. Though the seige and capture of the fort at Crête had suffered heavy casualties: had alone cost the lives of more à Pierrot, held by Dessalines's With troops, the onset of summer, yellow fever than 1,500 French troops. the black resistance continued and began to take its toll. Meanwhile of Toussaint counted for nothing, Leclerc complained that the arrest whom it would be necessary to since there were 2,000 black chiefs the fever in October and died on arrest. Leclerc himself succumbed to he complained that his November 2nd. In his last letters to Napoleon white colons who had fatally undermined. The position was being their former property, returned with him, many intent on reclaiming of the old regime could again be longed for the day when the full rigour --- Page 258 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery enforced, including both slavery and the caste behaviour of these white colons, and of the system. The provocative from them, caused endless trouble National Guards recruited The French troops, drawn with the mulatto and black troops. displayed little mainly from the Army of the sympathy for the colonial whites Rhine, often coloured commanders. The memoirs of and sided with the the troubled silence that descended one Republican general recall defenders of Crête à Pierrot upon his troops when they heard the singing French songs: 'In spite of the indignation that the patriotic and revolutionary airs generally produced a painful black atrocities excited, these other questioningly; they seemed feeling. Our soldiers looked at each the right? Are we really the to say: "Are our barbaric enemies in became servile political only soldiers of the Republic? for the colonial whites Rhine, often coloured commanders. The memoirs of and sided with the the troubled silence that descended one Republican general recall defenders of Crête à Pierrot upon his troops when they heard the singing French songs: 'In spite of the indignation that the patriotic and revolutionary airs generally produced a painful black atrocities excited, these other questioningly; they seemed feeling. Our soldiers looked at each the right? Are we really the to say: "Are our barbaric enemies in became servile political only soldiers of the Republic? Have we instruments2"47 Leclerc repeatedly insisted that the French scrupulous regard for the freedom of the Republic would have and to begin with he had been former slaves in St Domingue, arrest of Toussaint, and the believed. In the summer of 1802 the Windward Islands, arrival of news from France and began to destroy the issue. The reincorporation of Leclerc's credibility on this key were intact, obliged the Consular Martinique, where the slave plantations in the French colonies. The result regime to clarify the status of slavery 19th 1802), presented was the decree of Floréal An X to the Tribunat with the (May necessary 'to ensure the good of preamble that it was restored the legality of security our neighbours'. The decree colonies; slavery and the slave trade in though no specific reference was made the French Guadeloupe, it was explained that the to St Domingue or would make provision for those who had competent colonial authorities laws. The decree of Floréal been freed by Tribunate and 211 votes was approved by 54 votes revolutionary to 27 in to 63 in the the was established on the same day by the Senate. The Legion of Honour branding for criminals had been Tribunate; in the previous week first French restored. Floréal effectively Republic to an end: the for brought the Napoleon Consul for life was also devised plan a plebiscite making The French at this time. 48 Guadeloupe, Victor attempt to reimpose slavery was first made in 1798 and forced Hugues had been replaced as Governor in to leave the colony in 1799. February established was preserved in its essentials The regime he had who included by his immediate Laveaux; the latter was arrested successors, were said to be over 1,000 estates farmed in March 1800. There the dismissal of out to black after less Hugues an attempt was made to introduce cultivators; regimented system of a somewhat of black labourers of share-cropping (colonat partiare). The mass independence of the Guadeloupe did not acquire the robust ex-slaves of St Domingue; this was both because --- Page 259 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism had and because the relatively emancipation "from above' predominated cultivation and small size of the island gave less scope freedom to peasant in the larger colony. maronnage, two vital supports of black incorporated military establishment in Guadeloupe The Republican senior positions, the mulatto General gens de couleur in the most Louis Delgrès being notable Magloire Pélage and the black general who had saved the Iles amongst them. In 1801 Bonaparte sent Lacrosse, for the du Vent for the Republic in 1792, to prepare Pélage Guadeloupe quickly divined Consulate's special colonial regime. Magloire 24th. Bonaparte thereupon this threat and arrested Lacrosse on October commanded by General dispatched a large force to the colony with in May, Richepanse. , the mulatto General gens de couleur in the most Louis Delgrès being notable Magloire Pélage and the black general who had saved the Iles amongst them. In 1801 Bonaparte sent Lacrosse, for the du Vent for the Republic in 1792, to prepare Pélage Guadeloupe quickly divined Consulate's special colonial regime. Magloire 24th. Bonaparte thereupon this threat and arrested Lacrosse on October commanded by General dispatched a large force to the colony with in May, Richepanse. Magloire Pélage came to terms Richepanse last stand opted for armed resistance. After a heroic but Louis Delgrès Matouba Delgrès was killed and most of his in the crater of the volcano received the decree of followers overwhelmed. As soon as Richepanse No attempt was made to reFloréal he decided to reintroduce slavery. but labourers on the enslave black soldiers or anciens libres proprietors condition. 49 returned to their former estates were generally news of the restoration of slavery in To Leclerc's consternation in July, demolishing the idea that the Guadeloupe reached St Domingue and other to Martinique decree of Floréal was only applicable been abolished. Leclerc complained territories where slavery had never of slavery was having a disastrous to Paris that fear of the restoration the loyalty of his the black revolt and undermining had effect, stimulating commanders. Dessalines and Christophe black and mulatto rebels in the areas entrusted to them by the pitilessly repressed the and September they began to hedge French Captain General. In August rebel while vigorously their bets, covertly assisting some groups the loyalty of his black eliminating potential rivals. In an effort to retain But the racism of the white generals Leclerc sent Rigaud back to France. alliance between black and colonial establishment had recreated the 1799. The black which had disappeared in the civil war of mulatto the French, were also profoundly aware of the commanders, slighted by and the caste regime. A decade of depth of popular resistance to slavery and the ideological dimensions of struggles had fused the pragmatic Intelligence of the restoration of anti-slavery in the popular mentality. defence of quite specific rights and slavery thus triggered the libres they sensed that their own civic possessions; as for the anciens if black slavery was restored. status would be similarly degraded 1802 the most outstanding black and On October 13th-14th Clerveau and Pétion mulatto generals - Dessalines, Christophe, some turned on the French, with regiments comprising simultaneously and well-armed troops. Leclerc only just escaped 6,000 disciplined --- Page 260 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery capture and the loss of Le Cap, where he November Rochambeau took lay on his death-bed, In a conference of the rebel over command of the French forces while commander-in-chief Rochambeau generals appointed Dessalines as their but experienced and capable now faced not only popular revolt had made the colony military formations. While the rebel bands the black impossible to conquer their new with demi-brigades meant that the alignment Relations between France and French could be defeated. Napoleon threatened British Britain were deteriorating rapidly as the British refused to positions in India and the Near East while been give up their bases in the agreed at Amiens. France's Mediterranean, as had North American acquisition of Louisiana had aroused somewhat suspicions. The black rebels in St easier to acquire supplies from Domingue found it traders. In May 1803 war broke British or North American good relations between France out again between Britain and Napoleon made and the United States were France; over Louisiana to the American rescued when Napoleon had no intention of Republic. and the Near East while been give up their bases in the agreed at Amiens. France's Mediterranean, as had North American acquisition of Louisiana had aroused somewhat suspicions. The black rebels in St easier to acquire supplies from Domingue found it traders. In May 1803 war broke British or North American good relations between France out again between Britain and Napoleon made and the United States were France; over Louisiana to the American rescued when Napoleon had no intention of Republic. However, in sending 15,000 reinforcements abandoning St Domingue and succeeded imposition of a British blockade to Rochambeau prior to the attempt to recover St on the island. The desperate French non-combatants and reached Domingue involved the wholesale massacre of the colonial wars of a later an exterminist pitch that foreshadowed had often been marked the epoch. The wars that ravaged St conflicts by most atrocious Domingue that ranged royalists against blood-letting. The various slaves, whites against coloured, mulattos Republicans, masters against against invaded had rarely admitted the against blacks, invaders war'. Toussaint, animated by a more observance of any 'rules of the few generals to give constructive ideal, had been one of occasional atrocities quarter to his enemies, though he did against mulatto permit to Napoleon Leclerc warned: 'Here opponents. In one of his last letters exterminate all the blacks in the is my opinion. You will have to except for children under twelve. mountains, women as well as men, lowlands and do not leave in the Wipe out half the population of the epaulette. 50 If Rochambeau, colony a single black who has worn an this baleful testament beyond despite reinforcements, found execution of The need at all him, it was not for want of has costs to prevent escape by trying. fanaticised this island', was another Toussaint, 'the man who On April 17th 1803 Toussaint refrain of Leclerc's last letters. the Fortress of Joux in the Jura Louverture died in the icy dungeons of humiliating treatment. At a Mountains, after months of brutal and about this time, it conference of the rebel was decided no longer to under generals held at According to legend Dessalines held the fight the tricolour. from it the white band; henceforth up flag of the Republic and tore the rebels fought under a red and --- Page 261 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism which the initials R.F. had been replaced by the motto blue standard on and its avid retinue of white "Liberty or Death'. The French expedition few months longer and even retained colonists managed to hold out a and mulatto soldiers. But the threat the collaboration of some black restoration of the colonial ancien régime they represented of a full dress the coloured army and the black reforged the alliance between anciens libres, between the cultivators, between nouveaux libres and of restoring slavery and blacks and the mulattos. The twin project On November 29th the destroying 'black government' foundered. and his forces as prisoners of British agreed to evacuate Rochambeau civilians embarked at Le Cap for war; some 4,000 troops and as many in the former Spanish half of the Jamaica. A French presence remained in rebel hands. Not until island but St Domingue was now entirely of another conference of rebel January 1st 1804, at the conclusion Haiti The name chosen commanders, was the Republic of rather proclaimed. than African or European. for the new Republic was Amerindian General', a title chosen, perhaps, Dessalines was named as 'Governor for its Louverturian echoes. Rochambeau civilians embarked at Le Cap for war; some 4,000 troops and as many in the former Spanish half of the Jamaica. A French presence remained in rebel hands. Not until island but St Domingue was now entirely of another conference of rebel January 1st 1804, at the conclusion Haiti The name chosen commanders, was the Republic of rather proclaimed. than African or European. for the new Republic was Amerindian General', a title chosen, perhaps, Dessalines was named as 'Governor for its Louverturian echoes. made a powerful impact on The French defeat in St Domingue in Britain as it again faced the contemporary opinion - especially Napoleon had sent some 35,000 French prospect of a French invasion. 20,000 had died of various sicknesses troops to St Domingue; about the field of battle. Among those lost were while 8,000 perished on The losses amongst white Leclerc and eighteen other white generals. total losses on the French side, and coloured auxiliaries at least doubled a cause of death for the though sickness was not nearly SO French important defeat was all the greater since local forces..1 The impact of the distractions in the first Napoleon had been free of other military The costly lesson which eighteen months of the attempted British reconquest. and then the French was noted by had been learned by first the The British had sought to secure all colonial and slaveholding powers. in the West Indies; instead they had lost and extend their slaveholdings needed resources and consolidated some 60,000 men, expended sorely slaves they had set out to crush. the power of the emancipated and ignominious attempt to Napoleon's war against black government, liberation striggle re-establish slavery, had provoked an unprecedented and had given birth to the new state of Haiti. for the British to register the The defeat of the French made it easier The example and significance of their own débâcle in St Domingue. of inspiration to martyrdom of Toussaint was to become a source in France and the first in Britain, subsequently radical abolitionists, which would have been happy to United States. The British press, harrowing accounts of his celebrate his execution in 1796, gave --- Page 262 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery death. On February 3rd 1803 the Morning Post imprisonment and which ended: published Wordsworth's sonnet to Toussaint Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, skies; There's not a breath of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, mind. And Love, and man's unconquerable tribute is taken to refer to the resistance of If Wordsworth's who fought on even when deserted by their anonymous black masses, of their elemental and essential strength was leaders, then his invocation who was brother-inapt. Around the same time James Stephen, or very a pamphlet entitled The Opportunity law to Wilberforce, published Alliance with St Domingo, in which he Reasons for an Immediate the rebels. Stephen was to be a leading urged the advantages of helping abolitionism, which dates from this light in the second wave of British a House of Commons time: abolition of the slave trade regained to be considered in majority in May 1804, leading, in circumstances before this the London chapter 8, to the Act of 1807. But long of discreet accommodagovernment had rediscovered the advantages 52 tion to the Revolution in St Domingue/Haitt. between France and Britain there During the early stages of the war French fleet was dispatched in Europe and a large were no engagements most unwilling to allow the West The British proved to Martinique. of hostilities, and long postponed any attacks Indies to become a zone The West India regiment, formed from on the remaining French islands. in the defence of purchased Africans, played an important part specially Neither the anti-French forces in St Domingue the British Caribbean. overnment had rediscovered the advantages 52 tion to the Revolution in St Domingue/Haitt. between France and Britain there During the early stages of the war French fleet was dispatched in Europe and a large were no engagements most unwilling to allow the West The British proved to Martinique. of hostilities, and long postponed any attacks Indies to become a zone The West India regiment, formed from on the remaining French islands. in the defence of purchased Africans, played an important part specially Neither the anti-French forces in St Domingue the British Caribbean. accorded official recognition but nor the new Republic of Haiti were and some naval cover from the both received some military supplies for a formal treaty of alliance British. Without any necessity formidable barrier to any new Dessalines's demi-brigades were a the French Antilles. attempt to reconstruct had little impact in France In the short run the defeat in St Domingue and was soon where Napoleon had broken his opponents itself, adventures. The Amis des Noirs had briefly flickered planning larger again. The elevation of Abbé into existence in 1797-8 only to expire had been one of the last acts of Grégoire to the Senate in 1801 vote both against the decree independence by the legislature; he was to of the Empire, but to equally of Floréal and against the establishment --- Page 263 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism little effect. Laveaux and Sonthonax had Bonaparte as First Consul, but both moved into opposition to had been arrested for a time in December were suspect as Jacobins; Laveaux of the 'infernal machine'. Colonel 1801 following the explosion bringing Toussaint's Vincent had been arrested after Constitution to the First dangers of invading St Domingue and Consul; he warned of the was on hand to greet the was later exiled to Elba, where he appointment Emperor in 1814. Victor as Governor of French Guiana where Hugues secured decree restoring slavery. Many of the French he implemented the were slaughtered in a massacre who remained in Haiti independence. The only on the aftermath of the declaration of Haiti was the Jacobin Terrorist prominent French Republican to find refuge in 1794, who ended his days there Billaud-Varenne, in Hugues's sponsor in monarchien who had 1815-18. Malouet, the veteran French helped to organise the British Antilles, became Louis XVIII's first occupation of the also became an ornament of the Colonial Minister. Du Buc Restoration. The Republic of Haiti set up in 1804 continuity with the St preserved a vital element of outlawed slavery by Domingue of Toussaint Louverture. Both an insecure new ruling express class constitutional that provision, both were led by functions, and both united economic and The death of expressed an aspiration to effective military slavery had been confirmed independence. as had the new status of the by the defeat of the French, possible. All mass of Haitians who had made that successor regimes sought to find defeat country dwellers to work. Many have been ways of obliging the stringent rural codes enacted by tempted to equate the Christophe with the slave condition Toussaint, Dessalines and Henry offered the choice of a return to full under the old regime. Yet when always preferred to ally with their chattel slavery, the labourers had the new labour regime the overseer's new masters against their old. Under forms of coercion may have taken its whip was banned; though other been generally observed and place, this ban does seem to have masters were black or brown generally while welcomed. The fact that the new not adequately explain the most of the old had been white does libres. equate the Christophe with the slave condition Toussaint, Dessalines and Henry offered the choice of a return to full under the old regime. Yet when always preferred to ally with their chattel slavery, the labourers had the new labour regime the overseer's new masters against their old. Under forms of coercion may have taken its whip was banned; though other been generally observed and place, this ban does seem to have masters were black or brown generally while welcomed. The fact that the new not adequately explain the most of the old had been white does libres. In the ancien régime seeming the preferences of the mass of nouveaux never been condition of the slave of a free regarded as enviable. black had The new condition of the mass of labourers slave in certain decisive was freer than that of the respects. In the first governments and landowners was from place the writ of effective and complete, scarcely the outset very much less often ignored even in the plains. reaching The to the mountain districts and 'peasant republics' in scale of the peasant rebellions and ninetenth-century Haiti was to be qualitatively --- Page 264 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery precursors, the maroons. greater than that of their cighteenth-century of the South-west constituted an Thus from 1807 to 1819 large areas the African former slave and autonomous farmers' Republic led by known as Goman. Even Jean-Baptiste Duperrier, commonly maroon, settled administration the new authorities within the regions of more of the direct producers: too much found it prudent to limit exploitation undermine the basis of political power. pressure on them would recruited from the mass of Ultimately the army and police disaffection were would encourage military peasants and labourers, whose Free-lance groups of armed peasants revolts, conspiracies and coups. or cacos, were to play an important and labourers, known as picquets part in Haitian history. 54 to be the bane of Haitian society, with Militarism itself was certainly absorbing much of the social armed forces totalling as many as 40,000 of commodity production. surplus and discouraging the diversification subsistence cultivation to meet their own The Haitian peasants preferred since the proceeds of the latter needs rather than cash crop cultivation, landlords or military by grasping could be more readily appropriated of slavery the producers had been superadministrators. In the days under the burdens of exploited to produce a vast export surplus; a far more militarism and landlordism the Haitain peasant produced existence. While the modest surplus, but enjoyed a more autonomous in which women played a major export trade languished, local markets, role, were quite vigorous. of the new condition of the mass of the A significant index in population levels during the was to be a strong recovery estimate population According to one contemporary first decades of independence. in 1800 to 935,000 in 1822.56 the population grew from 375,000 there was undoubtedly a While the precise figures may be questioned these decades. Haitian governments sizeable increase in population life. over While there was much diversity in claimed to promote family being quite common, this offered family form, with polygamy for child-rearing than the old slave qualitatively greater opportunities order. role they had played in the struggle against Despite the ambivalent became the leaders of the new state, in France Toussaint's generals leaders of the South and West. collaboration with the mulatto of uneasy himself Emperor in 1804, but this emulation Dessalines declared anti-French orientation. The Napoleon was accompanied by a strongly attacked for fostering slavery in the French, but not the British, were Frenchmen was followed in Caribbean. The massacre of remaining Eastern invasion of the still French-controlled 1805 by an unsuccessful British authorities did not officially condone half of the island. The --- Page 265 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism Dessalines's bloodthirsty vendetta against the aimed to impress them as well as to French, but it may have and anciens libres were not as hostile exact vengeance. Many mulattos and were more suspicious of the British. as Dessalines towards the French estates as domaines nationaux and Dessalines took over French plots of land to veterans. vasion of the still French-controlled 1805 by an unsuccessful British authorities did not officially condone half of the island. The --- Page 265 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism Dessalines's bloodthirsty vendetta against the aimed to impress them as well as to French, but it may have and anciens libres were not as hostile exact vengeance. Many mulattos and were more suspicious of the British. as Dessalines towards the French estates as domaines nationaux and Dessalines took over French plots of land to veterans. Mulatto announced a plan to distribute small confiscate estates which they claimed proprietors had were alarmed at plans to white kinsmen. Despite decrees been bequeathed to them by cultivators, the economy of the imposing labour duties on the neglect and the slaughter of new state, weakened by war, official profligate and disorganised imperial administrators, yielded few cash crops. A were available, leaving the Court absorbed what tax revenues in 1806 the army unpaid. Following a Southern Emperor was assassinated. rebellion After Dessalines's death Haiti was divided Henry Christophe ruling the North and roughly in two, with Christophe, who had been born in Alexandre Pétion the South, policy. Alignment with Britain Grenada, pursued a pro-British the return of the French and in was the undertaken as an insurance against 1808-9 Christophe backed hope of economic concessions. In French who still a successful Spanish revolt against the North relied occupied the Eastern half of the island. mainly on British traders, the While the and hoped for good relations South had its own merchants Christophe had himself with the United States. In 1811 etiquette and regalia based crowned as King Henry I of Haiti, with court his own vanity the on that of St James; apart from option for a kingdom was gratifying soundness to the British. Pétion in the South intended to demonstrate faithful to Republican forms, but he too remained ostentatiously to Britain. Both states, in was obliged to accommodate on imports from Britain. deference to British pressure, lowered duties Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris in to recover its New World colonies. 1814 France was permitted be handed back with their Martinique and Guadeloupe were to after years of British plantations in quite a flourishing condition been recognised by occupation. Since neither government in Haiti had could reclaim 'St any power, there was an implication that France Domingue'. The Talleyrand that colonial concessions negotiators were persuaded by to France would monarchy more palatable to French make the restored energies at a safe distance from opinion while tying up French threatening the new leaders of Europe. Plans laid for suborning and expedition, came to Haiti, as a prelude to some new rejected; King Henry arrested nothing. French overtures were the indignantly secret instructions he carried and envoy sent to him, published the Pétion. Though the French offered a joint resistance pact to government retained a formal claim to --- Page 266 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery that recovering it manu militari St Domingue, in 1815 it was recognised from the Haitian leaders and united opposition would meet implacable and expose France to hostile opinion. by any foreign government. Neither Haitian state was recognised both the kingdom and the Lacking any diplomatic recognition relations with the leaders of anti-slavery in Republic were to cultivate of 1814-15 had been thwarted in part Europe. The French threat abolitionist sentiment in Europe; in France because of an upsurge of a decree against the slave trade itself the 'Hundred Days' had seen 8, this episode occasioned while in Britain, as will be seen in chapter King Henry engaged in a massive abolitionist protest. Wilberforce Subsequently and Clarkson, requesting their lengthy correspondence with economic and educational policy. both the kingdom and the Lacking any diplomatic recognition relations with the leaders of anti-slavery in Republic were to cultivate of 1814-15 had been thwarted in part Europe. The French threat abolitionist sentiment in Europe; in France because of an upsurge of a decree against the slave trade itself the 'Hundred Days' had seen 8, this episode occasioned while in Britain, as will be seen in chapter King Henry engaged in a massive abolitionist protest. Wilberforce Subsequently and Clarkson, requesting their lengthy correspondence with economic and educational policy. advice and help on diplomatic, Boyer, turned to the Abbé Grégoire President Pétion, and his successor for counsel and support. 57 renounced interference with the Both kingdom and Republic publicly Nevertheless both found ways of slave order elsewhere in the Americas. colonial assistance to the struggle against lending some practical Dessalines in welcoming freedmen from slavery. Christophe followed had skills that could assist the North America, especially when they navy, built up as a weapon reconstruction of the country. Christophe's also used against slave-traders against the Southern Republic, was devised in the aftermath of the breaking the various bi-lateral treaties the South was to encourage Bolivar to Congress of Vienna. Pétion in (about which more in chapter 9). adopt an emancipationist policy maintained some enclaves of plantation In the North King Henry and imposing stern labour production, using the fermage of the system labourers on the large estates was, regulations. The daily routine after rising at 3 a.m. there were prayers in principle, minutely regulated: stint in the fields from 4.30 to 8 and breakfast, followed by a morning a lunch-break until 2 p.m., a.m., a second stint from 9 a.m. to midday, around 6 p.m., when followed by an afternoon shift until sundown, they would cultivate their they returned to their cailles. On Saturday's worship. plots; Sundays were a day of rest and, supposedly, Christian and garden Toussaint before him Christophe was a devout and (Like of voodoo.) The good discipline of Christophe's army disapproved produce allowed this policy to achieve some the high price of plantation the construction of a remarkable series of success and helped to finance commanders were issued with fortifications and palaces. Christophe's fleets and to to be used both to spot invading of telescopes; supposedly in the fields. The economic successes the ensure that work proceeded much to state coordination of the royal state probably owed as the A number of economy as to intensive exploitation on plantations. --- Page 267 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism founded and some attention was paid to agricultural schools were earned by sales of sugar and coffee improvement. The foreign exchange from Dahomey; kept at was also used to buy male slaves of military age maintain the labour of 4,000 the royal Dahomets helped to a strength the rule of King Henry. Henry was eventually overthrown regime and 1820. Henry was in bad health and his regime by an internal revolt in and a decline in the price of sugar weakened by Republican propaganda regime he established must and coffee; but the severity of the 58 plantation have contributed to his isolation. West was less integrated and The Republic of the South and At different times both Rigaud disciplined than the Northern kingdom. the French merchant who had and Jérome Borghella, the mulatto son of statelets. Pétion, as collaborated with Toussaint, set up break-away such challenges, usually president, showed great skill at the containing South and West there was a larger without resort to armed force. In of them anciens libres. In 1809 independent proprietory class, many regime by dividing up Pétion sought to strengthen the republican soldiers and public confiscated estates, and other public lands, among peasantry was officials. had and Jérome Borghella, the mulatto son of statelets. Pétion, as collaborated with Toussaint, set up break-away such challenges, usually president, showed great skill at the containing South and West there was a larger without resort to armed force. In of them anciens libres. In 1809 independent proprietory class, many regime by dividing up Pétion sought to strengthen the republican soldiers and public confiscated estates, and other public lands, among peasantry was officials. In this way a medium and small-holding of land (about 6.5 hectares created. Retired soldiers received 5 carreaux the of Pétion acres), colonels 25 carreaux. During presidency or 17 hectares of land were granted or sold to more (1807-18) over 150,000 large estates survived and were worked than 10,000 persons. However, the overthrow of King Henry the North by tenant farmers. Following under the leadership of President Boyer; was invaded by the South, now contain 13 million livres, roughly the royal treasury was found to but coffee exports remained £500,000. Sugar output collapsed, annually; enough to make Haiti a important at around 20,000 tons in the North did not survive the major producer. The plantation system the system of the overthrow of King Henry, SO that agricultural combination of peasant Republic as a whole was now based on a latifundia." minifundia and tenant-worked was a thorn in the survival of Haitian independence The precarious the western hemisphere. The flesh of the slave order throughout of black power in Haiti overturn in St Domingue and the consolidation the Americas. for the slave order throughout had a terrible message in the United States in 1820, in Jamaica Black rebels in Cuba in 1812, in Haiti. British, French and and Brazil in the 1820s, found inspiration books about Toussaint LouverNorth American abolitionists all wrote revolution. The example of ture and the drama of the Haitian and colonial authorities. lived on in the fears of planters and St Domingue the options of the Cuban As we will see British emancipation, of the slave systems on the smaller Brazilian planters, the waning --- Page 268 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and the growth of more secure systems on the Caribbean islands all to reflect the impact of the first mainland and in Cuba, were liberation in St Domingue. in the Americas had broken at what had The chain of colonial slavery The Revolution had succeeded in St been, in 1789, its strongest link. of reasons: the massive numerical Domingue/Haiti for a combination of them raw Africans' unused to of slaves, some formed by the preponderance others creoles with new capacities American slavery, the emergence of a slave elite, with some plantation regime itself; the presence of a large free coloured community, freedom of movement; the disintegration of the with property and military experience; Revolution spilled mechanisms of slave control, as the metropolitan factions of the free population back into the colonies, and as different slaves to further their own ends; fought with one another and armed defend colonialism by jettisoning the willingness of the metropolis to explosion of slave revolt in August the remarkable caste discrimination; situation of the colony, facilitating the survival and 1791; the size and the tenacity of the mass of spread of slave resistance and rebellion; and defending their newly won blacks in pushing back planter power Commissioners to ally with the freedom; the decision of the Jacobin the diplomatic and slave resistance and build an emancipationist power; and the help of the Directory in resistance to royalist planters rivalries military the interplay of imperial and commercial British occupation; black state; two expeditions, opening up space for an emancipationist of the age, radicalising the Revolution mounted by the leading powers they had been designed to crush. the tenacity of the mass of spread of slave resistance and rebellion; and defending their newly won blacks in pushing back planter power Commissioners to ally with the freedom; the decision of the Jacobin the diplomatic and slave resistance and build an emancipationist power; and the help of the Directory in resistance to royalist planters rivalries military the interplay of imperial and commercial British occupation; black state; two expeditions, opening up space for an emancipationist of the age, radicalising the Revolution mounted by the leading powers they had been designed to crush. slave emancipation in In 1794 the message of revolutionary France and from France it had been St Domingue had been carried to the Lesser Antilles. The Iles du Vent carried back across the Atlantic to that favoured revolution in lacked some of the crucial circumstances intense factional struggles 'St Domingue. In these islands even quite involved the slaves. The free between Patriots and royalists had not had proved of colour were less numerous. Planter hegemony the skilful people by the more manageable size of the islands, resilient, helped of the British and the deficient tactics of Du Buc, the intervention there. Prior to the revolutionary initiative of the French representatives celebration arrival of Hugues in April 1794 neither intense British Republican had nor the threat of occupation, of liberty and equality, The Jacobin expedition produced any major challenge to slavery. British in Guadeloupe and overthrew slavery and repulsed the of the Lesser stimulated Republican emancipationism in many parts of liberation in Antilles and wider Caribbean. But both the manner --- Page 269 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism and the size of the colony made this achievement Antilles more Guadeloupe St Domingue. Just as struggles in the Lesser vulnerable than in to the advantage of the distracted the British in the mid-1790s, of Delgrès helped to revolution, SO in 1802 the resistance real St Domingue officers in the larger colony as to Napoleon's alert coloured intentions. have written as if the collapse of the colonial Sometimes historians the slaves to freedom, or they have suggested regime by itself propelled in the Caribbean had no choice but to that the revolutionary agents conduct of Rochambeau and Lacrosse in the decree emancipation. The showed otherwise. The overthrow of Lesser Antilles in February 1794 dedicated as well as slavery required conscious and protagonists of 'Black Jacobins' in favourable conditions. Without the emergence France, a generalised 1793-4, and their alliance with revolutionary in St Domingue. The emancipation would not have been consolidated and living space required a aspiration of the black masses for autonomy was contemppolitics and programme, or what Napoleon generalising The revolutionary emancipationism tuously to refer to as 'ideology'. for that reason and proved and egalitarianism of the 1790s was adopted when ideology. One of Napoleon' S gravest miscalculations, to an enduring and re-enslave the blacks, was he set out to reconquer St Domingue and equality had become the underestimate the extent to which liberty of the anciens libres. religion of the formerly enslaved, and even Revolution most is that it came to Part of the grandeur of the great French and part of the grandeur slave emancipation in the Americas; it successfully sponsor Revolution in St Domingue/Haiti is that of the great the French Revolution against France itself." defended the gains of for some self-sufficient realm of But to say this is not to argue within which the drama of discourse, revolutionary or otherwise, of black autonomy might be conveyed liberation unfolded. The message or some African language - in a variety of idioms - French, or Kréyole inflexions - royalist, of or religious and with a variety political as slaveholder power was Republican, Catholic, voodoo - SO long of the action of broken. At a number of crucial junctures what the meaning had to say but by black was constituted not by they the fighters the structures of oppression and exploitation, their physical impact on discover and assert a new collective enabling the mass of slaves to From the outset the identity vis-à-vis their oppressors and exploiters. of idioms - French, or Kréyole inflexions - royalist, of or religious and with a variety political as slaveholder power was Republican, Catholic, voodoo - SO long of the action of broken. At a number of crucial junctures what the meaning had to say but by black was constituted not by they the fighters the structures of oppression and exploitation, their physical impact on discover and assert a new collective enabling the mass of slaves to From the outset the identity vis-à-vis their oppressors and exploiters. sustained by a myriad of local essential message of black autonomy was who resisted any return partisans, of diverse allegiance and formation, of or whether justified in terms republicanism to the old order, advantage. In 1802 all the famous monarchy, patriotism or personal he had still been opposed. It leaders had collaborated with Leclerc yet --- Page 270 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Haitian resistance to Napoleon was sustained by might be thought that Russian nationalism helped to inspire nationalism, just as Spanish or the name of Haiti was not resistance to French occupation. Yet very sooner had the French were already defeated - and no thought of until than it splintered. So it does seem the new state been founded basic identity emerging from, reasonable to postulate some prior, more condition and articulated by a and defined by, resistance to the slave memories. After all the multitude of local associations and popular upheavals and Revolution had involved more profound Haitian French Revolution itself. Black emancipamobilisations than even the experience of the of the whole extraordinary tionism was a product the revolt of 1791. In the case of decade and a half following furnished the indispensable basis St Domingue the break with slavery was something for the break with colonialism. Black emancipationism patriotism. It thus long deeper and more constant than a febrile tropical ensured that indepenthe declaration of independence and the first pre-dated content. Haiti was not dence had an emancipationist it the first to guarantee civic liberty independent American state but was to all inhabitants. Notes War and situation of the Republicans in mid-1793 see Geggus, Slavery, 1. For the Revolution, pp. 64, 100-101. Sonthonax, 75, 95. Sonthonax's original instructions, that 2. Stein, Léger Félicité PP. stated: 'It is unnecessary to remind you while giving him extensive powers, the expressly men of colour and the blacks must not suffer any the equality of rights extended to Colonies, August 25th 1792, quoted in Saintoyant, extention." Monge, Minister for the 11, P. 118. Stein's account makes it clear Française pendant la Révolution, from February 1793. La Colonisation to Paris urging general emancipation the that Sonthonax was writing manumissions; from May he ordered From this date he granted many piecemeal of 1784 to be read out every Sunday in the churches. protective clauses of the regulations freedom to the womenfolk of the black warriors, Following the June decree he extended a Republican marriage ceremony. The Navy so long as they were prepared widened to go through the powers available to the Commission in March Minister and the Convention of the use that might be made of them. 1793 and were probably aware 76-106; Thomas Ott, The Haitian 3. Stein, Léger Félicité Sonthonax, pp. 71. Revolution, 1789-1803, Knoxville 1973, P. 17-19. While the course of events in the 4. Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, pp. and Sonthonax were aware of smouldering North was to prove decisive, both Toussaint short of outright rebellion: see Carolyn rebellions elsewhere and of forms of resistance Revolution: Initial Reactions to Fick, Black Peasants and Soldiers in the Saint Domingue Krantz, ed., History from Below, Freedom in the South Province (1793-4), in Frederick Montréal 1985, pp. 3, Knoxville 1973, P. 17-19. While the course of events in the 4. Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, pp. and Sonthonax were aware of smouldering North was to prove decisive, both Toussaint short of outright rebellion: see Carolyn rebellions elsewhere and of forms of resistance Revolution: Initial Reactions to Fick, Black Peasants and Soldiers in the Saint Domingue Krantz, ed., History from Below, Freedom in the South Province (1793-4), in Frederick Montréal 1985, pp. 243-60. 125. Toussaint was responding to 5. Quoted in James, The Black Jacobins, he had issued P. a proclamation to the slaves dated Sonthonax's action in freeing slaves since been the first to champion your cause, it is my duty I August 25th which declared: 'Having another to rob me of the initiative. Since to continue to labour for it. I cannot permit Join me and you will enjoy the rights of have begun I will know how to conclude. --- Page 271 --- Revolutionary Emancipationism freedmen sooner than any other way." Tyson, Jr., Englewood Cliffs, NJ Quoted in Toussaint L'Ouverture, ed. most offer freedom to those who enlisted 1973, p. 27. As a Spanish officer Toussaint could George this authority to its limit. with him, though evidently he sought to at 6. Geggus, Slavery, War and press 7. Pérotin-Dumon, Etre Patriote Revolution, Pp. 105-14. 8. Polverel's summary quoted in sous les Tropiques, pP. 216-20. 9. Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution, Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, p. 44. 10. David Geggus, , From His Most Pp. 116, 304. Volte Face of Toussaint Louverture. and Catholic the Majesty to the Godless The Française d'Histoire d'Outre Mer, 241, Ending of Slavery in Saint Republique: Revue had early news of the National 1978, pp. 481-99, The possibility Domingue', that fact that he was in the vicinity Convention's of the decree on emancipation is increased Toussaint 11. For social port of Gonaives in April and by the Revolution and pressures on the Jacobins see D.M.G. May. Counter-Revolation, London Sutherland, France 1789-1815: tionary Europe, 1783-1815, London 1970, 1985, Pp. 129-44; George Rudé, Revolupp.313-34. Rousseau's writings came closest pp. 139-54; Soboul, The French popular egalitarianism. The writings of the Abbé to articulating the radical undercurrent Revolution, of direction: for example his Doutes Bonnot de Mably also tended Proposés aux in this Observations celebration On the Government and Laws of Philosophes the Economistes of 1768 and his early of equality and natural liberty in Le Testament United of States (London 1790). The circulated eighteenth in century but not fully published until the Jean Meslier, written in the that he reflected manuscript; in the point IS not SO much that Meslier nineteenth, exercised IS said to have clergy and other 'organic heightened form a radical tradition to be found 'influence' as revolutionary period the intellectuals' of the peasantry and small amongst the lower Sylvain Maréchal's proto-socialist current begins to assume producers. By the assisted the Manifeste des Egaux; this secularisation ot secular forms as in generalisation of popular were not necessarily members egalitarian of the principles to those, such as African politics slaves, may have who 12. ; in the point IS not SO much that Meslier nineteenth, exercised IS said to have clergy and other 'organic heightened form a radical tradition to be found 'influence' as revolutionary period the intellectuals' of the peasantry and small amongst the lower Sylvain Maréchal's proto-socialist current begins to assume producers. By the assisted the Manifeste des Egaux; this secularisation ot secular forms as in generalisation of popular were not necessarily members egalitarian of the principles to those, such as African politics slaves, may have who 12. Forrest, Society and Politics in Christian religious community. 13. Soboul, The French Revolutionary Bordeaux, pp. 28-9, 42, 57. critical moment through which Revolution, the PP. 369-70. For rival of Histoire Socialiste de la Révolution Revolution and Republic was interpretations passing see the voies nouvelles pour l'histoire Française, 1, p. 247; Claude Jaurès, de la Révolution politique de la Revolution française', Mazauric, "Quelques Class Ideology and Française, the vol. 47, no. 219, January-March 1975, Annales Historiques Like all fundamental Rights of the Nobles during the French p. 157; Higonnet, condensed a wide political crises that of the Revolution, Pp. 170-218. a real range of social issues and conflicts; Jacobin Republic concentrated and issue at stake and an unparallelled colonial slavery was Higonnet stresses anti-nobilism, a source of symbolic representations. simultaneously While Revolution IS found in Immanuel contrasting emphasis on anti-capitalist in the emergence of a world system. Wallerstein's In fact French forthcoming third volume elements in his study the of Wallerstein confluence of anti-nobilism, anti-absolutism and anti-slavery was made possible by the neglect anti-absolutism, with its anti-capitalism. However, and concept of sovereignty, since they deny that the aspiration to a new and more Higonnet apparatus. ancien régime was at root a feudal far-reaching 14. Augustin Cochin, L'Abolition de power Stein, Légér Félicité Sonthonax, pp. l'Esclavage, Paris 1861, 2 vols, I, in La Révolution 110-11; see also Decret de la pp. 13-15; the reflexes of Française et l'Abolition de Paris Convention Nationale, a moderate l'Esclavage, 1968, XVII. dared nothing, the nineteenth-century abolitionist, comments: Cochin, with 15. Le Moniteur Legislative Universel, could do nothing, the Convention risked 'The Assembly Danton's role in promoting 17, 18 Pluviose, An II, nos. 137, 138, everything' (p. 7). irresponsibility and treachery. emancipation The was to bring down on him February the 1794. the factional purpose of such charges of emancipation was, nevertheless, charges was revealed when 16. P.G. Chaumette, 'Discours pursued. et l'Abolition de l'Esclavage, XII. sur For l'abolition de l'esclavage', La Révolution a strategic and principled defence of the Française Pluviôse --- Page 272 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slaverv in Paris on Pluviôse 28 and also the article from the Creole Patriote published 1987, 249-52. decree see La Révolution et la fin des colonies, Paris pp. for Les reprinted in Yves Benot, Chaumette and Sylvain Maréchal all wrote Yves Benot points out that Sonthonax, 125-7). Révolutions de Paris in 1791-2 (pp. 94-107. This work by an early 17. Oruno Lara, La Guadeloupe dans I'Histoire, a pp. rather positive assessment of the rwentieth-century historian from Guadeloupe and gives more hostile account will be found in emancipationist regime in the colony; a longer Ste Croix de la Roncière, Victor Hughes, le the biography by a French naval historian: (The title here gives a variant spelling of Hugues's Comventionnel, Paris 1932, p. Révolutions de Paris in 1791-2 (pp. 94-107. This work by an early 17. Oruno Lara, La Guadeloupe dans I'Histoire, a pp. rather positive assessment of the rwentieth-century historian from Guadeloupe and gives more hostile account will be found in emancipationist regime in the colony; a longer Ste Croix de la Roncière, Victor Hughes, le the biography by a French naval historian: (The title here gives a variant spelling of Hugues's Comventionnel, Paris 1932, p. 111-70. of did something to prepare the way education Guadeloupe Pérotin-Dumon, name.) The prior Republican its pro-slavery commitment, the for Hugues's revolutionary war, despite 231-46. The exploits of Victor Hugues are Étres Patriotes SOMS les Tropiques, pP. El Siglo de las Luces; however, the latter relied on subject of Alejo Carpentier's novel, accurate on all points: see the Roncière and should not be taken as historically Baldran et al., Quinze Études au Tour de 'El contribution by Françoise Treil-Labarrei Paris in J. 1983. The impact of Hugues's expedition on Siglo de las Luces' de Alejo Carpentier, Soldiers, Sugar and Seapower, Oxford 1987, the British is recounted in Michael Duffy, pp. 115-36. Grenada and St Vincent see Michael Craton, Testing the Chains, 18. For the revolts in and Seapower, pp. 137-56. pp. 180-94; and Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar de salut public, SUT la Guadeloupe et autres Iles 19. Rapport fait, au nom de comité S. Given the considerable military significance and de Vent, Defermond, Paris An III, p. in Guadeloupe it is surprising that it has not social interest of Republican emancipation the surprising mistake in Cohen, The French attracted more attention. See, for example, to believe that emancipation never reached Encounter with Africans, p. 118, who appears in the mills, a major gain for the labourers, is Guadeloupe. The abolition of night-work of M.A. Lacour for whom the Republican confirmed by the otherwise hostile account freedom but disorder' in which 'insolent' blacks regime embodied 'neither slavery nor Histoire de la Guadeloupe, Basse Terre 1858, pp. abused official tolerance; Lacour, 384-9. 163-73; Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, pp20. James, The Black War Jacobins, and Revolution, Pp. p. 185. 56-64; Geggus, Léger Slavery, Félicité Sonthonax, pp. 107-20. 1792-9 Thermidor An II, 21. Stein, Bouloiseau, La République Jacobine, 10 Aoit 22. Marc Paris 1972, p. 78. Slavery, War and Revolution, p. 191. Coats: the British 23. Quoted in Geggus, by R.G. Buckley, Slaves in Red 24. The British officer is quoted New Haven and London 1979, p. 90. West India Regiments, 1795-1815, by Craton, Testing the Chains, P. 198. 25. General Moore is quoted 25-8, 82-105; Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. 26. Buckley, Slaves in Red Coats, pp. War and 211-23. dans l'Histoire, p. 100; Geggus, Slavery, 27. Oruno Lara, La Guadeloupe Revolution, p. 196. Toussaint Louverture, p. 75. 28. Pluchon, Léger Félicité Sonthonax, p: 135. the Commissioners see 29. Stein, social order in the colony and the policies of in 30. For the new 123-55; Carolyn Fick, 'Black Peasants and Soldiers Stein, Léger Félicité Sonthonax, PP. from Below, pp. 243-61;James, The Black Jacobins, Haitian Saint Domingue', in Krantz, History Toussaint Louverture, PP- 72-5; Ott, The pp. . 28. Pluchon, Léger Félicité Sonthonax, p: 135. the Commissioners see 29. Stein, social order in the colony and the policies of in 30. For the new 123-55; Carolyn Fick, 'Black Peasants and Soldiers Stein, Léger Félicité Sonthonax, PP. from Below, pp. 243-61;James, The Black Jacobins, Haitian Saint Domingue', in Krantz, History Toussaint Louverture, PP- 72-5; Ott, The pp. 155-6, 174-6, 218-20; Pluchon, The Haitian Maroons, pp. 358-9. Revolution, pP. 129-31; Fouchard, ed., The Haitian Journal of Lieutenant Howard, 31. Roger Norman Buckley, Knoxville 1985, p. xvii-xviii. Chicago 1974, pp. 146-56. 32. Sidney Mintz, Caribbean Transformations, this The Black Jacobins, pp. 85-6. 33. See James's observations on topic, in Tyson, Toussaint L'Ouverture, P. 91; 34. See the remarks of the British Agent 287. Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution, 193. p: 35. James, The Black Jacobins, P. --- Page 273 --- Revolutionary Emancipation Toussaint L'Ouverture, pp. 36-43. Toussaint 36. Toussaint's letter is given in Tyson, which he quoted, that 'one day it will be was here replying to Rochambeau's statement, is the blacks) return to work'. Toussaint's replies to necessary to fight to make them (that has a vigour and directness entirely his French critics, and warning to the Directory, his attacks on Sonthonax, given by Tyson on lacking from his laboured attempt to justify see Stein, Léger Félicité Sonthonax, 46-9. For an account sympathetic to Sonthonax PP. 156-73. 383; David Geggus, "The Cost pp. Slavery, War and Revolution, pp. 212-13, no. 3, 1983, pp. 37. Geggus, Campaigns, 1793-1798', Historical Journal, vol. 26, deserted or were of Pitt's Caribbean above includes as casualties those who died, that 699-706. The figure given it includes sailors as well as soldiers. Geggus calculates SO discharged as unfit for service; totalled 55,670, to which must be added a further 3,500 or the British casualties SO defined French royalists. The campaigns cost losses among foreign auxiliary forces, probably 705). For the longer period 1793-1801 Duffy enormous sum of £16-20 million (p. with at least 64,000 dead in calculates much higher British casualties - 87,000-97,000, pp. 333-4. the Caribbean, Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar and Gordon Seapower, Heinl, Written in Blood: The Story of 38. Robert Debs Heirl Jr. and Nancy the Haitian People, Boston 1978, in p. Blood, 96. p. 95. 39. Heinl and Heinl, Written 127-38; Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, p. 279; 40. Ott, The Haitian Revolution, L'Ouverture PP. and the War Economy of Saint Domingue', Mats Lundhall, Abolition, "Toussaint vol. 6, no. 4, 1985, pp. 122-38. Slavery and Toussaint Louverture, pp. 18-9, 220-50. 41. Pluchon, Heinl and Heinl, Written in Blood, pp. Heinl and Heinl, Written 127-38; Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, p. 279; 40. Ott, The Haitian Revolution, L'Ouverture PP. and the War Economy of Saint Domingue', Mats Lundhall, Abolition, "Toussaint vol. 6, no. 4, 1985, pp. 122-38. Slavery and Toussaint Louverture, pp. 18-9, 220-50. 41. Pluchon, Heinl and Heinl, Written in Blood, pp. 96-7. 42. Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, pp. 292-9. of the United 43. ed., Toussaint L'Ouverture, p. 88; Henry Adams, History New York 1962, 44. Tyson, the First Administration of Thomas Jefferson, States of America during 59-64; see pp. 391-2. of the decree is printed in Tyson, Toussaint L'Ouverture, pp. note 45. The text The Black Jacobins, p. 279 et seq. It is interesting to and also the discussion in James, introduced in France too as a security device that around this time livrets were being a check to vagabonds. Toussaint Louverture, p. 346. Leclerc's original instructions not be 46. Quoted in Pluchon, 'In the first phase you will were to proceed in three stages: This done you will from Bonaparte offer him anything he asks. exacting: negotiate with Toussaint, first confirm them in their rank and position. In become more exacting. In the phase ship out all black generals, regardless of their the last phase send them all to France No matter what happens, during the third phase conduct, patriotism, or past services. Heinl and Heinl, Written in Blood, pp. 100-101). disarm all noirs.. : (quoted in Memoires, vol. II, p. 164; quoted in Ott, The Haitian 47. Pamphile de Lacroix, First French Revolution, p. 257. L'Abolition de l'Esclavage, pp. 22-3; M.J. Sydenham, The 48. Cochin, 1792-1804, London 1974, P. 280. 109-30. Republic, 49. Oruno Lara, La Guadeloupe dans l'Histoire, pp. 113. in Heinl and Heinl, Written in Blood, p. or from disease. 50. Quoted French sailors also lost their life from the fighting 51. A further 8,000 that there had been 62,481 fatalities among the pro-French 385). Pamphile Lacroix estimated military and civilian (Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, p. did at forces, black and white, French lost more soldiers in St Domingue than they Both the British and the Waterloo. and the Emergence of Haiti', in Walvin, Slavery 52. David Geggus, "British Opinion and British Society, especially pp. 140-49. Blood, p: 123-37. 53 Heinl and Heinl, Written in and Peasant Revolt', in Haiti in Caribbean 54. David Nicholls, 'Rural and protest Revolt, London 1985, pP. 167-84, especially Context: Ethnicity, Economy pp. 170-74. of a Haitian peasantry in the early independence period see 55. For the formation --- Page 274 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Paul Moral, Le Paysan Haitien, Paris 56. James Franklin, The Present State 1961, Pp. 34-45. estimates that the population of Haiti of Hayti, London 1828, p. 331. A recent in 1824. See Mats Lundhal, Peasants grew and from circa 400,000 in 1804 to circa writer p. 190. Poverty: A Study of Haiti, London 600,000 57. Ruth Necheles, The Abbé 1979, Pp. 253-89. Grégoire, 1787-1831, Westport, Conn. 58. , The Present State 1961, Pp. 34-45. estimates that the population of Haiti of Hayti, London 1828, p. 331. A recent in 1824. See Mats Lundhal, Peasants grew and from circa 400,000 in 1804 to circa writer p. 190. Poverty: A Study of Haiti, London 600,000 57. Ruth Necheles, The Abbé 1979, Pp. 253-89. Grégoire, 1787-1831, Westport, Conn. 58. Hubert Cole, Christophe, 1971, 59. Nicholls, 'Economic King of Haiti, London 1967. in Caribbean Context, Dependence and Political monarchy and pp. 83-120, especially P. 93. For Autonomy, a 1804-1915', in Haiti Colour and National Republic see also David Nicholls, From Dessalines socio-political sketch of both on the kingdom will be Independence found in Haiti, Cambridge 1979, to Duvalier: Race, Hennock in Cole, Christophe, pp. 35-60. More material Haitienne Trouillot, 'La République de Pétion et le King of Haiti, and on the Republic in d'Histoire, vol. 31, no. 107, Peuple Haitien', Revue de la Societé 60. These points are underlined by January-April the 1960, Pp. 96-115. island of Réunion and also in the Dutch survival of slavery in the French Indian Ocean contact with its representatives in colonies. The government in Paris had other hand there was no slave Réunion, who deferred to the local slaveholders. very little agenda, as happened in Saint uprising in Réunion sufficient to force On the revolt in 1795, inspired by the Domingue. In the Dutch colony of emancipation onto the succeeded in events in the French Caribbean, but Curaçao the there was a slave February crushing it. Note that the Dutch Patriots colonial authorities 1794 at the time of the French did not control the Batavian Netherlands in colonies. See Republic was consolidated in Europe emancipation it had decree. Even once the Patriot J. L. Claude Wanquer, "Révolution française et little purchase on events in the Souty, 'La Révolution française, la identité réunionnaise', and Francois néerlandais (1784-1814), in Jean République batave et le premier repli colonial 1989. Another informative study Tarrale, ed., La Révolution française et les black insurgency and French brings out the importance of the historic colonies, Paris du droit naturel en Révolution, Jacobinism in 1794. See Florence Gauthier, convergence of Paris 1992. Triomphe et mort --- Page 275 --- VII Abolition and Empire: The United States What in short is the whole system of Europe toward America? One hemisphere of the earth, separated from the other by wide seas on both sides, having a different system of interests flowing from different climates, different soils, different productions, different modes of existence and its own local relations and duties, is made subservient to all the petty interests of the other, to their laws, their regulations, their passions and wars. Thomas Jefferson, 1811 --- Page 276 --- P 6F AS - Jm --- Page 277 --- The United States While the American Revolution had the Jacobin policy of furnished inspiration to the French, expropriatory slave anything envisaged in 1776 or achieved in emancipation went far beyond The contrast the 1780s in North between a social and a America. seen if the North American, French political revolution can be clearly compared. and Haitian Revolutions are In North America revolutionary wholly concentrated in the political transformations had been almost rejecting the oligarchic structures of domain; rejecting colonial rule, the basis for a white man's democratic 'illegitimate monarchy' and laying underlying property regime and in social republic. of furnished inspiration to the French, expropriatory slave anything envisaged in 1776 or achieved in emancipation went far beyond The contrast the 1780s in North between a social and a America. seen if the North American, French political revolution can be clearly compared. and Haitian Revolutions are In North America revolutionary wholly concentrated in the political transformations had been almost rejecting the oligarchic structures of domain; rejecting colonial rule, the basis for a white man's democratic 'illegitimate monarchy' and laying underlying property regime and in social republic. Changes in the Prior to 1776 capitalist farming, relations had been modest. slavery had already constituted the mercantile capital and plantation economy and the Revolution had only dominant pattern of colonial Northern workshops, ports and dock given them freer reign. In the predominated prior to 1776. Even the yards free wage labour also some states had been limited in Emancipation Laws adopted by and leaving large numbers of blacks scope, in emancipating only the unborn the constraint placed on slavery by these slavery. Yet, modest as it was, Ordinance of 1787, did at least Laws, and by the North-west independent small confirm that wage labourers and labour in producers would not have to with large areas of the North. compete slave The significance of this gain was itself qualified emancipation in New York and New by the failure of the political changes in North Jersey. With all their limitations revolutionary character and America did have a genuinely cighteenth-century Britain brought new social forces to the helm. In and mercantile oligarchy. political In power was in the hands of a landed accountable not the United States only to planters and merchants government was farmers and artisans. While the Briton but also to the mass of American was a citizen. was a subject the North According to the 1790 citizenship was open to 'all free white Naturalisation Law more than a year in the United States and persons' who who had resided for The different states still had residual wished to apply for it. 1 ethnic qualifications but the property as well as residence and resoundingly established. principle of popular sovereignty had been The social transformations qualitatively produced by the French Revolution simply greater, and nowhere more SO than in the were in North expropriations and property transfers on a far Antilles; not America but the abolition of old larger scale than consolidation of new social relations. In North types of property and the a revolt of civil society against the America there had been dictatorship arose on the ruins of feudal state; in France a revolutionary absolutism actively promoting --- Page 278 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of economic activity new distribution of property, a new pattern a In the French Antilles the world had and a vision of life transformed. Haiti colonialism, monarchy and slavery been turned upside down; in in France, nor still less in the had all been destroyed. Neither involve a simple Francophone Antilles, did these transformations ruling class within a purely transfer of power to a new bourgeois smallholders, peasants and capitalist order; artisans, petty functionaries, in the new political structures and labourers had to be accommodated the Directory and the Napoleonic social regime. The Jacobin Republic, to these various social strata regime all embodied different concessions regimes had to negotiate a just as in Haiti the post-revolutionary peasantry. relationship with the post-emancipation the opening stages of the While American leaders were able to greet the advent French Revolution as an echo of their own recent found experience the government created deep divisions and of the Jacobin phase with Britain rather than France. As the of the United States aligned as the French French Revolution subsided, and most particularly slave emancipagovernment reversed its commitment to revolutionary of the United relations between the governments tion, SO improved after 1799. But it would be misleading to States and France, in the years interstate relations and to miss the concentrate solely on official French even during the considerable popular impact of of republicanism the French Revolution and its period of the "Quasi-War. government created deep divisions and of the Jacobin phase with Britain rather than France. As the of the United States aligned as the French French Revolution subsided, and most particularly slave emancipagovernment reversed its commitment to revolutionary of the United relations between the governments tion, SO improved after 1799. But it would be misleading to States and France, in the years interstate relations and to miss the concentrate solely on official French even during the considerable popular impact of of republicanism the French Revolution and its period of the "Quasi-War. The drama ideals of "liberty, equality, memorable proclamation of the Republican in the United States and to fraternity' could not fail to have an impact be a democratic revision inspire many with the idea that there should own recent Revolution. and extention of the achievements of America's of the 1790s was not a The North American 'democratic republicanism' liked to allege, but the species of American Jacobinism, as it opponents towards bourgeois oligarchy 'Revolution of 1800' did check tendencies of the political strife it in the young Republic. And as a second by-product wind' for US abolitionism, occasioned there was a modest laws in the two Northern states which encompassed emancipation and New Jersey had remained legal - New York (1799) where slavery the slave trade to the United States (1804) - passage of a law ending would be barred from the North- (1807), and confirmation that slavery doses of abolition, together with west. As it turned out these belated did not prevent the United States the impact of events in St Domingue, type of slaveholding establishing itself as a new and more expansive empire during these very same years. and execution the French revolutionary emanciBoth in conception to a different political universe to pationism of 1794-5 seems to belong --- Page 279 --- The United States abolitionism. Yet the anti-slavery the mainstream of Anglo-American did abash the latter. Wilberforce's decision achievements of the former Parliament on the slave trade forward annual resolutions to to put a which sent an armada made it easier for him to support government to the Caribbean to defend slavery. North American Abolition Societies In January 1794 the various to discuss co-ordinated for the first time in Philadelphia came together of this convention reflected a belief amongst activity. The calling that anti-slavery had made great strides in North American abolitionists time to mount new initiatives in the the Old World and that it was high Speakers questioned United States. It was decided to meet annually. and urged an extension of Federal complicity with slave-owning the North. It was argued that an interemancipation legislation end in the slave traffic would be a welcome national agreement to of the oceanic trade routes. contribution to a more general pacification idealistic anti-slavery minority were For a time the arguments of the and became a rare point of coincidence again publicly aired in the North between radical democrats and conservatives. issue in New York Though emancipation was not a directly partisan Federalists and Democratic or New Jersey fierce party strife between sought to outdo the other in Republicans, in which both sides difficult to postpone or protestations of patriotism, was to make it more The Federalists fudge emancipation once again on procedural looked like grounds. an assault on the rich; would not countenance anything that anti-slavery on the Federalists had supported a decorous but many would be more easy to defend if disassociated grounds that property The main concern of Democratic Republicans from personal bondage. received important backing from abolition, since they was scarcely articulated their opposition to the southern slaveholders. But they Adams in terms of a radical democratic Federalism of Hamilton and connotations where the rhetoric that could acquire anti-slavery the very same political institution was already weak. Paradoxically de grace to slavery in New York mobilisation that delivered the coup abolitionist President Adams and and New Jersey overthrew the mildly line of slaveholders. ensured that he would be succeeded by a long between the government of The mid-1790s witnessed rapprochment the culture and class Britain and the United States, but wholesale political oligarchic recidivism relations of the young Republic made France, and an economic untenable. and connotations where the rhetoric that could acquire anti-slavery the very same political institution was already weak. Paradoxically de grace to slavery in New York mobilisation that delivered the coup abolitionist President Adams and and New Jersey overthrew the mildly line of slaveholders. ensured that he would be succeeded by a long between the government of The mid-1790s witnessed rapprochment the culture and class Britain and the United States, but wholesale political oligarchic recidivism relations of the young Republic made France, and an economic untenable. The example of revolutionary Caribbean trade, emboldened boom stimulated by the recovery of of merchants and artisans and farmers, and a layer American Politicians in search of a popular following began to of manufacturers. features of the constitutional settlements challenge the conservative --- Page 280 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the 1780s and Federalist schemes for knew their funding the public debt; of countrymen were allergic to new taxes, to the they government-favoured financiers and to the speculations patronage. The Federalist growth of public to be bringing back the programme hated of national development seemed There were diplomatic instruments of Hanoverian army. A Philadelphia concessions to Britain and plans for a standing tyranny. States what a paper warned : 'A funding system is to the nobility is to a monarchy. It has a United for, as it forms a phalanx of separate representation, sympathy of government. It is support, SO it has the countenance or at all times and under all a machine which sustains administration administration sustains it.2 circumstances, and like action and In a climate of reaction, artisans and labourers were economic recovery farmers, oligarchy establish unwilling to see a mercantile and financial Many Virginian untrammelled power in the young Republic. Federalist planters were equally suspicious of, and plans, as they found their taxes hostile to, expansion of government that brought being used to finance an state debt had already been them no direct benefit; Virginia's discharged in the expected to contribute to paying off the 1780s, yet the state was Federal government. James Madison's consolidated debt of the structure would prevent obnoxious assurance that the Federal machinery had factions from seizing the evidently not reckoned with the power of state Congressional debates on taxation and finance. southern slaveholding opinion for another citizenship were alarming to the 'Quasi-War' against France the reason. In order to finance scheme for direct taxation in 1797-8. Adams administration proposed a welcome new taxes being laid Southern slaveholders did not spectacle of Congress publicly upon them - but worse than this was the and slaves. If land alone was taxed deliberating the best way of taxing land acres, would be penalised. But then the planters, with their broad welcome. Some feared that the taxation of slave property was no more were impossible to power to tax and the power to abolish punitive levels. Southern separate, since taxes could always be raised to anxieties could be apportioning direct taxes somewhat allayed by Congressional debates and according to the "Federal ratio'. But the nevertheless deeply resolutions of the summer of 1798 were can. Congress debated disturbing to the more far-seeing southern in detail whether Republior only on the economically taxes should fall on all slaves and collection active, and what methods of should be adopted; worst of all assessment questions divided southerners and revealed the votes on such manoeuvring that could sow discord in the the scope for northern tives were usually happy to ignore the South. Northern representasouthern states, but circumstances slaveholding that prevailed in the might arise in which they would --- Page 281 --- The United States most vulnerable point. A small attack the southern states on their northern demagogy. A southern incident in 1793 revealed the scope for Naturalisation Bill stipulating Republican put an amendment to a new citizenship should renounce that foreigners wishing to claim American from Massachusetts titles. A Congressman all claim to aristocratic amendment that slaveholding foreigners riposted to this by putting an before being admitted to citizenship. must renounce their slaves been stunned by the insult implied to their Southern representatives had voted down with civic worth; the amendment was eventually It own incident was not easily forgotten. . A small attack the southern states on their northern demagogy. A southern incident in 1793 revealed the scope for Naturalisation Bill stipulating Republican put an amendment to a new citizenship should renounce that foreigners wishing to claim American from Massachusetts titles. A Congressman all claim to aristocratic amendment that slaveholding foreigners riposted to this by putting an before being admitted to citizenship. must renounce their slaves been stunned by the insult implied to their Southern representatives had voted down with civic worth; the amendment was eventually It own incident was not easily forgotten. northern help but this unpleasant powers to interfere in the showed the danger of allowing Congress domestic affairs of the slave states. contested the very Jefferson and other Democratic Republicans believed that principle of a Federal power to levy direct taxes. Jefferson social formation was the best defence of the integrity of the southern that the Federal strict adherence to the constitutional principle and had been established for limited and specific purposes made over to government that the several states retained all powers not specifically in the authorities. Jefferson had not been involved the Federal of 1787 and was not satisfied that it Constitutional Settlement His campaign for a 'strict incorporated all necessary safeguards. therefore accompanied by a stress construction' of the constitution was and the representativity of the on the need to strengthen the authority bulwarks Federal misrule. fortifying them as against allies state governments, rather than defensive, reaching out for His approach was strategic happy to offer democratic measures to against the Federalists and being of civil liberties and the removal the mass of white citizens; protection franchise. Jefferson will have been well of property qualifications to the could be built around the unattractive aware that no popular coalition The nearest he came to striking this plank of defence of slaveholding. in his name in South was in a statement he allowed to go forward the note the election of 1800 which simply stated: "That Carolina prior to the federal legislature to touch in the Constitution has not empowered the condition of property of remotest degree the question respecting of that sort would be slaves in any of the states, and that any attempt do not possess. 54 unconstitutional and a usurpation of rights Congress the awkward issue of to make such explicit reference to For Jefferson doubt reflected the particular circumstances slavery was unusual and no extensive. In the Kentucky and of a state where slaveholding was Jefferson most and Madison as a counterVirginia Resolutions prepared by states' rights and civil rights were blast to the Federalists in 1798 reference to slaveholding. The sole vigorously defended without any the of the ostensible object of the *Resolutions' was unconstitutionality --- Page 282 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery introduced at the behest of the Adams Alien and Sedition Laws While there is no reason to doubt the sincerity administration in 1798. to this law, such opposition was of southern Republican opposition and states' rights. Moreover expressed in terms of 'strict construction' slaveholders based their RepubliJefferson and his fellow revolutionary planters and the common man - can politics on an alliance between the latter would be assured every whether farmer or artisan - in which defence of popular liberties and consideration and respect. Intransigent isolate the Federalists; references to of states' rights could and would would not. Jefferson and the southern property rights in human beings understood that such an other main southern Republican leaders for the prejudices of their potential alliance would have to entail respect artisans to the budding northern allies, the farmers and be opposed but they were Federalist oligarchy. The latter might not pro-black, Jefferson with slaves and slaveholders. certainly hostile to competing of rights to all citizens but he not only supported the extension political Republicans to support slavery in also saw no need to require northern measure of sovereignty their own states. His attachment to a generous limited competence for residing in the states, and a correspondingly each state could adopt the policies Federal government, meant that Since slavery was a sad necessity, not a appropiate to its circumstances. view, he may even have welcomed a positive good, in Jefferson's where there were few moderate and responsible emancipation process slaves. with slaves and slaveholders. certainly hostile to competing of rights to all citizens but he not only supported the extension political Republicans to support slavery in also saw no need to require northern measure of sovereignty their own states. His attachment to a generous limited competence for residing in the states, and a correspondingly each state could adopt the policies Federal government, meant that Since slavery was a sad necessity, not a appropiate to its circumstances. view, he may even have welcomed a positive good, in Jefferson's where there were few moderate and responsible emancipation process slaves. have confirmed Jefferson's commitEvents in St Domingue can only in the affairs of the slave states. ment to avoiding any outside meddling the perils of outside The fate of St Domingue had demonstrated of emancipation: royalist interference long before the Jacobin adoption Commisprovocateurs, the decree on mulatto rights, Republican share of the blame agents the exclusif, all had a sioners attempting to enforce Southern planters had been keen on for the ruin of the slave system. troubles in St Domingue, but the terrible self-determination prior to the and of the latter underlined that vague understandings spectre formulae would not do. The southern Republican compromise a coalition under southern planter leadership alternative was to build rights and ensure the responsible and that would guarantee states' limited exercise of Federal powers. assisted by the sharp polarisation Abolition in New York was that had arisen from between Federalists and Democratic Republicans home their attack on the allegedly the early 1790s as the latter pressed of national and state government aristocratic and oligarchic features and Adams. Alexander Hamilton during the Presidencies of Washington members of the New York Manumission and John Jay were founding --- Page 283 --- The United States Society and like Adams were sensitive to the Britain. Jay was elected Governor of New rise of abolitionism in moderate his abolitionist York in 1795, and however expected of him. On the other beliefs, some initiative on the issue was constituency such as Melancton hand, Smith politicians appealing to a radical tion. There were Republicans had also supported emancipademocracy; they simultaneously who believed in a white man's blacks. Yet there was a more abhorred slaveholders, slaves and urban radical milieu generous strain in was perceived, at least by Republicanism. its The embracing coloured radicals: a Federalist opponents, as improbably presiding over a democratic lampoon shows Jefferson posed of Tom Paine, a republican audience comJacobin, a tavern-keeper, a black man, a pirate, a members school-teacher, a surly artisan and other French of the dangerous classes. 6 supposedly typical When the partisans of abolitionism in New the victory that had eluded them for York eventually achieved slaves in the state had SO long in 1799 the numbers of manumissions and dropped to about 12,000, partly partly because slaveholders had through dispose of their human chattels via the deemed it wise to battle over slavery in New York internal slave trade. The final needed to prove that, occurred at a time when the Federalists norwithstanding the they were genuine friends of Alien and Sedition Laws, Law helped Federalist liberty. In this climate the leaders to re-establish Emancipation freedom. On the other hand, the their concern for civic Republican newspaper, had New York Argus, a leading themselves 'A Consistent published articles by authors Democrat' and "An signing Equal Rights of Man' which supported Invariable Friend to the votes would be withheld from emancipation and warned that Republican camp included Republicans who failed to do SO. The supported abolition. Defenders refugee British radicals who of slavery used strongly some with a Federalist flavour, a battery of arguments, Republicans. re-establish Emancipation freedom. On the other hand, the their concern for civic Republican newspaper, had New York Argus, a leading themselves 'A Consistent published articles by authors Democrat' and "An signing Equal Rights of Man' which supported Invariable Friend to the votes would be withheld from emancipation and warned that Republican camp included Republicans who failed to do SO. The supported abolition. Defenders refugee British radicals who of slavery used strongly some with a Federalist flavour, a battery of arguments, Republicans. It was urged that the others calculated to appeal to unfairly aimed at the established Dutch measure was 'class legislation' amongst whom there were community of rural New York many expected to be sensitive to this charge. slaveholders; Federalists might be the 'poor man' was more Alternatively it was argued that 'wallowing in luxury' and dependent with on his slave domestic than the rich, Republican armies of servants; this ring to it. And the conscience of both approach had a Republicans could be pricked by the Federalists and rob widows and orphans of slaves thought that emancipation would support. As in the 1780s the that were their only means of slaveholders would see little benefit defenders of slavery warned that them freed as soon as they became in raising slave children only to see adults; they would consequently --- Page 284 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery abandon such children who would become It was also urged on both Federalists a burden on the community. tion would promote the notion that and Republicans that emancipagoods and an equal sharing of there should be a community of longer stop emancipation but still property. had Such arguments could no moderate Emancipation Law some influence on its terms. A male children of slave mothers was adopted by a large majority - it freed children at twenty-five at twenty-eight years of age and female Republicans loved years. At a time when Federalists almost to oppose one another and equal support from representatives of the emancipation attracted extent of Republican support is two groupings. The ism had hitherto been remarkable, since New York abolitiondemocratic a Federalist cause. The opinion in New York in the strengthening of to the slavery question. In one late 1790s evidently extended reflect a radical democratic important respect the New York law did freedmen, allowing them approach: it conferred full civic York showed to vote and bear arms. In this rights on greater respect for Republican respect New chusetts Or Rhode Island where blacks equality than MassaThe passage of the New York suffered legal discriminations." attempts to commit New Emancipation Law encouraged new well-established Dutch farmers Jersey to emancipation. This state also had who found profitable. When defenders of slavery slaveholding convenient and kept in bondage otherwise they would urged that blacks needed to be themselves, an abolitionist be a danger both to others and slavery advocates riposted that the real motive of was that blacks 'make excellent such procapacity are very valuable'. The absence of slaves, and in that like Philadelphia or New York had a large urban conurbation New Jersey, but around the delayed the rise of radical politics in Republicans turn of the century the acquired a majority in the state. The Democratic passed by the legislature in 1803-4 received the Emancipation Law Republicans and fifteen Federalists support of twenty-nine Republican. The law which achieved against four Federalists and one to slaveholders than such support was more any previous emancipation generous ignoring black rights. The age at which measure while virtually be freed was children of slave quite high - twenty-five for mothers would women - but in addition slaveholders men and twenty-one for obtaining a subsidy from the Overseer of were offered the possibility of they could not support the infants the Poor if they claimed that approach to financial concerned. Republicans and fifteen Federalists support of twenty-nine Republican. The law which achieved against four Federalists and one to slaveholders than such support was more any previous emancipation generous ignoring black rights. The age at which measure while virtually be freed was children of slave quite high - twenty-five for mothers would women - but in addition slaveholders men and twenty-one for obtaining a subsidy from the Overseer of were offered the possibility of they could not support the infants the Poor if they claimed that approach to financial concerned. This was the nearest compensation of any northern emancipation law. It expropriated slaveholders in abandoned within a few years but proved very expensive and was slaveholders had derived not before the New great advantage from it. 8 Jersey Slavery had been vulnerable in New York and New Jersey because it --- Page 285 --- The United States institution. If the dynamics of party was a marginal and declining slaveholding, this was not at all the case rivalry in New York weakened cross-sectional alliances were essential to in the Union as a whole where and Madison had good reason to assume political success. Jefferson despite their insistence that the Federal leading roles in national politics Even partisans of strict state should have very limited powers. could impinge on national construction conceded that slavery questions 1807), the disposition of politics if they concerned foreign trade of (after Federal appointed officials. conquered territory or the conduct slaveholders were still nervous Restricted though these questions were, and policy should be as enough to expect not only that Federal powers assurance doubly sure, that little intrusive as possible but also, to make whom slaveholders could have they should be in the hands of persons in was eventually repreconfidence. The Democratic Republican Madison cause and Monroe, three sented at the highest level by Jefferson, Virginian slaveholders. to resent Federalist Jefferson remained enough of a revolutionary Federalist preparedness to put subservience to Britain and, as he saw it, of artisans and labourers, upfinancial interests ahead of the well-being Moreover by placing himself at country farmers and western pioneers. movement he could ensure that the head of the popular anti-Federalist of dangerous demagogues. Jefferson it did not fall into the hands he thought they were dragging his detested the Federalists because virtues and creating in its place a society country away from its pastoral on the one hand, and desperate with avid bankers and contractors, the other. In the fierce political battles of canaille and proletarians, on the of slavery in the the 1790s Jefferson was careful to keep question background SO far as possible. Republicans in the Presidential The triumph of the Democratic North American politics had escaped election of 1800 showed that succeeded in finding sectional polarisation. Jeffersonian Republicanism his attacks on the followers in the south, north and west. that Despite it could be made to serve constitution Jefferson found as President that would draw on the purpose dearest to him; a national expansion leaders who energies of all sections. The Virginian the healthy for the next two decades were not dominated the Presidency The revolution in St Domingue redoubled particularly proud of slavery. ban on the importation of their conviction of the need for a prudential fell into line SO that, for African or foreign slaves; in 1798 even Georgia allowed in no American state. slave imports from abroad were a time, the North American slave system was as vigorous as On the other hand, of slaves in the United States were growing rapidly. ever. The numbers and by the close of the century the number In 1790 there were 698,000 --- Page 286 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery At this latter date there were still 35,900 slaves had grown to 893,000. Laws had usually freed the in the north because the Emancipation children of slaves rather than slaves themselves." in the South it had a While slavery was gently declining in the north, Southern planters were new vigour that was not simply demographic. demand for cotton. In the first beginning to respond to the growing the coastal south but the invention of instance most cotton was grown in that it could be cultivated and Whitney's cotton gin in 1793 meant of raw cotton grew from 0.5 processed far inland as well. US exports 1800 and 83 million lb by 1815. the in the north because the Emancipation children of slaves rather than slaves themselves." in the South it had a While slavery was gently declining in the north, Southern planters were new vigour that was not simply demographic. demand for cotton. In the first beginning to respond to the growing the coastal south but the invention of instance most cotton was grown in that it could be cultivated and Whitney's cotton gin in 1793 meant of raw cotton grew from 0.5 processed far inland as well. US exports 1800 and 83 million lb by 1815. million lb in 1793 to 18 million lb in came from the the 1801-5 40 per cent of British cotton imports In years just a beginning. Up to the early United States. This was, of course, the continent, had been 1790s slavery in North America, as throughout Whitney's gin removed overwhelmingly concentrated in coastal regions. technical obstable to westwards migration. men a major success had brought white American Jefferson's Republican the cross-sectional alliance it but by securing closer to their government, chains of southern blacks. The very riveted more securely the in the north helped to Republicans who had voted for emancipation the Federalists were almost as slaveholder President. In the South elect a when it came to tightening up the slave zealous as the Republicans by the north-east but the Federalist alliance was hegemonised regime, the leading role in the democratic republican while Virginians played was animated by the view Jefferson's hostility to the Federalists camp. the United States to become a sort of commercial that they had allowed Britain. He believed that the British wished and maritime dependency of commercial and financial recolonise North America through to bind its future to them. He had attacked the treaty instruments and to John Jay as the work of 'the vile aristocratic with Britain negotiated by America, and who are enemies of the few who have too long governed British would encourage the of man'." 11 In his view the the equality ports while preventing unhealthy growth of the eastern commercial control its own continent. The Republic from spreading out to with the young international issues raised by the contest national and the slave question, or even put it in a Federalists quite over-shadowed new light. Jefferson maintained that, however In private communications blacks, it could not be undone unwise it was to have enslaved Towards SO many the end of his life he was to sum without even greater danger. We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither up his view like this: is in the one scale, and self-preservation hold him nor let him go. Justice that the threat from American-born in the other.' 12 Jefferson believed could best be tackled at some remote blacks might be containable and --- Page 287 --- The United States future date when the United States would have maturity, and when the mass of its (white) grown in strength and farmers spread out across the whole citizens were smallholding were more adaptable and reliable continent. In the meantime slaves deprived of their natural than degraded whites who had been He believed birthright - the ownership of a farmers to be more plot of land. but he did not despair of naturally virtuous than slaveholders, and self-restraint. He encouraging the latter to the path of wisdom himself demonstrated the versatility of slave becoming one of the largest nail labour by He was particularly anxious that the manufacturers in the country. northern commercial states in the South should not lose out to the Caribbean and Europe were to race for development; events in the southern help him secure extra slavery, as will be seen below. living room for James Madison, who was to follow did not allow private reservations Jefferson as President, likewise defence of slaveholder about slavery to cloud his interests Or to public reasons for its economic vitality. His lucid prevent him from grasping the explanation of why it was SO difficult to intelligence furnished a clear to a critic he concurred 'as to the evil, give up holding slaves. Writing of slavery. But he urged that there moral, political and economical slave culture as he had discovered could be 'much improvement' in within my own sphere of from 'proofs annually taking place in small numbers, by good observation; particularly where slaves are held masters and correspondent to consider that the risks of managers'. interests Or to public reasons for its economic vitality. His lucid prevent him from grasping the explanation of why it was SO difficult to intelligence furnished a clear to a critic he concurred 'as to the evil, give up holding slaves. Writing of slavery. But he urged that there moral, political and economical slave culture as he had discovered could be 'much improvement' in within my own sphere of from 'proofs annually taking place in small numbers, by good observation; particularly where slaves are held masters and correspondent to consider that the risks of managers'. He urged his actually be less than those of a running a plantation might the wrecks everywhere speculation in stocks or bonds: 'look at decisive giving warning of the danger'. But argument was that slave perhaps his and rapid path to agricultural plantations were the most convenient correspondent invested in land expansion then he in American conditions. If his cultivate it yourself? Then beware of the would need labour: "Will you or complying labourers. Will difficulty of procuring faithful have made the experiment you dispose of it in leases? Ask those who an ownership of the soil is what sort of tenants are to be found SO attainable. >13 where With men like Jefferson and hands. Following the Madison at the helm slavery was in safe Jersey the northern passage of emancipation in New York and New political abolitionists were caught in a structure that had been specifically compartmentalised The southern abolitionist societies designed to frustrate them. laws while those in the North urged of more generous manumission in the duties of spoke the need to educate the free citizenship and freedom. black the 'colonisation' of freedmen Many abolitionists supported opportunities for raising the outside US borders; there were few question of slaveholding states. Southern emancipation in the main abolitionism had not entirely disappeared --- Page 288 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery embattled. In the South there were now much larger but it was certainly than there had ever been in the prenumbers of free blacks and women were subjected to revolutionary epoch, but freedmen slaveholders or their heirs draconian invigilation and in several cases re-enslavement. The manumissions and legalised challenged previous and the racial panic induced by reports vigour of the slave economy Methodists and the Baptists to retreat from St Domingue led southern The cri de coeur of a from their earlier disapproval of slaveholding. the defeated Methodist bishop in 1798 still expresses and southern of some southern professionals, artisans abolitionist impulse farmers: slaveholders is in part to be a slave, and I was free O! to be dependent on that slavery will exist in Virginia perhaps for born. I am brought to conclude nor of liberty to destroy it; there is not a sufficient sense of religion ages; Presbyterians, in the highest flights of rapturous piety, Methodists, Baptists, defend it. I judge in after ages it will be SO that poor men still maintain and slaveholders, but will go to new lands; they and free men will not live among on them will continue to live in only who are concerned in, and dependent Old Virginia. 14 individual manumission and to By this time even attempts to encourage citizens attracted the educate the manumitted as useful and responsible odium of slaveholders. statesmen were concerned the So far as North America's planter with lessons for them and for all St Domingue Revolution was replete who for the eventual citizens of the Republic. Even those wish hoped to avoid the chaos and disappearance of slavery, they argued, must It showed the necessity bloodshed that had been seen in St Domingue. the good order of the slave for taking new precautions to safeguard revolutionised the counterstates. to By this time even attempts to encourage citizens attracted the educate the manumitted as useful and responsible odium of slaveholders. statesmen were concerned the So far as North America's planter with lessons for them and for all St Domingue Revolution was replete who for the eventual citizens of the Republic. Even those wish hoped to avoid the chaos and disappearance of slavery, they argued, must It showed the necessity bloodshed that had been seen in St Domingue. the good order of the slave for taking new precautions to safeguard revolutionised the counterstates. As often happens 'the revolution be from outside Not only should the slave states protected revolution'. should also prevent slave majorities building up interference, but they in Georgia prior to the slave trade, as was happening via an unchecked should make sure that the free coloured population 1798 ban, and they controlled as possible. was as small and as tightly United States from contagious notions of The aim of sealing off the obsession of the North American servile liberation became an uncovered in the vicinity of slaveholder. The 'Gabriel conspiracy' considerable publicity and did reveal a Richmond in 1800 received formed an ambitious plan potential for black revolt. The conspirators been encouraged for seizing the capital of Virginia and had supposedly of the conspiracy the example of St Domingue. The prime movers by --- Page 289 --- The United States who had involved a few hundred in were slave artisans and watermen, Their message was conveyed in the their seditious meetings and plans. *Are you a true man?' 'I am a ritualised catechisms of a secret society: hearted man." 'Can you keep a proper and important secret?"Yes." true rise and fight the white people for their The Negroes are about to was to kill all whites except freedom." One said that the plan 15 believed that Methodists and Quakers." The conspirators Frenchmen, once they had started the insurrection they could obtain French help from the country blacks, though and counted on spontaneous support the former and few with the latter. they had no contacts with been talked about for some four months Preparations for a rising had and made large numbers of when the authorities learned ofthe conspiracy of the leading suspects. Gabriel arrests, soon executing about Richmond twenty aboard a ship captained by a Prosser himself escaped from denounced by another slave Methodist, but was white anti-slavery boarded. A visitor to Richmond noted: 'Military when the ship was Richmond resembles a town service is performed night and day, with one will not venture to communicate besieged . the negroes . >16 another for fear of punishment. reported the exceptional Monroe, the Governor of Virginia, At the behest of measures taken to expose and suppress the conspiracy. in which all free he asked Jefferson to consider ways the state legislature be deported to a colony outside the blacks and rebellious slaves might would be the humane alternative to United States, arguing that this evidence of involvement by further executions. Although there was whites no that their presence had free blacks it was widely felt by the had all free blacks encouraged the conspiracy. A law of 1793 required law of 1801 themselves on a register; a supplementary the to place change their place of residence with stipulated that they could only Legally any black was to be permission of the county authorities. could otherwise; thus any black assumed a slave unless he or she prove of their free status could be or coloured person not carrying proof 17 detained until such proof was forthcoming. slaves from sensitive or strategic There was also concern to exclude Cabinet is conveyed by a The frame of mind of Jefferson's from occupations. Postmaster General in 1802 to a Senator letter sent by the investigating the work of his Georgia, a member of a committee also since it still manages to convey a department. It is worth quoting ideals, albeit in the form of a shamefaced awareness of revolutionary belief in their subversive potential: employing negroes, or people of colour, in Sir, An objection exists mails, against of a nature too delicate to engraft into a report transporting the public --- Page 290 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery to be omitted or passed over that might become public, yet too important take the liberty of making the without full consideration. his Georgia, a member of a committee also since it still manages to convey a department. It is worth quoting ideals, albeit in the form of a shamefaced awareness of revolutionary belief in their subversive potential: employing negroes, or people of colour, in Sir, An objection exists mails, against of a nature too delicate to engraft into a report transporting the public --- Page 290 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery to be omitted or passed over that might become public, yet too important take the liberty of making the without full consideration. I therefore on the subject. After the committee, through you, a private representation we cannot be too which St Domingo has exhibited to the world, scenes similar evils in the four southern states, cautious in attempting to prevent the settled eastern part of them, SO great a where there are, particularly in and happiness of free proportion of blacks as to hazard the Carolina tranquility (as I have been informed) - citizens. Indeed in Virginia and South them more than once have already been concerted by plans and conspiracies Everything which tends to increase to rise up and subjugate their masters. and or that affords them an of natural rights, of men things, their knowledge and communicating sentiments, and of opportunity of associating, acquiring must increase your hazard, establishing a chain and line of intelligence, their object. The most active and because it increases their means of effecting the most ready to learn and intelligent are employed as post riders. These from are day to day, and hourly mixing the most able to execute. By travelling information. They will learn that a with people, they must, they will acquire colour. will, in time, become man's rights do not depend on his They with each other on the teachers to their brethren. They become of acquainted them, wish to act, they are an line. Whenever the body, or a portion openly, their own privately. organised corps, circulating our intelligence excites no alarm. One able man among Their travelling creates no suspicion, might lay a plan which would be them, perceiving the value of this machine, to and produce a communicated by your post riders from town town, this evil than and united opinion against you. It is easier to prevent but it does not general it. The hazard may be small, and the prospect remote, and to cure the event would not be certain. With respect follow that at some day General). 18 esteem, Gideon Granger (Postmaster by the arrival of free blacks and In 1803 further alarm was caused the of slavery escaping from reimposition mulattos from Guadeloupe, from North Carolina, Congress passed there. Responding to a petition blacks from other American territories. an act barring the entry of free closed its borders to slave imports even In 1806 the state of Virginia And in the same year it repealed the from other states of the Union. Law of 1782. Henceforth slave major provisions of the Manumission would not would be more difficult and those manumitted the latter manumission in the state for more than one year; be allowed to remain manumission less attractive to master provision was calculated to make that manumitted slaves would and slave alike and made it most unlikely of Virginia had grown from be given land. The free black population thereafter it was to stagnate as a 3,000 in 1780 to 30,000 in 1806; slave of Virginia The population proportion of the total population. to 400,000 and soon it had grown over the same period from 250,000 the South and west. The well established as a supplier of slaves to was --- Page 291 --- The United States of 1806 also made it an offence for free blacks to Virginian legislation official toleration for schools for free black own a firearm; previous 1800-1806 witnessed a similar children was also withdrawn. The years free blacks in other North wave of repressive legislation codes' against of the slave states were uniformly American states. The 'black of the northern states followed and systematically discriminatory; many 19 suit in the first two decades of the century. keen to take every While North American slaveholders were Virginian leaders did not domestic precaution the principal necessary to dictate foreign policy. Jefferson, allow a fear of black revolutionaries Revolution as an opportunity to further in particular, saw the Haitian the of all the powers of the specifically American interests at expense Old World. The years free blacks in other North wave of repressive legislation codes' against of the slave states were uniformly American states. The 'black of the northern states followed and systematically discriminatory; many 19 suit in the first two decades of the century. keen to take every While North American slaveholders were Virginian leaders did not domestic precaution the principal necessary to dictate foreign policy. Jefferson, allow a fear of black revolutionaries Revolution as an opportunity to further in particular, saw the Haitian the of all the powers of the specifically American interests at expense Old World. of Haiti Dessalines ordered a massacre of Shortly after the foundation to him that one of French. When it was reported some of the remaining this would jeopardise good commercial his colleagues thought that Dessalines observed: *Such a relations with the other white powers white man below one of the person does not know the whites. Hang a and a sack of coffee in the in the scales of the customs house, put attention pans the other whites will buy the coffee without paying other pan; fellow white. >20 Dessalines's own bloodthirsty to the body of their but his observation was acute: it drew conduct did not strengthen Haiti, instrumentalist sensibility that was now attention to a disassociated, world. The calculations of imperial gaining ground in the western heedless rapacity. Pitt's statesmen added cynicism to the merchant's to restore slavery there, invasion of St Domingue, Napoleon's attempt The conduct of President instances of failed realpolitik. are spectacular Revolution in Haiti was no less cynical but it was Jefferson towards the for himself and for the to yield a resounding and historic success, him to double the size of slaveholders of the United States. It enabled to the further United States and greatly to extend the area open the of North American slavery. expansion the Jefferson still privately Following his election to Presidency slavery with 'promptiassured abolitionists that he would act against in which I can interpose tude and zeal' should 'an occasion ever occur situation in which Jefferson with decisive effect. 21 As it happened the comfort to the with 'decisive effect' brought no had did interpose against Adams and Jay the Virginian abolitionists. In his campaign British. He did not want to attacked them for their capitulation to the loans and cheap British the United States swamped by British see that British statesman would block the manufactures. He also believed expansion and that the Republic's natural path of continental young --- Page 292 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of the north-east were complicit with the British. Federalist leaders had little enthusiasm for acquiring territory in North-eastern Federalists outlet to the Gulf since the south-west or for securing the Mississippi's from the trade of the eastern such developments could only detract the policy of Adams ports. Jefferson's strategic opposition belief to that pro-British the United States had a and Jay had been animated by the it to any hostile vital interest in securing the south-west cultivators - to deny and to open an area power, to provide an outlet for western white population of the east. His of settlement for the buoyant had helped to strengthen the crossendorsement for this prospect alliance. Jefferson's foreign policy sectional democratic republican neutrality to France could be stance of hostility to Britain and friendly politics at home; it represented as a natural extension of Republican likely than Britain to had the further advantage that France was more fall in with plans for US continental aggrandisement. pro-French Given that he was himself a slaveholder the later Jefferson's 1790s, argues strong policy, which he maintained throughout the policy and conduct of nerves. Many southern slaveholders regarded almost equally dangerous and the British and French as being The abolitionist oratory of demagogic SO far as slavery was concerned. American slaveholders not at all; but the House of Commons impressed and black power were even worse. The of course the rise of Toussaint had been seconded by the Adams British deal with Toussaint Adams's last acts was to sponsor a bill administration. One of President the United States and St Domingue, which facilitated trade between sanctions which had been exempting the latter from the commercial Republicans lambasted this as a invoked against France. almost equally dangerous and the British and French as being The abolitionist oratory of demagogic SO far as slavery was concerned. American slaveholders not at all; but the House of Commons impressed and black power were even worse. The of course the rise of Toussaint had been seconded by the Adams British deal with Toussaint Adams's last acts was to sponsor a bill administration. One of President the United States and St Domingue, which facilitated trade between sanctions which had been exempting the latter from the commercial Republicans lambasted this as a invoked against France. Jeffersonian and the Federalists, with their links to pact with cannibal chiefs. Adams scandalised by the activities of Hugues mercantile interests, were more of Toussaint; indeed growing and the corsairs than by the regime leader and valued business acceptance of Toussaint as a respectable the chances of emancipation in partner may have helped to enhance politicians, by contrast, had little New York in 1799. Southern planter Toussaint but were less bothered by inclination to become reconciled to that French privateering Hugues and the corsairs. While they granted argued that the 1794 treaty was a menace Democratic Republicans under duress, since Britain's Royal with Britain had been entered into 1793-4. Democratic Republicans Navy had seized over 300 US ships in to accept US in the whole course of British policy a refusal fully saw independence and sovereignty. Republicanism answered to The pro-French stance of Jeffersonian In fact Jefferson strategic options as much as ideological and sympathies. little trust in either the himself had no time for Jacobinism --- Page 293 --- The United States Directory or Bonaparte. Jefferson's Louisiana, the vast swathe of eyes were on the Floridas and Canada and bottling up the territory stretching from the Gulf to Canada did in the north. The Republic in the West and the South, just as and planter's republic could Democratic best Republican ideal of a farmer's Floridas could be acquired. Britain be realised if Louisiana and the development, while the French would certainly not favour such a clear that France could influence might be induced to. From 1795 it was which it had already acquired the vulnerable regime in Madrid, from San Ildefonso, as noted in the Santo last Domingo. In 1800 at the Treaty of colony of Louisiana, though this chapter, France re-acquired its old is unclear how much Jefferson knew provision was for a time kept secret. It in March 1801. But he did know of this when he became President and that Bonaparte would be that France had leverage in Madrid friendly relations with the willing to pay a price for United States. re-establishing endorse French designs in the Jefferson was prepared to Caribbean if this acquisitions on the mainland,22 might promote US Bonaparte and Talleyrand no doubt believed their expedition against Toussaint in the that Jefferson welcomed promised, extirpate 'black hope that it would, as they had plauded such an outcome, but government'. it Jefferson would have apvery highly. The seems he did not rate French Virginian did not allow racial chances to the probable effectiveness of black animosities to blind him himself led a war of resistance to resistance. He had, after all, American territory. Whatever the a European attempt at recolonising recapture St Domingue would make outcome he saw that an expedition to friendship and would Bonaparte anxious for American sustain imperial ambitions very probably weaken the French ability to favourably of the elsewhere in the New World. Jefferson d'affaires in prospects of such an expedition to the French spoke Washington. But when chargé was about to sail to Jefferson learned that a French fleet abruptly changed tack. Louisiana Instead to possess that territory for France he been promised, US merchants of supplying Leclerc's forces, as had rebels. Even the capture of continued to do business with the black Napoleon's plans for St Toussaint failed to convince Jefferson that leader will arise and a war Domingue of were succeeding: *Some other black for no second extermination [of the whites] will capitulation will ever be trusted ensue From the outset Jefferson had by the blacks. about to sail to Jefferson learned that a French fleet abruptly changed tack. Louisiana Instead to possess that territory for France he been promised, US merchants of supplying Leclerc's forces, as had rebels. Even the capture of continued to do business with the black Napoleon's plans for St Toussaint failed to convince Jefferson that leader will arise and a war Domingue of were succeeding: *Some other black for no second extermination [of the whites] will capitulation will ever be trusted ensue From the outset Jefferson had by the blacks. 23 French government on its instructed US envoys to sound out the acquire the Floridas and Louisiana. willingness to allow the United States to the prospect of renewed The losses suffered by Leclerc, and war with Britain, made respond at last to these overtures. The First Napoleon willing to that this was the surest way to regain Consul clearly understood alliance with Jefferson's United --- Page 294 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery States. Barbé Marbois, now Finance up a treaty for the sale of Louisiana. Minister, was instructed to draw the United States might be able One clause of the sale implied that Louisiana. When to claim western Florida as well as this construction Talleyrand he was pressed by the US delegation to replied that the United States accept bargain and I suppose you will make the had made a 'noble be sold for $15 million (E3 most of it',24 Louisiana was to well understood, utterly million) not a negligible sum but, as Napoleon territory in question. incommensurate with the true value of the vast Louisiana was purchased two weeks before between Britain and France in 1803. the resumption of war of the monarchical Jefferson, the Republican powers of the used scourge authority to make the bargain, which Presidency, his executive ratification. Though Louisiana was then referred to Congress for 12,000 slaves out of a total was little developed there were some mainly concentrated in Lower population of 60,000; the slaves were The acquisition of Louisiana Louisiana in the vicinity of New Orleans. did much to ensure his re-election was a tremendous coup for Jefferson and publicly in the disputes in 1804. Jefferson did not intervene territory, surrounding the of though on this as on other matters organisation the new scenes was considerable whenever he chose his influence behind the accepted that the northern reaches of to exercise it. It was widely north-west territory, should be reserved the purchase, adjacent to the The southern Republicans, for Indians and free settlers. expansion in the focusing on the prospects for south-west, did not seek to slavery many southerners were determined dispute this. However continue to be legal in Lower not only that slavery should as it was now called, but that it Louisiana, should or the Territory of Louisiana there from other parts of the United also be legal to introduce slaves then North American slaveholders States. If this was not permitted the Territory's potential for would have been unable to exploit Senate, sugar and cotton by a large majority, voted to exclude cultivation. However, the Louisiana. If Jefferson had been all new slaves from slavery then he could have waiting for an opportunity to weaken Instead he permitted given Presidential backing to this veto. majority and permit lobbying and horse trading to overturn the Senate Louisiana to draw slaves not to import them from abroad. This from other states, though consent because it gave a natural outlet resolution had Jefferson's shrank from avowing himself to southern settlers. He still extension of slavery. Rather he a partisan of the consolidation and western territories to slavery would persuaded himself that opening the the slaves more thinly over the weaken the institution by spreading hard for Jefferson to convince available territory. It must have been himself that slavery would not flourish in --- Page 295 --- The United States industry and where there were a land where there was already a Jefferson sugar displayed a keen interest in prospects for cotton cultivation. for processing inland cotton and should the progress of Eli Witney's gin westwards march of have been much surprised at the subsequent not the cotton planters. confirmed that the United States was an The Louisiana purchase that slaveholders would empire as well as a republic and it confirmed that Because he was have their own reserved space within and because empire. have been himself that slavery would not flourish in --- Page 295 --- The United States industry and where there were a land where there was already a Jefferson sugar displayed a keen interest in prospects for cotton cultivation. for processing inland cotton and should the progress of Eli Witney's gin westwards march of have been much surprised at the subsequent not the cotton planters. confirmed that the United States was an The Louisiana purchase that slaveholders would empire as well as a republic and it confirmed that Because he was have their own reserved space within and because empire. he was a Virginian President, because of his historic role this developJefferson was the only man who could have made prevented his re-election more though certainly this would have ment; of Louisiana tripled to 35,000 by difficult. Instead the slave population 1810 and reached 69,000 by 1820. the North American Republic the With Louisiana incorporated in Florida and here too next obvious potential acquisition was Spanish În his second Presidency Napoleon's good offices could be decisive. by means of further Jefferson sought to add the Floridas to Louisiana, asked Congress for a ban concessions to France. In 1805 the President thought this necessary to on trade with Haiti; while some slaveholders had asked for the move. Even defend their own interests the French in 1804 France for a after the French withdrawal from St half Domingue of the island, Santo Domingo. while retained control of the eastern French efforts to Talleyrand urged the North Americans to support he his envoy in isolate the black Republic. In July The 1805 existence urged of a negro people Washington to appeal for US support: which it has soiled by the most criminal in arms, occupying a country for all white nations. 25 Jefferson's acts, is a horrible spectacle trade with Haiti was recommendation to Congress to suspend of black insubordination; it ostensibly aimed at isolating the contagion of Napoleon in the hope of was also designed to regain the goodwill will have supported this action acquiring Florida. Many Congressmen with Haiti; it passed by a large majority because they feared any contact since New England merchants were but was never rigorously enforced, loath to lose business. in the north-western territory of In the years 1803-8 developments between the slave and non-slave states to a Indiana subjected the pact southern emigrants to the Territory significant test. Some wealthy with them. As a way to get round the ban on wished to bring slaves indenture' agreements with their introducing slaves they confected labour and permit which would subject them to perpetual bondsmen, return them to a state where slavery was fully legal. their masters to connived at these Governor Harrison, a man of southern extraction, But the assembly to legalise slavery. arrangements and even urged --- Page 296 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the proposal and in 1808 voted pioneers and settlers rallied against leading southern Republidown the Governor. During this controversy to undo the made it clear that they did not favour any attempt cans with the fertile lands of the south-west north-west Ordinance; as well as was provocative, beckoning to slaveholders this unnecessary and more expansive North Jefferson's contribution to a stronger his commitment to the ending American slave system in no way reduced than ever. In Indeed this was manifestly more urgent of slave imports. Congress to end the import of slaves as soon December 1806 he urged But the abolition he sponsored was as this was constitutionally proper. or pro-black sentiment. studiously disassociated from US emancipationist slave trade was to be a remarkably Indeed the abolition of the of as a measure for downbeat affair, no doubt because it was conceived social formation. strengthening the new nation and its slaveholding and embarrassed its own South Carolina had shocked every other state in 1804. Tens of thousands representatives by re-opening the slave trade for 1808. of slaves were rushed in to beat the ban confidently expected was of South Carolina created a climate in which Congress The decision further imports as soon as possible. eager to prevent in December 1805 and was The first bill on the topic was introduced that it was premature. the abolition of the of as a measure for downbeat affair, no doubt because it was conceived social formation. strengthening the new nation and its slaveholding and embarrassed its own South Carolina had shocked every other state in 1804. Tens of thousands representatives by re-opening the slave trade for 1808. of slaves were rushed in to beat the ban confidently expected was of South Carolina created a climate in which Congress The decision further imports as soon as possible. eager to prevent in December 1805 and was The first bill on the topic was introduced that it was premature. postponed for one year on the grounds followed the of December 1806 was by preparation Jefferson's message which he was able to sign into law in the first days and passage of a bill 1st 1808. The act laid of March 1807, to come into effect on January slaves would be liable to a fine down that any person found importing would be forfeit, the latter to be of $20,000 and that his ship and cargo In the sold off by the state where the offender was apprehended. with only 5 against; Committee of the Whole the bill received 113 votes and opposed sale of those voting against wanted stiffer penalties, most slaves.27 However, passage of the bill was not treated of the confiscated biographer notes that the famous victory. Jefferson's as a anti-slavery the first day of the slave trade ban nation's four leading papers greeted other abolitionist acts prompted the with a 'discreet silence'.28 While this was truly the Quiet Abolition. most extravagant self-congratulation sincerely wished to the destinies of the imperial Republic Those guiding the complications and instability of avoid the dishonour, the violence, slave traffic. Jefferson had no continuing participation in the Atlantic he was well aware that it wish to swell the size of the black population; Like most North five years without slave imports. doubled every twenty believed that native-born slaves were American slaveholders Jefferson those from other parts. But to have more amenable and reliable than the of the slave trade, attributed anti-slavery significance to suppresion --- Page 297 --- The United States fuss about it, would only have embarrassed or to have made any great southern politicians and slaveholders. that the United States would have It is possible, or even probable, Louisiana and fortified slaveholding ended the slave trade, acquired in St Domingue. But certainly the even if there had been no revolution circumstances for the achievement of latter event supplied propitious inherent of the New World in these aims and a reminder of the strength loose from the European its contests with the Old. In shaking Louisiana the leaders of the Old World. But empires Jefferson had boldly finessed still had to be secured. Naturally the he knew that this vital acquisition that had been made with British refused to recognise the bargain even before Napoleon's Napoleon while the Spanish government, the US interpretation of the invasion in 1808, was disposed to challenge Jefferson's reversion to a consistently pro-French treaties involved. was part of a larger Americanist stance in his second term (1805-9) reduced to the twin concerns of securing policy that should not be important as these were. Louisiana and gaining the Floridas, struggle was not entirely The example of the Haitian independence South whatever their the slaveholders of North and America, lost on It had been a signal demonstration of the fears and prejudices. in the New World. If the vulnerability of the European powers the French as well as the miserable slaves of St Domingue could America repulse allow itself to remain the British, why should any part of victim of European domination? Presidency was at least as much antiJefferson's policy in his second naval He was outraged at Britain's arrogant British as pro-French. was not entirely The example of the Haitian independence South whatever their the slaveholders of North and America, lost on It had been a signal demonstration of the fears and prejudices. in the New World. If the vulnerability of the European powers the French as well as the miserable slaves of St Domingue could America repulse allow itself to remain the British, why should any part of victim of European domination? Presidency was at least as much antiJefferson's policy in his second naval He was outraged at Britain's arrogant British as pro-French. the of its maritime predominance. policy and alarmed at implications 1805-6 claimed the right to prevent neutral British Orders in Council in Europe. British war ships shipping from trading freely with Napoleonic US ships but also seize sailors from would not only detain and search British deserters; 3,800 US sailors were them who they claimed to be memories of the depredations of the kidnapped in this way arousing 1770s. was loath to embark on press-gangs in the 1760s and that Jefferson the Republic's defences were not war with Britain because he knew distrusted the political consequences of in good shape and because he He Congress to adopt as creating a stronger army and navy. persuaded trade in December 1807. an alternative a complete embargo on foreign in both north and south it Though this stimulated manufacturing and political disaffection that it caused SO much commercial dislocation successor Madison within fourteen months. Jefferson's was suspended declared war on Britain in June 1812. eventually US opinion with ample provocation, yet many Britain had furnished the Middle Atlantic states now opposed war in New England and --- Page 298 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery exacerbate their commercial and maritime believing that it would only forced to act if he was to retain the problems. Madison had been opinion in the South and West; confidence and support of Republican the British as barring the road to southerners and westerners Canada saw and on the western frontier, where expansion in the Floridas, in the resistance of the Indian nations. British intrigues were encouraging free-lance forces had occupied portions Even before war was declared of the Floridas. the southern states for a series In 1813 and 1814 the British targeted Admirals Cochrane and of coastal raids. The British commanders, offer freedom to all slaves who Cockburn, seized the opportunity hundred to did SO and according to a British would join them; about three well and 'were uniformly report they conducted themselves very expect to meet their former volunteers for the Station where they might led by Cockburn, masters'2 In August of 1814 a British raiding seized party Washington and and including some of these black recruits, buildings. The President and burned the White House and other public While British incendiarism his wife took refuge in the Virginia woods. American opinion, SO was the was widely denounced by North and administration. The nervelessness of the American commanders of7 million, and could supposedly United States now had a population was apparently unable to field over half a million armed men, yet forces operating thousands of defend its capital from capture by The enemy British recourse to military slave miles from their home base. emancipation provoked unease as well as outrage. much disaffection in the The war had caused commercial losses and it. It was learned after north whose representatives had voted against 'Orders in Council' had in any the outbreak of hostilities that Britain's Madison had been manipulated case been repealed, making it seem as if Republican 'war diplomacy and carried away by young New York by Napoleon's and land grabbing. In hawks' bent on Indian-fighting had joined with the Federalists in Republicans, led by De Witt Clinton, of that year Federalists had 1812 to oppose the war; in December Madison in the Presidential backed the renegade Republican against mobilising support in the south and election, but the latter had won by of British incursions and US reverses west. outbreak of hostilities that Britain's Madison had been manipulated case been repealed, making it seem as if Republican 'war diplomacy and carried away by young New York by Napoleon's and land grabbing. In hawks' bent on Indian-fighting had joined with the Federalists in Republicans, led by De Witt Clinton, of that year Federalists had 1812 to oppose the war; in December Madison in the Presidential backed the renegade Republican against mobilising support in the south and election, but the latter had won by of British incursions and US reverses west. By 1814 the sorry succession Federalists to meet to discuss withemboldened the New England At the Hartford drawal from the war and revision of the constitution. drew back from open Convention in December 1814 the Federalists of the 'Federal ratio', which treason, but they did call for abandonment of the slave states and without inflated the national representation defeated De Witt Clinton in the 1812 which Madison might not have of the 'Federal election. Since the south would never accept abrogation --- Page 299 --- The United States ratio' this call hinted at secession. Hartford Convention were soon to be However, the resolutions of the of the war, by a burgeoning and discredited by the military course the rapid conclusion of a wounded 30 sense of nationhood, and by The British forces had peace aimed treaty. a blow at New support to the insurgent blacks and Seminole Orleans and offered believed that Britain would insist Indians of Florida. Some Louisiana its forces had on retaining those portions of the British thrust in the captured at the time peace was made. south was However, defeated by General Andrew convincingly and comprehensively January 1815. As it happened Jackson at the battle of New Orleans in Europe in December 1814 peace terms had already been agreed in Federalist. It did not involve by a delegation which included a cession of leading Nevertheless this war and Jackson's Louisiana by the United States. firmed both the famous victory resoundly conits possession of independence Louisiana. and sovereignty of the United States and The victory at New Orleans redeemed the of Washington and gave a needed boost dishonour of the sacking unity had been saved and to US self-esteem. National composition of the a continental destiny beckoned. The ment of Baltimore in "Star-Spangled Banner' after the British bombardSeptember 1814, a national anthem, signalled the birth though only much later adopted as of a new national consciousness: And where is the band who SO vauntingly That the havoc of war and the battle's swore, A home and a country should leave confusion Their blood has us no more? No washed out their foul footsteps' refuge could save the hireling and slave pollution From the terror of flight or the gloom of the And the star-spangled banner in grave O'er the land of the free and the triumph doth wave O thus be it ever when free home of the brave. Between their loved home men shall stand Blest with and the war's desolation. Praise the vict'ry and peace may the heav'n rescued land power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation. Republican leadership had been vindicated had attended the Hartford Convention and those Federalists who positions they had adopted there. now speedily withdrew from the flirtation with secession. The whole Federalism never recovered from its strengthened the grip of the course of the conflict with Britain United States as an Virginian leaders and the character of the 1806 abolitionism expansionist had become and slaveholding power. Since at least feeble and subordinate, incapable of --- Page 300 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery raising issues in public life; the Abolitionist decided to cease meeting annually in that National Convention slavery had little or no national year. But the fact that anticompact according to which there presence did not cancel the original States free of slavery. The last would be major areas of the United further crumb of year of the war with Britain a anti-slavery in the North-east. The produced Emancipation Law had still left thousands of New York 1813 the Clintonian People's adult slaves in the state. Overthrow of Colonial Slavery raising issues in public life; the Abolitionist decided to cease meeting annually in that National Convention slavery had little or no national year. But the fact that anticompact according to which there presence did not cancel the original States free of slavery. The last would be major areas of the United further crumb of year of the war with Britain a anti-slavery in the North-east. The produced Emancipation Law had still left thousands of New York 1813 the Clintonian People's adult slaves in the state. In help of black votes; in the Party had won state elections with the legislature that slaves should be following freed of all year they urged in the state masters. The necessary legislation did remaining obligations to their 1817 when it was enacted that all not reach the statute book until would be declared free as of July 4th slaves born before July 4th 1799 would be left in New York. 31 1827. By the latter date no slaves The further career of the United States the tensions this engendered, form the as a slaveholding power, and But the War of 1812, or the Second subject of a subsequent work. it is sometimes called, has War of American a further Independence as the colonial form of slavery significance for the struggle against concerned. North American with which the present volume is band with the Spanish and merchants had always practised contrathe legitimate imperial authorities Portuguese territories. Britain's alliance with Napoleon's invasion of the Peninsula of Spain and Portugal, following was more or less in 1808, meant the United States Americas. openly at war with all Because of the weakness of its European empires in the United States encouraged its own variant of regular armed forces the years 1812-15 and sponsored the the guerre de la corse in the Spanish-American privateers rise of irregular French and 1808 US authorities throughout the Caribbean. by the were willing to recognise letters of Already in remaining French authorities in the marque issued willing to accord belligerent Caribbean; they were also Spanish rule after 1810. About rights to the colonies which rejected seized; in many cases 1,500 British and Spanish ships where their they were brought as prizes to the United States were cargoes would be sold. Whatever the was adopted, this use ofthe privateers motives for which it impetus to the Republican cause in South against Britain and Spain gave an even weakened colonial slavery. America. In an indirect way it or mulatto and not a few of Many of the privateer crews were black revolutionary corsairs of the them had sailed with the French returned from France 1790s. In 1810 General André established to Haiti, possibly with Rigaud the short-lived Napoleon's blessing; he declared a desire for normal Republique du Sud around Les Cayes, relations with the succour to the privateers. A characteristic United States and gave figure of the time was Renato --- Page 301 --- The United States Beluche, a resident of Louisiana of Spanish and operated as a privateer with a largely black Italian extraction who from the French authorities crew and a letter of in Guadeloupe in the marque Subsequently he obtained a letter of years 1807-9. (Colombia) following its marque from Cartagena Bolivar's alliance with rejection of allegiance to Spain in Beluche these privateers and 1811; will be considered in long association with commissioned Beluche chapter 9. In 1815 General New as commander of the Jackson Orleans. Jackson also mobilised artillery forces defending Louisiana; this militia, 200 coloured militia from coloured officers. reflecting French and Spanish Once New Orleans was safe traditions, had attention to the Floridas, where the British Jackson was to turn his US incursions by a combined force had encouraged resistance to royalists. rejection of allegiance to Spain in Beluche these privateers and 1811; will be considered in long association with commissioned Beluche chapter 9. In 1815 General New as commander of the Jackson Orleans. Jackson also mobilised artillery forces defending Louisiana; this militia, 200 coloured militia from coloured officers. reflecting French and Spanish Once New Orleans was safe traditions, had attention to the Floridas, where the British Jackson was to turn his US incursions by a combined force had encouraged resistance to royalists. 32 of blacks, Indians and Spanish Before considering the character and American lands, and their course of revolution in other return to the Old World implications for slavery, it is to abolitionism to account for Britain's necessary in 1807 at a crucial adoption of Napoleon, a variation juncture of its crusade on the theme of against option with its own large implications 'abolition and empire', and an in the Americas. for the future of colonial slavery Notes 1. Robinson, Slavery in the Structure 2. Quoted in Lance Branning, The of American Politics, p. 253. US the Democratic Republican appeal to the Jeffersonian Persuasion, Ithaca 1978, p. 225. For society see Joyce Appleby, dynamic and a forces of small-scale accumulation in 3. Robinson, Slavery in the Capitalism Structure New Social Order, New York 1984. 4. Cooper, Liberty and Slavery, 97-8. of American Politics, Pp. 254-64. 5. Thomas Jefferson, Writings, New pp. York 6. The Federalist lampoon, dated 1984, pp. 449-56. Democratic, New York 1985, illustration 1793, is reproduced in Sean Wilentz, 7. Zilversmit, The First no. 5 between pp. 216-17. Chants the North, PP. 171-8. Emancipation, pp. 176-82; McManus, Black 8. Zilversmit, The First Bondage in 9. Robert McColley, Slavery Emancipation, in PP. 192-9. 163-8; Berlin, Slaves without Masters, Jefersonian Virginia, 2nd edn, Urbana 10. For British cotton pp. 396-7. 1978, pp. impact of the gin see W. W. imports Rostow, see How Seymour It All Drescher, Econocide, Pp. 84-5. For the 11. Miller, The Wolf by the Ears, 118. Began, p. 160. 12. Miller, The Wolf by the Ears, p. 13. McColley, Slavery in Jeffersonian epigraph, p. ix. 14. McColley, Slavery in Jeffersonian Virgina, p. 184. 15. Gerald W. Mullin, Flight and Rebellion: Virginia, P. 186. Virginia, London 1972, p. 146. Slave Resistance in Eighteenth 16. M. Mullin, ed., American Negro Century 17. John H. Russell, The Free Slavery, in Columbia, South Carolina 101. Negro Virginia, 2nd edn, New York 1979, 1976, p. 123. pp. 98, --- Page 302 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Alexander Cockburn, *Ashes and Diamonds', Anderson in the Valley US 18. Quoted by California, May 13, 1987. The letter was discovered Advertiser, National Archive Boonville, by Stan Weir of the AFSCME. 107, 121, 140-41, 167. Virginia and 19. Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, pp. of 96, the other southern states. For a survey Maryland had many more free blacks than any legislation against free blacks in the tightening of discriminatory retreat from of the comprehensive between 1793 and 1806, and the simultaneous south, much of it enacted Slaves without Masters, pP. , 1987. The letter was discovered Advertiser, National Archive Boonville, by Stan Weir of the AFSCME. 107, 121, 140-41, 167. Virginia and 19. Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, pp. of 96, the other southern states. For a survey Maryland had many more free blacks than any legislation against free blacks in the tightening of discriminatory retreat from of the comprehensive between 1793 and 1806, and the simultaneous south, much of it enacted Slaves without Masters, pP. 79-107. abolitionism in this section, see From Berlin, Dessalines to Duvalier, p. 37. 20. Quoted in Nicholls, 131. This was written in a letter declining 21. Miller, The Wolf by the Ears, p. sponsorship. of an anti-slavery poem. Policies of a New Nation', in W.A. Williams, From 22. See Walter La Feber, 'Foreign 9-38; John Mayfield, The New Nation, Colony to Empire, New York 1972, PP. Toussaint L'Ouverture, pp. 93-105. 1800-45, New York 1982, pp. 3-21; Tyson, the Ears, P. 139. Jefferson's previous encourage23. Quoted in Miller, The Wolf by is cited on P. 133. ment of the French chargé d'affaires the President: First Term 1801-1805, 24. Quoted in Dumas Malone, Jefferson purchase and its immediate consequences see Boston 1970, P: 306. For the Louisiana Adams, The History of the United States during the pp. 311-63 of this work; also Henry Boston 1931, vol. 2, pp. 377 et seq. First Administration of Thomas Jefferson, p. 36. 25. Nichols, From Dessalines to the Duvalier, United States of America during the Second 26. Henry Adams, History of New York 1931, vol. 2, pp. 75-7; Eugene Administration of Thomas Jefferson, Urbana 1967,p.12. Berwanger notes that in the Berwanger, The Frontier Against Slavery, also denied free blacks the vote or the right to testify same year the territorial assembly and excluded them from the militia. of the Atlantic Slave Trade, New York 1896, 27. W.E.B. Dubois, The Suppression pp. 94-108. the President: Second Term 1805-9, Boston 1974, 28. Dumas Malone, Jefferson pp. 541-7. Horsman, The War of 1812, London 1969, p. 78. 278-82, 404. 29. Reginald Slavery in the Structure of American Politics, and pp. William Weatherby, 30. Robinson, The First Emancipation, p. 182; Roi Ottley Republican J. Van 31. Zilversmit, New York 1967, P: 62. The Democratic eds, The Negro in New York, Federalists, privately branded the Buren, a demagogic critic of the 'aristocratic' Party' of New York state in 1817 as "Jacobinism' philosophy of the Clintonite Martin Van 'People's Buren, Princeton 1984, p. 52). and Patriot (Donald C. Cole, Renato Beluche: Smuggler, Privateer 32. Jane Lucas de Grummond, 26-130. 1780-1860, Baton Rouge 1983, pp. --- Page 303 --- VIII British Slave Trade Abolition: 1803-14 Oh me good friend Mr Wilberforce mek me free God Almighty thank ye! God Almighty thank ye! God Almighty mek me free! Buckra in dis country no mek we free! Wa negro fe do? Wa negro fe do? Tek force wid force Tek force wid force! West Indian Song (1816) What art thou, Freedom, O! Could slaves Answer from their living graves This demand, tyrants would flee Like a dream's imagery; Thou art not, as impostors say, A shadow soon to pass away, A superstition and a name Echoing from the cave of fame. To the rich art thou a check, When his foot is on the neck, Of his victim, thou dost make That he treads upon a snake. no mek we free! Wa negro fe do? Wa negro fe do? Tek force wid force Tek force wid force! West Indian Song (1816) What art thou, Freedom, O! Could slaves Answer from their living graves This demand, tyrants would flee Like a dream's imagery; Thou art not, as impostors say, A shadow soon to pass away, A superstition and a name Echoing from the cave of fame. To the rich art thou a check, When his foot is on the neck, Of his victim, thou dost make That he treads upon a snake. The Mask of Anarchy (1819), P.B. Shelley --- Page 304 --- --- Page 305 --- Slave Trade Abolition of anti-slavery in Britain is impossible to The revival and progress from the momentous international, understand if it is abstracted Britain's rulers in the first imperial and domestic challenges confronting After the revolutionary drama of decade of the nineteenth century. it is well to remember that antiemancipationism in the French Antilles, slave trade had emerged in slavery themes and a critique of the Atlantic social reform and the discourse of moral philosophy, jurisprudence, Britain because they political economy in late eighteenth-century anxieties and aspirations. Anticorresponded SO well to middle-class the rampant force of commercialslavery promised to tame and reshape of the ruling class and perhaps ism and industrialism, the arrogance classes. In the years 1788-93 even the waywardness of the labouring radical following which stressed British anti-slavery had also attracted a mercantile and and thei iniquities ofa a slave-trading had the rights offreelabour ambivalence of abolitionism meant that it financial oligarchy. The between the reform-minded middle momentarily established an alliance following. The anti-slavery classes, the radical democrats and a popular new norms of social could respond to the need to develop alert critique and recommend itself to politically reproduction and cohesion, order. But despite the variety of ways in which members of the ruling to different constituencies, it still the anti-slavery cause might appeal strength after 1803 and remains to be explained how it recovered oligarchy at a time when imposed itself on Britain's narrow governing more urgent issues. The the latter confronted a multitude of seemingly in its tracks by a abolitionist advance of 1788-92 had been stopped mobilisation at the anti-Jacobin change in the political conjuncture: the perceived necessities of imperial home and abroad, reinforced by of abolitionist advance, defence and competition. The second dismantling phase of these obstacles to covering the years 1803-14, saw a political system abolition of the abolitionism; in a deeply conservative much the most urgent, as the least slave trade became not SO be undertaken. În Britain as in France a controversial, reform that could colonial slavery acted as a lightning seemingly peripheral issue raised by national destiny, conductor for struggles over peace and war, empire, of the domestic political the formation of class blocs and the nature regime. the agenda of ruling-class politics in 1803-4 Abolition edged back onto of the Peace of Amiens. It reflected alarm at following the breakdown and concern with the wider purposes of the state of imperial security the first bout of hostilities with France the conflict with France. During --- Page 306 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery (1793-1801) Britain's ramshackle had come perilously close oligarchy and 'illegitimate to disaster in the mortal monarchy' rejuvenated historic foe. The overthrow of struggle with its had released prodigious furies the French ancien régime Old World and the New. Britain's upon the established order in both the monarchy since time rulers, who had been battling French immemorial, virtues in it; the execution of Louis suddenly discovered unsuspected XVI had been important casus belli. Slavery (1793-1801) Britain's ramshackle had come perilously close oligarchy and 'illegitimate to disaster in the mortal monarchy' rejuvenated historic foe. The overthrow of struggle with its had released prodigious furies the French ancien régime Old World and the New. Britain's upon the established order in both the monarchy since time rulers, who had been battling French immemorial, virtues in it; the execution of Louis suddenly discovered unsuspected XVI had been important casus belli. Revolutionary regarded as an the agency of subversion than France inspired animus more as revolutionary coalitions as a capitalist rival. Two countercrumbled before the sponsored and subsidised by Britain had Americas were revolutionary armies. Britain's no less serious. British forces problems in the withdraw from St Domingue and had had been forced to Britain's own Windward Islands only regained and pacified thousands of blacks. The at a terrible cost and after the security of the Empire had arming centre as well as the periphery, with been threatened at and a French-assisted rebellion mutiny rife in the home fleets The in Ireland. stilled emergency of 1797-8 and the fear of the disaffection of the middle classes. French invasion at least economy, with its far-flung commercial The strength of the British society, with its Empire, and of British ensured protection of corporate and bourgeois basic loyalty to a still quite propertied interests, when the direct threat of revolution unreformed political system. But middle class lacked enthusiasm for or invasion receded the bulk of the had occurred just as the the war. The outbreak of hostilities advantageous to British Anglo-French trade treaty was proving highly war meant higher taxation, manufacturers and merchants; paying for the income tax. Charles culminating in the fateful innovation and James Fox and the of out of season, that no more should oppositional be Whigs urged, in continental monarchies and that sacrificed to defend the government. Even Wilberforce, peace should be sought with the Paris favoured peace with France. despite his abhorrence of British Jacobinism, conclusion of the Treaty of Amiens war-weariness in 1802 eventually led to the the French, setting a strict limit on British which conceded much to The British were to evacuate all wartime trade and political influence. in itself might have been conquests, save Trinidad. This clear that acceptable had it not immediately Bonaparte would use military become commercial war against British leverage to wage a continuing merchants in There was to be no renewal of the Europe and the Americas. influence was applied to exclude Britain Anglo-French trade treaty; French American colonies of Spain and Portugal from continental markets. The protected French trading were to become privileged and friendly relations with the zones; United together with the resumption of States and the reconquest of --- Page 307 --- a - by William Blake, published in 'Chasing a maroon', Stedman's "Narrative' J.G. --- Page 308 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery St Domingue France seemed set to as completely as it already did the hegemonise the New World almost The continent of Europe. advantageous terms extracted by evident intention to exploit them Bonaparte at Amiens, and his opinion in the logic of imperialist to the hilt, educated British public in 1804-5 brought about rivalry. The threat of French invasion national unity. a fervent, even unprecedented, Against this backdrop there was a new climate of enthusiasm, unclouded by the divisions of the wave of patriotic revival of hopes for political and social 1790s. it already did the hegemonise the New World almost The continent of Europe. advantageous terms extracted by evident intention to exploit them Bonaparte at Amiens, and his opinion in the logic of imperialist to the hilt, educated British public in 1804-5 brought about rivalry. The threat of French invasion national unity. a fervent, even unprecedented, Against this backdrop there was a new climate of enthusiasm, unclouded by the divisions of the wave of patriotic revival of hopes for political and social 1790s. In its train came a had been marked by both reform. The decade 1793-1802 Military mobilisation and political repression and a feverish prosperity. of the state while the erratic anti-Jacobin panic had increased the weight enclosure revealed the woeful advance of industrialisation and rural Britain was the richest inadequacy of the Poor Law system. 1800-1, meant widespread country in the world yet bad harvests, as in distress, even classes; a commercial starvation, for the labouring desperate downturn, such as that of petitions from the 1805-6, brought tions meant fat rent rolls and manufacturing districts. Wartime condispelled hardship for the farming profits as food prices climbed, but discontent mass of the threw into relief the underlying population. Social of oligarchic arbitrary and power. Once the mortal unrepresentative pattern purpose and shape of peril was past the question of the permitted discussion. government gradually re-entered the area of Pitt and Wilberforce had argued in the 1790s must await a return to calmer times. But that political reform the need for an 'economical even they had acknowledged Rovemment-appointed sinecures reform' in which the numbers of than a thousand such would be drastically pruned: no less often by the device of posts were abolished in the years holder. (This relatively allowing the sinecure to expire on the 1782-1800, death of its property bears painless approach to divesting office-holders of freeing those comparison with Pennsylvania's slave yet to be born.) But while emancipation, quietly removed, and sinecures wound administrative abuses could be government and representation had up, the central apparatus of even the most limited reform. Indeed remained stubbornly resistant to reducing the abolition of government patronage, reduced the sinecures, by press through other innovations. The interests government's ability to Tory coalition and the entrenched institutions organised by the new were animated by lingering fear of of 'illegitimate monarchy' tion not to yield up the Jacobinism and a lively determinapolitical change had been privileges of political hegemony. One with the undertaken - the Union with major eminently conservative aim of Ireland - but had hoped both to end the vexation of consolidating British rule. Pitt a separate Irish Parliament and --- Page 309 --- Slave Trade Abolition to admit a layer of Catholic rights SO long as they proprietors to the exercise of some swore to uphold the British political constitution, including the privileges of the monarchy and However this aspect of Pitt's scheme established Church. powerful vested interests and to the was unacceptable to the King, to patriots. Pitt was forced into Protestant reflexes of many English veteran Foreign opposition in 1801. Lord Grenville, the Secretary, was also driven into became a fierce critic of the terms of the opposition where he The Foxite Whigs, excluded Peace of Amiens. champions of democratic from power since 1784, posed as republicanism, but remained sentiment, and had even flirted with that would satisfy them. rather vague on the detail of the reforms national interests in They were prepared to support the defence of of some future modus 1803-5, though they still believed in the plans for vivendi with Bonaparte if he should possibility aggression. Secretary, was also driven into became a fierce critic of the terms of the opposition where he The Foxite Whigs, excluded Peace of Amiens. champions of democratic from power since 1784, posed as republicanism, but remained sentiment, and had even flirted with that would satisfy them. rather vague on the detail of the reforms national interests in They were prepared to support the defence of of some future modus 1803-5, though they still believed in the plans for vivendi with Bonaparte if he should possibility aggression. The spectre of abandon his been exorcised by Bonaparte himself in revolutionary the republicanism had expansionary French interests of rationalised and longer inspired the capitalism and militarism. The French same divisive hopes and threat no class public. The renewal of the fears within the middleallowed old patriot themes struggle against France on new terms Jacobins abated and it could be to be revived. The repression of former new France could best be argued publicly that the threat from the the Commons met by an overhaul of British institutions. In Windham, who had been Secretary for government, appealed to English War in Pitt's lovers of liberty by Jacobins to show themselves true a new popular mood rallying to the defence of their country. was supplied when an advocate Evidence of reform, Sir Francis of Burdett, won Middlesex in 1804 parliamentary celebrated by a London crowd - a victory cries of'Burdett and No Bastille' estimated at half a million strong, with patriot radicalism, the strains of 'Rule and an assortment of songs redolent of 'Ca Ira'. In 1807 Burdett scored Britannia' mingling with those of Westminster, another popular electoral fighting the seat with Lord victory at Burdett, a radical baronet, and Cochrane, a naval hero. were, of course, far more Cochrane, a patriot naval commander, than the plebeian reassuring standard bearers of popular democrats of the 1790s.1 hopes The reawakening of the anti-slave trade favoured by radical revival and by the movement in Britain was oligarchy. Abolitionism's shake-up within the return was ruling events: reactivation of the Abolition signalled by two interlinked Committee in convincing votes for a general Abolition Bill in April 1804 and three in May and June of the same the House of Commons active in the abolitionist year. Thomas Clarkson again became the cause and the committee adhesion of men who widened its was strengthened by contacts and experience. Among --- Page 310 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Zachary Macaulay and Henry the new members were James Stephen, the case for suppressing the slave Brougham. They were to integrate of national and imperial strategy. trade within detailed conceptions West Indian and barrister with a background Stephen was a rising married Wilberforce's sister. He had evangelical leanings who had and retained links with many worked as a lawyer in the West Indies on aspects of merchants and planters. His reputation as an expert legal with the Prize commercial and naval policy had led to an appointment Macaulay had also Appeals Court of the Privy Council. Zachary Office; he had worked in the West Indies and had links to the Colonial the Britishreturned from a stint as Governor of Sierra Leone, coast. Both just settlement for free blacks on the West African doubts sponsored were well placed to encourage official Stephen and Macaulay colonial slavery in the about the wisdom of further extending of the so-called Clapham Sect, Caribbean; they were also both members Henry Brougham the of Anglican evangelicals. By recruiting a group its range, in this case outside the ranks committee was further extending this time an lawyer, enthusiasts. He was at up-and-coming of religious education in Scottish political economy. with Whig connections and an two-volume work on the He had just published a comprehensive and was a leading contributor colonial policy of the European powers founded in 1802 and with Review; this latter journal, to The Edinburgh rapidly established itself as the most a circulation rising to 7,000, reform. of Anglican evangelicals. By recruiting a group its range, in this case outside the ranks committee was further extending this time an lawyer, enthusiasts. He was at up-and-coming of religious education in Scottish political economy. with Whig connections and an two-volume work on the He had just published a comprehensive and was a leading contributor colonial policy of the European powers founded in 1802 and with Review; this latter journal, to The Edinburgh rapidly established itself as the most a circulation rising to 7,000, reform. authoritative voice of responsible decided that its cause would not best be The new Abolition Committee a new extra-parliamentary served by moving immediately to promote Though there had been some campaign of meetings and petitions. clamour for abolition relaxation of the climate of repression a popular conservative parliamentthe fears of would have risked reawakening Committee made no arians. But this did not mean that the Abolition itself of such newspapers as wider since it could avail appeal to a public, newly-established to cater to the prosperous and the Leeds Mercury, in the north and the Midlands.? growing middle class Brougham were both accomplished James Stephen and Henry work was aimed at a select readership, pamphleteers. Most of their and senior administrators. which included the country's legislators on colonial had established his reputation as an expert the James Stephen of The Crisis of Sugar affairs with the publication of a lengthy study the Revolution in St Domingue Colonies (1802) in which he wrote that of the West Indies and showed the inherent fragility of the slave systems --- Page 311 --- Slave Trade Abolition would be defeated by black insurgency. He predicted that Napoleon in the interest of 'the British Empire as argued that a black victory was the reconstruction of a new and a whole' since it would prevent in the Americas. Victory for the rebels menacing French colonial system the British islands; this could be posed a danger of a different sort to the motive for slave insurrection. met by reforms that would remove conclusions from a different starting Henry Brougham reached similar Policy of the European Powers point in his Inquiry into the Colonial themes, as Stephen was (1803). This work did not harp on anti-French with the black cause in prone to do, nor did it express any sympathy of Anglo-French co-operation, St Domingue. It combined advocacy on the need for an wherever this might be possible, with an trade emphasis and relax the system of reform that would end the slave imperial While deploring the slave trade Brougham colonial tariff preference. of Africans, arguing that it happily appealed to derogatory stereotypes colonies with a mass of resentful made no sense to fill up Britain's the slave trade which was savages. Brougham devoted a chapter to Committee in 1804 and by the Abolition reissued as a pamphlet of Parliament. The argument of the circulated to every Member detail since it had a considerable pamphlet is worth considering in some impact on the Commons vote of 1804. while tossing in both racist Brougham's critique of the slave trade, devoted most attention and humanitarian arguments for good measure, Brougham was the argument from 'sound policy'; to marshalling not a 'Saint'. He urged that abolition ambitious to be a politician West Indian interests, if properly would do no harm to British the United States has distinctly proved understood: "The experience of of the Blacks in a natural way, will that the rapid multiplication their importation."' Brougham inevitably be occasioned by prohibiting 'the structure of West Indian society looked forward to the time when the firm, and respectable will more and more resemble that of compact, American states'. Lest the communities which compose the North he added: security aspect touched on here be overlooked is it the proper time for stirring up When fire is raging to windward, warehouse, and throwing into them everything that is combustible in your Surely, surely, these loads of material still more prone to explosion? that new considerations only have to be hinted at, to demonstrate, most obvious against the negro traffic, the present independent of any other consideration renders the idea of continuing its existence state of the French West Indies for another hour worse than infamy. security was a complex one but Brougham's The question of imperial recent British experience. here be overlooked is it the proper time for stirring up When fire is raging to windward, warehouse, and throwing into them everything that is combustible in your Surely, surely, these loads of material still more prone to explosion? that new considerations only have to be hinted at, to demonstrate, most obvious against the negro traffic, the present independent of any other consideration renders the idea of continuing its existence state of the French West Indies for another hour worse than infamy. security was a complex one but Brougham's The question of imperial recent British experience. În arguments had a direct purchase on --- Page 312 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery forces and in a space of months, the French Republic 1795-6, with tiny British sugar islands, with a had succeeded in overturning two the subsequent War of the combined slave population of 50,000; British casualties and had Brigands' had cost forty or fifty thousand black regiments; the concluded by raising eight only been successfully of Africans suitable to be British War Office made special purchases this had worked enrolled in these regiments. As a short-term expedient aroused when the well, but doubts as to its long-run viability were mutinied in stationed on Dominica, Fourth West Indian Regiment, that those involved in the mutiny were 1802; an official report argued 1795-1804 witnessed the publication exclusively African." The years most of which of several accounts of war and revolt in the Caribbean, African mixture represented by spontaneous stressed the dangerous even Bryan Edwards, the rebelliousness and creole trouble-making; the French Revolution had had planters' spokesman, did not deny that a quite new impact on the Caribbean, requiring an extraordinary and defence. In Brougham's view the attention to colonial security in the Caribbean meant that it survival of a "negro commonwealth' of new insurrections. While would be folly to overlook the possibility of first-hand accounts of Brougham's work did not have the authority awareness of the the West Indies, it did plausibly link the new of the slave of the slave colonies with the critique vulnerability trade.s that the also outlined an economic case against supposing colonies. Brougham the of either metropolis or slave trade was vital to well-being trade accounted for no more than a He calculated that the Africa because of the distances twentieth part of British exports and that, his conclusions thus: 'the involved, returns were slow. He summarised of the national capital - trade does not occupy any considerable least part beneficial to the country, and that the profits are of the description from this employment, would that the same capital, if excluded advantageous vent.' He did not deny immediately and easily find a more the present value of of the trade, nor question the past profitability 'the fruit of our iniquity has been a great and West Indian commerce: be with our gains, and being rich empire in America. Let us satisfied up a single to become righteous - not indeed by giving rich, let us try but by continuing in our present sugar cane of what we have acquired, the further importation of state of overflowing opulence, and preventing economic advantage slaves.' Brougham did not claim that any purely enhance security and from abolition, merely that it would would accrue sufficient to have proved that the cost little: "Surely it is abundantly traffic which humanity has ever termination of by far the most criminal to interests already in carried on, will be attended by no injury --- Page 313 --- Slave Trade Abolition existence, although it should be admitted that the individuals will be disappointed. of what we have acquired, the further importation of state of overflowing opulence, and preventing economic advantage slaves.' Brougham did not claim that any purely enhance security and from abolition, merely that it would would accrue sufficient to have proved that the cost little: "Surely it is abundantly traffic which humanity has ever termination of by far the most criminal to interests already in carried on, will be attended by no injury --- Page 313 --- Slave Trade Abolition existence, although it should be admitted that the individuals will be disappointed. 96 prospects of a few In the 1790s abolition had been associated war with France and had suffered in with opposition to the result. Following Napoleon's Parliament and elsewhere as a was to become quite attempt to restore slavery abolitionism Stephen published, compatible with patriot hostility to the French. Buonaparte in the West anonymously, a three-part pamphlet, entitled the African Hero, Indies, Or the history of Toussaint appealing to radical L'Ouverture, each part: "What! Are sentiment and priced at only 3d all the poor labourers (Bonaparte] of St and his ruffians to stab and drown men for wages, and not like Domingo horses because they chuse to work as Englishmen be kept in the dark about under the driver's lash; and must true friends of the common it?" It will be seen who are the murder the people. . Those who hate, and to make them labouring poor in one part of the world oppress free and happy in another.7 [cannot] really wish four printings in a year, This work went through readership at which it aimed. suggesting that it did find the popular militant in his domestic In the 1790s Wilberforce had been for imperial and foreign anti-Jacobinism but not in his recommendations policy. In their most considered Brougham and Stephen openly canvassed the publications markets and advancing imperial interests. best ways of capturing while to the radical Whig belief that While Brougham clung for a could be reached with a global settlement and division accomplished advocate Napoleon, of James Stephen was an unabashed and The Abolition commercial and naval aggression. slave trade, and Stephen's Committee's appeal for a strategic reappraisal of the cause, helped abolitionism efforts to present anti-slavery as a to regain the initiative patriot press home victory in 1804. The but they failed to the bill passed in three votes: 124 Commons votes were solid enough: 33. Many of the new Irish to 49, 100 against 42, and 99 against ascendancy, swung behind abolition, members, representing the Protestant high-mindedness and generosity; secking thereby to advertise their learn that Wilberforce they were also, no doubt, gratified to Ireland. Pitt, supported the regime of Anglican brought back as Prime Minister to privilege in iterated his support for abolition; in direct the war effort, reBrougham's pamphlet in his hand. one debate he spoke with a copy of Abolition Bill a government But he still refused to make the of Lords on the grounds that measure. The bill was tabled by the House session for it to be considered, there was not sufficient time left in the early in 1805 Pitt's When a new Abolition Bill was bill was voted down personal endorsement did not prevent a presented on its second defeat: the 70,8 The case of abolition at this Commons reading by 77 votes to time was overshadowed by the --- Page 314 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery between Britain and the combined fleets of looming naval contest more dependent than ever on France and Spain. the grounds that measure. The bill was tabled by the House session for it to be considered, there was not sufficient time left in the early in 1805 Pitt's When a new Abolition Bill was bill was voted down personal endorsement did not prevent a presented on its second defeat: the 70,8 The case of abolition at this Commons reading by 77 votes to time was overshadowed by the --- Page 314 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery between Britain and the combined fleets of looming naval contest more dependent than ever on France and Spain. Moreover Pitt was now The Irish members switched the 'King's Friends' and the imperial lobby. that its victory abolition, having been persuaded their votes against initiatives elsewhere in the Empire. The would encourage reform the more SO since Denmark was, abolitionists were keenly disappointed, decade, thought to be with the decree of the previous into harsher in compliance Britain's slave trading role ending its slave trade, putting with the hope that the slave prominence. Pitt consoled the abolitionists non-legislative means. trade could be substantially reduced by and the Abolition Even prior to the setback of 1805 James Stephen against Committee were at work on a new approach to their campaign the West slave trade, the aim of which was to split or neutralise the of abolitionist measures aimed India lobby and gain acceptance slaves by foreign traders or to newly exclusively at the supply of and promised it his acquired territories. Pitt encouraged this approach interest had good reason to support. The established British planting territories which would be prevent the supply of slaves to new there were not more than competing with its own products. Though the House of Commons, with a about thirty 'West Indian' MPs in other members tended to defer similar number of West Indian' peers, when it came to the of West Indian proprietors to judgement The slave-traders themselves had adjudicating the abolition question. Stephen was well far fewer friends than the West Indian proprietors. had always seen merit in and merchants aware that some planters half and two-thirds of the British slave selective abolition. Between a an effort to build up trade of the 1790s and early 1800s represented territories. British plantations in foreign colonies or in newly acquired suppliers of the entire traders were far and away the most important faced was from Cuban or Caribbean zone; the only competition they flying the Spanish flag. When North American traders, the latter usually the Peace of Amiens its was handed back to France at Martinique state thanks to the efforts of the British plantations were in a flourishing at the Peace posed an even worse traders. The retention of Trinidad since, as British territory, its threat to the planters of the 'old colonies' the British market. In 1802 products would have privileged entry to in the Commons limiting the George Canning introduced a motion C.R. Ellis, an MP with substantial future supply of slaves to Trinidad. this allowing Indian holdings, lent his support to measure, West the House in the following terms: *It is not Canning to recommend it to trade the old West India interest the slave trade and, but the slave O7, naked charms without the that you must support - slave trade in all its hide them.' 9 It gave cloak of the pretended West India interest to --- Page 315 --- Slave Trade Abolition combine the from interest with Canning much satisfaction to of this argument mixture was duly noted. the appeal to humanity and the potency quite modest as some However, the tactical gain on Trinidad proved supplied to other, more 15,000-30,000 slaves annually were Dutch being Guiana. The return of war dangerous, rivals such as Cuba and Guiana, the most important, soon led to new British conquests; in the years 1803-1805. Of course imported over 7,000 slaves annually their slave crews and Jamaica the older colonies could also replenish for coffee cultivation. But as each year opened up new territory, mainly older colonies was being steadily eroded and passed the position of the began to ebb. , the tactical gain on Trinidad proved supplied to other, more 15,000-30,000 slaves annually were Dutch being Guiana. The return of war dangerous, rivals such as Cuba and Guiana, the most important, soon led to new British conquests; in the years 1803-1805. Of course imported over 7,000 slaves annually their slave crews and Jamaica the older colonies could also replenish for coffee cultivation. But as each year opened up new territory, mainly older colonies was being steadily eroded and passed the position of the began to ebb. Within the British the profits boom of the 1790s West India interest was naturally better Parliament the old established investing in the foreign represented than that of the new speculators of Guiana. slave trade or the development new study of the threat In 1805 James Stephen published a major entitled War in in wartime conditions, posed by foreign competition Neutral Flags. Drawing on evidence he had Disguise Or the Fraud ofthe Stephen advocated a new wartime acquired in the Prize Appeal Court, abolitionist motivation. commercial strategy which barely hinted colonies at any of the enemy powers He demonstrated that the West Indian vast of sugar, - notably France and Spain were suppying the simple quantities device of using coffee and cotton to continental markets by North American vessels neutral carriers - most of the latter being Britain's re-export trade was sailing via New York or Philadelphia. than by Napoleon's undermined far more effectively by such competition from the French and decrees. Most of the 36,000 tons of sugar exported from Brazil, was Spanish colonies, and of the 46,600 tons exported thus securing it from in 1805-6 under neutral flags, shipped to Europe blockades. The British colonies exported just over seizure by the British saddled with extra freight charges 170,000 tons of sugar but were French privateers. British rebecause of the need for protection against tons in 1802 to 47,000 in 1804 exports of sugar dropped from 93,000 singled out the growth of Cuban and 1805. In his pamphlet Stephen plantation output as the greatest danger: in Cuba, far from being checked, is The gigantic infancy of agriculture during the war, by the boundless greatly aided in its portentous growth of carriage (in neutral ships). Even liberty of trade, and the perfect security there, and doubtless also into the slaves from Africa are copiously imported colours SO wide has been our French islands, under American that even the slave to the depredation of our belligerent right, complaisance smuggler has been able to take part of the spoil. trading that the interests of manufacturing exporters were Stephen also argued --- Page 316 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the neutral traders brought European manufactures for harmed since supplant even the manufacturers of sale in the Americas: "They for the looms and forges of Manchester, Birmingham and York; of our enemies."' ,10 Germany are put into action by the colonial produce should be prevented from Stephen's conclusion was that neutral ships colonies which had not carrying on in wartime any trade with enemy British Navy should revert to been available to them in peacetime. The institute a blockade that would its tactics in the Seven Years War and The export trade of apply to most neutral, as well as enemy, and their shipping. demand for slave imports the enemy colonies would be cut off would cease. and recommendations, SO far as they went, were Stephen's analysis considerations they also moved soundly based; beyond conjunctural wider maritime hegemony. But they did Britain closer to claiming a with the United States. His neglect the danger of provoking a conflict in 'Orders in advice proved highly influential and was hand incorporated in drafting. Pitt agreed to Council' issued in 1805, which he had a further slave imports to include in the Orders a clause preventing which any restricted the Trinidad Guiana, on similar grounds to those need for a vote, the import trade. as they went, were Stephen's analysis considerations they also moved soundly based; beyond conjunctural wider maritime hegemony. But they did Britain closer to claiming a with the United States. His neglect the danger of provoking a conflict in 'Orders in advice proved highly influential and was hand incorporated in drafting. Pitt agreed to Council' issued in 1805, which he had a further slave imports to include in the Orders a clause preventing which any restricted the Trinidad Guiana, on similar grounds to those need for a vote, the import trade. 11 Thus, without the reduced parliamentary the scope of the slave strategists of abolition had considerably naval policy that trade and had committed Britain to an aggressive in defence of the interests of deployed the full might of the British Navy slave trade to foreign colonies the older British colonies. The neutral but the British slave trade to such as Cuba had been virtually destroyed, be the next target of abolitionist foreign colonies remained and was to in the line of least resistance' attack. There was, however, a danger and other parliamentary abolitionapproach that Stephen, Wilberforce Orders in Council were temporary wartime ists had adopted. The legislative effect; to the extent that they measures with no permanent to the foreign slave trade they might removed interested objections that remained. Finally, the association simply reinforce the slave traffic features of the Orders of abolition with the restrictive and provocative with interests in neutral could alienate those traders and manufacturers of cotton from the trade. Britain was now importing large quantities of manufactures. United States, and exporting to it large Orders quantities in Council may have Indeed the 'abolitionist' clauses of the last-ditch supporters of the driven some American traders to become Africa trade. the bloc of forces which had pressed for war Pitt had held together forces had helped to frustrate a general with France; some of the same Dundas, now the Earl of Melville, and abolition - men such as Henry the title Earl of Liverpool in Lord Hawkesbury, who had accepted --- Page 317 --- Slave Trade Abolition recognition of his efforts to promote that city's tolerated pragmatic measures trade. These men had thought that a principled and against the foreign slave trade, but they needless general ban on the slave traffic hostage to fortune, since Britain's slave was a hugely important commerce, might colonies, with their without fresh slave imports. prove unable to sustain themselves The last months of 1805 and the first months of transformation in Britain's international 1806 witnessed a the ruling oligarchy. Events situation and a reorientation of large and small acceptable to the British conspired to make abolition Melville government, ranging from the following a Commons censure motion impeachment of Pitt in January 1806, from Britain's in 1805 to the death of 1805 to the defeat of its victory at Trafalgar in October the same year. The European allies at Austerlitz in December of impeachment of Melville, on corruption at the Admiralty, was a minor charges of condoning favourable to a new approach to abolition and event but certainly one imperial policy. Wilberforce, who had a broader conception of he saw as Pitt's evil genius, now never publicly attacked the man clamouring for his downfall. The gravely added his authority to those led to the appointment of Sir Charles removal of Melville from the Cabinet abolition, as First Lord of the Middleton, a veteran supporter of retired from political life; his Admiralty. The Earl of Liverpool had defended the West India interest son, the new Lord Hawkesbury, also he did not yet wield his father's and served in Pitt's administration, but include a bolder anti-slavery influence. These shifts permitted Pitt to consecrating selective dimension in the Orders in Council, approval for abolition as 'sound policy' and measures which aroused the King's securing royal gravest suspicions.' 12 With Pitt's death abolitionism was to advance broader front. None of Pitt's more openly and on a new government SO the younger followers had the stature to lead Grenville King was obliged to call a to form an administration. Grenville upon the veteran Lord included Fox, the leader of the Whig refused to do SO unless it Secretary through much of the 1790s he Opposition. Orders in Council, approval for abolition as 'sound policy' and measures which aroused the King's securing royal gravest suspicions.' 12 With Pitt's death abolitionism was to advance broader front. None of Pitt's more openly and on a new government SO the younger followers had the stature to lead Grenville King was obliged to call a to form an administration. Grenville upon the veteran Lord included Fox, the leader of the Whig refused to do SO unless it Secretary through much of the 1790s he Opposition. As Pitt's Foreign opinion was in wartime and how knew how volatile public remain in opposition once the dangerous it would be to allow Fox to There was no one left in the Commons immediate danger of invasion was past. Trafalgar made a parliamentary who could match Fox's oratory. necessary, if there was to be consensus both more difficult and more against France now that the immediate public support for continued struggle circumstances the King consented to danger was past. In these Grenville bringing Fox into the --- Page 318 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and leader of the administration in the Cabinet as Foreign Secretary be allowed to put out peace feelers to House of Commons. Fox was to that little would come of this. Napoleon, though Grenville anticipated coalition was smoothed by a The formation of the Grenville-Fox of the monarch. The recurrent diminution in the personal power where he could no longer illnesses of the King had reached a point share in the exercise of the refuse to admit the Prince of Wales to a cultivated the Fox and his followers had always royal powers; interest' of the heir to the throne. of 'reversionary and Fox had long been declared supporters Both Grenville find that it was the most promising reform abolition. They were to with any hope of success. measure they could propose to Parliament formed at a time when popular was The Grenville-Fox government though the obstacles to fundamental expectations were still high, William Cobbett, the leading change remained as formidable as ever. 'of one thing all wrote in March, 1806, as follows: some radical journalist, convinced, namely that reasonable men seem to be thoroughly change; something new change is absolutely necessary; some great effect great something capable of producing a powerful and something great; We are now arrived at that point upon the minds of the people. . suffice."1 Cobbett was himself where a mere hired army will no longer had other 'great changes' in no friend of abolitionism and certainly about the need to motivate mind when he wrote this. Yet he was right abolition of the slave for the war. As it turned out popular support which was simultaneously widely trade was the only reform measure members of the government and popular, agreed between leading of the Fox was a partisan of within the realm of the 'art possible". issue which enthused parliamentary reform, but this was not an networks of 'rotten Grenville, controller of one of the most extensive those favoured by the boroughs'; and both men knew that while defence it would be would instantly unite in its of oligarchic system reach amongst the partisans extraordinarily difficult to agreement alleviating the civic reform. Fox and Grenville both supported of security Irish Catholics, but this question imperial disabilities of loyal support and would be sure to and liberal principles had little popular cause; the spade antagonise the royal family. Abolition was a popular it look more like Abolition Committee had helped to make work of the family remained a problem and had 'sound policy". However the royal 'sound policy' on issues, such shown itself quite capable of frustrating was thought to be at Catholic relief in Ireland, where a principle as Prince of Wales was amenable to the political managers, stake. Irish Catholics, but this question imperial disabilities of loyal support and would be sure to and liberal principles had little popular cause; the spade antagonise the royal family. Abolition was a popular it look more like Abolition Committee had helped to make work of the family remained a problem and had 'sound policy". However the royal 'sound policy' on issues, such shown itself quite capable of frustrating was thought to be at Catholic relief in Ireland, where a principle as Prince of Wales was amenable to the political managers, stake. The to the government both to pay off his since he was at this time looking his wife (the so-called 'Delicate debts ând to pursue his vendetta against --- Page 319 --- Slave Trade Abolition Caroline's infidelities was about to be Investigation' of Princess advised ministers that his father was less concluded). The Prince himself Catholic emancipation, probably disposed to contest abolition than the former than the latter issue. 14 because he felt more isolated on abolition remained a major Nevertheless the monarch's antipathy to preoccupation. of the ban on the supply of slaves When the King had been informed care was taken to Guiana in the Orders in Council of 1805, great that to the support of West Indian proprietors and assure him that it had abolition. The King had in no way was this a partial step to general minuting these various assented to the Orders only after himself strategy for the assurances. 15 When contemplating parliamentary would be to get if session of 1806 Wilberforce noted 'the great point Wilberforce was possible the royal family to give up their opposition'. themselves keen to bring gratified when Grenville and Fox showed these very though he had always distrusted forward the abolition question; lack of he was to find them two men on the ground of their frustration religion doubtless coloured reliable than Pitt. Memories of past about more made by Wilberforce in March: "Consulting a diary entry Henry Petty talked as if we might certainly Abolition, Fox and Lord but should certainly lose in the House of Commons, carry our question This looks but ill, as if they wished to please it in the House of Lords. favour, and that of G.R. and us, and yet not forfeit Prince of Wales the was not SO anti-abolitionists. 16 As this note suggests danger had other would refuse royal assent to a measure which much that the King that he would assert his influence to ensure passed both Houses as and the government adopted defeat in the Lords. Both the abolitionists the danger of a royal veto. In the first an approach that would minimise Slave Trade Bill instance they proposed a partial measure - the Foreign abolitionist could be justified without recourse to general - which Slave Trade Bill, introduced in April 1806, arguments. The Foreign sale of slaves by British traders to foreign colonies, aimed to suppress the occupied by the British - following Trafalgar including foreign territories of new overseas conquests. This there was, of course, every prospect of the approach already embodied bill was a legislative extension adopted a low profile in the Orders in Council of 1805. Abolitionists Stephen had helped in the debate on this measure, though Grenville James introduced the bill in to draft it. After a briefing from Stephen, of interest now that the Lords, urging support for it on grounds that imperial 'it was clear and obvious Britain really did rule the waves. He argued enemies'. He pointed policy that we should not give advantages to our for any other the trade it was not possible out that 'if we gave up take it up'. Grenville continued: state, without our permission, to --- Page 320 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery unrivalled on the ocean? Could any power 'Did we not ride everywhere from the shores of this trade, where we commanded pretend to engross of the Atlantic? America had been Africa to the western extremities in the trade; but were not the noble presented as likely to succeed us of the United States decidely Lords aware that there was a majority West Indian planters now had as In fact British hostile to this traffic?"17 to stem the inflow of slave good a reason as their cousins in Virginia peroration also shows And Grenville's labourers to their competitors. power 'Did we not ride everywhere from the shores of this trade, where we commanded pretend to engross of the Atlantic? America had been Africa to the western extremities in the trade; but were not the noble presented as likely to succeed us of the United States decidely Lords aware that there was a majority West Indian planters now had as In fact British hostile to this traffic?"17 to stem the inflow of slave good a reason as their cousins in Virginia peroration also shows And Grenville's labourers to their competitors. the Hanoverian that the victory at Trafalgar had not only persuaded Britain mastery of the oligarchy to readmit a dissident faction. In giving of imperial, naval and high seas it also presented all problems Britain was now the arbiter of all commercial strategy in a new light. the terms of colonial competition. oceanic exchanges and could regulate of commerce, SO often proclaimed The vision of a pacified global system objective of a single power. abolitionists, had become the realisable by imperial interest and had devised Stephen had constructed a tangible it. But Grenville saw that abolition the Foreign Slave Trade Bill to serve and Britain's war effort. He was could elevate both his administration to introduce abolition in attacked in the Lords' debate for seeking be indeed, not of Were this true he should glad disguise'. He replied: abolition." 1 In fact the favourable impact made by the disguise but of the him to go further in the second encouraged the bill on public opinion of his speech: *It would be an event reading, as is clear from the report witness the abolition of a traffic that most grateful to his feelings mankind. to But he could see no reason for trampled upon the rights of heard of fraud in disguise, of disguise upon that subject. He had and humanity required injustice and oppression in disguise; but virtues justice would be proud to Those who felt those votes to no disguise. them."1s The bill passed in the Lords by forty-three acknowledge Grenville wrote to Wilberforce: I saw our eighteen. Shortly thereafter favourable for launching out a strength and thought the occasion was required. I really think a little beyond what the measure itself actually than I have for a long foundation is laid for doing more and sooner ,19 time allowed myself to hope." and the Abolition Committee The leaders of both the government they had gained. The to follow up quickly the advantage to were disposed needed to call for a General Election fairly soon new administration position. On May 19th Stephen composed strengthen its parliamentary he argued that *an early dissolution of a memorandum in which favour many Members of the Parliament will strongly influence in instructed our by large bodies of their House of Commons who have been of the Slave Trade'.20 In the Constituents to vote for an Abolition introduced a general month Grenville and Fox themselves following --- Page 321 --- Slave Trade Abolition which, though possessed of no legislative force, abolitionist resolution That this House, would serve as a marker for any new administration: to the principles of the African Slave Trade to be contrary considering and sound policy, will, with all practical expedition, such justice, humanity for the abolition of the said trade, in take effectual measures be deemed advisable.' After manner, and at such period, as Grenville may the resolution passed both powerful speeches from Fox and West Indian proprietors who had Houses. In the Commons debate two against the resolution, but supported the Foreign Slave Trade Bill spoke Fox pointed out in the overall voting showed little slippage of support. end its in Commons that the United States was likely to in participation the Lords that the slave trade in 1808 while Grenville argued for the resolution. Most of supporters of gradual abolition could vote that Catholic relief was the Irish members voted for abolition, aware which the might likely alternative reform to government the most Parliament also agreed without a division on a commit itself. In July the effect that joint undertakings to 'Humble Address' to the King to be included in any treaty it might be suppress the slave trade should the United States. support. end its in Commons that the United States was likely to in participation the Lords that the slave trade in 1808 while Grenville argued for the resolution. Most of supporters of gradual abolition could vote that Catholic relief was the Irish members voted for abolition, aware which the might likely alternative reform to government the most Parliament also agreed without a division on a commit itself. In July the effect that joint undertakings to 'Humble Address' to the King to be included in any treaty it might be suppress the slave trade should the United States. The unanimity of the possible to reach with France or that it was acceptable even British Parliament on this proposal suggests men like Tarleton with large to the Members for Bristol and Liverpool, inclusion of the proposal for a joint investments in the West Indies. The the prospects of a peace with ban on slave-trading in no way improved the British proposal would Napoleon. For Napoleon to have accepted dependence on Britain in the have meant accepting Europe's long-run the slave of the In 1805 population supply of plantation products. the slave population of French-controlled Caribbean stood at 175,000, Cuba about the same, while that of the British-controlled slave trade Spanish A mutual agreement to end the Caribbean stood at 715,000. When the British would only British not preponderancea perpetuate Talleyrand politely insisted that it should envoys put this proposal had been reached. The even be considered until a peace agreement insistence that only a pour-parlers soon foundered on Napoleon's Amiens furnished a basis for a new return to the terms of the Peace of hope of entering the agreement. Britain would have to renounce of the continental markets of Europe and in the overseas dependencies were casting greedy powers just when its merchants and manufacturers 1806 Fox died and in the eyes on Spanish America. In September broken off. On October 14th following month the pour-parlers were Prussia, suffered a crushing defeat Britain's only useful European ally, at Jena. had to carry all before it in the The cause of abolition appeared had still to be decided. Many summer of 1806, yet the 'main question' --- Page 322 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery who had voted for the resolution or subscribed to parliamentarians Address' might only have been supporters of a gradual and the 'Humble the slave trade and have remained sternly opposed 'multilateral" ban on of any immediate British action to any unilateral action. The opponents as the Duke the slave trade still included such influential personages on Lord Castlereagh (one of the ablest young of Clarence, Robert Peel, Prime Minister who had been Pittites), and Lord Sidmouth, a former coalition and who controlled a prevailed on to join the government House of Commons. Grenville at first considerable following in the their objective by a prohibitive tax on proposed that they might achieve West Indies. But this plan was soon slave imports to the British to a general Abolition Bill abandoned and it was agreed to give priority of Sidmouth's opposition this session. Because in the next parliamentary be presented as a government measure, but bill could not formally to it was to be highly consequential. In Grenville's own commitment Election in the hope of October 1806 Grenville called for a General death of Fox was a heavy blow, strengthening his administration. The vaunted title as 'the ministry of all leaving the government, despite its in the Commons. the talents', very short of effective de spokesmen facto alliance for the purposes Grenville and the abolitionists made a in favour of of the election. Brougham orchestrated a press obtained campaign a winnable seat. the government candidates and Stephen who faced a stiff challenge in Grenville extended help to Wilberforce Sidmouth were allotted the most difficult Yorkshire; the followers of strengthened from the election and seats. The government emerged moved to introduce a slave trade bill. To Grenville almost immediately obstruction and royal influence the bill was minimise the dangers of in the Commons. introduced first in the Lords and only subsequently decide the abolition question at Britain's rulers were being asked to stake included but also moment. The issues at an extraordinary SO many historians of British transcended those which have preoccupied whether there was or was not overanti-slavery - issues such as months of 1807 or the precise degree to production of sugar in the early motivated by Christian evangelism. seats. The government emerged moved to introduce a slave trade bill. To Grenville almost immediately obstruction and royal influence the bill was minimise the dangers of in the Commons. introduced first in the Lords and only subsequently decide the abolition question at Britain's rulers were being asked to stake included but also moment. The issues at an extraordinary SO many historians of British transcended those which have preoccupied whether there was or was not overanti-slavery - issues such as months of 1807 or the precise degree to production of sugar in the early motivated by Christian evangelism. which British abolitionists were win if they could pull through - and Britain's oligarchy had a world to the predicament of the to lose if they did not. Resolving a kingdom While neither the counting oligarchy was a test of political leadership. decide important the could be ignored nor could they house nor pulpit there were in any case merchants and clerics on questions of state; including abolition. In Britain in opposing sides of most questions, either borne aloft or dashed down by 1806-7 every political issue was conflict then engaged. The political the gale force of the wider the oligarchy was one of growing conjuncture to be negotiated by --- Page 323 --- Slave Trade Abolition in conflict against almost and isolation, with Britain soon ranged danger in the world - Spain, Russia, Turkey, Sweden, every significant power France. Austerlitz and Jena not only the United States as well as Russia to change sides, but eliminated Britain's allies and persuaded November 1806, extending the also led directly to the Berlin decrees of through the Continental of Napoleon's blockade of Britain middlescope danger of war-weariness, System. At home there was a palpable discontent, as taxes and prices class pacifism and even explosive social of thousands of young men were heights. Hundreds rose to intolerable forces. They and the country had to be to be dragooned into the armed that of placing a Bourbon on the given some more inspiring goal than in as it did with patriotic French throne. Anti-slavery, chiming of trusteeship, of English liberty and a new sense global of to conceptions of the answer. It also offered a ray hope furnished at least part asked once again to postpone their middle-class reformers who were hopes for domestic advance for their cause. session of the election of 1806 and prior to the parliamentary at During Committee fostered a campaign aimed directly 1807 the Abolition best tribute to its success was to be paid in voters and legislators. The General Gascoygne, who was the Commons by a Liverpool MP, that opposed to abolition. He complained strongly that invention or art could devise to create a popular clamour had every measure occasion. The Church, the theatre, the press, was resorted to on this the slave trade. It had even been laboured to create a prejudice against could never expect to be victorious maintained from the pulpit that 'England abominable traffic'. The attempts to in war while she persisted in such an the trade were never SO conspicuous as make a popular clamour against had teemed with abuse during the last election, when the public newspapers from different candidates of this trade, and when promises were required There had never been any question that they would oppose its continuance. reform, in which SO much industry had agitated since that of Parliamentary and to make the trade an object of been exerted to raise a popular clamour, town and borough in the universal detestation. In every manufacturing kingdom all those arts had been tried.22 bill in the Lords Grenville declared that its passage Introducing the acts that had ever been undertaken would be one of the most glorious The bill passed its assembly of any nation in the world'.23 by any House of Lords by one hundred votes to thirtysecond reading in the often cited the statistics and arguments six. which SO much industry had agitated since that of Parliamentary and to make the trade an object of been exerted to raise a popular clamour, town and borough in the universal detestation. In every manufacturing kingdom all those arts had been tried.22 bill in the Lords Grenville declared that its passage Introducing the acts that had ever been undertaken would be one of the most glorious The bill passed its assembly of any nation in the world'.23 by any House of Lords by one hundred votes to thirtysecond reading in the often cited the statistics and arguments six. Those favouring the bill and Stephen. As it became clear contained in the writings of Brougham Grenville's invitation to patriotic selfthat the bill was destined to pass, after speaker. In was to be reiterated by speaker congratulation --- Page 324 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery distinctively English terms they echoed Danton's French National Convention's satisfaction with the this precedent was mentioned emancipation decree - though of course by no one. In the Walpole, an MP who had acquired Commons George Jamaica when commanding the great respect for the Maroons in the authority of his campaign against them in 1795-6, lent The Solicitor General experience to the argument from imperial drew an extended security. conscience of the French parallel between the troubled retiring after the vote that Emperor and the serenity of Wilberforce delighted family', night 'into the bosom of his and knowing that he had happy millions of his fellow creatures. preserved the life of SO This many House to its feet as, contrary to peroration brought a packed roared their acclaim and parliamentary custom, the Members The bill passed in the gave three cheers to the veteran abolitionist. that it would be unlawful Commons by 283 votes to 16. Its passage meant Atlantic slave trade for any British ship to as from January 1st participate in the The government fell shortly after 1808,24 had been done. Grenville half-heartedly passage of abolition, as if its work Catholics to serve as officers in the militia introduced a bill allowing Irish the King opposed this and dismissed in England as well as Ireland; knew that there was no further reform the ministry. Grenville himself followers and was content to allow measure that he could offer his responsibility for the Tory politicians to assume diminution of the prosecuting national war. The fall of the ministry led to no that Grenville's successor, commitment the Duke to abolition, despite the fact Canning, who supported abolition, of Portland, had opposed it. King and Lord Sidmouth had been became Forcign Secretary. Both the because they resented the glad to see Grenville go, in part slave trade way they had been out-manoeuvred question. But there could be no on the verdict, partly because the question of a reversal of the sound, and partly because arguments the from 'sound policy' were, indeed, tumultuous self-congratulation. measure had been greeted with such longer counted: even former Previous positions on the slave trade no that it would be in Britain's opponents of abolition now recognised convention against interest to secure an international settlement. A any renewal of the slave traffic as part of species of abolitionism became any peace consensus. The parting gift of Fox and part of the reigning opponents had been a cause which Grenville to their Tory resistance to Napoleon and bid for dignified and elevated Britain's confidence of the ruling class global hegemony. The selfground-swell of democratic was boosted and at least some of the the war effort. Official patriotism evident in 1804-6 harnessed to identify themselves with support for abolition enabled Britain's rulers to a universal goal. any renewal of the slave traffic as part of species of abolitionism became any peace consensus. The parting gift of Fox and part of the reigning opponents had been a cause which Grenville to their Tory resistance to Napoleon and bid for dignified and elevated Britain's confidence of the ruling class global hegemony. The selfground-swell of democratic was boosted and at least some of the the war effort. Official patriotism evident in 1804-6 harnessed to identify themselves with support for abolition enabled Britain's rulers to a universal goal. The members of the British --- Page 325 --- Slave Trade Abolition for the most part bluff, hard-hearted men who showed Parliament were of rack-rented Irish peasants or English little tenderness for the plight and merciless pauper apprentices, and who tolerated impressment that abolition did not floggings in the Royal Navy. But, once convinced be dear to the heart of the contradict 'sound policy', and knowing themselves it to to be shocked by the middle-class reformers, they allowed slave trade. Wilberforce, Fox and appalling brutalities of the Atlantic and persuaded them that the traffic was an unprecedented Grenville and that by acting against it the British Parliament unnecessary its evil, character in the eyes of the entire world. would raise essentially a middle-class issue in In the short run, abolition, though middle-class representation the years 1804-7, did nothing to promote of abolition offered symbolic within ruling institutions. The passage unchanged the reform while preserving satisfaction to middle-class Romilly, the former Solicitor General, substance of oligarchic power. the Jubilee in 1809 was made the was privately outraged when Royal of the Abolition Bill. While occasion to credit George III with passage improved the morale of Britain's stance on the slave trade demonstrably classes, its impact on actual or potential opponents Britain's governing no talisman to ward off the is more difficult to estimate. It was certainly faced by ruinous discontent of desperate labourers or merchants markets. In fact British exclusion from European or North American domestic opposition governments in the years 1807-14 faced greater abolition. The in years when they had stonewalled than previous caused by the war led both to a campaign dislocation and misery middle-class 'Friends of Peace', as well as to against it by the largely from General Ludd and his 'army of militant working-class resistance to build a network of redressers'. 25 The government was obliged 12,000 troops there, barracks in the north of England and to station A number of the than had been sent to fight in the Peninsula. more for anti-slavery in Yorkshire and the Midlands main centres of support activity and of working-class combination were also centres of Luddite legislation helped the oligarchy to against employers. Just as abolitionist middle-class agitation for reform, SO in assert its right to rule and deflect abolitionism helped manufacturers the industrial districts middle-class cement ties with other respectable to outface menacing combinations, conscience. The Luddites sought to halt persons and assert their social by threats of violence; the or deflect capitalist industrialisation market relations and base abolitionists proclaimed the need to pacify inviolability and autonomy. them on a minimum respect for personal of either government or Abolition did not solve the problems sacrifice and but it lent a more hopeful aspect to national employers, discipline. --- Page 326 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery difficulties faced by British trade led to a The grave wartime 1807-8 'Orders in Council' in the years 1810-12. movement against the the scene for an escalating conflict with The Orders in Council had set they had been aimed, the United the main 'neutral' power at which America failed to States. a minimum respect for personal of either government or Abolition did not solve the problems sacrifice and but it lent a more hopeful aspect to national employers, discipline. --- Page 326 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery difficulties faced by British trade led to a The grave wartime 1807-8 'Orders in Council' in the years 1810-12. movement against the the scene for an escalating conflict with The Orders in Council had set they had been aimed, the United the main 'neutral' power at which America failed to States. New openings in Spanish and Portuguese following the retaliatory for the closure of the US market, role compensate now an MP, played a leading boycott decreed in 1808. Brougham, So intense were the resentments of in the agitation against the Orders. affected that eventually the governthe merchants and manufacturers though this action was taken ment felt obliged to rescind the Orders, with the United States. The antitoo late to avert the outbreak of war over the Orders in Council, slave trade consensus survived the conflict stemmed from the because British merchants knew that their problems trade and not from the loss of the North American and European indeed the plantation trade decline of the much smaller African trade; closure of European and North itself was also suffering from the setback for the abolitionist American markets. Instead of producing a in Council furnished the the campaign against the Orders stiffer cause, to introduce a bill which applied occasion for Brougham in the Atlantic slave penalties for any British trader caught participating to demonstrate in this trade. The opponents of the Orders were happy of the slave trade.26 way that they were not aiming at a return the revival of the Atlantic slave trade An international ban to prevent interests of the British colonies and accorded with both the material order. The slave traffic to the British conceptions of a new international the 1807 Act but, depending Caribbean had virtually ceased following of the war would create a quite on the terms of the Peace, the ending abolitionist zeal, and anxiety to new test. The British government's had to be measured the interests of West Indian proprietors, While protect aims and the interests of its allies. diplomatic against other war Britain's aspiration to global tutelage, it abolitionism' nicely symbolised home and abroad. Of course the was to create its own problems both at Britain's chief potential allies: passage of abolition in no way troubled invasion of the Prussia, Austria and Russia. But following Napoleon's defend the legitimist Peninsula Britain entered the lists to Iberian with their large interest in colonial governments of Spain and Portugal, were heavily slavery. Since the Spanish and Portuguese governments to treat British British they were obliged dependent on the support slave trade with at least formal respect. But proposals for a ban on either the will or the ability to take the Iberian monarchies lacked --- Page 327 --- Slave Trade Abolition efficacious measures against the traffic. The with Spanish and Portuguese British thirst for free trade situation. The plantation economies America itself contributed to this boosted by the decline of St of Cuba and Brazil had been expansion, if fed Domingue and had prodigious by a continuing slave trade. prospects of government and monarchy, now installed in The Portuguese ignore Brazilian interests. Cuba's Brazil, could scarcely future revenues and its hacendados prosperity held out the promise of times; however pressing the demands demonstrated of the loyalty in difficult interests of Cuban planters and merchants British government, the The British had adopted abolition when could not easily be ignored. there seemed an excellent prospect of Spain was an enemy power and possessions. Spanish resistance separating it from its American government the opportunity of a to Napoleon offered the British complete isolation. Though British European alliance at a time of almost discussions with South American leaders ministers continued informal their main interest was now to such as Miranda and Bolivar, French. endados prosperity held out the promise of times; however pressing the demands demonstrated of the loyalty in difficult interests of Cuban planters and merchants British government, the The British had adopted abolition when could not easily be ignored. there seemed an excellent prospect of Spain was an enemy power and possessions. Spanish resistance separating it from its American government the opportunity of a to Napoleon offered the British complete isolation. Though British European alliance at a time of almost discussions with South American leaders ministers continued informal their main interest was now to such as Miranda and Bolivar, French. The rivalry between strengthen Spanish resistance to the autonomist inclination Spanish American juntas of loyalist or case of Cuba where the gave some leverage to the British, but not in the In 1810 the British Spanish connection remained unquestioned. Portuguese authorities which government negotiated an agreement with the trade in the South Atlantic. If promised the gradual abolition of the slave vague, the British also gained Portuguese commitment was a little direct trade with Brazil.27 In important Spanish commercial concessions in the displayed its own resistance America the creole resembling those to the Atlantic slave oligarchy of the Virginian traffic, its motives slaves was seen as derogatory to creole plantocracy. The import of African partisans of autonomy or interests and identity, even by holders. The independence who were themselves slavethe slave trade, revolutionary while the Junta at Caracas issued a decree further and called leaders of the Mexican suspending for slave emancipation. These insurrection went declarations emerged from a highly fluid and Spanish American conjuncture; perhaps deliberately, unstable political British government, with its determination they were an embarrassment to the Bourbons. The convocation of the Cortes to shore up the Spanish some hope to British at Cadiz in 1811 afforded abolitionists, since the proposed a ban on the slave trade - this motion Liberal leader Arguelles judicial torture as an abuse to be suppressed. bracketed slavery with delegates objected and the Havana However, the Cuban and well-informed memorandum municipality submitted a lengthy the British Parliament had making such points as the following: before finding the best time deliberated and on abolition for twenty years method for effecting it; the British --- Page 328 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery well stocked with slaves in 1807, whereas Cuba's colonies were and a heavy gender imbalance; plantations suffered a labour shortage and indeterminate', the Portuguese abolition agreement was 'vague the lot of termination of the traffic; though envisaging only a gradual unfortunate, Spanish laws offered much the Cuban slave was perhaps of the British colonies." 28 These and better protection than did those references to the were embellished with supporting other arguments of British and North American statesmen; they were pronouncements detailed tables and annexes on comparative slave accompanied by of relevant decrees and international populations and the text Wilberforce was comagreements. The 'worthy and indefatigable' of the Duke of mended as respectfully as the cautious pronouncements for abolition presented to the Clarence or Lord Hawkesbury. had The been case in certain vital respects more Spanish Cortes by Arguelles than the measures pursued by radical in its anti-slavery objectives that suppression of the slave trade British abolitionists. Arguelles argued measures, such as the freeing of should be followed by emancipationist The Cuban memorial countered such those born to slave mothers. the fate of St Domingue once attempts were proposals by pointing to The Cuban memorialist, the made to tamper with its internal regime. argued that emancipation hacendado Francisco Arango y but Parreno, it should be left to the colonists to would have to come eventually heeded the Havana memorial devise it. The Spanish Cortes failed; evidently the cogency of the municipality's since the Arguelles motion enhanced by the knowledge that the Cuban arguments was doubtless of the government's few revenue remained one Spanish customs of finance. The Liberal leaders persisted in demandremaining sources in the following year but, with the ing an end to the slave trade and the restitution of full power to suppression of the Cortes in heard 1814, of the matter and Francisco Arango Ferdinand VII, no more was Council of the Indies. the Havana memorial devise it. The Spanish Cortes failed; evidently the cogency of the municipality's since the Arguelles motion enhanced by the knowledge that the Cuban arguments was doubtless of the government's few revenue remained one Spanish customs of finance. The Liberal leaders persisted in demandremaining sources in the following year but, with the ing an end to the slave trade and the restitution of full power to suppression of the Cortes in heard 1814, of the matter and Francisco Arango Ferdinand VII, no more was Council of the Indies. So long Parreno became a member of a restored y few slaves reached Cuba but the London government as the war lasted of troubles in store. had been given a taste and the Danish West Indies in 1807, British forces captured Curaçao Martinique and Cayenne in Mariegalante and Desiderade in 1808, their position in Guadeloupe in 1810. The British also extended 1809, Sierra Leone into a Crown Colony in West Africa by converting in 1809. British control of the Caribbean and capturing French Senegal the of plantation products, since had a depressive effect on prices the territories were European markets were difficult to enter; captured From 1813 counters for future negotiations. mainly held as bargaining and plantation product blockade began to disintegrate the continental had by this time seized control of all European prices rose. Britain --- Page 329 --- Slave Trade Abolition colonies in Asia and Africa, save those The overriding goal of the London belonging to Spain or Portugal. semblance of the old order, and the old government was to restore a while retaining its global predominance. balance of power in Europe, on to all the colonial But this did not mean territory it had taken. clinging consideration a limit had to be set to the Apart from any other colonies in the interests of British colonial acquisition of plantation London government also had to consider the proprietors themselves. The new governments it was hoping would stability and repute of the and Bonapartism. Their bury the memory of Jacobinism deprived of all overseas credibility would certainly be weakened if would have to return some possessions. of the The British Cabinet knew that it Yet to do SO would French colonies that it had occupied. the compound the problems already Portuguese and Spanish governments. experienced with Britain's rulers all agreed that and the majority opted for installation monarchy should be restored in France XVIII. The French of the legitimist - royalists some of candidate, Louis linked to colonial interests them, like Malouet, closely over all former colonial naturally insisted that French sovereignty restored. The British possessions, including *St Domingue', should be Foreign Secretary, agreement to a ban on the slave trade Castlereagh, sought to extract to France of occupied territories. as a quid pro quo for the return Surinam, Curacao and The Netherlands received back renewed slave traffic; the Java Dutch on condition that there would be no the Austrian Netherlands and Netherlands were also reunited with renewal of the long-defunct Dutch disposed to accept that there would be no Bourbon in France slave trade. However, the restored felt that proved more prickly and some concession was in order. The independent. Castlereagh Paris stipulated that first draft of the Treaty of France and that French Martinique and Guadeloupe would be returned to recognised. For a five-year sovereignty over St Domingue would be period the French permitted to restock their plantations colonies were to be which the traffic would by importing cease. Africans, after Publication of the terms of the Treaty of protest in Britain. The Abolition Paris provoked a storm of 1807, transferring Committee had been wound up in abolition to a new responsibility for monitoring implementation of organisation, the was conceived of as little more than African Institution. France and that French Martinique and Guadeloupe would be returned to recognised. For a five-year sovereignty over St Domingue would be period the French permitted to restock their plantations colonies were to be which the traffic would by importing cease. Africans, after Publication of the terms of the Treaty of protest in Britain. The Abolition Paris provoked a storm of 1807, transferring Committee had been wound up in abolition to a new responsibility for monitoring implementation of organisation, the was conceived of as little more than African Institution. The new body and was an auxiliary to the Colonial ill-equipped to wage a campaign Office However, the local abolitionist networks against the peace terms. to mount highly vociferous were still sufficiently vigorous Convinced abolitionists opposition to ratification of the were joined by several treaty. opinion. The British West Indian lobby favoured important sectors of the return of occupied --- Page 330 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery but saw no reason why they should be permitted to colonies to France, certainly felt some obligation not to impose import slaves. Parliament Abolitionist opposition to unequal competition on the British planters. by all those who the Treaty of Paris was also broadly of the supported war and indulgence to the objected to the government's conduct The use of British power and defeated enemy in the peace negotiations. the French monarchy was itself British tax-payers' money to restore reformers. Even less agreeable questioned by a number of middle-class regimes to continue the evident intention of the restored European was merchandise. Neither Louis XVIII in France to raise obstacles to British regard for liberal sensibilities. nor Ferdinand VII in Spain displayed any a continuing slave trade The clauses of the Paris Treaty which envisaged of to the strategy peace-making. helped to focus general antagonism the colonial and slave-trading clauses The British ministers justified that they were calculated "fully to of the Paris Treaty on the grounds and to transform her open to France the means of peaceful occupation, and pacific nation'. and military to a commercial from a conquering rulers their former boundaries and possessions Conceding to France's the French to the end of the Empire and to the would help to reconcile failed to make headway return of the Bourbons. But these arguments declared that Castlereagh against the abolitionist outcry. destruction Wilberforce under the wings of victory; had brought back the angel of of a multitude of innocent the treaty would prove 'the death warrant half a million slaves would be needed victims'. . 29 He estimated that nearly (Haiti), quite apart from just to rebuild the plantations of St Domingue slaves that would be needed to the preceding massacre of former the French slave trade had been recapture it. It was urged that once that it would then brought back it would be foolish to suppose abolitionists received disappear in the time specified. The parliamentary movement. Within two the support of a massive extra-parliamentary denouncing the relevant clauses months 774 petitions had been received of abolitionist petitions had of the Paris Treaty - the previous delegation peak was dispatched to Paris been 509 in 1792. An abolitionist itself to renounce with the object of persuading the French from government Malouet, the new Colonial the slave trade. It met a curt response mean to bind the world?30 Minister, who inquired: 'Do you English in the position of the escape from Elba effected a change Senate Napoleon's During the Hundred Days the Imperial French government. abolition of the French slave trade, possibly itself decreed the formal opinion. When Louis XVIII found hoping to influence British public French throne he deemed it no longer himself once more back on the of the British advisable to ignore the anti-slave trade representations the French representatives Foreign Secretary. At the Congress of Vienna --- Page 331 --- Slave Trade Abolition slave trade to the French colonies would not be agreed that the legalised. also brought back from Vienna an international The British ministers to which all the powers had declaration against the slave trade, had already agreed to a British subscribed. decreed the formal opinion. When Louis XVIII found hoping to influence British public French throne he deemed it no longer himself once more back on the of the British advisable to ignore the anti-slave trade representations the French representatives Foreign Secretary. At the Congress of Vienna --- Page 331 --- Slave Trade Abolition slave trade to the French colonies would not be agreed that the legalised. also brought back from Vienna an international The British ministers to which all the powers had declaration against the slave trade, had already agreed to a British subscribed. The Tsar Alexander the proposal on the matter; though vague as confer to implementation, moral on declaration against the slave trade helped to Sweden prestige and the actions of the authors of the treaty. Spain, Portugal, effective measures France all subscribed to the declaration but took Neverthess no the British their nationals engaging in the traffic. to prevent achieved a notable victory. For its part abolitionists appeared to have bi-lateral discussions undertook to continue the British government and French authorities with a view to with the Portuguese, Spanish Vienna Declaration. Indeed diplomatic making a reality of the slave trade became a staple feature of initiatives against the Atlantic Secretaries found that their British diplomacy. Successive exceeded Foreign that on any other question; a correspondence on this topic created within the Foreign Office special *Slave Trade Department' was the Atlantic and monitor bi-lateral treaties suppressing to negotiate the will to press these to an effective conclusion slave trade. However, the British government signed a treaty with was very uneven. In 1817 the trade north of the equator but left the Portugal which prohibited slave trade in the South Atlantic unscathed. flourishing Luso-Brazilian for complete cessation of the A treaty with Spain in 1817 provided with Britain furnishing compensation Spanish slave trade by 1820, The Spanish and Portuguese payments to the Madrid government. these treaties, especially at governments had little inclination to enforce but the terms of the a time when they feared colonial insubordination, Portuguese or British warships the right to search suspect treaties gave Enforcement of these treaties was to give employment Spanish vessels. of the British Navy, one stationed on the to two sizeable squadrons the Caribbean. Spanish ships accused of African coast, the other in and taken to be judged by 'mixed courts' slave-trading would be seized judge. Slaves found on presided over by a British judge and a Spanish the British authorities in board such vessels were to be delivered up to the authorities in Cuba.31 Sierra Leone or Spanish slave trade diplomacy aroused the resentment From the outset British which it was directed. For a sovereign state to of the governments at an issue of this sort was wounding to bow to foreign pressure on powers to when it meant yielding exceptional national pride, especially the British government a good excuse the Royal Navy. Abolition gave of other Atlantic states of which it often for meddling in the affairs commercial and naval pressures might availed itself. But direct financial, --- Page 332 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery British influence without creating the complications have underwritten Castlereagh and his successors were involved in slave trade diplomacy. opinion. But their efforts to appease anxious not to provoke abolitionist regimes in France, Spain it led them to bully and discredit monarchical weaken. The rulers of these and Portugal which they had no wish to first for allowing the British countries were, in fact, doubly discredited; them and secondly for failing to anti-slave trade treaties upon to impose was strong enough both to resist enforce them. The US government of search' and to take effective measures to British pressure for a right of slaves into its territory. The stance of prevent substantial importation indirectly contribute to a continuation the US government did, however, the US colours could not be seized of the slave trade, since ships 32 flying by the British Navy's patrols. of these and Portugal which they had no wish to first for allowing the British countries were, in fact, doubly discredited; them and secondly for failing to anti-slave trade treaties upon to impose was strong enough both to resist enforce them. The US government of search' and to take effective measures to British pressure for a right of slaves into its territory. The stance of prevent substantial importation indirectly contribute to a continuation the US government did, however, the US colours could not be seized of the slave trade, since ships 32 flying by the British Navy's patrols. the slave trade were SO riddled with International agreements against bad faith, that they completely failed to loopholes, and bedevilled by Atlantic traffic in the years 1815-30. stem a strong recovery in the cross the Americas during this period rose to The numbers of slaves sold in in the last two decades of the equal or exceed those introduced colonies controlled by France were eighteenth century. The remaining of Cuba and Brazil underwent a restocked, while the slave economies virtually disappeared, rapid expansion. Direct British participation slave traders while British British manufacturers still sold to though slave-grown produce. merchants purchased British abolitionism was a dormant force. During the years 1815-23 it had concentrated on the slave During its second wave, 1804-15, intention of pressing for slave trade, explicitly disavowing colonies. any Amidst the enthusiasm of the emancipation in the British MP had gradual of the 1807 Act one young proposed who declared passage by Wilberforce himself emancipation; this was opposed *with anxious expectation to the period that, though he looked forward be liberated', he did not feel that when the negroes might with safety - 33 with most other they were yet "fit . . . to bear emancipation' . Together of the slave trade would abolitionists Wilberforce hoped that the ending condition. Brougham, itself bring about an amelioration of the slaves' on the for 'sound policy', was even more categorical with his concern until the slaves had been imprudence of moving to a 'free negro' system Most abolitionists hoped thoroughly exposed to civilising influences. trade would itself encourage an that the ending of the slave slave-owners to foster improvement in slave conditions, obliging labour force. Wilberforce of their plantation the natural reproduction missionaries for the work was a leading light in the movement to recruit he believed that the inhabitants of the Empire; black of Christianising would be particularly beneficial for the religious instruction --- Page 333 --- Slave Trade Abolition West Indian colonies. A combination of market population of the would improve the slave condition, pressures and Christian principle family life and hard work. of encouraging abolitionists, favoured by the mass campaign The parliamentary measure, a register of the slave 1814-15, did press for one legislative colonies. The aim of such a register populations of the West Indian into the British would be to ensure that slaves were of not births smuggled and deaths. An intercolonies and to monitor the pattern system would ensure that island slave trade was still legal; a registration slaves from Africa. The this was not used as a cover for introduced introducing a register of the slave Colonial Office had already of Trinidad in 1812, but elsewhere in population of the Crown Colony would be needed to establish one. the West Indies an Act of Parliament such bill in 1815 there was a storm of When Wilberforce introduced a They feared that the compilation protest from the colonial assemblies. official interference and might reveal of a slave register would licence that could be used against them. patterns of mortality and fertility diplomacy to While the West Indian interest in Parliament supported registration. Since foreign slave trades, it vigorously opposed he suppress had been led by the second Lord Liverpool; 1812 the government on the grounds that there was no declined to support registration Wilberforce attracted enough support evidence of smuggling. of Parliament such bill in 1815 there was a storm of When Wilberforce introduced a They feared that the compilation protest from the colonial assemblies. official interference and might reveal of a slave register would licence that could be used against them. patterns of mortality and fertility diplomacy to While the West Indian interest in Parliament supported registration. Since foreign slave trades, it vigorously opposed he suppress had been led by the second Lord Liverpool; 1812 the government on the grounds that there was no declined to support registration Wilberforce attracted enough support evidence of smuggling. However, declare that they would institute to induce the colonial assemblies to local registers under their own control. for a Central Register, Wilberforce abandoned the proposal of a major administered by the metropolis, after news was received known as in Barbados in 1816; this Easter rising, slave outbreak in Britain's oldest West Indian slave colony, 'Bussa's rebellion', erupting abolitionists on the defensive. They had argued put the parliamentary who constituted the danger, yet there were that it was raw Africans than other British colony; the rise of fewer Africans in Barbados any diminished the slave trade to this natural reproduction rates had long cent of the slave population by island and creoles comprised 93 per of registration were even more 1816. The parliamentary supporters the debate on their proposal had quite discomforted to learn that the belief that the probably contributed to slave unrest, encouraging slave conditions and was being British Parliament wanted to improve The Barbados rebels prevented from doing SO by the local plantocracy. convinced that the Governor acted with restraint and deliberation, some others that sufficiently a 'free paper' for the slaves, was bringing would break the authority of the planters, as had determined action Domingo). While a dozen or more happened in Mingo (Santo with buildings set alight, only one white plantations were damaged, --- Page 334 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery killed by the rebels. The rebellion was civilian and one black were by the local forces of law and order; suppressed with much bloodshed 70 were executed after capture or 50 rebels were killed in the fighting, summary trial and 132 were surrender, 144 were executed after the naval squadron stationed deported. The rear admiral commanding who could not be restrained by commented: "The Militia, at Barbados the put Many Men, Women and the same discipline as Troops, much Children to Death, I fear without discrimination.3 the of the which naturally dwelt on violence Reports of the uprising, withdraw the Registration Bill but rebels, led Wilberforce not only to Address to the Prince Regent, also himself to sponsor a Parliamentary that there existed no plan for introducing which formally declared Indies. In this way the leading champion of emancipation into the West indefinite continuation of slavery in 'abolition' seemed to confirm the address also the view that the British colonies, though the expressed for. Wilberforce in the slave condition were to be hoped and improvements the advice of Lord Castlereagh in these matters accepted acted on that it would itself introduce a an assurance from the government first secured the consent of the registration measure, after having colonial assemblies.5 of the parliamentary abolitionists The retreat, indeed capitulation, the Barbados revolt but also by a harsh was occasioned not only by which found polarisation of opinion on all political questions, the forces of reaction. Wilberforce, once again, lending his support to had brought further social unrest as demobilisation The advent of peace and the decline of military swelled the ranks of the unemployed downturn. Prices dropped but SO did spending accentuated an economic claimed victims and stimulated discontent. wages, and both movements with heavy annual The national debt had swollen to vast proportions, the peace by voting down interest charges, yet Parliament had greeted taxation and the extra burden on indirect the income tax, loading Corn Laws which helped to keep up the introducing new protectionist there were clashes between price of bread. again, lending his support to had brought further social unrest as demobilisation The advent of peace and the decline of military swelled the ranks of the unemployed downturn. Prices dropped but SO did spending accentuated an economic claimed victims and stimulated discontent. wages, and both movements with heavy annual The national debt had swollen to vast proportions, the peace by voting down interest charges, yet Parliament had greeted taxation and the extra burden on indirect the income tax, loading Corn Laws which helped to keep up the introducing new protectionist there were clashes between price of bread. In these circumstances and vigorous attacks were labourers and employers or magistrates, and aristocracy. made in the radical press on a vicious exploitative events such as the Spa Government and Parliament were horrified by discussed of December 1816, at which plans were openly Fields meeting of all landowners. In 1817 and the expropriation for an armed uprising the Coercion Acts, suspending habeas the government introduced to ban meetings, followed by corpus and giving the government which power further curtailed civic rights. the Six Gag Acts of 1819, despite its unpopularity, from Wilberforce stood by the government, Cabinet support for conviction; he also hoped thereby to maintain --- Page 335 --- Slave Trade Abolition The Peterloo Medal abolitionist diplomacy and for the registration. Even in the 'Humble promised new bill for slave renounced interest in the fate of the Address' Wilberforce had not some future scheme of gradual slaves, nor categorically rejected did introduce a Registration emancipation. In 1818 the government influential colonial interests. Act, which had been cleared with the most climate unsuitable for However, Wilberforce judged the any public ventilation of political Though there was no organised slavery questions. after 1815, it is abolitionist activity for several interesting to note that years resonance in the radical milieu. The anti-slavery ideas still had ists, an early socialist Society of Spencean PhilanthropSpence, had grouping inspired by the doctrines of Spenceans played a leading role in the Spa Fields Thomas advocated support for slave rebellion affair. The tion; one of the leading Spenceans, and slave emancipaof African descent and the son of Robert Wedderburn, a tailor, was The Axe Laid to the Root, which a slave. In 1818 he published universal suffrage. The called for slave emancipation and under the Coercion Acts Spenceans and were amongst those to be Six persecuted was prosecuted for Gag Acts. In 1818 advocating the of Wedderburn at a meeting of the Spencean right slaves to kill their masters a government spy Wedderburn's grouping which he led. According to where the question was 'decided contention in was approved at a meeting favour of the Slave without a --- Page 336 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and enlightened Assembly, who dissenting Voice, by a numerous of another sable Nation exultingly expressed their Desire of hearing of their Christian freeing itself by the Dagger from the base Tyranny their readiness to assist Several declared masters. . . gentlemen convicted and jailed not for them." >36 Wedderburn was eventually emancipation incitement but for blasphemy. A similar revolutionary The Black Dwarf in the pages of the radical newspaper, was proclaimed to the government by Wilberforce and (1819-28). The support given also led radicals to make satirical use other parliamentary abolitionists dozen or SO were killed by militia at a of anti-slavery themes. When a Manchester, in 1819, a radical peaceful demonstration in Peterloo, 'Peterloo Medal' from the melted down paper proposed the making of a demonstrator bugle of the officer commanding, depicting a kneeling 'Am I not a with underneath the following exchange: being cut down, Brother?" No! pages of the radical newspaper, was proclaimed to the government by Wilberforce and (1819-28). The support given also led radicals to make satirical use other parliamentary abolitionists dozen or SO were killed by militia at a of anti-slavery themes. When a Manchester, in 1819, a radical peaceful demonstration in Peterloo, 'Peterloo Medal' from the melted down paper proposed the making of a demonstrator bugle of the officer commanding, depicting a kneeling 'Am I not a with underneath the following exchange: being cut down, Brother?" No! - you are a poor weaver.' Man and a to yield up the anti-slavery cause to Wilberforce was not disposed He was privately troubled by revolutionaries or democratic agitators. had made to the planters the concessions which he and his associates increase the number of convinced than ever of the need to and more with other pillars of the African missionaries in the colonies. Together outlet for his abolitionist Institution Wilberforce found a vicarious activity. He urged the convictions in official and unofficial diplomatic treaties against the slave government to press ahead with bi-lateral for anti-slavery, he trade. Anxious that Haiti should be a showcase Henry and arranged for with King engaged in lengthy correspondence and teachers. Henry was aware that the dispatch there of missionaries French plans against his country in British abolitionism had opposed by Henry's emphasis on religion, 1814 and Wilberforce was gratified Henry sagely considered the hard work, family life and monarchism. Wilberforce also advantages of converting his country to protestantism. and 'Female Improvement'. urged the importance of Sabbath obervance We boast in this country He solemnly informed King Henry: that, speaking of the higher [that is, Britain), not without reason, faithful to their husbands circles, our women are much more generally in Europe; Switzerland and than the ladies of any other 37 country to inform the Haitian Holland perhaps excepted. He was of pleased the court of Britain's royal monarch of the 'unpolluted purity' for Haiti's Republicans family. Wilberforce could muster no enthusiasm it was they who were to though, as will be seen in the next chapter, the Americas. advance in assist the next anti-slavery --- Page 337 --- Slave Trade Abolition Notes The Making of radical mood is evoked in Edward Thompson, For an informative 1. The reawakened Class, Harmondsworth 1968, pp. 491-507. the the English Working structure at this time - of the oligarchy, of Britain's social and political Britain in the Early account classes and the labouring classes - see A.D. Harvey, and workings middle London 1978, especially pp. 6-39 for the composition of Nineteenth Century, for the distribution of the vote and the formation 'public of the 'oligarchy", pp. 39-49 of religious controversies, and PP. 220-29 for the opinion', pp. 64-78 for the impact The rebirth of reform. northern middle-class reform milieu see J.E. Cookson, 2. For an account of the 1982; for the 'Liberal Press' see PP. 84-114. Abolition Friends of Peace, Cambridge Concise Statement of the Question Regarding the 3. Henry Brougham, London A 1804, pp. 61, 62, 77. of the Slave Trade, Slaves in Red Coats, pp. 76-7. of the third volume of the 4. Buckley, situation in the West Indies occupies much Bryan 5. The security Civil and Commercial of the British Colonies by 1801 edition of The History the Chains, P: 365, n. 5 cites some of the war numerous in the Edwards. Craton, Testing One of the most influential and affecting accounts of a Five Years contemporary reports. in these years was J.G. Stedman, Narrative of edn), 1801 (2nd Caribbean published Revolted Negroes of Surinam, London 1796 (1st for the Expedition against the described campaigns of the 1770s with some sympathy to see edn), 1813 (3rd edn); illustrations it by William Blake; little imagination was needed be safer black rebels and fine Brougham's argument that the Caribbean would volume its relevance to the later period. influential and affecting accounts of a Five Years contemporary reports. in these years was J.G. Stedman, Narrative of edn), 1801 (2nd Caribbean published Revolted Negroes of Surinam, London 1796 (1st for the Expedition against the described campaigns of the 1770s with some sympathy to see edn), 1813 (3rd edn); illustrations it by William Blake; little imagination was needed be safer black rebels and fine Brougham's argument that the Caribbean would volume its relevance to the later period. St Domingue is found on p. 119 on the second if Napoleon crushed independent version of Brougham's argument did not include this his passage new of his Inquiry. The pamphlet racial slurs to be found in the larger work. have While diminished or the more egregious would have objected to them, they would not abolitionist allies colonial expert. In later years defenders of slavery republished Brougham's reputation as a Henry Brougham Esq. on Negro Slavery with Remarks, Brougham's views as Opinions of London 1826. Statement of the Question regarding the Slave Trade, pp. 6. Brougham, A Concise had a major impact on parliamentarians but does 43, 48-9. This pamphlet undoubtedly historians of abolition; see Chester New, The Life of not usually receive its due from Oxford 1961, pp. 21-31. Henry Brougham to 1830, and discussed in David Geggus, British Opinion 7. Stephen's pamphlet is quoted Walvin, ed., Slavery and British Society, London and the Emergence of Haiti', in James 1982, p. 141. Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, pP. 344-6. 8. Anstey, The Slave Trade and British Abolition, p. 337. 9. Quoted in Anstey, The Atlantic the Frauds of the Neutral Flags, London 1805, 10. James Stephen, War in Disguise size Or of the foreign slave trade were made without 62-3, 70. Large estimates of the The Atlantic Slave Trade and British pp. challenge in parliamentary debates; see Anstey, modern estimate and the dimensions of 375, n. 36, and p. 376, n. 39. For a Abolition, p. Econocide, pp. 78, 95. the Atlantic sugar trade see Drescher, Slave Trade and British Abolition, PP. 353-6, 358-9. 11. Anstey, The Atlantic Christopher Hibbert, George IV, Prince of Wales, 12. Coupland, Wilberforce, p. 596; London 1972, PP. 185-200. Plan for the forming of an Efficient and Permanent Army', 13. William Cobbett, *A 1806, vol. IX, no. 12, col. 391. Motivating the Cobbett's Political Register, March 22nd, problems, since soon one in need for a large army was not the least of the government's seven adult males was enrolled. IV, Prince of Wales, pp. 220-24. 1968, 14. Hibbert, George The Later Correspondence of George III, Cambridge 15. See A. Aspinal, ed., p. 322. --- Page 338 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and S. Wilberforce, Life of Wilberforce, London 16. Wilberforce is quoted in R.I. 1838, 5 vols, III, pP. 257, 259. Slave Trade and British Abolition, pp. 373-4. 17. Quoted in Anstey, The Atlantic Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, p. 374. 18. Quoted in Anstey, The Life of Wilberforce, III, p. 261. 19. Quoted in R.I. and S. Wilberforce, 218. 20. Quoted in Drescher, Econocide, P. 21. Drescher, Econocide, P. 5 vols, III, pP. 257, 259. Slave Trade and British Abolition, pp. 373-4. 17. Quoted in Anstey, The Atlantic Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, p. 374. 18. Quoted in Anstey, The Life of Wilberforce, III, p. 261. 19. Quoted in R.I. and S. Wilberforce, 218. 20. Quoted in Drescher, Econocide, P. 21. Drescher, Econocide, P. 34. vol. VIII, December 15th 1806-March 4th 22. Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 1807, col. 718-19. Debates, VIII, col. 955. For the geo-military plight of 23. Hansard's Parliamentary Britain and the World, pp. 287-91, and for the domestic Britain at this juncture see Jones, of All the Talents', Britain in the Early Nineteenth conjuncture see Harvey, "The Cookson, Ministry Friends of Peace, P. 182. Century, pP. 170-96, and Debates, VII, col. 999. Cf. Samuel (Wilberforce), Bishop 24. Hansard's Parliamentary William Wilberforce, London 1872, P. 279. of Winchester, The Life of see Thompson, The Making of the English 25. For these two very different reactions The Friends of Peace. The condition of the Working Class, PP. 515-659, and Cookson, that it would be absurd to claim that respect for labouring classes was often SO desperate would have stayed their hand - even supposing, the abolitionist policy of the government The middle-class 'Friends of Peace' were another that is, that they were aware of it at all. abashed that abolitionism had been made into a war matter and may have been somewhat for Yorkshire, despite his general support for Wilberforce continued to be returned who were doing aim. his constituents would have included many farmers, While the war. Of course prices which reigned during the war years. other well from the high agricultural abolition did not produce generalised consensus, it did, a oligarchic sponsorship of credit with the mass of the population and do SO at things being equal, redound to its mobilisation was great and its resources limited. time when its need for ideological and the French Wars, 1793-1815, London 1979, p. 26. Clive Emsley, British Society and the Whig Party, London 1927, pp. 10-13. 8. 160; Arthur Aspinall, Lord Brougham of the Brazilian Slave Trade, Cambridge 1970, P: 27. Leslie Bethell, The Abolition respecting the slave trade and respecting other The treaties between Britain and Portugal but they were negotiated jointly and signed commercial matters were formally separate, the commercial treaty Brazilian tariffs on British on the same day. Under article 9 of ad valorem, while under article 10 the British goods could be no greater than 15 per cent with cases involving British citizens who could appoint special judges to deal government came into conflict with local laws. Cuidad de la Habana a las Cortes', July 20th 1811, in 28. "Representacion de la la Historia de Cuba, vol. I, Havana 1971, pp. Hortensia Pichardo, ed., Documentos para David Murray, The Odious Commerce, 219-52. For the background to this see of anti-slavery in the mainland revolutions will Cambridge 1980, pp. 50-71. The progress be considered in the next chapter. 152-3; see also Drescher, "Two Variants of 29. Quoted in Drescher, Econocide, pp. Anti-Slavery, Religion and Reform, p. 47. Anti-Slavery', in Bolt and Drescher, eds, 396-7. See also Betty Fladeland, 30. Quoted in Coupland, Wilberforce, of Europe', PP. Journal of Modern History, XXXVII, 'Abolitionist Pressures on the Concert 1966, pp. 355-73. of the Brazilian Slave Trade, pp. 18-20; Murray, The 31. Bethell, The Abolition 72-92. in Drescher, Econocide, pp. Anti-Slavery, Religion and Reform, p. 47. Anti-Slavery', in Bolt and Drescher, eds, 396-7. See also Betty Fladeland, 30. Quoted in Coupland, Wilberforce, of Europe', PP. Journal of Modern History, XXXVII, 'Abolitionist Pressures on the Concert 1966, pp. 355-73. of the Brazilian Slave Trade, pp. 18-20; Murray, The 31. Bethell, The Abolition 72-92. Men and Odious Commerce, pp. negotiations is traced in Betty Fladeland, 32. The failure of Anglo-US Co-operation, Chicago 1972, pp. 112, 117-24. Brothers, Anglo-American Anti-Slavery slave trade are explored by David Eltis, "The British 2nd The dimensions of the continuing Century Slave Trade', Economic History Review, Contribution to the Nineteenth 11-27. series, vol. XXXII, no. 2, 1979, The Great pP. White Lie, pp. 127-8. in 33. Quoted in Gratus, 261-2; see also Hilary Beckles, Black Rebellion 34. Craton, Testing the Chains, pp. Barbados, Bridgetown 1984, pp. 86-8. Revolts? The Late Slave Rebellions in the British 35. Michael Craton, "Proto-Peasant --- Page 339 --- Slave Trade Abolition West Indies', Past and Present, no. 85, November 1979, pP. 99-125, P. 108; Coupland suggests that Wilberforce's willingness to defer to the government reflected anxiety at the domestic situation, Wilberforce, pp. 406, 459. 36. Quoted in Fryer, Staying Power, p. 223. For Wedderburn see lain McCalman, Anti-Slavery and Ultra Radicalism in Early Nineteenth Century England', Slavery and Abolition, vol. 7, no. 2, September 1986, pp. 99-117. Thomas Spence's lecture of 1775, mentioned in ch. 1, was republished in 1793 as The Real Rights of Man and again in 1796 in The Meridian Sun of Liberty. 37. Quoted in Gratus, The Great White Lie, pp. 133-4. --- Page 340 --- --- Page 341 --- IX Spanish America: Independence and Emancipation The sansculottes of France Have made the world tremble But the shirtless ones of America Will not be far behind. The American Carmagnole (1810) Among us there are no sansculottes El Patriota de Venezuela (1810) Hear, oh mortals! the sacred Freedom, freedom, freedom! cry: Hear the noise of broken chains; See the throne of Equality the noble. Argentine national anthem (1813) For a long time the Peruvian, dragged the ominous chain; oppressed, condemned to cruel serfdom, For a long time he moaned in silence. But as soon as the sacred cry of Freedom! was heard on his coasts he shakes the indolence of the slave, he raises his humiliated head. Peruvian national anthem (1821) --- Page 342 --- HAITI VENEZUELA COLOMBIA 1811,1813,1816 EQUADOR PERU BOLIVIA ARGENTINA CHILE 1000 miles yP The Independence Struggle in Spanish South America --- Page 343 --- Spanish America agreed upon at the Congress of Despite the abolitionist proclamation of monarchical and colonial rehabilitaVienna in 1815 the programme of the Congress's work, which formed the substantive part those tion, France, Denmark and the Netherlands returned to Spain, they had lost control as a direct or American slave colonies over which Wars. Colonial slavery was indirect consequence of the Napoleonic were the restored rights of recognised and upheld by the Congress as Portugal, France and the monarchies of Spain, the various metropolitan consented to a formal ban on the Netherlands. agreed upon at the Congress of Despite the abolitionist proclamation of monarchical and colonial rehabilitaVienna in 1815 the programme of the Congress's work, which formed the substantive part those tion, France, Denmark and the Netherlands returned to Spain, they had lost control as a direct or American slave colonies over which Wars. Colonial slavery was indirect consequence of the Napoleonic were the restored rights of recognised and upheld by the Congress as Portugal, France and the monarchies of Spain, the various metropolitan consented to a formal ban on the Netherlands. All these powers were a few years Atlantic slave trade, but Spain and Portugal the permitted ban came into force; restock their plantation colonies before to the Iberian powers nor France took the steps subsequently neither illegal traffic. The United States necessary to suppress a continuing slave but failed to concert implemented its own ban on imports the clandestine traffic to other with Britain for the ending of measures of the wartime commercial blockades reopened territories. The ending markets for plantation produce; the the European and North American the largest supplier, gave extra elimination of St Domingue, recently scope to planters elsewhere. colonial slavery of 1815 were But the prospects for the restored epoch, by doubts concerning clouded by memories of the revolutionary reaction and, most of the regimes of monarchical the viability of the liberation movements in Spanish immediately, by the challenge had been shattered by Napoleon's America. The Spanish Empire war. Prior to 1808 the invasion of the Peninsula and the subsequent to the revolutionary Spanish American colonies had been unresponsive and their local allies had appeals of the age. The imperial internal authorities unrest and to keep contraband been strong enough to contain authorities had been forced level. The imperial down to an acceptable such as that of Tupac Amari in 1780-82, to suppress Indian uprisings, in Venezuela in the 1790s, or slave such as those or conspiracies, such as in the revolt of parts of New popular resistance to new taxes, 1808 the structure of empire itself Granada in the 1780s, but prior to patriot Miranda led an had been almost unchallenged. The Venezuelan even in a province with a invasion in 1806 but attracted little support defiance. On the one hand, the tradition of contraband and political Peru and Mexico supported a revenues from the silver mines of Upper the other the creole elite strong apparatus of metropolitan control; on on the imperial to move because of its dependence had been unwilling its fear of the mass of Amerindians, mestizos, infrastructure and mulattos and blacks. --- Page 344 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery commercial restrictions and the interruptions of war The relaxation of and ranchers to buy slaves and had allowed Spanish American planters of late colonial Spanish expand their operations. The slave proprietors in the British or French America were not absentees, unlike SO many better placed to defend West Indies, and were thus in some respects in Mexico and Slavery was, it is true, marginal their slaveholdings. in most of Spanish Central America and still a secondary of presence regions there were nearly as South America in 1810, but in a number outside the mountainous free people of African descent as slaves; often many free and enslaved blacks and people of colour Andean region in the social formation. Large-scale possessed strategic significance flourished in Cuba, where the cultivation of plantation slavery now around 200,000 slaves by the second sugar and coffee helped to employ the smaller island of Puerto Rico had decade of the nineteenth century; whom worked on plantations. The two 17,500 slaves, about half of strongpoints on the route island colonies were traditionally Spanish in the next chapter. Mainland back to Spain; their fate is considered slaves, but slavery was a Spanish America contained about 225,000 labour. Outside the diffuse and secondary form of property or landowners did not, enclaves in Venezuela and Peru the great in slave plantation have their principal wealth invested like Caribbean planters, them did own a few slaves, whom they valued as crews. nineteenth century; whom worked on plantations. The two 17,500 slaves, about half of strongpoints on the route island colonies were traditionally Spanish in the next chapter. Mainland back to Spain; their fate is considered slaves, but slavery was a Spanish America contained about 225,000 labour. Outside the diffuse and secondary form of property or landowners did not, enclaves in Venezuela and Peru the great in slave plantation have their principal wealth invested like Caribbean planters, them did own a few slaves, whom they valued as crews. But many of trusted agents. Slaves had always been servants, craftsmen or even America; the dueno de esclavos had status prized possessions in Spanish of Any man with a white or pale as well as a valuable piece America property. could aspire to be a gentleman complexion in Spanish who owned a slave was a senor, a lord and master. (hidalgo); a man America there may have been between 10,000 In Mexico and Central and the more numerous free and 20,000 slaves; these slaves, artisans, or descendants of slaves, were found as foremen port-workers, and labourers on the domestics in the principal towns, or as both to buy and to or in the mines. Slaves were expensive other plantations the cost of living was high. In Mexico as in parts maintain, since sometimes placed in positions of trust of Spanish America slaves were of those who worked the silver and responsibility. The great majority high wages. In the major urban mines were free labourers earning quite blacks, mulattos and mestizos than centres there were many more free the future Colombia, there were slaves. In New Granada, concentrated roughly in the port towns or the gold 45,000 slaves in 1778, Slaves about 5 per cent of workings of the Choco and Cauca. comprised this time, though their the total population of the Viceroyalty at workings became less numbers may have declined as the gold in New Granada, though profitable; a number of the 368,000 mestizos --- Page 345 --- Spanish America in the main ethnically ancestry. There were about Indo-European, would have had some African 5,000 slaves in the (Ecuador) - principally concentrated, like the Presidency of Quito around Guayaquil. In the free blacks, on the coast many as 87,000 slaves out Captaincy of a total General of Venezuela there were as moreover there were population of 900,000 in thought to be 24,000 1800; pardos of partly African descent in this fugitive slaves and 407,000 slaves were concentrated in the latter province. The Venezuelan region and constituted the cacao groves of the central coastal Spanish South America. largest enclave of plantation In Chile in 1812 there economy in 10,000-12,000 slaves, while the free blacks, were said to be comprised a little over 3 per cent of the numbering 25,000-32,000, some 40,000 slaves working in the population. In Peru there were region, where they towns and plantations of the coastal free blacks and mulattos comprised at least a quarter of the population, with descent were believed to be being better equally numerous: those of African Few free or enslaved blacks adapted to the more humid lowlands. 2 there economy in 10,000-12,000 slaves, while the free blacks, were said to be comprised a little over 3 per cent of the numbering 25,000-32,000, some 40,000 slaves working in the population. In Peru there were region, where they towns and plantations of the coastal free blacks and mulattos comprised at least a quarter of the population, with descent were believed to be being better equally numerous: those of African Few free or enslaved blacks adapted to the more humid lowlands. where most of Peru's were to be found in the Andean Presidency of Charcas population of over a million was to be region, in Upper Peru (Bolivia) found, The working mainly as domestics or artisans contained 4,700 slaves La Paz. In the region of Rio de la or on estates in the vicinity of 30,000 slaves comprised about Plata and its hinterland at least population of free blacks and a tenth of the sparse population; the slavery of the La Plata mulattos was of the same size. The entrepôt in the traffic between region derived from its historic role as an notably Charcas with its Africa and Spanish South mines; the slaves were America, artisans, porters, muleteers and estate workers.1 employed as domestics, In the last decades of the Spanish sometimes looked to the free black empire the imperial authorities World as a potential or mulatto population of the New with their autonomist counterweight to the white Spanish Americans 1762 the creole elite had aspirations. When the British seized Havana in settled down put up only a feeble resistance to trading briskly with the and had soon delivered a shock to the colonial authorities occupiers. This episode had look increasingly to free blacks and mulattos and encouraged them to The newly created or expanded coloured as recruits to the militia. to the metropolitan militia units were subordinate junior officers. All free regulars, blacks with some men of colour appointed as negros, which would draw were required to register with the caja de Madrid issued a up a roster of militia new code governing the service. In 1789 on the racial caste system. New condition of slaves and bearing politan attempt to regulate World planters disliked this metrono effective slavery, even though it was invigilation Or sanction. The accompanied by system of racial caste --- Page 346 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery office-holding and legal privileges, which governed tax exemptions, of those free blacks and mulattos who rights, was also relaxed in favour their disabilities. In law could afford to purchase certificates suspending from wearing Spanish dress. those of mixed blood were barred even in 1795 when the The native white criollos of Caracas allowed complained pardos (free mulattos) to instrument known as gracias al sacar of strategically vital purchase the privileges of whiteness. In a number Buenos Aires - free Lima, imperial centres - Havana, Mexico City, of the militia forces mulattos and blacks comprised a third or more of the authorities by the turn century.? available to the colonial authorities on some pardos The favours bestowed by the imperial with and free blacks did not threaten slavery and were quite compatible made to indeed the value of the concessions a modified caste system; in which people of colour did not, as individuals depended on a context did such dent the of right, enjoy full citizenship. Nor especially assumptions if noble and distant, traditional view that Indian ancestry, Some Indian caciques had than black ancestry. was more acceptable and could claim legal immunities. For a white received titles of nobility involved loss of caste, and in some to marry a black or mulatto the other hand, in the early days of instances was legally prohibited; on to marry the daughter of a had been happy the Conquest Spaniards blacks and mulattos, cacique. Most 'pure' Indians kept to themselves; side with the whites, usually whether free or enslaved, lived side by by the latter. Caste performing the more menial tasks disdained order; they were matched by divisions helped to constitute the imperial and exemptions, extended to a complex set of corporate privileges bodies, militia units and ecclesiastical municipalities, professional Spanish officials, impatient of institutions. instances was legally prohibited; on to marry the daughter of a had been happy the Conquest Spaniards blacks and mulattos, cacique. Most 'pure' Indians kept to themselves; side with the whites, usually whether free or enslaved, lived side by by the latter. Caste performing the more menial tasks disdained order; they were matched by divisions helped to constitute the imperial and exemptions, extended to a complex set of corporate privileges bodies, militia units and ecclesiastical municipalities, professional Spanish officials, impatient of institutions. The more 'enlightened' selectively to relax and particularism, were willing creole privileges caste discrimination. slaves to be introduced to the New World Spain had allowed African territories and to plug gaps to strengthen its hold on newly conquered of the liberation struggles this was in the fabric of empire; on the eve free blacks in Spanish America, who still the role of some slaves and the lines of communication, were found in the towns, and along domestics. The last decades of the working as artisans, labourers first and of the nineteenth, witnessed a eighteenth century, and the years free waged workers, supplemented new rise of silver output, mined by forced labour. However, in in Peru by the mita system of communal of the free workers of the mining zone Mexico a significant proportion since African slaves had in former times were of partly African descent, of the mining work-force. Only in New comprised a quarter or a third for gold slaves engaged in mining - in this case panning Granada were --- Page 347 --- Spanish America The numbers still employed in the in the river valleys of the South-east. the end of the eighteenth century, with gold workings had dropped by were not sufficiently good to mine owners finding that the deposits of maintaining a large slave labour justify the trouble and expense Granada slaves, former slaves, or their force. In this part of New to the land allotted descendants, often clung on as tenants or squatters to them for their subsistence. America agriculture was organised by In most parts of Spanish slaves were In the where few or no employed. haciendas or ranches Indians furnished the bulk regions of settled agriculture the subjugated cattlemen worked labour force; free mestizo or pardo of the dependent there were a few sugar plantations the ranches. În most provinces found in Tucuman catering to the local market - such as those mainly coastal Peru, or the basin of Cuernavaca (central Mexico) in these (Argentina), the proportion of slaves late colonial period - but by the had declined and the main labour force patriarchical establishments of partly African descent. were dependant peones of the Empire were established in the major The historic strongpoints and the Andes, and in the Caribbean along the mining zones of Mexico the metropolis. In these areas the impulse lines of communication with movements were to be was stifled. The independence to independence ranchers and planters were more vigorous in areas where slaveholding New Granada and the Pacific to be found: the River Plate, Venezuela, South America there was a sizeable coast lowlands. In the backlands of engaged in ranching fugitive slave and free black or mulatto population, where there were few and subsistence agriculture. These were areas of mixed blood, mestizos Indians but many partly Hispanicised Indian people and white), pardos (black and (usually meaning a mixture of white), and zambos (Indian and black). had always beckoned to slave The vast interior of the continent South American backlands was not runaways and rebels. Survival in the North America, whose Western easy but probably not as difficult as in and warlike Indian nations. In grasslands were dominated by powerful concentrated in the province of Venezuela slave-based development limited was and modified by the possibility of Caracas and even there it was agricultural zone did not to the interior; slaves in the commercial escape but were assigned quotas and required work in gangs under supervision of the cash crop to their owner. (Indian and black). had always beckoned to slave The vast interior of the continent South American backlands was not runaways and rebels. Survival in the North America, whose Western easy but probably not as difficult as in and warlike Indian nations. In grasslands were dominated by powerful concentrated in the province of Venezuela slave-based development limited was and modified by the possibility of Caracas and even there it was agricultural zone did not to the interior; slaves in the commercial escape but were assigned quotas and required work in gangs under supervision of the cash crop to their owner. Venezuelan to deliver given quantities significant work autonomy to the slave, agricultural slavery conceded punish those who failed to make the though mayorales would severely cacao on their conucos or required deliveries. Some slaves even grew administrators other garden plots. While some slaves became estate degrees into manumitted slave cultivators might convert themselves by --- Page 348 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery lent an extra resilience to slavery in tenants. These arrangements in slave-owners a boldness Venezuela and possibly encouraged of the 1770s. The 1795 slave reminiscent of the Virginian planters of Coro was a rare instance of open rebellion in the western province and had been quite swiftly and organised contestation of slavery, rebels, free men of colour as well as defeated, with some three hundred Coro itself was to be a centre of royalist slaves, losing their lives. While the central zone around Caracas, strength in the independence period produced the development was concentrated, where most plantation first republican attempts." South America slave resistance and flight, In most parts of Spanish forms of dependent labour, had checked and the availability of others together with the relative the emergence of large-scale slavery; had helped to produce the frequency of manumission, slave escapes The last quarter growth of a free or fugitive black or pardo population. of the number of the eighteenth century had witnessed a multiplication South America, slave settlements, in mainland of palenques, or fugitive New Granada; in Peru and Rio de la Plata especially in Venezuela and the former estates in the 1760s there had been slave revolts on Jesuit owners. Insecure when these had been sold off to new and 1770s inimical to large-scale slavery but they conditions in the backlands were of personal bondage, as with surviving pockets were quite compatible the protection of powerful hacendados or vulnerable individuals sought the urban rich and large caudillos. In the more central regions slaves whom they would landowners or ranchers would own some employ as domestics or managers (mayordomos). and middle class resented metropolitan patronThe creole aristocracy Peninsulares received a disproportionate age and trade restrictions. influential posts; in law Spanish officeshare of the most lucrative or creoles in their regions of holders were barred from marrying creoles were co-opted into the jurisdiction. While some aristocratic membership of municipal structures of imperial government, or enjoyed imposed by Madrid bodies with real powers, the policies and personnel local elite. Comercio libre self-confident easily offended an increasingly trade with the colonies but left in allowed any Spanish merchants to raising the prices of all manufactured place a metropolitan monopoly, The white creoles found even the less imports for Spanish colonists. and officious. By the late colonial privileged gachupines to be grasping was unable to absorb without period the traditional caste structure layers between the Peninsular strain the growth of large intermediary --- Page 349 --- Spanish America and white creoles on the one hand and the subjugated Indians Indian, Spaniards the other. The so-called castas, those of mixed or blacks on comprised an ever larger proportion of European and African ancestry, and mulattos were partly Hispanicised in the population. The mestizos education would be in competition for culture and those with skills or since pardos were prone to be jobs and privileges with local whites; they offered to white somewhat more Hispanicised the The competition latter were still known as espanoles creoles was that much stronger. the term criollos thought of themselves as Americans; but increasingly with them since it could imply mixed blood. was less popular century there were only about At the beginning of the nineteenth native whites out of a total 160,000 Peninsulares and 3 million America. Hispanicised in the population. The mestizos education would be in competition for culture and those with skills or since pardos were prone to be jobs and privileges with local whites; they offered to white somewhat more Hispanicised the The competition latter were still known as espanoles creoles was that much stronger. the term criollos thought of themselves as Americans; but increasingly with them since it could imply mixed blood. was less popular century there were only about At the beginning of the nineteenth native whites out of a total 160,000 Peninsulares and 3 million America. While there were population of about 14 million in Spanish the diverse but semi6-7 million living in Indian 4-5 communities million, were more numerous than Hispanicised castas, numbering of the population the whites and were growing steadily as a proportion 4 Spanish power and the as a result of inter-marriage and acculturation." controlled, contained and imperial society of orders more communities, easily with their recognised accommodated the Indian village of castas found both in caciques, than the free-floating population the backlands. When the imperial centres and in newer commercial by the creole aristocracy they would appeal authorities were challenged Indian communities, with their both to pardos and to the loyal themselves put at risk the privileged caciques, but in doing SO they ultimate coherence of the imperial order. were not The first tentative steps towards autonomy or the independence Napoleonic invasion. made until the metropolis was paralysed internal by opposition until its The empire did not encounter serious and impotent. The creole aristocracy metropolis was already occupied than a after 1776, America waited for more generation of Spanish restrained by fear of the Indians and the castas partly because it was because mining, the most dynamic economic beneath them and partly and could sustain an imperial bureaucracy sector, both depended upon and military establishment. invasion of Spain in 1808 Napoleon captured Prior to the French him to abdicate in favour of Joseph the Spanish monarch and persuaded the invaders was co-ordinated by a Bonaparte. For a time resistance to the Bourbon abdication and central junta which refused to recognisé advances in 1809-10 dispersed accepted alliance with Britain. French all of the kingdom to organise the junta and forced it to appeal to retreated parts to the enclave around their own resistance. Loyalist forces which continued to claim jurisdiction Cadiz; the council based on Cadiz, attentive to the interests of this over Spanish America, was naturally --- Page 350 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Liberals gained the upper hand in Cadiz - historic monopoly entrepôt. convoked the Cortes and they established a constitutional regency, America was given elaborated the constitution of 1812. Spanish resident peninsurepresentation but not in proportion to population; blood. Some Mexican lares were to vote but not those with African which aimed to keep creole delegates opposed these arrangements, minority. These same delegates representations in a permanent liberals responded by advocated the ending of slavery; some Spanish failed, but abolition of the slave trade. All such proposals proposing created a stir none the less. the municipalities of the News of the events in Spain encouraged into their own hands. The Spanish American provinces to take their fate the French and were not American juntas had nothing to fear from To with the Spanish disposed to defer to the Liberals in Cadiz. begin to uphold the declared that their aim was simply American juntas VII, pending his restoration. These juntas legitimate rights of Fernando though those were based in the first instance on existing institutions, trade usually convoked a which aspired to self-government or freer men in the province. In some cabildo abierto or meeting open to leading creole interests with autonomist cases the juntas were dominated the by colonial establishment concerned pretensions; in others members of to defend metropolitan interests of the predominated. the Spanish disposed to defer to the Liberals in Cadiz. begin to uphold the declared that their aim was simply American juntas VII, pending his restoration. These juntas legitimate rights of Fernando though those were based in the first instance on existing institutions, trade usually convoked a which aspired to self-government or freer men in the province. In some cabildo abierto or meeting open to leading creole interests with autonomist cases the juntas were dominated the by colonial establishment concerned pretensions; in others members of to defend metropolitan interests of the predominated. Bourbon dynasty was, in itself, an The defence of the rights establishment in Havana, eminently conservative cause. The imperial the autonomist Peru and Mexico proved sufficiently strong to contain without a stiff struggle impulse of the colonial population, though in the not case of Cuba. In Peru and in Mexico and significant concessions memories of the great Indian uprising Upper Peru there were still lively and this helps to explain the ease with of Tupac Amaru in the 1780s control there. In Havana a prowhich Spanish officials retained a free Negro, was swiftly independence conspiracy led by Juan Aponte, of trade restrictions by suppressed; on the other hand, the flouting by Spanish officials. Cuban merchants and hacendados was ignored Gran Colombia concentration of slaves in mainland Spanish Venezuela, with the largest battle ground in the first phase of the America, was to be the principal of developments in Spain led to the independence struggle. The news in Caracas in April 1810. emergence of a creole-dominated junta its in July Venezuela became the first province to declare influence independence in Caracas of a 1811. This declaration reflected the growing --- Page 351 --- Spanish America Patriot Club, drawing support from the letrados and aristocrats; this was younger generation of creole the pioneer of Spanish American patronised by Francisco de Miranda, as a French revolutionary independence who, after winning fame against Spain and urged Wilberforce general in 1792, had conspired with Pitt American to use his influence to independence. The imperial support weaker than in Mexico and Peru while establishment the in Caracas was enriched itself by the practice of creole aristocracy had long imperial authority. Even if the contraband and the defance of command universal assent within project the of independence did not Venezuelan Republic strove to make itself creole oligarchy, the new leaders sought to offer a new freedom acceptable to it. Republican landowners and new and security to the middle class. They decreed opportunities to frustrated members of the creole large plantation zone and that a National Guard would ensure the patrol the and pardos. A projected franchise continuing subordination of the slaves recognised the wealthy based on property holdings Members of Venezuela's proprietors as the true rulers of the country. Tavars, Toros, Blancos and leading landowning families the Bolivars, Republic. The Republic's social Machados - lent their support to the on clerical privilege and the conservatism was coupled with attacks Royalist announcement of a ban on the slave South opposition to the Caracas junta was trade. and East in the provinces of Coro, organised to the West, royalist counter-offensive mobilised Maracaibo and Guayana. The support from all those who distrusted the pardo militia and evoked commanders encouraged slave resistance the creole aristocracy; royalist Republicans fell back on an enclave around to patriot slave-owners. The Francisco de Miranda as Dictator. Miranda Caracas and appointed that 2,000 slaves should be enrolled issued a decree to ordering state would compensate their fight for the Republic, while the these slaves would be manumitted. owners; after ten years' military service encountered opposition within the Moderate as it was this decree still overtaken by royalist counter-measures. all those who distrusted the pardo militia and evoked commanders encouraged slave resistance the creole aristocracy; royalist Republicans fell back on an enclave around to patriot slave-owners. The Francisco de Miranda as Dictator. Miranda Caracas and appointed that 2,000 slaves should be enrolled issued a decree to ordering state would compensate their fight for the Republic, while the these slaves would be manumitted. owners; after ten years' military service encountered opposition within the Moderate as it was this decree still overtaken by royalist counter-measures. republican ranks; it was itself soon officials were prepared to back pardo Spanish priests and colonial the creole aristocracy and even to denounce resistance to the pretensions of by patriot proprietors; the threat of servile the mistreatment of slaves show vacillating creole proprietors the insurrection was designed to dance. Royalist commanders folly of republican indepenpatriot slave-owners. The were happy to enroll slaves fleeing from declared that the republican Spanish authorities Archbishop of Caracas, Coll y Prat, them should be resisted; he later claimed and the planters who supported royalist slave revolt. The Archbishop that his statements sparked a indeed the case that several thousand doubtless exaggerated, but it was blacks in the coastal zone --- Page 352 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery they acted in concert with the royalist forces converging acquired arms; necessarily sharing their objective of restoring on Caracas, without Besieged by a motley coalition of opponents, metropolitan authority. broad social base and weakened by a failing to establish a sufficiently Republic collapsed after only a terrible earthquake, the first Venezuelan news of the determination was also sapped by year. Republican liberal 1812 constitution by the Cortes in Cadiz. proclamation of the condition that the persons and property The Republicans capitulated on The restored colonial regime of their supporters would be respected. and the terms of the itself lacked authority or unity of purpose Bands of pardos and escaping capitulation proved difficult to observe. and return to their previous slaves refused to lay down their continued arms to hold out in some areas, condition. Republican forces including along the border with New Granada. led Simon Bolivar, one of the younger republican partisans, In 1813 advance from Cartagena to Caracas. The a daring new republican in January 1814. Bolivar urged that a Second Republic was proclaimed the and overcome 'terrible power' was needed to crush Spaniards leadership, based on republican disunity. Bolivar offered more vigorous the Peninsular accentuating the potential conflict of Americans against the creoles Spanish, and diminishing all sources of division cruel amongst of the themselves. Bolivar met the often arbitrary and repression death' against authorities with the declaration of a 'war to who colonial double standard: any Spaniard Spaniards based on an explicit liable to execution while creoles was refused to give positive support if they had colluded with the Spanish would be treated leniently, even member of the creole authorities. Bolivar was himself a leading sweeping civic equality for aristocracy, but he was willing to proclaim a could birth. But egalitarian proclamations all those of free American of the republican cause with not immediately dispel the identification Second from the fate of the the white creole elite, nor save the Republic to give First. Bolivar did not have the military or political apparatus the column with reality to his social programmes and proclamations; less than a thousand strong. which he had reconquered Caracas was allowed the bands of The clash between Republicans and royalists on their own account, slaves and free-lance pardos to act failed fugitive hoc alliances where necessary. The creole aristocracy making ad behind the Republic but its strength was to throw its united weight forces from appealing to sufficiently imposing to deter the republican the slaves or pardos against it. the support of some of the military The royalists had also attracted llaneros; the republican cause was chiefs of the plains cattlemen, the of the formidable horsemen of doomed unless it could win the support --- Page 353 --- Spanish America had unwisely issued decrees, the the Ilano. The First Republic tidy juridical concepts of ordenanzas del llano, which sought to impose cattle herds of the interior. its united weight forces from appealing to sufficiently imposing to deter the republican the slaves or pardos against it. the support of some of the military The royalists had also attracted llaneros; the republican cause was chiefs of the plains cattlemen, the of the formidable horsemen of doomed unless it could win the support --- Page 353 --- Spanish America had unwisely issued decrees, the the Ilano. The First Republic tidy juridical concepts of ordenanzas del llano, which sought to impose cattle herds of the interior. The private property on the grasslands and felt little in common with llaneros, many of whom were men of colour, the white criollo mantuanos, as the status and property-conscious called. Some of the llanero columns were proprietors of Caracas were such as the legendary royalist led by plebeian Spanish immigrants, Tomâs Morales; Boves was a petty commanders Tomâs Boves and himself as the chief of a large merchant from Andalucia who established the interior and pardos of the coastal force drawn from both llaneros of became one of Boves's principal region; Morales, a Canary Islander, the llaneros was not deeplieutenants. Yet royalist influence caudillos among had no wish to see a strong rooted and many Southern of slave resistance further complicated imperial authority. The eruption had the resources to retain authority in the picture. Some slave-owners there were slaves who thought the main zone of plantation agriculture; or who were unwilling to life safer if they stuck to the cacao groves, who wished to escape had more abandon family attachments, but those slaves roamed opportunities to do SO. Columns of pardos or fugitive the towns and the countryside and would happily plunder slave throughout if they did not always see the need to generalise the rich, even sent the republican forces insurrections. A veritable social explosion victory for the royalist reeling in 1814 and favoured an anomalous mainly llaneros and An irregular armed force of 19,000 men, an cause. at the moment when returned Venezuela to loyalism just pardos, regime was restored in the Peninsula. effective monarchist hostilities in the Peninsula Fernando VII With the ending of veteran troops to bolster suppressed the constitution and despatched Bolivar had withdrawn to New imperial authority in the Americas. the end of 1814 and in the following year Granada (Colombia) towards rethink the strategy of liberation and resailed for Jamaica in order to of independence retreated the republican forces. Other partisans who had group backlands. Pablo Morillo, a Spanish general to the the French, arrived in distinguished himself in the war against monarchical Venezuela with 10,500 troops to reinforce the restored the extent of Morillo was disconcerted by and colonial regime. forces from whom he was to take over. destruction and by the "loyalist' the Republicans had official observed that the war against One Spanish he noted that this experience had produced transformed the pardos: mistaken idea of the feven in the loyal ones (pardos) a very Another wrote: 'the very subordination and duties of the good vassal'. the white class; of Boves, and of Morales, is in rebellion against have army and mulattos refuses to obey; they its total force of negroes --- Page 354 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery pursued several white officers and killed others that the idea of a war of colours has . SO that one can say force was large become widespread." 8 enough to overawe the Morillo's in one of the last engagements with the irregulars. The death of Boves easier for Morillo to establish his Republicans probably made it conquered most of New Granada his authority. against have army and mulattos refuses to obey; they its total force of negroes --- Page 354 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery pursued several white officers and killed others that the idea of a war of colours has . SO that one can say force was large become widespread." 8 enough to overawe the Morillo's in one of the last engagements with the irregulars. The death of Boves easier for Morillo to establish his Republicans probably made it conquered most of New Granada his authority. While he speedily resevere problems in Venezuela itself. Some administration of always confronted were sent to New Granada, while the 19,000 irregular troops to disband. Many former most of the remainder were ordered team up with the remnants royalist of the partisans found that it made sense to The restoration of the old order patriot resistance. caste discriminations and meant the restoration of official over their slaves. This might attempts have to rehabilitate the power of masters many of them also felt the gratified white creole proprietors but administrated heavy hand of Spanish by despised plebian officials repression, often Canary Islands or the Basque or immigrants from the and supplies, resorted to a policy country. of Morillo, acutely short of finances owned by patriots; amongst the 205 wholesale sequestration of estates were 110 cacao groves, 41 haciendas seized from 101 families These estates yielded 912,000 sugar plantations and 29 coffee plantations. 9 a considerable sum pesos to the royal treasury in 1815-16 - of Morillo's though by no means large enough to cover the army. The running or of needs colonial regime and military a quite direct leasing these estates gave the authorities in Venezuela also stake in slavery. The Spanish requests for imposed forced loans and money to the Intendancy in Cuba. sent urgent authority was successfully restored in Though imperial strongly challenged in Peru, the events Mexico, and had not been disrupted the mining of 1808-14 had The complex economy and the flow of silver across the completely arrangements for the extraction, Atlantic. specie were difficult to reassemble; transport and taxation of was appallingly bad. In the meantime security whether on land or at sea fiscal crisis and Spanish commanders the empire was afflicted by severe which could only narrow the basis of their were driven to extortionate levies General of Cuba, with its flourishing local support. The Captaincy of armed conflict, was in a more fortunate plantation economy and absence of refuge for royalist émigrés and a base for position. It served as a place on the mainland. The loyalty of the Cuban the resupply of the forces 1817 and 1818 by suspension of the oligarchy was encouraged in development was favoured by the tobacco monopoly; plantation year and by a decree which import of 10,000-20,000 slaves a freely alienable landed converted traditional encomiendas into remitting large sums of cash property. The Havana authorities to the began with the rapid advance of Cuba Spanish authorities on the mainland; plantation slavery acquired a new --- Page 355 --- Spanish America American empire and could not be importance in the pattern of Spanish were to the wall Spanish tampered with. 10 When their backs slaves and offer them eventual commanders were still prepared to arm could not afford any manumission. But they knew that the empire And of course the ultrageneral policy of slave emancipation. attracted to abolitionism as an monarchists in Madrid were not of Spain's humane slave code. ideology, though they might be proud of Tierra Firme received support After their two defeats the Republicans from a very different Caribbean source. Bolivar that a more radical and The reverses of 1811-15 persuaded decisive military measures, coherent social programme, as well as more with success. them eventual commanders were still prepared to arm could not afford any manumission. But they knew that the empire And of course the ultrageneral policy of slave emancipation. attracted to abolitionism as an monarchists in Madrid were not of Spain's humane slave code. ideology, though they might be proud of Tierra Firme received support After their two defeats the Republicans from a very different Caribbean source. Bolivar that a more radical and The reverses of 1811-15 persuaded decisive military measures, coherent social programme, as well as more with success. needed if the liberation struggle was to be re-engaged to were he approached in Jamaica were not prepared The British authorities for an invasion of the see the colony used as the launching-pad the of Haiti. This mainland and SO Bolivar moved to Republic the cause had option itself reflected the support republican and significant layer of free-lance traders corsairs, attracted from a cosmopolitan in Haiti. Patriot privateers based on many of them with contacts and La Guaira, had caused great Cartagena, the island of Margerita The corsair captains included damage to Spanish sea communications. and Jean-Baptiste Bideau, Louis Brion, Renato Beluche, Louis Aury While these men cultivated formerly an adjutant to Victor Hugues. with a high proportion of contacts in republican Haiti their crews, of the kept alive the rough and ready egalitarianism blacks or pardos, This was a milieu with its own political "brethren of the coast'. of any type of private weaknesses but it was not one deeply the respectful good offices of Brion, Bolivar property, let alone slavery. Through in relaunching the independence appealed to President Pétion for help struggle in Venezuela. the of Haiti Bolivar was In appealing for support to and Republicans taboos of his class. On arrival rejecting the deep-seated prejudices immediate access to the President. Bolivar in Haiti Bolivar was given roll back the royalist offensive and outlined to Pétion his plans to substantial help to liberate the continent. Pétion was prepared undertake to give to free the slaves in Bolivar but only if the Venezuelan would Slave emancipation would all the lands he liberated. Bolivar agreed. identity; it would facilitate American help to assert a new Spanish and mulattos the reassurance that the recruitment and give free blacks from people of colour. The taint of slavery would be removed effort to revive the assembled by Bolivar represented a major for expedition seven ships, arms and ammunition republican cause: it comprised number of Haitian military men, los 6,000 men, a printing press, and a the first of several expeditions franceses as they were called. This was --- Page 356 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and to the coast and islands of from Haiti bringing men supplies Venezuela. 11 of manumission and Bolivar henceforth adopted a policy military his civilian and military urged a more general emancipation policy authorities on still had pardo militias colleagues. For their part the Spanish former slaves, fought in the regular and as many as 2,000 slaves, or not only to respect the units. But the Spanish commanders were obliged bound by slave-owners but were at least formally rights ofl law-abiding Morillo unsuccessfully asked the the imperial system of racial privilege; discrimination. The republican King for permission to annul all caste acquired a degree of substance commitment to civic equality gradually confirmed in positions of and credibility as mestizos and pardos were republican and command. On the other hand, many the responsibility to welcome into their columns fugitive leaders, while prepared did not feel that they could simply slaves of royalist proprietors, slave-owners. Concern for the rights expropriate. the property of patriot though one slaveholder was to prove a major restraint, of the patriot neutralised, in the case of adult male slaves, by which could be partially of universal liability to military appeal to the republican principle service. and persons of all able-bodied male At a time when the property it was difficult to argue that Patriotcitizens were liable to conscription, in some purely private sphere. If owned male slaves should remain apart to contribute to the liberation every able-bodied citizen was expected And if a man's horse or cattle effort, why should slaves be exempt? . the property of patriot though one slaveholder was to prove a major restraint, of the patriot neutralised, in the case of adult male slaves, by which could be partially of universal liability to military appeal to the republican principle service. and persons of all able-bodied male At a time when the property it was difficult to argue that Patriotcitizens were liable to conscription, in some purely private sphere. If owned male slaves should remain apart to contribute to the liberation every able-bodied citizen was expected And if a man's horse or cattle effort, why should slaves be exempt? his slave? The needs of the struggle could be commandeered, why not dictated obligatory recruitment. against the occupying army frequently allowed proprietors to offer a The republican authorities sometimes be allowed to buy themselves slave as a substitute, just as others might failed to produce enough out of military service. If such procedures simply to impress those who recruits then republican chiefs proceeded from slave-owners of one in had failed to enlist and to demand a levy Masters whose slaves had been five or one in ten of their slave crews. claim from the commandeered in this way could compensation in the form of authorities - the latter was usually given these republican lands. As may be imagined public bonds or title to public the rhetoric with which proceedings were rarely as elevated as nevertheless Republicans celebrated their commitment to anti-slavery; enrolled were consequences. The slaves they did have anti-slavery survived the dangerous promised manumission; perhaps only a minority and very few were ever career of the patriot soldier, but some escaped re-enslaved. resistance had developed in many In Bolivar's absence republican --- Page 357 --- Spanish America territory, under the leadership of local parts of Venezuela's huge interests and regional autoncaudillos strongly committed to regional decrees they found elaborate omy; they ignored or flouted schemes or favourable or unfavourable to inconvenient, whether these were or The arrival of Bolivar's expedition helped to focus slave proprietors. and strategy; however, the revolt and furnish it with a leadership coastal region eventually led strength of the Spanish garrison in the withdraw to the interior Bolivar and the main republican forces to llanero commanders. Bolivar where contact was made with sympathetic decree the liberty of slaves in Caripano used his military authority to some slaves were recruited but the and some other coastal districts; by patriot planters of decrees could subsequently be countermanded Bolivar was to find along the the region. The allies and supporters and Meta were quite disposed to upper reaches of the Orinoco, Apure slaveholders, indeed some of them were challenge the property rights of that all the slaves of Guayana and Apure fugitive slaves. Bolivar decreed slaveholders to contradict were free; in the llanos there were not enough him. in the new balance of Bolivar saw dangers as well as advantages He opposed what he saw as social forces within the republican camp. a regime in which rule by tendencies favouring pardocracia, supposedly whites. General Piar, a prominent the castas would displace rule by charged with insubordination republican pardo, was tried and executed, and against the and encouraging people of colour to organise separately such as Marino, however, equally insubordinate white generals, whites; dealt with. 12 Though Piar had promoted people of were not SO severely to have a more radical anti-slavery colour, he does not seem urged was no doubt policy than did Bolivar. Bolivar's hostility abolitionism, to pardocracia it also can be seen to reassuring to white creoles; like his against any reflect his determination to promote nation-building over and sectional interest, and to stress the antagonism to peninsulares against other social antagonisms. continental vision was joined to the In the years 1818-19 Bolivar's General José Antonio Paez, and they élan of the republican llanero, the power. -slavery colour, he does not seem urged was no doubt policy than did Bolivar. Bolivar's hostility abolitionism, to pardocracia it also can be seen to reassuring to white creoles; like his against any reflect his determination to promote nation-building over and sectional interest, and to stress the antagonism to peninsulares against other social antagonisms. continental vision was joined to the In the years 1818-19 Bolivar's General José Antonio Paez, and they élan of the republican llanero, the power. At the first proceeded to deal hard blows to occupying in February 1819, Congress held by the republican forces, at Angostura for the delivered an address that included a passionate appeal Bolivar also land to the landless. He urged a abolition of slavery; he promised the British model, in which an 'balanced' constitution, supposedly on senate, an would be checked by a hereditary elected legislature the moral of the executive. The independent judiciary and poder commitments would Liberator undoubtedly hoped that his anti-slavery he had visited London in favourably impress the British government; --- Page 358 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Wilberforce by Miranda. The Congress of 1810 and been introduced to but was unenthusiastic about the Angostura elected Bolivar as President and of British constitutional forms. Liberator's espousal of abolition he needed to drive out the Bolivar the authority The Congress gave he could continue with a sweeping policy of Spanish; as commander political leaders refused to military manumission. But Venezuela's of the slaves: such a declare any immediate or general slave-owners emancipation into the royalist camp, policy, they feared, would push of servile and racial revolt, and bring unleash the uncontrollable forces armies than a policy of selective few more recruits to the revolutionary of slaves who manumission. The freeing royalist-owned and controlled the forces of liberation was confirmed, but patriot had fought in and often held positions which planters were entitled to compensation of slaves. enabled them to block, or limit, the conscription Bolivar and Paez pushed back In the year following Angostura major operations in New Spanish power in Venezuela and undertook and by virtue of swift Granada. Bolivar's forces were not large prevailed of pardos and former and bold moves across vast distances: the layer proved more willing to slaves in the liberation army localistic sometimes white creoles. After crossing undertake such operations than the at the battle of Boyaca (August the Andes Bolivar defeated Spanish of Bogota and enabling 1819), opening the path to the viceregal Venezuela capital and New Granada in the him to unite the free territories of forces in New Granada had Republic of Gran Colombia. The patriot without achieving even the maintained a stubborn resistance to first Spain Miranda and then Bolivar had degree of coherence and unity which had established its own semiimposed on Venezuela. Cartagena with the help of the privateers. A patriot autonomous coastal Republic of Antioquia in had been established in the mining region had government the leaders, J.F. Restrepo, promulgated 1813-14 and one of patriot within the patriot ranks and a 'free womb' decree. But divisions forces seem to have deprived this sporadic advances by the Spanish significance. The Patriots of New decree of other than symbolic of Bolivar than to recognise Granada found it easier to unite in support the revolution. The arrival of one of their own number as chief of acclaimed, though there was Bolivar's forces in 1819 was generally manumission. When the some resistance to the policy of military Francisco de Paula columns of Bolivar's Granadan lieutenant, of the Cauca, Bolivar urged Santander, reached the gold mining region but Santander was anxious not on him sweeping military manumission, Bolivar pointed out that the to alienate the proprietors of the region. Bolivar than to recognise Granada found it easier to unite in support the revolution. The arrival of one of their own number as chief of acclaimed, though there was Bolivar's forces in 1819 was generally manumission. When the some resistance to the policy of military Francisco de Paula columns of Bolivar's Granadan lieutenant, of the Cauca, Bolivar urged Santander, reached the gold mining region but Santander was anxious not on him sweeping military manumission, Bolivar pointed out that the to alienate the proprietors of the region. soldiers and if manumitted would slaves made reliable and hardy Making use of bad as identify their own fate with the causa piiblica. --- Page 359 --- Spanish America he argued that if slaves were not allowed to die well as good arguments African element would loom larger in the for their country then the he suggested, in population when the war was over as was happening, the conscription of their Venezuela. However, the slave-owners resisted to use the necessity of war to chattels and Santander remained himself unwilling sought to encourage patriot impose manumission. Bolivar slaves on his own estates, to slave-owners by freeing all the remaining the number of about a hundred, in 1820.13 weakened in 1820 Spanish resistance in South America was greatly refused to embark force gathered at Cadiz when a large expeditionary instead demanded the return of the for the New World and and military dominated the constitution of 1812. Liberal politicians intervention of 1823, which until the French Madrid government VII. The Spanish Liberals had little restored full power to Fernando conflict in America. They gave Spanish grasp of the nature of the the Cortes and offered an armistice to Americans representation in Their ambition was to restore imperial those fighting for independence. of the Spanish forces General Morillo was still in command offered unity. and New Granada. Short of men, Morillo in in Venezuela all blacks and pardos who would fight Spanish citizenship to a truce with the Republicans. his army. As ordered he negotiated and outrage in the Spanish camp. These actions provoked disarray openly to canvass their views. In The truce allowed Republicans controlled by Spain, local authorities Maracaibo, still nominally who had demonstrated support for Spain persecuted a group of pardos and its King. that the Liberals were unwilling to Once it became clear resumed. Spanish The patriot army inflicted a concede independence hostilities forces in June 1821 at Carabobo. A decisive defeat on the Spanish made a contribution to the largely British-recruited Foreign Legion of the northern littoral had been patriot victory. Spanish control destroyed. of Gran Colombia formally adopted a Manumission The Republic of Cicuta in 1821. It also adopted a Constitution Law at the Congress reserved to literate men with property in which full citizenship was the Bolivar implored it to worth 100 pesos. In an address to Congress for Carabobo'. The Manuendorse slave emancipation as a 'reward children born to slave mothers mission Law stipulated that henceforth content of this legislation should be free. However, the emancipationist the emancipados to work for was deferred by clauses which required of eighteen, to reimburse the latter their mother's owner until the age Bolivar urged the Congress for the supposed costs of their maintenance. while allowing not to confine itself to freeing only future generations --- Page 360 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery In deference to this plea the law also the living to languish in bondage. financed by locally administered inheritset up Manumission Boards, the freedom of slaves from their ance taxes, with the power to buy owners. 14 whether the local proprietors would While it remained to be seen the Manumission Law enacted at make effective use of this legislation South American cause with anti-slavery. Cacuta certainly associated the continued to uphold contrast the Liberal authorities in Madrid in By interest. Though they made concessions slavery as a strategic imperial to endorse any measures against many areas they could not afford $3.2 million in the years 1820-23. administered inheritset up Manumission Boards, the freedom of slaves from their ance taxes, with the power to buy owners. 14 whether the local proprietors would While it remained to be seen the Manumission Law enacted at make effective use of this legislation South American cause with anti-slavery. Cacuta certainly associated the continued to uphold contrast the Liberal authorities in Madrid in By interest. Though they made concessions slavery as a strategic imperial to endorse any measures against many areas they could not afford $3.2 million in the years 1820-23. slavery - Cuban remittances ran at solicitious of slaveholder In 1822 Madrid could even appear been more in 1814; it sent its American interests than Fernando VII had delicate institution of slavery should representatives a warning that the was the more necessary since be respected at all costs. This warning abolitionism. A Manumission Law some Liberals did sympathise with ironically enough, a Cuban to the Cortes by, was vainly proposed radical menu peuple of Havana; the same man delegate elected by the unsuccessfuly pleaded for colonial self-government. Spain's forces in New The patriot victory at Carabobo had confined But most of Peru, Granada and Venezuela to a few coastal strongpoints. hands. Republican action Upper Peru and Ecuador remained in Spanish with military operations, against slavery tended to be associated In mobilising for the creating, as they did, a pressure for manumission. heavy Bolivar was forced to order particularly liberation of Ecuador of Colombia, since many llaneros were levies of the slave population far from their native habitat; as always unwilling to follow him SO far toll of the patriot ranks desertions and illness had taken a higher de Sucre Bolivar found a than battle casualties. In José Antonio of the slave-owners. lieutenant willing to brush aside the complaints Revolution in the Southern Cone of the River Plate region faced a less The independence movements than had the liberation forces in Venezuela formidable Spanish power by virtue of their own disparity. The but encountered grave problems had been revealed in 1806-7 when the impulse to creole self-assertion had acquitted itself well in militia, including pardo detachments, British Admiral Popham. In May 1810 a defeating the expedition of the Aires established an autonomous creole-dominated Assembly in Buenos taken over by a radical junta there. After a fierce struggle the junta was --- Page 361 --- Spanish America Rivadavia. One of the ways in which Rivadavia's group faction led by a decree against the slave trade; signalled its ascendancy was to publish forces enjoyed the support of the large the conservative and monarchist of whom had some involvement in merchants of Buenos Aires, many Constituent Assembly enacted the slave trade. In February 1813 a for the children of slave mothers. libertad de vientres, namely freedom 'the children of castas who are born free The sixth article stipulated that until they reach the must remain in the house of their masters the (patrones) liberto was to work without age of twenty'. Until the age of fifteen during the next five and should be paid one peso a month of slaves payment decrees made provision for the education years. Subsequent also decreed that any slaves introduced to and libertos. The Assembly Provinces would be free, a provision that the territory of the United of the caudillos of the interior. This angered the Brazilians and some independence but it was Assembly did not declare for complete that would underpin farcertainly concerned to establish the authority decrees were endorsed at a reaching self-government. The anti-slavery trade measures had been time when it was known that anti-slave wished to establish its proposed to the Cortes at Cadiz. education years. Subsequent also decreed that any slaves introduced to and libertos. The Assembly Provinces would be free, a provision that the territory of the United of the caudillos of the interior. This angered the Brazilians and some independence but it was Assembly did not declare for complete that would underpin farcertainly concerned to establish the authority decrees were endorsed at a reaching self-government. The anti-slavery trade measures had been time when it was known that anti-slave wished to establish its proposed to the Cortes at Cadiz. The Buenos Assembly Aires newspaper put it, to own credentials in this field and, as a moral existence without immortalise the 'first instants of its offending against property rights."' ,16 abolition meant that the condition This cautious method of enacting Aires had not been altered; patriots of the 15,000 or SO slaves of Buenos for having reduced them to a legal urged the slaves to blame Spaniards could really free them, since they had state from which no decree Military necessity led the become another's personal further property. measure with some anti-slavery Assembly to adopt one of slaves and free blacks for implications, namely the conscription armies.' 17 Masters were obliged to sell a service with the revolutionary slaves of military age to the state; on proportion of their male service these involuntary recruits completion of five years' military established Battalions would be legally free. In May 1813 the Assembly slaves conscripted in Buenos 7 and 8, comprised of over a thousand battalions were reinforced by the Aires; in 1816 the coloured of masters. Slave-owners compulsory purchase of 576 slaves Spanish recruit; the service by contributing a slave could avoid military in a militia or guard unit, with only proprietor might then be enrolled destined for the front lines were light, local police duties. The regiments vagabonds or criminals would be hard to fill and not infrequently free blacks drafted into them. Unless they had some powerful protector, That slaves were were vulnerable to arbitrary military recruits impressment. is suggested by a penalty regarded as particularly acceptable --- Page 362 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Spaniards; they were required either to imposed on non-slave-owning $200. 18 buy a slave for the army or to pay to shake off colonial rule but The provinces of the interior were eager as the new that Buenos Aires should not replace Spain were anxious of their commerce. These provinces wished to metropolis and arbiter with the outside world and not suffer dictation regulate their own trade of Buenos Aires. The resistance of the from the merchants and officials and politically heterointerior provinces was both geographically measures of the some caudillos resented the anti-slavery the geneous; others, more responsive to large pardo Assembly of 1813, further. The gaucho leader Artigas first population, proved willing to go of autonomous states and then led urged the need for a federation and of the portenos. Artigas and his armed defiance of both Spain (nucleus of the future Uruguay) followers in the Banda Oriental in 1817 they maintained their independence with great with difficulty; British consular officials. reached a separate commercial agreement the support of Artigas was himself a caudillo who originally enjoyed But in the course of fellow estancieros, the large cattle-ranchers. taxation of the wealthy sustaining his challenge he proposed swingeing than that adopted and a more radical approach to slave emancipation by the Congress of 1813. issued by Artigas in 1815 proclaimed the The Reglamento provisorio and the distribution of land to all those confiscation of royalist property including the mulattos and former willing to work it, specifically slaves. the support of Artigas was himself a caudillo who originally enjoyed But in the course of fellow estancieros, the large cattle-ranchers. taxation of the wealthy sustaining his challenge he proposed swingeing than that adopted and a more radical approach to slave emancipation by the Congress of 1813. issued by Artigas in 1815 proclaimed the The Reglamento provisorio and the distribution of land to all those confiscation of royalist property including the mulattos and former willing to work it, specifically slaves. A contemporary noted: considerable fermentation has been excited amongst the There is no doubt a and it is extremely probable very many of them slaves by his proclamations, The general feeling amongst people of will escape and join his this army. side of the River Plate but also on the opposite property, not only on although considerable, is entirely one, is against Artigas, whose of popularity, the community." 19 confined to the lower orders pursued by Artigas led the Portuguese authorities The radical approach with the forces of Buenos Aires against him. Other in Brazil to combine failed to support him and he was eventually caudillos of the interior in 1820. obliged to withdraw, defeated, to Paraguay Artigas had fought nourished a However, the vigour with which the military in Buenos sense of American independence and impressed the revolution to whose leaders had repeatedly failed to extend Aires, to the Portuguese in the struggle Upper Peru and who had given ground Provinces' of the River Plate. The the misnamed "United to maintain declared their independence until 1816 and United Provinces had not defensive posture, resisting royalist stuck in a mainly were subsequently --- Page 363 --- Spanish America remained from Upper Peru. So long as Spanish power of expeditions Andes the of the fractious provinces entrenched in the independence could they have much hope of the River Plate could not be secure, nor recovering land lost to royalist Brazil. consolidate American indepenThe forces and strategy needed to the Spanish forces in Peru, dence in the south, and to advance upon leader of the Army of the were assembled by General José San Martin, San Martin planned to Andes based in the eastern province of Cuyo. outflanking the liberate Chile and advance up the coast to direct Lima, attacks from the Spanish forces which had repulsed San several Martin's soldiers were to be United Provinces. At least a half of former slaves, including the Eighth pardos or blacks, and many of them of the Eighth Battalion. General Miller, the British second-in-command former house slaves, were Battalion, wrote that these soldiers, mostly valour, consistency and "distinguished throughout the war for their of them rose to be good non-commisioned patriotism. . - Many had expressed low regard for the officers.' 20 While General Belgrano crucial resource in extending the blacks, San Martin saw them as a of Cuyo he made vigorous use revolution. As Governor and commander decree of 1813. In the province of the manumission powers latent in the Indians and mestizos, and of Cuyo there were 4,200 slaves, 13,000 of 43,000. San Martin 8,500 free blacks out of a total population with 1,500 free men; enrolled 780 slaves in the province compared the of the Andes were slaves of military age not recruited to Army whose slaves were conenrolled in auxiliary detachments. Masters land allocations; in a number of scripted were compensated by receiving slaves in the workshops or on the cases Spanish prisoners replaced little sympathy for democracy estates. San Martin was later to display his base, the Mendoza electoral but, perhaps in an effort to consolidate that all free men over twenty-one years regulations of 1817 stipulated ex-slaves and free pardos, were entitled to old, including manumitted vote.21 with 5,000 men San Martin joined forces with Crossing the Andes Bernardo O'Higgins. In an address to former the Chilean forces led by Chacabuco in February 1817 San Martin slaves before the battle of full citizens and warned them that the pointed out that they were now merchants in Santiago to buy captured Spanish already had offers from San Martin eventually defeated the blacks and return them to slavery. years regulations of 1817 stipulated ex-slaves and free pardos, were entitled to old, including manumitted vote.21 with 5,000 men San Martin joined forces with Crossing the Andes Bernardo O'Higgins. In an address to former the Chilean forces led by Chacabuco in February 1817 San Martin slaves before the battle of full citizens and warned them that the pointed out that they were now merchants in Santiago to buy captured Spanish already had offers from San Martin eventually defeated the blacks and return them to slavery. the battle of Maipu, in 1818. Spanish at a decisive engagement, establishment were very strong in Neither slavery nor the imperial 10,000 slaves in Chile had Chile. The fact that there were only anti-slavery measures, encouraged the Chilean autonomists to adopt led creole officials albeit moderate ones, at an early period. A junta by --- Page 364 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery self-government in 1810. Without ever had set about organising it had convoked a Congress dedicated formally declaring independence constitution in 1811. Following a factional to elaborating a new were purged. Manuel de Salas, struggle, the more conservative deputies to it a law which banned the Secretary of the Congress, then presented mothers and freed slaves brought slave trade, freed the children of slave was denounced as contrary to Chile for more than six months; slavery slave-owners were urged to to the spirit of Christianity and humanity; and made Chile the their slaves kindly. 22 This law was approved treat the libertad de vientres. The first Spanish American territory to adopt on the slave population of of the law had a considerable impact knives, passage Some 300 slaves, some it was later claimed carrying themselves as Santiago. demand their liberty and to offer came forward to caused some alarm and seven of the leading soldiers for the patria. This arrested. The junta had enacted a members of the liga de esclavos were before the 'free womb' decree, measure in August 1811, two months was to go as recruitment of slaves - half their pay allowing the military and they were only to be enlisted compensation to their former owners in South America there with the latter's consent. In Chile as elsewhere decree of between law and reality; a supplementary was often a gap distress that the term esclavo still appeared in May 1813, noting with infants, made this an offence. 23 As parish registers for new-born the year the radical patriot royalists advanced into Chile in following liberated his own slaves, secured commander Carrera, who had already slaves; of Ingenuos, or manumitted agreement for raising a regiment but did not have to consent. their masters were compensated, as before, overtaken by events, as a royalist However, this measure was soon restoration suspended all patriot the legislation. Andes in 1817 and 1818 led to the The victories of the Army of Slaves were enrolled in resuscitation of earlier laws relating to slavery. and police of Santiago forces and the coloured militia the patriot the battle of Maipu. The libertad de vientres was distinguished itself at military manumission. reasserted but no further steps taken to promote done for Chile's three or For five years after 1818 nothing further was themselves too few to four thousand remaining slaves. They were though the persistence of constitute much of a social or political force, issue. The young Republic's slavery remained a symbolically charged struggle against Spain. energies were drained by the continuing of the Chilean Director put the resources O'Higgins, as Supremo, of San Martin. u. The libertad de vientres was distinguished itself at military manumission. reasserted but no further steps taken to promote done for Chile's three or For five years after 1818 nothing further was themselves too few to four thousand remaining slaves. They were though the persistence of constitute much of a social or political force, issue. The young Republic's slavery remained a symbolically charged struggle against Spain. energies were drained by the continuing of the Chilean Director put the resources O'Higgins, as Supremo, of San Martin. government at the service the for an attack on In 1820 San Martin used Chile as springboard and garrison still held Peru, where Spain's Viceroy, administrators of a little over a million, some undisputed sway. Peru had a population --- Page 365 --- Spanish America 600,000 of whom were Indians, living in labour levy of the mita; some communities subject to the concentrated in the mining regions and 300,000 mestizos were mainly in regions of subsistence agriculture urban centres of the Andes, or slaves and 40,000 free blacks and adjacent to them; about 40,000 menial labour force in Lima and the mulattos furnished the principal greatly predominated among the coastal lowlands. Though creoles Indians and mestizos made them 140,000 or SO whites, fear of the movement, Following the hesitant to support the independence Amari, there had been further great convulsion of 1780, led by Tupuc revolt. Tupac Amari had declared more localised outbreaks of Indian slaves were rare in the Andean an end to personal bondage, though in Cuzco some of whom region - there were said to be 300 blacks of joined Tupac Amari. When the Lacamarca rose in rebellion in 1806 they 'free Indians' project to turn them into mitayos and attacked the landowners Inca term for slave. However, the yanaconas the latter being the prospect of turning Indian landowners of Peru had no real was to subordinate them villagers into chattel slaves - their true aim Indians to a uniform to periodic forced labour and to reduce all degree of concessions extended to particular dependence, cancelling out all conflicts. 24 communities in the course of past With the aid of a Chilean fleet commanded Martin established an expeditionary force by Lord Cochrane, San in September 1820 and, joining on the southern coast of Peru patriots, forces with a began a slow contingent of Peruvian liberating advance on Lima. A high army were men of colour. By proportion of the belonging to royalists had been February 1821 4,180 slaves made no general appeal to the "lower conscripted. orders' However, San Martin the British commodore Bowles, there since, as he explained to obtain 'an undue was a danger that these would disposition preponderance' and manifest 'a where the dangerous in any country but more particularly revolutionary in this (particularly unenlightened the slaves portion of the community are SO formidable'.25 and Indians) and at the same numerous time SO San Martin's Peruvian strategy was to use military pressure to oligarchy to desert the Spanish induce the successful cause. The news of the tional regime promunciamento at Cadiz in favour of a Liberal constitusupport of the strengthened San Martin's hand in Peruvian aristocracy. The Spanish negotiating for the believing that the empire could only be saved military commanders, removed the duly appointed Viceroy, by emergency measures, was not acting decisively enough; Pezuela, on the grounds that he own number, General José de la Serna. they replaced him with one of their Peru and Upper Peru were now --- Page 366 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery controlled by Spain in South America and the only sizeable territories of survival. at Cadiz in favour of a Liberal constitusupport of the strengthened San Martin's hand in Peruvian aristocracy. The Spanish negotiating for the believing that the empire could only be saved military commanders, removed the duly appointed Viceroy, by emergency measures, was not acting decisively enough; Pezuela, on the grounds that he own number, General José de la Serna. they replaced him with one of their Peru and Upper Peru were now --- Page 366 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery controlled by Spain in South America and the only sizeable territories of survival. Amongst their defence was vital to the empire's prospects the conscription of 1,500 the measures taken by the new Viceroy was garrison; the owners of the slaves to strengthen the depleted royalist while the slaves themselves were slaves were promised compensation the end of six years' service. promised manumission at by La Serna, his action in conscripting Despite the promises given of the region and was a factor slaves was disturbing to the hacendados with San Martin's expeditionary in encouraging some of them to side 1821 and several forces entered Lima in July force. San Martin's of independence for Peru a few thousand citizens signed a declaration Protector of the new state. In the days later. San Martin was declared authorities issued a decree establishing following month the new the slave trade. But they hesitated to libertad de vientres and banning The slaves to fight against Spain. offer manumission to all prepared junta reflected the restraint of San Martin and the revolutionary the support of the continuing importance they attached to winning bolder in its declarations Peruvian oligarchy. The junta was somewhat its abolition in August 1821; concerning the Indian tribute, announcing whose suppression created a the Indian levy was a fiscal instrument problem for the treasury rather than property-holders.? Callao, Lima's port, successfully held out in The Spanish garrison from consolidating their coastal and prevented the liberation army suffered illness and demoralisation. In bridgehead. San Martin's forces authorities offered freedom to the November 1821 the revolutionary for the new nation, but slaves of Spaniards who were willing to fight Threatened with a disposed slaves belonging to Patriots. not to similarly organised a slave militia; San royalist advance on Lima, the Republicans members of this force, chosen by lot, Martin declared that twenty-five of compensation to their owners. would be manumitted after payment conflict between Spanish and But despite such restraint the ragged of the slave regime. republican forces promoted the disintegration commanders whose recruited on an ad hoc basis by Slaves were illness; and, of course, the disruption of columns had been thinned by war allowed slaves to escape. the quickly changing political In a number of the early Republics of laws or constitutions which conflict led to the successive enactment did the somersaults follow one contradicted one another. In none was concerned. as in Peru, at least SO far as slavery another SO swiftly the conservative Peruvian leader the Threatened by royalist successes member of San Martin's administration and Marquis of Torre Tagle, a last consented on April 11th 1822 to himself a large landowner, at taking one-fifth of those in the towns decree a general levy of slaves, --- Page 367 --- Spanish America rural estates. Elaborate procedures for and one-tenth of those on for compensating their masters verifying the fitness of the slave recruits, terms of service were manumission after lengthy and for conceding 25th, the same official decreed a drawn up. Two weeks later, on April situation had improved and Retraccion de manumisiones; the military clear. A similar doubtless the hacendados had made their opposition manumission the next year, with a sweeping comedy was repeated revoked on March 1st. Nevertheless, decree issued in January being of the liberation army were than three-quarters of the members white more of them former slaves. terms of service were manumission after lengthy and for conceding 25th, the same official decreed a drawn up. Two weeks later, on April situation had improved and Retraccion de manumisiones; the military clear. A similar doubtless the hacendados had made their opposition manumission the next year, with a sweeping comedy was repeated revoked on March 1st. Nevertheless, decree issued in January being of the liberation army were than three-quarters of the members white more of them former slaves. The numbers of men of colour, many The free to liberate Peru was very disappointing. criollos volunteering Batallon de Civicos Pardos, were more blacks, formed into a of the altiplano remained both responsive. The Indian populations the range of the liberation geographically and politically beyond infiltrated the Andean provinces movement. Free-lance montoneros Peruvian coast; but the Indian from Argentina as well as the welcome these guerrillas, communities were as likely to harass as to The Spanish rather than liberators. some of whom acted as predators was made against La eventually evacuated Callao but no progress the interior where the Serna's main forces, which continued to hold lived.27 bulk of Peru's population of liberation contrasted with the The cautious Peruvian strategy Colombia and Ecuador. Colombian victories of Bolivar and Sucre in Sucre's victory at Pichincha in May forces occupied Quito, following in Ecuador and was able to 1822. Bolivar enjoyed executive power suitable for his army. San enrol and manumit those slaves he deemed of the Bolivar to assume leadership Martin sought to persuade conference of Guayaquil in July revolution in Peru at the celebrated leaving the way clear for the 1822; failing to do SO he withdrew, 1823 Bolivar assigned a large Northern Liberator. In March and April the assistance of the commanded by Sucre, to march to in army, of liberation in Peru. Bolivar himself arrived disintegrating forces decree of February 1824 the Peruvian Lima in September. By a Congress appointed Bolivar dictator. and Sucre brought an army of nearly After great efforts Bolivar half of them were pardos or blacks. La 8,000 men to the sierra; about force and many entrenched with a larger Spanish Serna was strongly distracted by the disaffection of an Indian auxiliaries, though somewhat 1824 Sucre inflicted a crushing ultra-royalist faction. In December This was the death-knell defeat on La Serna at the Battle of Ayacucho. royalist South American empire. The quasi-independent the of Spain's down in April 1825 and regime in Upper Peru was brought surrendered within the year. remaining outposts of Spanish resistance --- Page 368 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the Republic of Chile had moved to suppress In the meantime the leadership of O'Higgins. Chile's first slavery, though not under in 1823. He had committed the Director Supremo was forced to resign conflict without achieving any country's scant resources to the Peruvian deterioration of the position of the decisive result. Indeed the manifest alarmed patriot opinion. liberation forces in Peru in 1822-3 greatly of the landed aristocracy who O'Higgins was also opposed by members of titles and attempt to abolish had been alienated by his suppression liberal patriots were opposed to mayorazgo (entail). The more and to his refusal to sanction the military O'Higgins's dictatorial style the motley coalition of urban Liberals manumission of slaves. However, O'Higgins found difficulty in and provincial caudillos who ejected Convention was constructing a successor regime. A Constitutional all slaves; the chief held at which a call was made to emancipate leader, José author of this decree was a lawyer and veteran more patriot radical than any Miguel Infante. abolish had been alienated by his suppression liberal patriots were opposed to mayorazgo (entail). The more and to his refusal to sanction the military O'Higgins's dictatorial style the motley coalition of urban Liberals manumission of slaves. However, O'Higgins found difficulty in and provincial caudillos who ejected Convention was constructing a successor regime. A Constitutional all slaves; the chief held at which a call was made to emancipate leader, José author of this decree was a lawyer and veteran more patriot radical than any Miguel Infante. The Chilean Emancipation Law, endorsed by the Senate at adopted in North America, was unanimously with the new Director Supremo or a time when it was at loggerheads Freire. Doubtless the Senate, and the chief of state, General Ramôn controlled it, saw the slave question as one Liberal politicians who now Freire and his Minister of Government, which would embarrass Liberal who had always proclaimed abolitionist Mariano de Egana, a informed the Senate that they could not convictions. Freire and Egana slave-owners for decree that did not indemnify accept an emancipation But the Senate, aware of the strength of the loss of their property. it could count, maintained that patriotic and popular opinion on which In July 1823 emancipation should be accompanied by no compensation. Minister gave way, Director Supremo and his Government the new which stipulated that slaves could though the latter issued 'regulations' with the police, when they only obtain their freedom by registering were married. The would have to prove that they had a job or properly the Director received two protests against office of the Supreme of women abolition of slavery: one from a group respectable and insubordination complaining that the law would cause unhappiness from 200 slaves arguing domestic slaves; the other supposedly to amongst want to lose the protection and welfare afforded that they did not However, these were the last attempts to defend them by their masters. slavery in Chile. number of slaves affected and because of Both because of the small abolition might be compared to the lack of compensation, Chilean but the fact that it was openly emancipation in Massachusetts; in the back-door by legislated by the government, rather than smuggled and clear-cut character. The judicial decision, gave it a more radical --- Page 369 --- Spanish America Chilean treasury was exhausted and in no tion for the slave-owners. position to fund compensaaccepted both because Expropriation of the latter was many other widely war effort and because Chile's proprietors had been taxed for the domestics; unless they were few thousand slaves worked as admittedly a probable fate for those conscripted of into the armed forces remain in the service of their military age - they were likely to Slavery lacked economic masters who would suffer no real loss. wealth even for most slaveholders. weight and slaveholding was a minor source of was a striking patriotic gesture and Nevertheless, Chilean emancipation and navy of those who had been facilitated recruitment to the army slave status. 28 protected from conscription by their Some de facto slaveholding years after 1823; certainly it survived may have survived in Chile for a few controlled parts of the national for over two years in the SpanishChiloé, whose surrender territory, notably the off-shore island of January 1826. The completed the liberation of South America in reiterated in all basic republican documents commitment to abolition was to be authoritarian and paternalist over the next decade. Even the of the previous government constitution proposed by Juan Egana, son there could be no slaves in Chile. Minister, in December 1823 confirmed that was dominated by struggles For a few years Chilean political life of Liberal pipiolos within the oligarchy. The diverse factions Liberal-Conservative (novices), Conservative pelucones (bigwigs) and were agreed in estanqueros (state contractors) or upholding both the formal o'bigginistas the real subordination of the freedom of all citizens and landed mass of exploited oligarchy was largely white the peasantry. there could be no slaves in Chile. Minister, in December 1823 confirmed that was dominated by struggles For a few years Chilean political life of Liberal pipiolos within the oligarchy. The diverse factions Liberal-Conservative (novices), Conservative pelucones (bigwigs) and were agreed in estanqueros (state contractors) or upholding both the formal o'bigginistas the real subordination of the freedom of all citizens and landed mass of exploited oligarchy was largely white the peasantry. While the were mostly coloured. But no faction peasant inquilinos and peones formal caste system or the reinstitution supported of the restoration of a who had distinguished himself slavery. A mulatto officer to the Captaincy of the Batallon at Maipu, José Romero, was promoted nominated to an honorary Civico in 1830 and was Liberal post with the Chamber of subsequently Constitution of 1828 and the Deputies. The 1833 both reiterated that there Conservative Constitution of Liberal/patriotic interlude of were no slaves in Chile. The destroyed 1823-9 had legislatively discredited slaveholding; with the succeeding and country's compact size permitted the creation Conservative regime the greater competence, integration and of a government of the other succession states of South authority than was to be found in became a fact as well as a law. The America. The suppression of slavery reaffirmations made Chile decree of 1823 and its the first subsequent American Republic to abolish slavery properly 29 constituted Spanish The Chilean example outright. encouraged Bolivar to capitalise on his --- Page 370 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery new anti-slavery measures in neighboroughing triumphs by proposing Liberator's objective was to establish authoritaPeru and Bolivia. The universal crusade against not to embark on some tive government of Panama in 1826 Bolivar made slavery; indeed prior to the Congress South America would take priority it quite clear that consolidation in slave colonies in the to spread the revolution to Spain's over attempts Caribbean. 30 Settlement in South America The Post-Independence of Bolivar and Sucre gave them enormous prestige and The victories the arbiters of the nations they had liberated. appeared to make them for Peru and laws for Bolivia that Bolivar recommended a constitution extensive slave manumission. He would inaugurate a programme of of proper sovereignty, a the survival of slavery as a derogation saw Abolitionist measures would mark of primitiveness and parochialism. ideal based on the rejection of caste help to assert a new American civic While he did not favour distinctions and odious discriminations. he did urge the new states to fund immediate, outright emancipation, would for the systematic freeing of manumission boards which arrange still some thousands of slaves slaves. In the aftermath of war there were made hacendados very in Peru and a general shortage of labour Bolivar proposed that the unwilling to lose those that remained to them. the Constitution of 1826 should include a clause committing the Peruvian of the slaves; this was removed by state to the emancipation that it would be inimical to agricultural delegates on the grounds Peruvian also restored recovery in coastal Peru. The new government since the government the tribute levied from the Indian communities, of the Peruvian lack of funds. The recalcitrance suffered a chronic rather than thriving plantation proprietors was born of a failing agriculture." 31 slave discipline in the Peruvian An attempt was made to restore controls over slave movements and plantation zone in 1825, with new to arms. by state to the emancipation that it would be inimical to agricultural delegates on the grounds Peruvian also restored recovery in coastal Peru. The new government since the government the tribute levied from the Indian communities, of the Peruvian lack of funds. The recalcitrance suffered a chronic rather than thriving plantation proprietors was born of a failing agriculture." 31 slave discipline in the Peruvian An attempt was made to restore controls over slave movements and plantation zone in 1825, with new to arms. But even the prohibitions against allowing slaves access that could not return to coastal hacendados knew they influential in the liberation armies. The Peruvian slavery those who had fought disproportionate were left with slave crews containing slave plantations children and old people. The population numbers of women, half its former size, if the libertos overall had dropped to perhaps a The purchase tax labour to their mothers' owners are included. have owing eliminated in 1825 and it is possible that some may on slaves was from Brazil, despite the previous been brought to the country, perhaps --- Page 371 --- Spanish America bans. However, the plantation prosper; it lacked either economy of the coastal zone did a well-balanced or skilled not prosperous internal market, while freight work-force, or a exorbitant. The dismal fate of charges to Europe were who had been given a Peruvian O'Higgins, the former dictator of Chile illustrates some of the problems. In sugar plantation by San Martin, he bought an English an attempt to modernise his estate libertos were housed in steam-engine barracks to grind the cane; the slaves and Liberators. But try as he might named after his victories or fellow viability and was obliged to devote O'Higgins failed to restore the estate to He lacked the sort of skilled more land to subsistence cultivation. planters and his work-force workers hired or trained by the Cuban to review the passing-out was desultory and disorderly. When invited 1828, parade of the Peruvian O'Higgins had to decline since his old military academy in he could not afford a new one. 32 uniform was in tatters and With several disappointing establish in the new Republic experiences of Bolivia behind him Bolivar sought to system of government. Strong a more effective and imposing President-for-life, were to be balanced government powers, conferred on a the individual, by guarantees for the including a provision which liberty of Bolivar's view the state should be the outlawed slavery. In and not the plaything either of embodiment of a 'moral power' General Assembly of the special interests or of the populace. The dollars in recognition of his new state voted to give Bolivar a million on condition that it was used services. He would only accept the money The money was never to purchase the freedom of 1,000 slaves. that 'all those who until paid. Bolivar's draft of the constitution now have been slaves are declared they are thereby freed by the publication Bolivian citizens; and law shall determine the amount of this constitution; a special owners'. Bolivar's text to be paid as indemnity to their slaves was amended by the former were now citizens 'but they delegates to read that the former masters except in the form cannot abandon the house of their determine'.33 There were very few slaves in which a special law shall to number 4,700 - but those there Bolivia - they were thought who dominated the new state. The were owned by the white creoles end to slavery as a latter were prepared to an remained servile juridical status but only if their former envisage chattels military dependants. their slaves was amended by the former were now citizens 'but they delegates to read that the former masters except in the form cannot abandon the house of their determine'.33 There were very few slaves in which a special law shall to number 4,700 - but those there Bolivia - they were thought who dominated the new state. The were owned by the white creoles end to slavery as a latter were prepared to an remained servile juridical status but only if their former envisage chattels military dependants. Unlike Chile in 1823 there pressure for manumission or concessions was now no patriotism; moreover some of the Bolivian to a more expansive estates near La Paz, giving slavery slaves were concentrated on But perhaps the decisive somewhat greater economic reason for the weight. delegates was simply that they had tired of recalcitrance of the Bolivian large ambitions and concern for abstract Colombian tutelage, with its issues. Bolivar and Sucre, who --- Page 372 --- The Ouerthrow of Colonial Slavery unpopular Colombian or could only count on their own increasingly way to the Bolivian Venezuelan troops, had no choice but to give the of from La Paz in 1828 question oligarchy. When Sucre withdrew resolved; in 1831 and on later slavery in Bolivia had not been clearly end. But the real situation of the occasions slavery was declared at an classes, though former slaves remains unclear, since Bolivia's political lacked the will or possessed of a definite sense of national identity, the Liberator's or state despite capacity to sustain a proper government hopes. of his life Bolivar grandiosely planned to recover In the last years by leading a Union of the Andes, from the setbacks he had encountered Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. But by encompassing Venezuela, Colombia, himself obliged to step down as 1830 his plan was in ruins and he was of that year. The Liberator President of Colombia; he died in December the of bringing order Gran Colombia in 1826 in hope had returned to The Venezuelans resented the and purpose to this disunited Republic. had been entrusted to Santander, the government in Bogotâ, which itself resembled a congerie of miniexecutive Vice-President. Colombia of latifundist fiefdoms republics, or rather an incongruous juxtaposition and Indians hostile to republican and rural communes of former slaves had raised large loans in Europe authority. The Bogotâ authorities frittered away in half-complete which had been eaten up by salaries or introduce regular steam services development projects. Attempts to along the River Magdalena proved discover abortive. that only 300 slaves had been The Liberator was angered established to for that purpose in 1821. In a manumitted by the boards the Juntas de Manumision decree of 1827 he attempted to should strengthen be spent within one year on and ordered that their funds oldest and most deserving slaves. The manumissions, starting with the in the fact that they were beholden to failure ofthe juntas was rooted in slave classes who had no interest liquidating the local possessing hands the Manumission Boards could devise property. In unscrupulous of the manumisos by alleging that they ways of prolonging the servitude The reform of the Manumission would otherwise become vagabonds. and them to levy the inheritance tax more systematically Boards obliged to the central government. However, to render a proper accounting confrontation with the slave-owning Bolivar was not prepared for a the unity and integrity of Gran hacendados. Bolivar's aim was to restore interests and concentrating on Colombia by accommodating prevailing with its legalistic attachment the main enemy - Santander's Liberalism, constitution and policy of saddling to the federal principles of the 1821 and allowing monied interests a Colombia with expensive foreign loans localism of the landed proprietors free rein. to levy the inheritance tax more systematically Boards obliged to the central government. However, to render a proper accounting confrontation with the slave-owning Bolivar was not prepared for a the unity and integrity of Gran hacendados. Bolivar's aim was to restore interests and concentrating on Colombia by accommodating prevailing with its legalistic attachment the main enemy - Santander's Liberalism, constitution and policy of saddling to the federal principles of the 1821 and allowing monied interests a Colombia with expensive foreign loans localism of the landed proprietors free rein. Bolivar also opposed the --- Page 373 --- Spanish America caudillos thrown up by the liberation struggle, but and of the military the threat. Bolivar was Santander's liberalism as greater he saw race of caudillos were interested in the painfully aware that the new salaries rather than poder moral. But state as a source of land titles and military to defeat the he believed he could make use of his old ties to the his to of the state to financial interests and deploy prestige prostitution landowers. 34 discipline localistic the claim of Pâez to be the In a fateful move Bolivar endorsed Venezuela; the veteran llanero now military and political chief of worked in part by slave owned huge estates, including plantations would him to check Santander. labour. Bolivar hoped that Pâez help had left several competing The aftermath of the independence struggle over the precise social leadership factions and continuing struggles involved in several content of the new order. Blacks and pardos were against Santander, attempted revolts in the years 1824-8, initially without Bolivar. Soldiers who had been discharged subsequently against while others could not see why white pay were particularly restless, lion's share of public posts. Pâez, as an letrados should enjoy the demagogically to such resentments uneducated mestizo, could appeal latifundists in Venezuela. As a result of despite being one of the largest of Indian communities had republican legislation the collective property them to the risk of dispossession; been made alienable, thus exposing of buying land which was sold in mestizo peasants had little possibility leaders. A commitment to large lots or conferred on military or inclined political Liberals like Santander to the market and private property Liberals defended the 1821 Santander's endorse such developments. and in the hope that it would Manumission Law both on principle Bolivar could see no solution to release labour on to the market. the construction of a custodial Colombia's social problems except veterans of the liberation struggle. political monopoly based on virtuous a visit to the south-east was a The assassination of Sucre in 1830 on heavy blow to him. the Bogota regime made him the target of Bolivar's reintegration into corsair who rallied to the revolt of Admiral Padilla, a pardo or zambo from the people of and received backing the Liberal opposition of colour. Like Piar Cartagena and the coast, including many people had sided with Pâez, and before him Padilla was executed. Bolivar Santander's Padilla, largely because the former was opponent, crushed Padilla's colour and vaunted Liberalism it is the latter his ally. Despite he would have been either more willing unclear that, even if successful, than Bolivar. 35 or more able to promote slave emancipation in 1830; by the time of Pâez proclaimed the Venezuelan Colombia Republic was no more. The new Bolivar's death in December Gran --- Page 374 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Manumission Law; libertad de vientre remained, but state modified the service was extended from eighteen the libertos' period of obligatory to prove subsequent gainyears and they were obliged the to twenty-one Boards. would have been either more willing unclear that, even if successful, than Bolivar. 35 or more able to promote slave emancipation in 1830; by the time of Pâez proclaimed the Venezuelan Colombia Republic was no more. The new Bolivar's death in December Gran --- Page 374 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Manumission Law; libertad de vientre remained, but state modified the service was extended from eighteen the libertos' period of obligatory to prove subsequent gainyears and they were obliged the to twenty-one Boards. On the other hand ful employment to the Manumission wartime decrees freeing all the confirmed Bolivar's new government of Apure and Guayana; to have done otherwise slaves in the provinces amongst the llaneros of these would have provoked a rebellion provinces." 36 of slaves and libertos was surprisingly large. Despite The population and civil war, despite slave uprisings and the devastation of war for insurreccion de otra especie and escapes, despite royalist support remained quite widespread in the new republican abolitionism, slavery that Venezuela contained just under state. The census of 1834 revealed of slaves still obligated to serve 36,000 slaves and libertos (children for 20,600 of this their mother's master), with Caracas accounting struggle there had been total.37 At the outbreak of the independence had suffered greatly during slaves. Venezuela's population over 80,000 by as much as a third between 1811 and 1821. the fighting, dropping the number of slaves was somewhat heavier than Thus the decline in but the residual slave population still that of the population as a whole, had been hit by the war and sizeable. The plantation economy also fell by a half; the prices of all Venezuela's exports of cacao half or more as Brazil, Cuba and the plantation products dropped by a The survival of slavery did not United States expanded their output. plantation sector. The plantations correspond to a particularly vigorous and estates - became which had employed slaves - cacao groves 1820s and sugar 1830s coffee replaced of greatly reduced importance. In the crop; the coffee estates cacao as Venezuela's most important labourers export or tied peasants, with were worked predominantly by wage only a few slaves. 38 in Venezuela can be explained in a number The persistence of slavery them not to leave of ways. The conucos given to the slaves slaves encouraged had sometimes extracted during the war the plantation/hacienda: Military manumission had only further concessions from their masters. age; though some relatives been offered to adult male slaves of military and children in principle might also have gained freedom, slave slaves women who distrusted the Patriots, or remained in servitude. Moreover a military for a civilian master, who saw no advantage in exchanging The survival of slavery in tried to evade military manumission. of South America, will have reflected Venezuela, as in some other parts during and after the the very insecure conditions that armed prevailed columns roaming the country, independence struggle. With rival could easily find the master's not to speak of simple bandits, the slave --- Page 375 --- Spanish America that it would be unwise to forsake, or to household a place of refuge The of political instability which it would be wise to return. pressure Independence exposed by that of economic insecurity. was compounded of the South America to the withering blast Venezuela and other parts time of recession in many parts of the of economic competition at a economy was neither strong Atlantic world. The growth of the coffee this. The conditions of life enough nor secure enough to compensate for were undoubtedly very for the mass of poorer Venezuelans, even if free, all and the precarious. The police were urged to round up vagabonds labour. The hoary to condemn them to penal courts were empowered that he furnished the slave with special pleading of the slave-owner substance in the immediate protection and welfare could have had some 39 post-independence period in Spanish America. the survival of slavery was However, the strongest reason of for slaves not as labourers but as probably economic - the value Boards posted slave prices property and as collateral. undoubtedly very for the mass of poorer Venezuelans, even if free, all and the precarious. The police were urged to round up vagabonds labour. The hoary to condemn them to penal courts were empowered that he furnished the slave with special pleading of the slave-owner substance in the immediate protection and welfare could have had some 39 post-independence period in Spanish America. the survival of slavery was However, the strongest reason of for slaves not as labourers but as probably economic - the value Boards posted slave prices property and as collateral. The Manumission minimum. As late as the early 1850s, which then acted as a guaranteed slaves left in Venezuela, their capital value when there were only 12,000 coffee crop. 40 Pâez, who was still greater than that of the year's of the period 1830-48, was to dominated Venezuelan politics for most of latifundists and large associated with the interests be closely credit to slave-owners against the value merchants; the latter advanced disposed to defend of their slave property and were consequently slavery. mixture of reasons slavery survived in Colombia, For a similar the of the Manumission was made to principle though no challenge conflict between Liberals and Conservatives Law of 1821. Endemic and law lacked authority and created conditions in which government favour the growth of large-scale effectivity; but such conflict did not still claimed to be 20,000 slaves slaveholding. In mid-century there were have been inflated. In and libertos in Colombia, though this figure South may America, libertos were this Republic, as elsewhere in Spanish their freedom. 41 Military often pressured to enlist in the army to ensure and arbitrary because of poor pay service was widely unpopular of libertos suited the mass of citizens by discipline. The recruitment service; it also suited the new reducing their own liability to military reliable than Indian recruits, rulers, since libertos were generally more However, it did seem with their ties to the major exploited community. the out. The position of that, with whatever delays, slavery was on the way same as that of a chattel the liberto was unenviable, but it was not with, or half-ignored, slave. Even a 'free womb' law that was tampered framework that they slave-owners of the positive legal and deprived that Manumission Boards set slave prices required. The fact --- Page 376 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery did promise an eventual end to outright slavery, as maintained a register that some fit young man or woman was it became impossible to claim really forty years old. Colombia in April 1830, its dominant classes Ecuador rejected Gran and laissez-faire policies were inimical believing that Bogota's free trade interests. The new Republic was to their commercial and agricultural but temporarily welcomed by contested by the Liberals of Guayaquil of New Granada; some of the proprietors of the Cauca, formerly part that the new Republic would the latter were attracted by the possibility But in 1832 Ecuador was forced to be more indulgent to slaveholders. The adhesion of Guayaquil, with its return the Cauca to Colombia. and a compact between the Liberal pardo and free black population, that the classic Manuand Conservative factions led to agreement administration of Sucre and mission Law was still in force. The military though some were Bolivar had left few slaves and libertos in Ecuador, still to be found in the interior. 42 of 1819, a document reflecting The Buenos Aires constitution there were no slaves in the United portenio interests, stated that When Buenos Aires' claims were Provinces of the River Plate. interior both sides recruited slaves challenged by the Federalists of the Rivadavia armies. During the years 1821-4 the pioneer patriot to their a doctrinaire Liberalism and regained influence and sought to impose controlled by the utilitarianism on those parts of the ambitious country plans for the United government in Buenos Aires. Rivadavia's with Bentham, included the Provinces, inspired by his correspondence the eradication of slavery, a public introduction of modern industry, of a stringent new labour code, educational system and the elaboration These schemes proved fiercely penalising laziness and administrative vagabondage. and financial resources at hopelessly to over-estimate the and Rivadavia was forced out. a doctrinaire Liberalism and regained influence and sought to impose controlled by the utilitarianism on those parts of the ambitious country plans for the United government in Buenos Aires. Rivadavia's with Bentham, included the Provinces, inspired by his correspondence the eradication of slavery, a public introduction of modern industry, of a stringent new labour code, educational system and the elaboration These schemes proved fiercely penalising laziness and administrative vagabondage. and financial resources at hopelessly to over-estimate the and Rivadavia was forced out. In the disposal of the government did not go beyond the decree of practice Argentinian manumission slaves and their children were to be found as 1813; it meant that female male libertos reaching the age of domestics in the house of their owners; and often did not become free eighteen were conscripted to the army service in it. In 1826 a corsair landed citizens until they finished lengthy these were declared to be libertos in Patagonia with a hundred slaves; the soil of the United Provinces - simply by virtue of having landed on the and were then promptly impressed into Provinces army. had need of soldiers In the years 1825-8 the United banda oriental from Brazilian because of its efforts to free the led to the occupation. The war against the Brazilian in Imperialists which there were very establishment of Uruguay in 1830, a Republic of pardos and blacks; the few slaves, though still a sizeable population --- Page 377 --- Spanish America manumission during the later early anti-slavery of Artigas and military this, though doubtless some liberation struggle help to explain Brazilians while they could. When the slave-owners sold their slaves to declared slavery at an end, it may have Uruguayan constitution of 1830 constitution was otherwise a document exaggerated but only a little; the political rights only on propertyof moderate liberalism conferring of Uruguay, both holders. The British favoured the independence merchants and because it because it opened its markets to British was menaced by both banned the slave trade. Uruguay's independence leaders to appeal for Argentina and Brazil; this led some Uruguayan convenient both to British and French support. The country of refuge was for Brazilian slaves Brazilian slave smugglers and as a place were occupied by fleeing their masters. When parts of the In country 1842 and again in 1846 Argentina some slaves were reintroduced. that there could be no slavery in the the Uruguayan government decreed there were said to be 300 slaves on country; on the first occasion continued to demand the Uruguayan soil. The Brazilian government Brazilian masters would send return of escaping slaves and sometimes them. 44 slave-catching teams into Uruguay to recover 6,000 slaves left in Buenos In the mid-1820s there were still whole some region of the Rio de la Plata Aires. The shortage of labour in the slaves as they could. A encouraged slaveholders to retain as many took place in certain amount of slave trading as well as slaveholding the truculent the 1820s. It was tolerated for a while by from Argentina during Manuel de Rosas, who ruled Buenos Aires Federalist caudillo Juan conflicts with the Unitarians in Uruguay 1829. Proximity to Brazil and slave-traders. But Rosas, whose gave opportunities to the Brazilian did not renounce the Manumission dictatorship was to last until 1852, of cultivating a following amongst Laws. Moreover, he made a point and festivals he patronised. The the urban blacks, whose fraternities declined as a consequence of numbers of slaves and libertos steadily the 1813 law. Rosas saw military manumission and the working out of and respect for the his mission as being to re-establish order, discipline and effective in pursuing this landed proprietors. He was both ruthless the consequent check to Slaveholding was eventually limited by Slavegoal. and to enforce legal contracts. rampant localism preparedness the letter, if not the spirit, of the holders were at least obliged to respect large number of the few Manumission Laws; in Mendoza a surprisingly forty years old, SO that remaining slaves in 1853 were listed as being they just escaped being libertos. 45 than elsewhere in the Slavery probably survived more vigorously within the isolationist and Spanish River Plate region in Paraguay, Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia. was both ruthless the consequent check to Slaveholding was eventually limited by Slavegoal. and to enforce legal contracts. rampant localism preparedness the letter, if not the spirit, of the holders were at least obliged to respect large number of the few Manumission Laws; in Mendoza a surprisingly forty years old, SO that remaining slaves in 1853 were listed as being they just escaped being libertos. 45 than elsewhere in the Slavery probably survived more vigorously within the isolationist and Spanish River Plate region in Paraguay, Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia. patriarchal regime of the dictator José --- Page 378 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and land was made available to his Artigas found refuge in Paraguay leader was a foe not of slavery but ex-slave soldiers. But the Paraguayan the River Plate. He responded to the of those who claimed to control embargo on trade with the blockade of Paraguay with a complete he Paraguay's American states. In this way protected riverine Spanish with its haciendas and obrajes, from foreign traditional economy, effects of free trade. By the 1830s there competition and the disruptive as many or more as there had were some 25,000 slaves in Paraguay, Thousands of these slaves worked been in the last days of Spanish rule. either because émigrés had in state-owned workshops and estates set up need. However, this abandoned them or because they filled a national The the intensive slavery of the Caribbean plantations. was not hours of work and strokes of the lash or Hispanic slave codes, limiting have been more rigorously enforced in stipulating a minimum diet, may had ever been in the Spanish American independent Paraguay than they Partidas and the Code of 1789 were empire. Both the medieval Siete The commercial isolation of the incorporated into Paraguayan law. of production for an Republic meant that the remorseless pressure the more fitful pressure of unquenchable market was replaced death by of Francia in 1840 his own production for local needs. On the of Paraguay was slaves were freed. In 1842 the independence trade reiterated and a law of the reaffirmed, the suppression of the slave with which Francia's Paraguay 'free womb' adopted. The only country had been Brazil; the cautious had normal trading relationships designed to remove the country abolitionist decree of 1842 was partly and antagonists of the from the cross-fire between the participants Brazilian slave trade. 46 of the 'free womb' all of Spanish With Paraguay's acceptance eventual rejection of chattel slavery; America had committed itself to an been reached in Mexico. radical conclusion had already a more Mexico and Central America from Spain not as the result of a Mexico achieved independence victorious struggle, as in most parts of South protracted but ultimately the exhaustion of the imperial power and America, but rather through counter-revolutionary creole self-confidence of a largely the growing for independence in Mexico, that led by elite. The only genuine struggle though in ways which and Morelos in 1810-15, was defeated, Hidalgo weakened both Spanish rule and slavery. in disarray Mexico the established colonial order was already In invasion. The government in Madrid had prior to Napoleon's --- Page 379 --- Spanish America the rich holdings of the Church to help finance attempted to sequester had menaced the colony's entire war against Britain, but in SO doing in the Peninsula encouraged the system of credit. The disturbances with the creole proprietors whose Viceroy to express sympathy the Church. The autonomist leanings mortgages had been called in by his removal; this the Peninsulares to organise of the Viceroy provoked owner of a sugar plantation in central coup was led by the Spanish the ultra-Spanish faction provoked a Mexico. 379 --- Spanish America the rich holdings of the Church to help finance attempted to sequester had menaced the colony's entire war against Britain, but in SO doing in the Peninsula encouraged the system of credit. The disturbances with the creole proprietors whose Viceroy to express sympathy the Church. The autonomist leanings mortgages had been called in by his removal; this the Peninsulares to organise of the Viceroy provoked owner of a sugar plantation in central coup was led by the Spanish the ultra-Spanish faction provoked a Mexico. The seizure of power by Spanish rule, which in turn middle-class creole conspiracy against in the Bajio, a region of dynamic detonated a popular uprising adjacent to the mining zone commercial agriculture and manufacture north-west of Mexico City. realised that they needed to mobilise Indian The conspirators had Hidalgo, a rural priest who spoke support and had turned to Miguel of mixed blood. Few of the Indian languages and was himself perhaps were incorporated in labourers and small proprietors of the Bajio boom and its associated traditional Indian communities; the mining uncertainties, conflicts prosperity had been interrupted by international between rival factions. Food prices and the struggles over sequestration latifundists and merchants, many of them had risen sharply; large that the castas and Indians were Spaniards, made a killing. Urging Hidalgo attacked Spanish victims of fraud, monopoly and extortion, armed force 80,000 and power, soon attracting a ragged and property bands would destroy mining buildings strong, whose roaming sacked in September 1810 and Guadalajara equipment. Guanajuato was that invoked the protection of the seized shortly thereafter. A movement that claimed to be acting as the custodian of Virgin of Guadaloupe, and mobilised campesinos and Mexico while its monarch was in captivity, sparing the lives of rich wealthy Peninsulares, generally miners against the end of the Indian Hidalgo proclaimed creoles but not their property. the of all types of personal communal tribute system and suppression declared from the Palace of bondage. In December 1810 Hidalgo ended in Mexico. No Government in Guadalajara that slavery was benefited from than a handful of slaves are likely to have directly more but the rich did own some slaves, while significant this proclamation, of the region would have been of partly numbers of the population of Guanajato recorded a work-force African descent; in 1792 the mines Indian) and 2,469 mulattos (part of 3,176 whites, 2,389 mestizos (part he also received African)." 47 While some miners rallied to Hidalgo support from the predominantly Indian campesinos. forces were defeated outside In January 1811 Hidalgo's ill-organised and creole militia; the radicalism of Mexico City by Spanish regulars white creoles behind the Spanish Hidalgo's movement had rallied most --- Page 380 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the mine-owners to create a administration and had prompted The Liberals in Cadiz made an permanent military force of their reformism own. by giving Mexico a score of effort to accommodate creole though some creoles demanded represenrepresentatives in the Cortes; In March 1811 Hidalgo tation based on Mexico's total population. But this was not the end of the himself was captured and executed. continued the struggle for independence uprising. Small guerrilla groups another rural priest of mixed descent, and liberty. José Maria Morelos, rebellion and created a small but effective assumed leadership of the "When kings are absent, armed force. Morelos argued: and disciplined in the nation; and every nation is free and sovereignty resides solely which it pleases, and not to entitled to form the type of government 148 Morelos declared that all should be remain the slave of another. distinction should be made between equal and that henceforth Blacks no and mulattos enlisted in his column, whites, Indians and castas. Small guerrilla groups another rural priest of mixed descent, and liberty. José Maria Morelos, rebellion and created a small but effective assumed leadership of the "When kings are absent, armed force. Morelos argued: and disciplined in the nation; and every nation is free and sovereignty resides solely which it pleases, and not to entitled to form the type of government 148 Morelos declared that all should be remain the slave of another. distinction should be made between equal and that henceforth Blacks no and mulattos enlisted in his column, whites, Indians and castas. radical amongst his followers, the some of them former slaves. A group of land to the cultivators and Guadalupes, advocated the distribution for buying and selling the creation of collectively owned agencies have endorsed these proposals, agricultural produce. Morelos seems to At the Congress of in the medidas politicas. at least as a war measure, a formal Declaration of Chilpancingo in 1813 Morelos sponsored decree which confirmed the Independence and the issuing of a Doubtless because of the small suppression of slavery in the new nation. had little difficulty persuading number of slaves in Mexico Morelos abolition; in contrast his plans for other leaders of the revolt to accept even within the ranks of breaking up landed estates were controversial, and executed by movement. In 1815 Morelos was captured his own everywhere but in Spanish forces. By 1816 the revolt was extinguished fighters led by the south, where a small column of independence still held out. Vicente Guerrero, a follower of Morelos, of whites and of Fearful of the popular rebellion the great majority had united behind the whether creole or Spanish, the propertied, the creole militia and military had won imperial power. By SO doing of The Cabildo of some influence within the system autonomism government. from the beginning of Mexico City espoused a moderate Miguel Guridi y crisis. A key member of the Cabildo, José the imperial Mexico in the Cortes at Cadiz in 1811; he had Alcocer, had represented colonial self-government, the distribution of there unsuccessfully urged abolition of slavery. He had argued that unoccupied land and the the revolt would prevail. unless serious reforms were adopted of the popular Cabildo of Mexico City and Guridi returned to become treasurer occasion to reopen the question of one of those waiting for an institutional reforms." 49 --- Page 381 --- Spanish America disruptive effect on the The 1820 revolt in Spain had a deeply lifted and elections Spanish regime in Mexico. Control of the press was of decrees and held for deputies to the Cortes. The stream were which issued from the Liberals in the Cortes alarmed pronouncements Church without offering any substantive concession landowners and the situation the royalist comto creole autonomism. In this confused creole named Agustin mander in southern Mexico, a first-generation establishing an autonomous Itirbide, issued the Plan de Iguala, of New Spain, without any Mexican monarchy: *All inhabitants and Indians, are citizens of this distinction between Europeans, Africans to their merits and monarchy, with access to all positions according the Church, and his record as virtues." 50 Iturbide enlisted the support of earned him the respect of all a soldier during the insurgency of Morelos official armistice had allowed him conservative interests. However, the who supported the Plan de with Vicente Guerrero, to enter negotiations that it would at least destroy Spanish rule. Itirbide Iguala, calculating of the Liberals in Mexico City; Guridi y Alcocer also gained the support council of the new monarchy. Many of was appointed to the sovereign over to Iturbide, while even the the Spanish royalist troops went whose action of the regime in Madrid, a liberal general Mexican selfrepresentative disavowed, signed a treaty recognising was subsequently 1821 Mexican independence was declared, determination. the who supported the Plan de with Vicente Guerrero, to enter negotiations that it would at least destroy Spanish rule. Itirbide Iguala, calculating of the Liberals in Mexico City; Guridi y Alcocer also gained the support council of the new monarchy. Many of was appointed to the sovereign over to Iturbide, while even the the Spanish royalist troops went whose action of the regime in Madrid, a liberal general Mexican selfrepresentative disavowed, signed a treaty recognising was subsequently 1821 Mexican independence was declared, determination. In September Council while a suitable with Iturbide as President of the Regency had been established by monarch was found. A Commission on Slavery under 3,000 slaves council; it reported that there were just the sovereign mainly in the ports, notably left in Mexico and that they were employed weeks after the Declaration of Vera Cruz. On October 13th 1821, two decree banning the import Independence, the sovereign council issued all a those born on Mexican soil. of slaves and declaring the freedom of it left Africans in slavery. This decree sounded abolitionist, though have been provided by the Extra pressure to endorse anti-slavery de may Ulia, just outside Vera Cruz, military situation; the fort of San Juan was one of the few where there were many free blacks as well as slaves, 51 places still in the hands of troops loyal to Spain. Iturbide declared After defeating a Bourbon monarchist faction, commitment to Agustin I in May 1822. His supposed himself Emperor him from plotting, albeit unsuccessfully, to abolition did not prevent with its rich slave plantations. However, add to his dominions Cuba, in March 1823. While Iturbide was forced out by Federal Republicans of the slave trade, the exact the Republic reaffirmed the suppression under the terms of the 1824 status of slaves or former slaves states of the Federation. In a constitution devolved upon the constituent Hidalgo and Morelos had number of states the movement of --- Page 382 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery which now reappeared; these popularised radical social programmes and the abolition of slavery. Between included state purchasing agencies slavery outright until 1825 and 1827 a number of states suppressed In 1829 Vicente support for a Federal measure. there was enough mark his brief occupancy of the Presidential Palace Guerrero was able to Mexican territory. 52 by decreeing the suppression of slavery throughout thousand slaves. directly affected only a few Mexican emancipation the of slavery in Chile In some ways it may be compared to suppression the enemies of slavery at about the same time. But it encouraged slave-owners, of elsewhere and angered the slave-owners, or would-be North American the Mexican state of Texas - these being mainly of Texas who were moved to set up their own Republic the interlopers legalised. In contrast to early (1836) in which slavery was again and Mexico in the 1830s was a huge, sprawling Chilean Republic, effectively beyond the reach of diverse state some parts of which were Forms of personal bondage may the writ of the Federal government. the wilder reaches of California. But, have survived in the Yucatan or in suggests, the Mexican the reaction of the Texan slaveholders as worth challenging; silver output government at least had an authority Mexico greater resources off considerably but it still gave had dropped American states. than the other Spanish Central America avoided any major The creole oligarchy of the adhesion of the confrontation until 1821-2 when it declared Empire. In SO doing it Captaincy General of Guatemala to the Mexican decree of October 1821. also adopted, at least formally, the abolitionist Provinces of Central America deWith the fall of Iturbide the United of the Constituent from Mexico. At a meeting clared their independence Simeôn Canas y Villacorta, a deputy from Assembly held in 1824 José further delay it should be made clear El Salvador, pleaded that without free citizens'. creole oligarchy of the adhesion of the confrontation until 1821-2 when it declared Empire. In SO doing it Captaincy General of Guatemala to the Mexican decree of October 1821. also adopted, at least formally, the abolitionist Provinces of Central America deWith the fall of Iturbide the United of the Constituent from Mexico. At a meeting clared their independence Simeôn Canas y Villacorta, a deputy from Assembly held in 1824 José further delay it should be made clear El Salvador, pleaded that without free citizens'. 53 The brothers should be declared that 'our enslaved decreed that slaves could no longer be born in measure actually adopted a fund to promote slave manumission. Central America and established United Provinces broke up into the Over the next two decades the Honduras, El Salvador and separate states of Guatemala, Nicaragua, to challenge the Costa Rica. None of the successor states sought development of a of 1824 and the subsequent abolitionist provisions did not depend on slave labour. modest cash crop sector in agriculture in Spanish America had engaged The struggle for independence and former slaves had comprised between extraordinary energies. Slaves who had risked their lives against the a quarter and a half of those --- Page 383 --- Spanish America and of the citizen had been proclaimed Spaniards. The liberty equality manumission and the 'free in countless manifestos and constitutions; laws. A few mestizos like Pâez or womb' had been enshrined in many but the social Guerrero could now hold the highest positions Vicente at the top, dark-skinned at the continued to be light-skinned pyramid had been lamed and the formal caste system largely bottom. Slavery of Indian and mestizo peasants survived dismantled. The subjugation left some more unscathed; indeed laissez-faire principles virtually and exploitation than before. exposed to dispossession institution and yet it stubbornly lingered on in Slavery was a doomed It had been entirely suppressed only in a number of the new Republics. 1 per cent or less of the Mexico and Chile, where the slaves comprised in Bolivia and Central population. It had shrivelled to insignificance few slaves to start with America, where there had likewise been very Indian comwhere the main 'social question' related to large and of Gran Colombia retained sizeable slave munities. The successor states River Plate region. On the one hand, populations as did parts of the American order and of the traditional Hispanic slavery was part continuation of social relations of direct perfectly congruent with the social relations, encouraged by personal dependence. On the other, new demanded the utmost greater involvement with Atlantic markets, slaveholdings in the new respect for private property. Even though as they had been in Republics were only a third or a quarter as large a substantial cases much less, it would still require 1810, in some capital sum to buy out their proprietors. short of cash as they were, saw no The new governments, desperately programme of slave emancipation. possibility of funding a compensated the from foreign banks Most of the new states borrowed in early years or the value of and found it impossible to maintain interest could payments not be offered in bonds hence the latter their public encouraged the new Republics compensation. The British government but it also urged them commit themselves to a ban on slave imports, to and low tariffs. British influence, favouring priority to adopt free trade itself helped to deprive Spanish American to paying off foreign loans, would have needed to finance the governments of the resources they of acceptable to Britain. foreign banks Most of the new states borrowed in early years or the value of and found it impossible to maintain interest could payments not be offered in bonds hence the latter their public encouraged the new Republics compensation. The British government but it also urged them commit themselves to a ban on slave imports, to and low tariffs. British influence, favouring priority to adopt free trade itself helped to deprive Spanish American to paying off foreign loans, would have needed to finance the governments of the resources they of acceptable to Britain. sort emancipation Manumission Boards prepared to buy the freedom The setting up of and unexpected result in the of slaves led to a most paradoxical Slaves became one of the best successor states of Gran Colombia. were backed by a guaranteed possible forms of collateral, since they thus to sustain a The Manumission Boards helped reserved price. countries where financial institutions were pyramid of credit in bonds of doubtful value. notoriously unstable and public --- Page 384 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of libertad de vientre had been adopted in The compromise measure the Rio de la Plata in 1813, in Gran Colombia and in Chile in 1811, in both patrimonial authority and Peru in 1821 because it respected and conferred only a conditional private property. It freed the unborn be to perform further freedom on the libertos, who could Its pressured effects had been somewhat service for their master or the state. though many freed in this way anticipated by military manumission, will have perished in the wars. caste survived even America as elsewhere a racial spirit In Spanish the residual black slavery. The old caste system more tenaciously than and conflict. It had racial competition had in its own way regulated well as large disabilities. The new usually combined small privileges as itself. The of racial relations would take time to consolidate system of market relations entailed novel, and sometimes greater intrusion which could cluster around colour and inherited virulent, antagonisms and Colombia pardos had acquired ethnic identifications. In Venezuela office or commands in the formal equality and some held municipal Republics the free black or mulatto army. In the Spanish American better position in society than did enjoyed more rights and a somewhat United States, a relevant but not the free Negro in the Northern demanding standard of comparison. usually implemented the Beyond the compromise abolitionism had also thrown up a more radical Spanish American liberation struggle led by Hidalgo and anti-slavery current, notably in the movements defeat. Significantly these Artigas, but their impact had been reduced by landowners had been prepared, at the limit, to expropriate were movements in the parlance of the epoch they as well as slave-owners; private property in all its *agrarians', willing to challenge large-scale the hand, nor currents had not gained upper forms. Radical anti-slavery the social weight to destroy had blacks and pardos themselves possessed the course of the liberation slavery outright. But they had inflected and a number of struggle to which they contributed SO much Bolivar in persuaded his better moments, to the Patriots and Liberators, including satisfy some of their demands. slavery had been a secondary, perhaps In 1810 Spanish American did contain nearly quarter of a declining, force. However, the mainland component of the labour million slaves and they constituted a major of the valleys of New force in the vicinity of Caracas and Lima, in in some Rio de la Plata. But for the Granada and such provinces as Cordoba these elements of a anti-slavery consequences of the liberation struggle much as could have been stimulated and redeployed, slave system in the period after 1815. Thus coffee happened to slavery in Virginia the hills bordering the Caribbean in the cultivation developed apace in --- Page 385 --- Spanish America because of the advances of anti-slavery 1820s and 1830s - and largely basis of slave labour. In 1810 the enclaves this did not take place on the America had been suspended of slave labour in mainland Spanish haciendas, some within a wider economy of commodity-producing others protected by it. as could have been stimulated and redeployed, slave system in the period after 1815. Thus coffee happened to slavery in Virginia the hills bordering the Caribbean in the cultivation developed apace in --- Page 385 --- Spanish America because of the advances of anti-slavery 1820s and 1830s - and largely basis of slave labour. In 1810 the enclaves this did not take place on the America had been suspended of slave labour in mainland Spanish haciendas, some within a wider economy of commodity-producing others protected by it. With frustrated by imperial regulation, could develop along new paths. independence commercial agriculture between masters and slaves were The pre-independence arrangements in response to the pressure of slave often already in transition, partly hacendados in the resistance and revolt. Following independence or the dynamic sector found they had to pay wages grant to commercially peasant if they wished usufruct of land to a semi-autonomous had become more of a residual undertake systematic cultivation. Slavery in a mode of production; slaves and decaying status than an element in the declining cacao sector, survived as retainers of the hacendados made them seem more like peones. but even here their cultivation rights but the ferocious still hard for peasants and labourers, Life was the mayorales of the grandes cacaos had discipline maintained by disintegrated. states of America, with the Around the year 1830 the new Spanish advanced anti-slavery obscure exception of Paraguay, possessed more colonies in the New than any of the remaining European legislation British and French abolitionism were to be encouraged World. Indeed America. Unlike the United States,. by reports from independent Spanish had slavery on the road to extinction the South American Republics put Whatever the ultimate fate of the throughout their national territory. - barring foreign America there was no question slaves left in Spanish domestic counter-revolution - of a new intervention or some dramatic was happening in the slave system arising in these lands, as manifestly sense Spanish states of North America. In this important cotton marked a major advance over North American American independence independence. Notes of the Spanish American provinces see, 1. For information on the slave Aires populations and Puerto Rico, Hebe Clementi, La abolicion de for New Granada, Chile, Buenos Buenos Aires 1974, pPp. 45, 63-4, 89, 93-4, 188; for la esclavitud en América Latina, esclavos, Havana 1914, p. 23; for Peru, Nuria Sales de Cuba, Fernando Ortiz, Los negros mercaderes de quintos, Barcelona 1974, p. 105; for Bohigas, Sobre esclavos, reclutas y Vida de los negros esclavos en Venezuela, Havana Venezuela, Miguel Acosta Saignes, Historia econômica y social de Venezuela, 2 1978, p. 164, and Federico Brito Figueroa, R.A. ed., British Consular Reports vols, I, Caracas 1966, p. 160; for Bolivia, America, London Humphreys, 1940, P: 208; for Ecuador, Enrique on the Trade and Politics of Latin en Ecuador, Quito 1982, p. 39; for Mexico, Ayala, Lucha politica y origen de los Gainesville, partidos Florida 1966, p. 195. Hugh Hamill, The Hidalgo Revolt, --- Page 386 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Loyalty; The Breakdown of the Spanish 2. Jorge Dominguez, Insurrection Mass. 1980, or P. 79. colonial are American Empire, Cambridge, slavery in the late epoch 3. The peculiarities of Venezuela plantation Rios de Hernândez, *Notas para el Estudio del examined in Gastôn Carvallo and Josefina Agricola Venezolana', in Agricultura y Binomio Plantacion-Conuco en la Hacienda Sociohistorico, Centro de Estudios del sociedad: tres ensayos bistoricos, Equipo Caracas, June 1979, pp. uez, Insurrection Mass. 1980, or P. 79. colonial are American Empire, Cambridge, slavery in the late epoch 3. The peculiarities of Venezuela plantation Rios de Hernândez, *Notas para el Estudio del examined in Gastôn Carvallo and Josefina Agricola Venezolana', in Agricultura y Binomio Plantacion-Conuco en la Hacienda Sociohistorico, Centro de Estudios del sociedad: tres ensayos bistoricos, Equipo Caracas, June 1979, pp. 4-14, 23-35. Desarrollo, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Early Latin America: History of Colonial 4. James Lockhart and Stuart B. Schwartz, 1983, 316-20, 338. Spanish America and Brazil, Cambridge PP: de Aponte, 1812', Ensayos histôricos, 5. José Luciano Franco, 'La Conspiracion towards Cuba's plantation economy Havana 1974, pp. 125-90. For official Cuando indulgence reinaba Su majestad el azucar, Buenos Aires and export trade see Roland T. Ely, 1963, pp. 60-77. American Revolutions, London 1974, pp. 184-206. I, 6. John Lynch, The Spanish Vicente Magallanes, Historia politica de Venezuela, For the Republic, see also Manuel the counter-mobiliscation see Stephen K. Caracas 1975, pp. 173-94; and for Spanish Columbus, Ohio 1974, pp. 29-42, and Sloan, Pablo Morillo and Venezuela, 1815-1820, de historia, Caracas 1961, pp. 207 et seq. Germân Carrera Damas, Tres temas New Mexico 1948, for a 7. See Gerhard Masur, Simon Bolivar, Albuquerque, 155-200), of the Venezuelan plains with powerful evocation of Bolivar's campaign and wild (pp. inhabitants ( pp. 201-13), and of the collapse their cattle, rivers, seasonal lakes of the Second Republic (pp. 214-32). in Sloan, Pablo Morillo and Venezuela, p. 71. 8. These observations are quoted 158, 162. Carvallo and Rios de 9. Sloan, Pablo Morillo and Venezuela, and 1818 aimed pP. at restoring plantation discipline in Hernandez quote regulations of 1817 del binomio plantacion-conuco', Tres ensayos, pP. their paper, 'Notas para el estudio 29-31. Cuban economic reforms are printed in Pichardo, 10. The texts of the decrees on 261-7. Spain's fiscal crisis was SO acute that Documentos para la historia de Cuba, PP. United States for $5 million in 1819, thus also sold Florida to the the Seminoles and the royal government General Jackson to complete his ruthless campaign against $2 million from Britain permitting In the year Fernando VII accepted the blacks of the region. previous trade treaty which his officials thereafter ignored; in return for endorsing an anti-slave fleet from the Tsar. money was used to buy a war Caracas 1980, PP. 150-72. This work sheds much 11. Paul Verna, Pétion y Bolivar, milieu of the epoch and on the subsequent In light on the Caribbean revolutionary between Haiti and republican Colombia/Venczuela. well as to vicissitudes of the relationship and colonialist reaction as Pétion wished to check monarchist probably Republicans to an anti-slavery policy. to convert the Venezuelan 290-320. At this period, as later, Bolivar managed 12. Masur, Simon Bolivar, pP. and a commitment to civic equality, with racial combine willingness to challenge hostile slavery, to any hint of pardo separatism. His anti-slavery fears which led him to be very Salcedo-Bastardo, Bolivar: A Continent and Its record is documented and stressed in J.L. 103-12. Bolivar's hostility to 'black power' is dwelt Destiny, Richmond, Surrey 1977, pp. Experience in Spanish America, Cambridge 1976, pp. this period, as later, Bolivar managed 12. Masur, Simon Bolivar, pP. and a commitment to civic equality, with racial combine willingness to challenge hostile slavery, to any hint of pardo separatism. His anti-slavery fears which led him to be very Salcedo-Bastardo, Bolivar: A Continent and Its record is documented and stressed in J.L. 103-12. Bolivar's hostility to 'black power' is dwelt Destiny, Richmond, Surrey 1977, pp. Experience in Spanish America, Cambridge 1976, pp. on by Leslie Rout, The African 176-9. is quoted in Nuria Sales, Sobre esclavos reclutas, PP. 13. Bolivar's letter to Santander 1820 probably belonged to estates administered by 93-4. The slaves freed by Bolivar in the Spanish authorities since 1814. Decline and Abolition of Negro Slavery in Venezuela, The 14. John Lombardi, The Naria Sales, Sobre esclavos reclutas, P. 99. Westport, Conn. 1971, PP. 46-50; delegates from Antioquia who knew Manumission Law was presented at Cucuta could by be pushed on this question. By this exactly how far the proprietors of the region been in transition towards a species slavery of western Colombia appears to have Colonization in time the and the former cuadrillas were rare.. James Parson, Antioqueno The Santander of peonaje Berkeley 1949, pp. 50-53, and David Bushnell, Western Colombia, Colombia, Westport, Conn. 1970, p. 168. Regime in Gran --- Page 387 --- Spanish America estadistico, 15. For Cuban remittances see Jacobo de la Madrid's histôrico, de la Isla de Cuba, Madrid 1859, Pezuela, 4 Diccionario geografico, of America, instructions to American representatives see vols, I, pp. 389-90. For Lincoln, Nebraska 1983, pp. 145 (in Timothy Anna, Spain and the Loss delegate to the Cortes, Padre Félix Varela, 1814), pp. 274-5 (in 1822). The stabilised if slavery was abolished; he argued that constitutional liberty could only Cuban be deprive slave-owners of their capital. The advocated a manumission policy that would not thinly disguised The political freedom he advocated for Documentos para independence. la historia de text of his proposals will be found in Cuba was 16. El redactor, February Cuba, Pp. 269-75. Pichardo, América Latina, p. 54. 1813, quoted in Clementi, La aboliciôn de la esclavitud 17. G.A. Andrews, The en 18. Nuria Sales, Sobre esclavos Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, Madison 1980, pp. on black and pardo did reclutas, Pp. 59-76. The dependence of 113-37. an empty regiments offer some guarantees that Buenos Aires gesture; see Tulio manumission would not be Argentina in the Revolutionary Halperin-Donghi, Period, London Politics, Economics and Society in 19. Quoted in John Lynch, The 1975, Pp. 193-5. 20. Quoted in Lynch, The Spanish Spanish American Revolutions, London 78. 21. José Luis Masini, La esclavitud American Revolutions, p. 86. 1973, p. Mendoza 1962, PP. 13, 25, 43-50. negra en Mendoza, epoca 22. Guillermo Feliu Cruz, La abolicion de la independiente, 1973, pp. 38-9. esclavitud en Chile, Santiago de Chile 23. 5, Pp. 193-5. 20. Quoted in Lynch, The Spanish Spanish American Revolutions, London 78. 21. José Luis Masini, La esclavitud American Revolutions, p. 86. 1973, p. Mendoza 1962, PP. 13, 25, 43-50. negra en Mendoza, epoca 22. Guillermo Feliu Cruz, La abolicion de la independiente, 1973, pp. 38-9. esclavitud en Chile, Santiago de Chile 23. Felid Cruz, La abolicion de la esclavitud 24. Lynch, The Spanish American en Chile, pp. 50-52. caciques who had fought against Tupac Revolutions, Amard, p. 165. Pumacahua, one of the Indian royalist restoration of 1814; the of was drawn into creole resistance to whites to rally to the royalists. spectacle armed Indian columns soon caused most the 25. Quoted in Lynch, The Spanish and royalist slave recruitment policies American Revolutions, pp. 174-5; for Government in Peru, Lincoln, Nebraska see Timothy A. Anna, The Fall of republican the 26. Nuria Sales, Sobre esclavos 1979, pp. 172-4. Royal 27. Anna, The Fall of Royal reclutas, p. 103. decrees are reprinted in Nuria Sales, Government Sobre in Peru, pp. 196-7; the 28. Felii Cruz, La abolicion de la esclavos reclutas, pp. 110-19. contradictory 29. Feliu Cruz, La abolicion de la esclavitud en Chile, pp. 60-97. ranks and honours bestowed upon Romero esclavitud en Chile, Pp. 98-107, pp. 120-52. he should achieve recognition in the 1830s, were of the second rather than first that The pelucones, may have been related to the at the hands of a government of class; 30. Selected Writings of Bolivar, rebirth of anti-slavery in at conservative this York 1951, II, p. 499. compiled by Vicente Lecuna, ed. Europe by H.E. Bierk, time. 31. Lynch, The Spanish American New esclavos reclutas, pp. 120-27. Revolutions, pp. 275-6; Nuria Sales, 32. Stephen Clissold, Bernardo Sobre 1968, p. 225; Humphreys, ed., British O'Higgins Consular and the Independence of Chile, London 33. Lynch, The. Spanish American Reports, p. 177. of Spanish American independence Revolutions, p. 289. This admirable general in this it reflects the prominence struggles systematically notes their record on history actions concerning the status of slaves. given by the Liberators themselves to declarations slavery; and the 34. Masur, Simon Bolivar, Pp. 597-623. plans of some of Bolivar's Santander for his part was Because the Liberals supported supporters to turn Colombia into a antagonistic to be aligned with a pardo republican legality and a wider franchise, monarchy or empire. Madrid 1957, constituency. (C. Parra-Perez, La they tended to pp. 106-10.) The differences monarquia en Gran concern slavery; neither man proposed simply between Santander and Bolivar Colombia, did not contemplate said renunciation or enfeeblement of ending slavery but equally neither would of all of their successors. the 1821 law - something which cannot 35. Masur, Simon Bolivar, be pp. 633-4; Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, pp. --- Page 388 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery 263-4. Padilla's alignment with Santander reflected the gratitude towards a man who had built up the Colombian both support for Liberalism and money received from the foreign loans Navy. Santander spent most of Colombian pailebots and two splendid frigates; when plans acquiring to invade war Cuba matériel, including a dozen Navy rather over-equipped. something which cannot 35. Masur, Simon Bolivar, be pp. 633-4; Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, pp. --- Page 388 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery 263-4. Padilla's alignment with Santander reflected the gratitude towards a man who had built up the Colombian both support for Liberalism and money received from the foreign loans Navy. Santander spent most of Colombian pailebots and two splendid frigates; when plans acquiring to invade war Cuba matériel, including a dozen Navy rather over-equipped. (David were shelved this left the Colombia, p. 264, and Enrique Uribe White, Bushnell, The Santander Regime in Gran 36. Lombardi, The Decline and Padilla, Bogota 1973.) This is the best study I know of Abolition of Negro Slavery in Venezuela, Altogether less than slavery and abolition in PP: 61-94. Manumission Laws a thousand slaves were to be freed independent Spanish America. further (p. 154). In 1839 the of by purchase under the extended from twenty-one to period obligatory service for manumisos was manumisos would be freed the total number twenty-five of slaves years. Up until the point where the first quoted by Lombardi suggests that there were and manumisos grew; one source 1844, over a year before manumisos born in nearly 50,000 slaves and manumisos 37. Brito Figueroa, Historia econômica 1821 could claim freedom (p. 162). in may have been somewhat inflated, since y social, I, p. 247. The figures in this count numbers of slaves they declared, with a slave-owners had an interest in and to future compensation in the view both to enhancing their boosting the 38. The price of cacao in Venezuela event of emancipation. credit-worthiness fanega in 1820 and was still at $20 in dropped from $45 a fanega in 1810 to $20 to $10 in 1820 and $8 in 1830; coffee 1830; cotton dropped from $15 a quintal in a quintal in 1810 to $8 in 1820 and $8 in dropped 1830. somewhat less drastically from $12 1810, a social, p. 224.) Debt peonage is a complex but (Brito Figueroa, Historia econômica producers to merchants in the coffee topic, for an argument that it bound small y Capitalism in the Venezuelan Andes, Austin economy, see William Roseberry, and 39. This suggested source of (Texas) 1983, pP. 89-96. Coffee of self-sale found in early modern persisting enslavement might be compared to insecure Russia, with its the forms borderlands; see Richard Hellie, Slavery in destitute and vulnerable poor and especially PP. 333-5. Statistics on the Russia: 1450-1725, are difficult to have confidence actual extent of slavery in Chicago 1982, the population of slaves and libertos in; nevertheless they do sometimes independent Venezuela likely that the reproduction which could relate to suggest an increase in freedmen rates of slaves and 'voluntary" re-enslavement. It is or other propertyless Venezuelans. manumisos were higher than those 40. Lombardi, 'The Abolition of Slavery for Slavery and Race Relations in Latin in Venezuela', in Robert Brent role of slaves in the credit structure America, is also Westport, Conn. 1974, P. 242. Toplin, The crucial ed., Abolition of Negro Slavery in Venezuela, brought out by Lombardi, The Decline system of collateral whose value would Pp. 110-11. The implications for the and freedom had already been pointed begin to contract as manumisos financial Manumission Law in the days of Gran out by Venezuelan 'Liberals' hostile approached to Gran Colombia, p. avery and Race Relations in Latin in Venezuela', in Robert Brent role of slaves in the credit structure America, is also Westport, Conn. 1974, P. 242. Toplin, The crucial ed., Abolition of Negro Slavery in Venezuela, brought out by Lombardi, The Decline system of collateral whose value would Pp. 110-11. The implications for the and freedom had already been pointed begin to contract as manumisos financial Manumission Law in the days of Gran out by Venezuelan 'Liberals' hostile approached to Gran Colombia, p. 169.) Colombia. (See Bushnell, The Santander the 41. Nuria Sales, Sobre esclavos Regime in 42. Bushnell, The Santander reclutas, P. 89. American Revolutions, p. 256; Ayala, Regime Lucha in Gran Colombia, p. 291; Lynch, The 43. Clementi, La abolicion de esclavitud Politica, pp. 37-51. Spanish Ema Isola, La esclavitud en el Uruguay, en América Latina, p. 57; for 44. John Lynch, Argentine Dictator: Montevideo 1975, pp. 293-323. Uruguay see 1982, pp. 119-23; Masini, La esclavitud Juan Manuel de Rosas, free blacks in the Argentine in the 1820s negra en Mendoza, P. 52. 1829-1852, to London that of slaves; this tends to support the had a mortality rate nearly three According times as Lynch of slavery in Venezuela that it could reflect thesis suggested in the discussion of the high as poor free blacks and the very insecure and persistence 45. Josefina Pla, pardos (sce note 39 above). vulnerable situation of pp. 55-111. Hermano negro: la esclavitud en Paraguay, Madrid 46. Enrique Florescano, 1972, especially 1500-1821, Mexico 1971, Origen y desarrollo de los problemas 47. Hugh M. pp. 152-5. agrarios de México, Hamill, The Hidalgo Revolt, Gainesville, Florida 1966, p. 136. --- Page 389 --- Spanish America Clementi, La abolicion de la esclavitud en América Latina, p. 109. 48. Quoted in Lynch, The Revolutions of Spanish America, P. 313. The sentiments expressed here were not unusual and the use of the term 'slavery' to describe the condition from which Americans were secking to escape was very widespread. Hidalgo and Morelos also warned of the danger of a 'war of races' in terms similar to those used in South America; see, for example, the remarks of Hidalgo quoted by Clementi, La abolicion, P: 111. For the use of emancipationism to mobilise those of partly African descent see Hamill, The Hidalgo Revolt, p. 195. 49. Elsa Gracida and Esperanza Fujigaki, 'La revolucion de independencia', in Enrique Semo, ed., México: un pueblo en la historia, Mexico City 1983, pp. 11-89, especially pp. 37-8; see also T.E. Anna, The Fall of the Royal Government in Mexico City, Lincoln, Nebraska 1978, pp. 107, 195-6; and Dominguez, Insurrection Or Loyalty, pp. 163, 181-95. 50. Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, p. 320. 51. Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, pp. 323, 332. 52. Clementi, La abolicion de la esclavitud en América Latina, p. 112. 53. Clementi, La abolicion de la eslavitud en América Latina, P. 125. For Costa Rica see C.F.S. Cardoso, 'La formacion de hacienda cafetalera en el siglo XIX', in E. Florescano, Haciendas, latifundios y plantaciones en América Latina, pp. 635-66. --- Page 390 --- . Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, pp. 323, 332. 52. Clementi, La abolicion de la esclavitud en América Latina, p. 112. 53. Clementi, La abolicion de la eslavitud en América Latina, P. 125. For Costa Rica see C.F.S. Cardoso, 'La formacion de hacienda cafetalera en el siglo XIX', in E. Florescano, Haciendas, latifundios y plantaciones en América Latina, pp. 635-66. --- Page 390 --- --- Page 391 --- X Cuba and Brazil: the Abolitionist Impasse The ridge of that mountain, whose fastnesses The fugitives seek, I beheld, and around wild Plantations were scattered of late where And the graves of their comrades they toiled, The mill-house are now to be found was there and its turmoil of old. Is sought my dear brother, embraced him But found him a slave as Il left him before. again, To my bosom I clasped him and My flight in the air, I ascend with winging once more The sultan I seem of the winds my charge, A monarch whose will as I soar, Like Icarus sets the prisoner at large. I boldly ascending on high, laugh at the anger of Minos, and see A haven of freedom aloft, where I And the place where the slave from his fly, Twas then Oh my God! That a thunder master is free. And the noise of its crash broke the clap came, That stole o'er my senses and fettered slumbers SO light, And the dream was soon over, of freedom's my frame, first flight. The Dream (1838), Juan Manzano --- Page 392 --- --- Page 393 --- Cuba and Brazil While the independence resulted in difficult victories struggles on the Spanish America mainland for and Brazil monarchism and republicanism and abolitionism, in Cuba apparent contrast between slavery continued to reign. Beneath the to be called in the Spain's 'ever-faithful island', as Cuba 1820s, and the came declared by a Braganza Prince in 1823, independent Empire of Brazil, Cuba and Brazil both largely avoided there were striking parallels. conflicts and mobilisations that attended the disruptive and dangerous nevertheless in both there the birth of the new were also Republics; and the social formation favourable far-reaching changes in the state The planters and merchants of Cuba to and export agriculture. ill afford revolutionary Brazil knew that they could fundamental disturbances, though they did changes - above all most for wish to see restrictions on the plantation hoped a lifting of commercial of special interests economy and a dismantling of the regime metropolitan incorporated in the absolutist state. Their fear of the slaves structures of the than paralysis; inhibited from democratic prompted caution rather free population, they instead redoubled appeals to a partly coloured within the established order, their intrigues and pressures a regime of independent seeking to secure commercial freedom and they still property. Afraid of revolution from pursued a 'passive revolution' from below, invasion of 1808 followed above. The liberation by the saga of the Napoleonic struggle created conditions which Spanish American making concessions seem unavoidable favoured such a strategy by The planters of Cuba and Brazil to the imperial governments. on slave labour and slave were, of course, far more dependent classes of mainland Spanish subordination than were the possessing America. There were America, or even most of English North as on the whole of the roughly mainland as many slaves in the Spanish Caribbean about 40 per cent of Cuba's taken together in 1810; they comprised less for the provinces oft the mainland. population compared with 10 per cent or slaves in 1810 and they too Brazil contained at least a million population. The slave comprised 40 per cent or more of the similar population of Virginia in 1776 proportions and yet had not stilled the had been of energies of the Virginian planters. historic revolutionary and Cuba, a category wider than that However, of the slave-owners of Brazil to be wary of emulating the planters, had two good reasons Virginian Patriots: revolution in St Domingue, and first, the intervening Cuba and Brazil lacked secondly the fact that, unlike a sizeable white Virginia, and free people of colour majority. 40 per cent or more of the similar population of Virginia in 1776 proportions and yet had not stilled the had been of energies of the Virginian planters. historic revolutionary and Cuba, a category wider than that However, of the slave-owners of Brazil to be wary of emulating the planters, had two good reasons Virginian Patriots: revolution in St Domingue, and first, the intervening Cuba and Brazil lacked secondly the fact that, unlike a sizeable white Virginia, and free people of colour majority. In Cuba black slaves together some 217,000 slaves and 109,000 free constituted a majority; there were 274,000 whites in 1810. In Brazil people of colour compared with the population of about 2.5 million they comprised about two-thirds of in 1808. In Virginia in 1776 there --- Page 394 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery mulattos. The revolution in had been very few free blacks or of colour would be prone to St Domingue had shown that free people of flux and, in some assert their own rights in any situation lot with the slaves. În Cuba and circumstances, even to throw in their respectively, roughly a Brazil free blacks, mulattos or pardos comprised, and had long traditions of semififth and a third of the population brotherhoods and associations; autonomous organisation in self-help numerous and betterfree people of colour were, in fact, more else in the New established in these two territories than anywhere of Venezuela. the but ominous, exception World - with possible, and Rio contained large numbers of Moreover such towns as Havana the free of colour and in communication with people urban slaves, than slaves incarcerated on plantations. notoriously more troublesome of 1791 in St Domingue was as much a watershed in The slave revolt members of the oligarchy Cuba. In 1789 disgruntled Brazil as in nearby modelled on that of the in Minas Gerais plotted an independence freedom for Brazilian-born United States and one leader even envisaged and whites were gripped by slaves. But by 1792 most slave proprietors challenge to the fear of the consequences of any revolutionary in 1792 noted a sense of what he metropolis. An English traveller in Rio that caused the negro to tremble called "black power': "The secret spell, degree dissolved." 12 This the of the white man, is in great and at presence reflected the condition of the urban slave judgement would have slaves in isolation on the estates. would not apply to field desubordination kept led Brazilian planters Nevertheless fear of incipient and to avoid and merchants to behave with great circumspection and the slave regime. opening up any rift between the colonial could regime itself be channelled into the The pride of free blacks and mulattos had coloured officers as well as black and mulatto regiments; these officers. coloured non-commissioned disturbances within Brazil itself to prevent There were enough fears of the white proprietors and their dissipation of the social order. 'French principles' inspired consequent loyalty to the established by and conspiracy in Bahia in 1798, chiefly supported a demonstration that was both republican and people of colour and with a programme on walls On August 12th manifestos appeared emancipationist. for the removal of the 'detestable Portuguese throughout the city calling time of our liberty is about to arrive; yoke' and declaring: "The happy all will be equal." *All black and the time when all will be brothers, there will be no slaves whatever.' brown slaves are to be free, SO that blacks, are equal, all are equal, 'All citizens, especially mulattos there and will be freedom, equality and there will be no differences, --- Page 395 --- Cuba and Brazil in their wages and it was fraternity." 5 Soldiers were promised an increase free and independent' said that a government that was 'democratic, and most particularly to French would open the port to all nations, time the final destination of much of the ships. ." *All black and the time when all will be brothers, there will be no slaves whatever.' brown slaves are to be free, SO that blacks, are equal, all are equal, 'All citizens, especially mulattos there and will be freedom, equality and there will be no differences, --- Page 395 --- Cuba and Brazil in their wages and it was fraternity." 5 Soldiers were promised an increase free and independent' said that a government that was 'democratic, and most particularly to French would open the port to all nations, time the final destination of much of the ships. In fact France was at this still formally controlled by produce of Bahia, though the trade weeks was the Governor had arrested Portuguese merchants. Within two with the conspiracy, most of them forty-seven people in connection soldier and nearly a dozen slaves. The mulatto artisans, at least one was crushed by hanging "Tailors' Conspiracy', as it came to be of known, the others to the lash and three leaders and sentencing most to Lisbon that respectable banishment. The Governor reported involved and that the conspiracy proprietors (homens de bem) were not from the 'lower orders' (baixa was the work of malcontents drawn esfera).3 urban conspiracy Brazil also In contrast to this highly programmatic revolts against captivity by African witnessed a succession of elemental the of particular African slaves, inspired by Muslim beliefs discovered or solidarity in Salvador in 1807, while nations. A Hausa conspiracy was hundred slaves in the southern around Christmas 1808 several burned the cane fields and Recôncavo broke out of their plantations, slaves from Salvador attacked the town of Nazaré; about 400 escaped threat to Nazaré was the revolt. On January 6th 1809 a to join took 95 rebels prisoner while others repulsed; government troops The Governor issued a decree imposing withdrew to the backlands. of control and denouncing 'slaves curfews and others measures who with total disregard and resistance principally of the Hausa nation revolutionaries and disloyal". to the laws of slavery have become of African rebellion that These revolts and conspiracies set a pattern three decades. A number of Brazil's history for nearly was to punctuate either by retreating to the quilombos of the rebels gained their liberty, the black population of the the interior or by finding refuge amongst clash between Brazilian proprietors towns. Had there been any violent such rebellions could well have and the imperial power, black then and an anti-slavery force. But contributed to the birth of a power violent clash occurred. The in part for this very reason no such of the englobing political and preservation of the essential integrity contestation of it did not become social order meant that slave level of for freedom by politicised and remained at the struggles ethnic and religious individual groups of rebels. The rebels particular could cut them off from other identifications often invoked by the made it easier for the slaves and people of colour; and in this sense they and militia against these authorities to deploy black and mulatto troops rebellions, as frequently happened. --- Page 396 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery between 1789 and the declaration of independence In the period attempt to challenge Braganza rule, there was to be only one republican This revolt centred on the twin cities of the Pernambuco revolt of 1817. province of Pernambuco. Recife and Olinda in the north-eastern resented sugar the fact that tariffs and Leading citizens of the port, Olinda, absorbed by the royal bureaucracy port duties levied on their trade were cumbersome regulations which imposed many at Rio; a bureaucracy without supplying any valued upon the merchants of the north-east, were particularly services in return. The merchants of Recife-Olinda States but had been prevented desirous of easier trade with the United that gave preferential from enjoying this by a royal government those involved in the revolt were treatment to the British. Among established by Bishop Azeredo graduates of the local seminary, Freemasons and young Coutinho in 1804. absorbed by the royal bureaucracy port duties levied on their trade were cumbersome regulations which imposed many at Rio; a bureaucracy without supplying any valued upon the merchants of the north-east, were particularly services in return. The merchants of Recife-Olinda States but had been prevented desirous of easier trade with the United that gave preferential from enjoying this by a royal government those involved in the revolt were treatment to the British. Among established by Bishop Azeredo graduates of the local seminary, Freemasons and young Coutinho in 1804. Supporters also included hierarchy dominated by the Brazilian officers who resented a military were swiftly nobility. The commanders of the local garrision aid urban Portuguese in February 1817 with the of an overpowered and imprisoned royal bureaucrats. The royal mob that had little love for Portuguese the rebels. The Republic of Governor of the province abandoned it to trade and abolished titles of Pernambuco' committed itself to free itself chiefly on aristocracy and all privileged monopolies. It modelled in search of the United States and dispatched an envoy to the Washington US Secretary of State arms and recognition: the envoy did meet arrived too late to *unofficially', but the arms he purchased leaders privately of the revolt abstained affect the outcome. To begin with, the alarmed by the mobilisation of from any appeal to the slaves and were to reassure the planters it the people of colour. In a clumsy attempt of all sorts would be was said that, though slavery was unjust, property clerks and professionals of scrupulously respected. The merchants, directly depend on slave labour and Recife-Olinda did not themselves them still felt the attraction of 'French the more radical spirits amongst from the senhores de principles'. The revolt failed to attract support in its last desperate engenho or the lavradores de cana of the north-east; commanders for slaves to days an appeal was made by some republican effect. As if yearning for magical enroll in the ranks, but to very little freeing Napoleon from St deliverance some young officers proposed command of the republican Helena and persuading him to accept since the Royal Navy forces; however, this could not be attempted Olinda. The Republic was retained control of the sea and blockaded of existence. with little difficulty, after a little over two months crushed Brazilian slave-owners felt that even a moderate Evidently the mass of republican challenge was too risky to attempt. --- Page 397 --- Cuba and Brazil in Cuba but the proximity of There were fewer revolts and conspiracies sufficient to alert Cuban proprietors to St Domingue and Venezuela was politics. A stream of the menace of revolutionary and destruction, republican brought this message refugees, bringing tales of terrible refugees from St Domingue. with them. Cuba received 20,000-30,000 mulatto smallholder of Bayamo at the In 1795 Nicolas Morales, a of St Domingue, was charged extreme east of the island, within sight of his class; he claimed that the with fomenting unrest among people 1795 offered equality to all castas and royal decree of gracias al sacar of frustrated by white creoles and had been that its implementation and his fellow conspirators, who included corrupt officials. Morales abolition of the sales tax and confiscation some whites, also discussed made use of their from hacendados who had not proper of land Some of the conspirators believed that mercedes (royal land grants). to France, as Spanish Santo Cuba was about to be handed over to alarm the Domingo was at this time. Morales had enough support by the fact but the limits of the conspiracy are suggested local authorities, and Morales himself arrested, largely by that it was broken up, witnessed a number of isolated plantation militia. The late 1790s reflected poor security in new outbreaks in Cuba; these probably arrived African captives, though plantations filled with recently some part. of the conspirators believed that mercedes (royal land grants). to France, as Spanish Santo Cuba was about to be handed over to alarm the Domingo was at this time. Morales had enough support by the fact but the limits of the conspiracy are suggested local authorities, and Morales himself arrested, largely by that it was broken up, witnessed a number of isolated plantation militia. The late 1790s reflected poor security in new outbreaks in Cuba; these probably arrived African captives, though plantations filled with recently some part. The colonial rumours of revolution may have played in eastern Cuba by government of Cuba strengthened its position of the esclavos del rey near with the descendants reaching an agreement The freedom of these blacks was the copper mines of Prado in Oriente. forebears had rejected the slave recognised over a century after their held on March 19th 1801 in condition. At an imposing ceremony of its Governor and the massed ranks Santiago de Cuba, in the presence decree was proclaimed of white and coloured militia, a royal them against rerecognising the liberty of the cobreros, guaranteeing cultivating their and recognising their right to continue enslavement lands.6 conspiracy in Cuba was that led by The first pro-independence and member of the creole elite, in Ramon de la Luz, a Freemason an the aim of these conspirators was to establish independent 1810; freedom of commerce with the United American Republic, enjoying for Cuba later published by one of the States. A draft constitution would be upheld SO long as it was participants declared that slavery mulatto the conspirators necessary to agriculture. Despite some the support abolition of all caste did not even commit themselves to of the conspiracy, whose discrimination. Havana was the centre creoles and a number of free participants included a handful of white members of the Havana militia mulattos. Despite some support from --- Page 398 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the conspiracy was nipped in the bud and the Spanish prisons on the African coast. 7 ringleaders sent to the Following the invasion of the Peninsula the planters in Cuba knew themselves leading merchants and vulnerable situation. The trade to be in a difficult, fluid and United States had seriously war between Britain, France and the General, Someruelos, damaged their commerce. The worked closely with the Havana Captain ignoring any inconvenient instructions. The municipality, was determined not to commit itself core of the creole oligarchy civil commotions of any sort and to do too strongly to any side, to avoid news had arrived of business with the victors. When the streets of Havana Napoleon's invasion of Spain a mob had taken to Fernando VII; shouting 'Death to the French', evidently the presence of 'Long Live some popular antagonism. The Havana French émigrés had aroused to clamp down on any expression of municipality was determined await developments. When popular politics and otherwise to junta this Arango y Parreno suggested proposal was rejected, forming a that any cabildo abierto could undoubtedly because it was thought Cuban get out of control. oligarchy were to be found on both Members of the itself. Casa Calvo, former sides of the struggle in Spain supported Joseph Governor of Spanish Santo Bonaparte as did Ricardo Domingo, another important planter family, who became O'Farrill, member of The Havana municipality remained his Minister of Defence. and was well aware that Cuba outwardly loyal to the The loyalty of the Cuban was in no position to defy the Bourbons, British. the Cortes debate on oligarchy was strained by the first of day slavery and the slave trade in reports emergency session it engaged in 1811; after a twothe US Consul in Havana, discussions with William Shaler, the United States, concerning the possibility of an eventuality which interested annexation to Jefferson. Many Cuban planters and both Madison and been dismayed by a Bonapartist some merchants would not have the Americas. the The loyalty of the Cuban was in no position to defy the Bourbons, British. the Cortes debate on oligarchy was strained by the first of day slavery and the slave trade in reports emergency session it engaged in 1811; after a twothe US Consul in Havana, discussions with William Shaler, the United States, concerning the possibility of an eventuality which interested annexation to Jefferson. Many Cuban planters and both Madison and been dismayed by a Bonapartist some merchants would not have the Americas. France and the victory in Europe and a US victory in for Cuban produce. A United States seemed the natural outlets victory for Britain raised sorts: first, the preferential treatment complications of two islands and, secondly, its policy of given by Britain to its own sugar During the years 1808-12 suppressing the Atlantic slave trade. British on the grounds that many Cuban vessels were seized by the intent on violating Britain's they were engaged in the slave trade or were seizures was often dubious Orders in Council; the legality of such even in the eyes of certainly, as the Cubans were well James Stephen though acceptable to the British West aware, Cuban losses were quite annexation to the United States would Indian sugar planters. However, on the slave trade; the also have meant accepting a ban ayuntamiento had only been prepared to --- Page 399 --- Cuba and Brazil contemplate this because misleading early Cortes was favourable to a motion of reports implied that the an end to slavery, not the Guridi y Alcôcer which envisaged been dispelled the simply slave trade, Once this rumour had Consulado oligarchy had recovered its nerve. The dispatched a stiff memorial to the Cortes Real abolitionist proposals. It attacking all the St Domingue because slaves pointed out that Cuba was not like province and that in fact wartime were not in a majority in any town or were all understocked. It also made disruption meant that the plantations contribution which Cuban pointed reference to the economic finances. slavery could now make to According to its calculations Cuba had Spanish imperial since the ending of the Asiento in 1789; imported 100,000 slaves $33 million (E6 million) and had these had cost Cuban planters million 'without taking into helped to produce sugar worth $73 production and account the other branches of an infinite variety of smaller agricultural labour had been instrumental in industries which slave from delivering a vigorous but assisting to grow and prosper". Apart ists and to the British (see polished counter-blast to the abolitionsteps to chapter 8), the encourage a Cuban lobby in municipality also took the son of a prominent Spanish politics. Martinez Pinillos, service of the Bourbon Spanish merchant in Cuba, remained in the prominent Spanish government and learned how to influence former intendente in politicians and military men during these years. The Peninsula Cuba, Juan Pablo Valiente, also around this time. The Liberal leader returned to the proposed slave trade ban blocked by the Arguëlles found his referred to a small commission, Cortes. The matter was to deliver a report including a Cuban planter, which prior to the suppression of failed regime. Cuban mercantile and the Constitutionalist gratified to learn the news of the slave-owning interests were nonethless VII. The new Spanish restoration of full power to Fernando suppression of the slave trade government with the was still obliged to discuss less compliant in its British, but it was likely to be far Constitutionalists. dealings with London than had been the The unsettled years 1808-14 witnessed conspiracy which was bound to alarm at least one major Cuban January and March 1812 the the slaveholders. failed regime. Cuban mercantile and the Constitutionalist gratified to learn the news of the slave-owning interests were nonethless VII. The new Spanish restoration of full power to Fernando suppression of the slave trade government with the was still obliged to discuss less compliant in its British, but it was likely to be far Constitutionalists. dealings with London than had been the The unsettled years 1808-14 witnessed conspiracy which was bound to alarm at least one major Cuban January and March 1812 the the slaveholders. Between saw as a plot to overthrow the police authorities unearthed what they system. The key figure in this colony's entire political and social the most important subversive conspiracy, or at least the leading spirit of free black woodworker of African network, was José Antonio Aponte, a birth who had militia; now in his fifties, he had been first been an NCO in the defend Spanish possessions from the British. mobilised in the 1780s to militia duties following the He was retired from his conspiracy of 1810 because he was --- Page 400 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Aponte was a leading member of one of the suspected of involvement. offering companionship and African societies which existed in Havana, These societies usually adopted self-help to free blacks and urban slaves. ritual would have a strong African a Catholic patron saint, though their known as the Shango-Teddum content. Aponte's society was commonly descent from the West African God and Aponte probably claimed the official banner of the society was a Shango. On the other hand, Nuestra Senora de los Remedios embossed white flag with the image of of Cuba, though not, had contacts in different parts in green. Aponte either by himself, when encouraging his perhaps, as many as claimed when bringing charges against him. He followers, or the authorities, the of black power in Haiti and impressed his followers with example recently crowned King Henry; hoped to gain the support of the full were found among the portraits of the Haitian monarch in followers regalia and contacts. Aponte also possessions of several of Aponte's officer from Santo the of a black Spanish sought to gain support this man, Gil Narciso, was a former Domingo then resident in Havana; the rank of brigadier in lieutenant of Jean François and had achieved 1790s. Some believed that Jean the Tropas Auxiliares Negras in the the in fact he died in François himself would arrive to aid plot Cuban though blacks had been raised 1811 in Spain. The expectations of some and some believed that the by reports of the Cortes debates free on slavery the slaves and honour his coloured captive Spanish King wished to 6th, the dia de los reyes, the early subjects. Beginning on January number of urban disturbances and months of 1812 were marked by a of Cuba, some inspired by plantation outbreaks in different parts The hacendados usually found Aponte, others perhaps spontaneous. tenants and smallholders that the local militia, drawn from employees, slaves, though in some of the region, would mobilise against insurgent and regular troops had to be parts of Eastern Cuba this did not hacendados happen was that the slaves wished used. The standard claim of the This racial and sexual fear to kill all white men and seize their fact women. that young males were heavily was no doubt prompted by the If the Havana municipality had predominant on the plantations. or to the United States, then committed itself either to independence of loyalism and black revolt such there could even have been a junction Instead the municipal and colonial as erupted in Venezuela at this time. and all signs of authorities stood together as the Aponte conspiracy, executed and his head were stamped out. Aponte himself was the unrest, with those of some of his followers, on one of displayed, together Dozens of lesser suspects were tortured, whipped main Havana streets. labour. This incident encouraged the and condemned to forced officials that fear of the slaves and blacks conviction of Spanish colonial --- Page 401 --- Cuba and Brazil incentive to white Cuban loyalty and a major reason was a powerful from gestures of independence - or, in reality why Havana abstained with the North the more serious threat, treasonous agreements in Venezuela during the years Americans. . Aponte himself was the unrest, with those of some of his followers, on one of displayed, together Dozens of lesser suspects were tortured, whipped main Havana streets. labour. This incident encouraged the and condemned to forced officials that fear of the slaves and blacks conviction of Spanish colonial --- Page 401 --- Cuba and Brazil incentive to white Cuban loyalty and a major reason was a powerful from gestures of independence - or, in reality why Havana abstained with the North the more serious threat, treasonous agreements in Venezuela during the years Americans. The unfolding of the struggle with a much could only underline the dangers in a colony 1810-14 larger slave population." the Cuban oligarchy was also restrained Both at this time and later reminded of its strength when it by fear of the British Navy. They were against the United States in used Cuba as a base during the campaigns facility the British were bound to the War of 1812; in return for this The last thing the uphold the authority of the Spanish government. blockade or occupation. But Cuban planters wished for was a British determined by Cuban loyalty to Spain was not solely the oligarchy's there is a parallel here between Cuban negative sentiments. Once again and it will be helpful to compare the loyalism and Brazilian royalism, with that of their countersituation of Brazilian and Cuban planters Having evoked the justified parts in the British and French West Indies. of planters it is now fear of revolution entertained by the majority most of their goals by to add that they proved able to achieve necessary non-revolutionary means. of Cuba and Brazil dictated caution but it by no The social composition the class of hacendados and fazendeiros to means condemned displayed a self-confidence and autonomy impotence or passivity. They of the British West Indian planters in which contrasts with the stance had long been aware the 1770s and 1780s. The Brazilian proprietors the Cuban proprietors that their country was overtaking its metropolis; and gave them great knew that their plantation wealth potential were almost abjectly leverage in Spain. By contrast the British planters access to the British market, dependent on the metropolis for privileged last but not least, for supplying for protection against other powers and, slave subordination. The the military force which ultimately guaranteed whether in the 1770s or reactions of the British West Indian planters, crucial circumstances: first, a conditioned by two later, were profoundly secondly, slaves comprised 80 large proportion of them were absentees, twice as much as the proportion in per cent or more of the population, of the French West Indies in the 1790s had Cuba or Brazil. The planters and initiative than their British counterparts. acted with more boldness of them were resident in the colonies but This was partly because more situation was more threatening to them, mainly because the political more promising. The and the economic situation correspondingly 1789 and the subsequent dissolution of outbreak of the Revolution in who had constructed the most tariff controls allowed French planters, --- Page 402 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery in the Americas, to reach out for unfettered productive slave system and North America. If the result in access to the markets of Europe the of Martinique, their St Domingue was disaster, at least had planters enjoyed considerable good interests adroitly defended by Du Buc, of Brazil and Cuba were dealt a fortune. The slave-owning oligarchies French and, from their own stronger hand than the British or planters effect. They did not aim at class perspective, played it to considerable but they found a path laurels earnt by the Virginians, the revolutionary the second and third slave Brazil and Cuba respectively to making powers of the nineteenth 1790-1840 century. a new and more dynamic system of During the period in these two territories. While plantation slavery was to be consolidated Brazil almost from the dawn of Iberian slavery had existed in Cuba and had been conditioned by the conquest its subsequent development states with a thirst for specie. or planters effect. They did not aim at class perspective, played it to considerable but they found a path laurels earnt by the Virginians, the revolutionary the second and third slave Brazil and Cuba respectively to making powers of the nineteenth 1790-1840 century. a new and more dynamic system of During the period in these two territories. While plantation slavery was to be consolidated Brazil almost from the dawn of Iberian slavery had existed in Cuba and had been conditioned by the conquest its subsequent development states with a thirst for specie. The colonialist mercantilism of absolutist colonies to return a profit and viewed Iberian Empires expected their and necessary products of imperial gold or silver as the most acceptable allotted a secondary position. In enterprise, with plantation products after about 1760; Spain continued to Brazil gold output declined steeply Mexico until 1807 but not thereafter. A receive a flow of silver from official understood that plantation new breed of 'enlightened' colonial than those derived slavery could produce profits as large, or larger, conditions prevailed. The from silver or gold mines, SO long as the right created a new revolutions in North America and in St Domingue class of those situation and gave vast new openings to the planter The North and coffee could be produced. territories where sugar efficient merchant marine. The United States Americans had a large and and provisions needed to sustain a could supply the manufactures ever-larger quantities of plantation plantation economy and bought consumption or for trans-shipment to products, either for domestic there was increasingly cordial COEurope. In the period 1793-1807 officials and colonial planters in both operation between metropolitan the colonial state and the landed oligarchy had Cuba and Brazil because the large profits to be made in the new a common interest in realising situation. ministers of Spain and Portugal still felt Prior to 1808 the colonial commerce; but this became constrained to limit and control invasion of the Peninsula. Well before impossible with the Napoleonic and Lisbon had recognised the need to 1807 the governments in Madrid monopolies on particular modify the old formula of conferring cumbersome fleet systems had individuals, companies or ports. The colonial wound up in in the 1760s and the companies been abandoned the subsequent process of dismantling the early 1780s. However, --- Page 403 --- Cuba and Brazil could be slow. The first remaining restrictions and monopolies such privileges on a concession made to creole interests was to confer Cuban planter Arango member of the local oligarchy; the 'enlightened' time in the 1790s. But both for a y Parreno became a flour monopolist situation demanded further the logic of reform and the international moves to freeing trade. comercio libre in the Spanish Empire had simply In the first instance with any Spanish port and with one colonists to trade meant permitting of reform, it meant a transition from trade another. In a second phase by tariff differentials. The regulated by prohibitions to trade regulated suspended in 1789, allowing slave trade Asiento had been temporarily and planters, among them for the participation of Cuban merchants island off the coast Parreno himself. Fernando Po, a Spanish Cuban Arango y of the Cuban treasury. of Africa, was to become a dependency became major carriers in the merchants, with North American help, Atlantic slave trade for the first time. were lifted from time to During the French wars further prohibitions Because of its greater proximity time in a more or less ad hoc fashion. affected by this de facto to the zones of conflict Cuba was more 1795-1805 Cuba became an relaxation than Brazil. In the years merchant ships called at emporium of the Americas; over a thousand not SO much counterHavana in the year 1801. Regulations the were Intendant and other senior manded as ignored: the Captain General, the planters and such bodies as officials were thanked and rewarded by the Sociedad Econômica de the municipality, the Real Consulado and in 1815 Madrid conceded to Amigos del Pais. With the return of peace tariffs to raise revenue Cuba the right to trade with all nations, using became a member of the and protect Spanish exports. Arango y Parreno Alejandro Council of the Indies and an Intendente was appointed, Successive decrees the confidence of the planters. the were Intendant and other senior manded as ignored: the Captain General, the planters and such bodies as officials were thanked and rewarded by the Sociedad Econômica de the municipality, the Real Consulado and in 1815 Madrid conceded to Amigos del Pais. With the return of peace tariffs to raise revenue Cuba the right to trade with all nations, using became a member of the and protect Spanish exports. Arango y Parreno Alejandro Council of the Indies and an Intendente was appointed, Successive decrees the confidence of the planters. Ramirez, who enjoyed 1819 abolished the tobacco monopoly issued between 1816 and rights in land and removed (estanco), instituted absolute property reserved for the exclusive use of the protection from the forests, hitherto abolition of the tobacco estanco released naval construction yards. The The owners of the tobacco the vegueros from an oppressive monopoly. working their highly rather than planters, vegas were smallholders the aid of family labour and perhaps a few productive farms with of a free market in land did slaves. In the longer run the introduction stood in the way of sugar expansion, not favour those vegueros who clear. Hacendados who held royal but this was not immediately the duty to supply local towns with mercedes were dispensed from land and could acquire the realengos, or food, could freely alienate their --- Page 404 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery each of the mercedes (land grants). In this way as royal land attached to rights. The abolition landholders were given property many as 10,000 gave the sugar hacendados of the naval monopoly over woodlands with even useful resource - and one they consumed access to a highly installed steam power in their mills." greater voracity as they the slave trade were abandoned as the Residual attempts to regulate of towards it. Madrid government took up a formal stance disapproval and unlimited traffic was indeed more vigorous The resulting 'illegal' In 1817 the Spanish government agreed to a than the old Asientos. end the trade within four years. Madrid treaty with Britain designed to but did nothing to asked for and received substantial 'compensation', Spanish officials in Cuba ensure that the treaty would be implemented; slave-traders and some entered showed no zeal in tracking down the but Madrid and its their pay. The British complained at slow progress baffle between British played the part of a colonial representatives and the slaving interests of its Caribbean colony. official abolitionism Revolution in Cadiz in 1820 The outbreak of the Constitutionalist relations between Spain and Cuba's did little to disrupt the harmonious Madrid to have tougher antioligarchy. The British envoy in the sought Cortes in 1821; a majority slave trade legislation introduced into Indies intervened and made sure it favoured this but the Minister of the however anxious to curb royal came to nothing. The military leaders, of the Cuban treasury. In power, had already discovered the interlude reliability did witness the beginnings of Cuba itself the Constitutionalist Havana and a few other centres. Some free political discussion in welcomed the right to be represented members of the creole population liberalism. The decrees of in the Cortes and had high hopes of Spanish certain remaining did help to sweep away the Constitutionalists bitter factional conflicts between creole absolutist cobwebs. There were members of the planting oligarchy such as Liberals, including younger ultra-royalist and ultra-loyalist the Conde de O'Reilly, and a sizeable A sector of creole public faction, swelled by émigrés from the mainland. and of to resent the actions of the Spanish military opinion was prone that did not abate because the latter Spanish officialdom, a resentment and slave-traders. The election of enjoyed cordial relations with planters in 1822 expressed the incipient Padre Félix Varela to the Cortes Cuban creoles, especially the youth and radicalisation of a layer of the to be a man of advanced of Havana. Varela was known menu peuple and moral philosophy at a views from his teaching of political economy in Madrid he went beyond the seminary in Havana. of the Spanish military opinion was prone that did not abate because the latter Spanish officialdom, a resentment and slave-traders. The election of enjoyed cordial relations with planters in 1822 expressed the incipient Padre Félix Varela to the Cortes Cuban creoles, especially the youth and radicalisation of a layer of the to be a man of advanced of Havana. Varela was known menu peuple and moral philosophy at a views from his teaching of political economy in Madrid he went beyond the seminary in Havana. However, once delegates were instructed to call for mandate given to him. The Cuban with Britain, but instead Varela the repudiation of the slave trade treaty the ban on the slave presented to the Cortes a resolution strengthening --- Page 405 --- Cuba and Brazil the gradual abolition of slavery. These trade and even envisioning lost without trace as the Cortes abolitionist representations were soon by a French-backed royalist coup. was suppressed to the slave trade won a more surprising The cause of opposition of Arango y Parreno, a man who recruit about this time in the person Cuban slave trade. Arango had could claim to be the founder of the they had been arriving at the decided that Cuba now had enough slaves; himself had taken care to rate of 10,000-20,000 a year. Arango slaves for his own plantation in the purchase a large number of women rate. His preparedness to hope of boosting the natural reproduction reflected a view that Cuba should not envisage an end to the slave trade and like many 'enlightened' allow itself to be swamped by Africans; with their dubious links planters he was suspicious of the slave-traders, reflected concerns similar to officials. Arango's approach to Spanish of republican independence in those of the nation-building protagonists either or While he thought republicanism other parts of the Americas. from Cuba he distrusted the instability of independence to be excluded of Cuba becoming some Madrid and privately entertained the prospect similar to that of the Ionian of British with a status sort protectorate, Islands. no such thing as abolitionism in Spain or However, there was really constitutional liberty was at its Cuba in the early 1820s, even when the Amis des Noirs or Abolition height. There was no equivalent to Varela lamented how difficult it Society in either metropolis or colony. Habaneros in questions of political was to arouse the interest of citizens of this city were obsessed with principle; he declared that the Parreno was capable of house and the wharf. Arango y the counting but he had no intention of launching a campaign taking the long view, or middle classes and artisans on the slave trade. Cuba's professional hostility to the slave trade since they were not impressed by Britain's of retarding the country's plantation saw it simply as a dishonest attacked way the British for hypocrisy. Investdevelopment. Even Varela confined to the very rich, since shares in ment in the slave trade was not be bought for $100 or less. The British could slave trading expeditions Mixed Commission in Havana judge attached to the Anglo-Spanish numbers of 'honourable slave reported his puzzlement at the large that he met. 14 dealers and liberal minded slave owners' of the Spanish rule was overthrown in one part In 1822 Spanish which had been returned to Spain in 1810, Caribbean. Santo Domingo, of President Boyer and incorporated was swiftly overrun by the troops thousand slaves were emancipated into the Republic of Haiti; several While white Cubans would and land titles conferred on smallholders. Haiti, there were Patriots who generally have abhorred invasion by --- Page 406 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of liberation from the looked forward to the mounting of an expedition of Cuba and Puerto mainland. However, the geographical situation from the outside a most of liberation Rico certainly made any project Cuban partisans of independence In 1823-4 formidable undertaking. Bolivar for help in the liberation of their approached Santander and invited to fight in Peru. The latter island but instead found themselves and a more vulnerable Spanish was seen as both a more important was inherently than Cuba or Puerto Rico. 406 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of liberation from the looked forward to the mounting of an expedition of Cuba and Puerto mainland. However, the geographical situation from the outside a most of liberation Rico certainly made any project Cuban partisans of independence In 1823-4 formidable undertaking. Bolivar for help in the liberation of their approached Santander and invited to fight in Peru. The latter island but instead found themselves and a more vulnerable Spanish was seen as both a more important was inherently than Cuba or Puerto Rico. Spanish power fortified and outpost the islands were strongly stronger in the Caribbean; sea lane between Spain and garrisoned way-stations on the imperial slave economy America. Puerto Rico was less given over to a with plantation Spain made it but its small size and close links than Cuba, from the metropolis. At particularly difficult to envisage its separation such an Iturbide and Santander did contemplate different times in bringing it to fruition. Greater expedition but never succeeded Peru the liberation forces did Colombia did have a navy and in naval and land operademonstrate the capacity to mount combined entrenched in the Caribbean tions. But Spanish forces were SO well them. The effort was made to dislodge islands that no proper the Cuban oligarchy - fear of black considerations which restrained weight with the international complications - also had revolt and of South American revolutionaries. and Puerto Rico meant that their fate The strategic situation of Cuba and France; it also enabled these preoccupied the United States, Britain outcomes of which they powers to play a more direct role in preventing leaders were anxious not to disapproved. The South American their view that States; US leaders did not disguise antagonise the United like Florida, as natural extensions of they saw Cuba and Puerto Rico, desperately short of cash, the North American Empire. In 1819 Spain, next on the list for to the US for $5 million; Cuba was sold Florida The US Secretary of War, Calhoun, told North American expansionists. he had two fears relating to Cuba which his Cabinet colleagues that that the island should fall into the could be allayed by annexation: 'one should be revolutionised by hands of Great Britain; two that it to see the United States Negroes. >15 But the British were not prepared of the Caribbean. the entrances aggrandised in this way or commanding the US envoy in London in 1825; Canning explained this candidly to we cannot allow that you cannot allow that we should have Cuba; "You neither of us allow that it should fall into should have it; and we can the hands of France. >16 in Spain in 1823 with the Fernando VII was restored to full power French fleet French troops; the following year a large aid of 100,000 French interests in the sent to Caribbean waters, partly to reassert was --- Page 407 --- Cuba and Brazil cover for the Spanish forces. New World and partly to provide Santander turned their attention Following Ayacucho, Bolivar and the remaining Spanish outto the possibility of now moving against difficulty of the underbut they were impressed by the great the for posts, 25th Bolivar wrote to Santander on necessity taking. On May caution: admonitions that I gave you; first it will not Never forget the three political La Plata to the League; second, or the United be to our advantage to admit liberate Havana. I believe that our League can States; third do not attempt to the extremes of North and maintain itself perfectly well without embracing of Haiti; Respecting Havana South and without creating another Republic make she will lose her two should tell Spain that if she does not peace we large islands. The size in this last sentence it never materialised. If there was a threat this time arrived in the Caribbean of the French fleet that had by obstacle and made some think that certainly represented a daunting Cuba from Spain. or the United be to our advantage to admit liberate Havana. I believe that our League can States; third do not attempt to the extremes of North and maintain itself perfectly well without embracing of Haiti; Respecting Havana South and without creating another Republic make she will lose her two should tell Spain that if she does not peace we large islands. The size in this last sentence it never materialised. If there was a threat this time arrived in the Caribbean of the French fleet that had by obstacle and made some think that certainly represented a daunting Cuba from Spain. President Monroe's France itself would like to buy interference in the New famous declaration directed at European by distrust of French World, made in December 1823, was prompted underline the interenough, it served to intentions. Yet paradoxically should remain Spanish. Without its that Cuba national understanding would be weak and unthreatening to the other mainland Empire Spain Cuba and Puerto Rico. and could be allowed to retain an internal powers, considerations thus reinforced External geo-political within the insular social relationship of forces inimical to independence Cuban Liberals looked to Spain formations. During the years 1820-23 would ensure confident that their island's importance for reform after 1823 that Varela came out in important concessions. It was only 1824-5 that a significant prosupport of independence and not until the Soles y Rayos de Bolivar. independence conspiracy stirred in Cuba, in Cuba was built But by this time it was too late. The Spanish garrison these years as forces of 15,000-20,000 troops during up to a strength and the naval strength of the rival from the mainland were evacuated; these years. In 1825 Madrid also steadily increased during powers facultades omnimodas, on a new Captain conferred enlarged powers, Cuba was to be under martial General, Vives. For many years laws' decreed by the Captain administration and to be ruled by 'special General. 18 of the Cuban oligarchy gained something However, at least a section 1820s. As if in some new colonial pact, from the events of the early economy and the chief encouragement was given to Cuba's export for every administration, the Intendente, was many of the island's economic --- Page 408 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Cuban. For a brief period Arango y Parreno was awarded years to be a Martinez Pinillos in 1825. While this post, but he was replaced by creole planters, articulated the outlook of the more far-sighted of those planters Arango the interests of the slave-traders and Pinillos organised them or to the Spanish mercantile complex. most closely linked to become Conde de Villanueva and a grandee Martinez Pinillos, soon to with a brief interruption, until the of Spain, held the post of Intendente, force behind the scenes in Spanish 1850s. He became a powerful Fernando VII in 1833 he backed the politics. Following the death of Carlists were seen of the moderate Liberals. The ultra-monarchist cause regime as were, in a quite as a threat to Cuba's new socio-economic the influence the radical Liberal exaltados. Consequently different way, thrown behind the moderate Liberals and the of Havana's treasury was and Isabella II as Queen. Villanueva cause of Maria Cristina as Regent of the Indies and was well placed to became a member of the Council in the business affairs of the make sure that Madrid did not interfere the Cuban slave-traders and slave-owners. For many years Cuban Madrid with a cash subvention of several treasury was able to supply the costs of a large garrison million pesos annually as well as to cover the Cuban treasury had In the years 1823-35 and Atlantic squadron. million annually, of which some $500,000 revenues of around $5 each while the remainder sustained would be remitted to Madrid year, Between 1835 and 1845 establishment. $3 the local Spanish-recruited to an average of just over remittances from Cuba grew sharply of this time the Madrid regime was million annually; during much the Carlist legitimists. to supply the costs of a large garrison million pesos annually as well as to cover the Cuban treasury had In the years 1823-35 and Atlantic squadron. million annually, of which some $500,000 revenues of around $5 each while the remainder sustained would be remitted to Madrid year, Between 1835 and 1845 establishment. $3 the local Spanish-recruited to an average of just over remittances from Cuba grew sharply of this time the Madrid regime was million annually; during much the Carlist legitimists. Thus involved in an expensive civil war against acquired a 'protector'." 19 price the Cuban oligarchy for a considerable protection against the The Cuban oligarchy did not only require be from the of a slave uprising. It also needed to shielded the international possibility American republicanism and from instability of native official, from the Captain pressure to end the slave trade. Every Spanish from the slave-traders in return received a rake-off General downwards, Treaties the slave trade. Indeed by with the against for non-compliance investments for Queen Isabella herself were the 1840s those making trade to Cuba. Against this background heavily implicated in the slave sugar producer. 20 climbed to become the world's largest Cuba steadily also bounded forward during this period. The Brazil's plantation output the 1770s had already allowed Brazil to take Pombaline companies of North American supplies of indigo, of the drop in some advantage aftermath of the St Domingue revolt royal tobacco and rice. In the opening up - though they officials recognised the new opportunities From 1795 to obsessed with schemes to resuscitate mining. remained --- Page 409 --- Cuba and Brazil officials gave greater attention to 1796 a new team of metropolitan while still economic conditions and to plantation agriculture, The general merchants. key figure trying to reserve all commerce to Portuguese the royal and the rapprochement between government in a developing de Sousa Coutinho, a godson of Brazilian oligarchy was D. Rodrigo and property in Brazil. Rodrigo Pombal who had family connections secretary in 1796 by Dom Joao, was appointed as permanent monopolies, overseas such as that over salt, were the Prince Regent. Irksome Brazilian elite were solicited for their abolished while members of the for the colony. Thus Bishop advice as to the best path of development estate, pointed to the who had himself run a sugar Azeredo Coutinho, this branch of plantation agriculture, if only huge potential for reviving restrictions. Thus planters were it could be freed from prevailing and lavradores de cana were obliged to obliged to sell at fixed prices crops. These restrictions of their land to subsistence devote a proportion abolished, but at least a more propitious climate were not immediately economic reforms could be canvassed. Those was created in which for their participation in the members of the creole elite still imprisoned for American independence, Minas conspiracy, despite its sympathy there was no clemency for the free blacks were released. On the other hand of Bahia in 1798. and mulattos implicated in the republican conspiracy interests by Rodrigo and his The greater attention shown to Brazilian of reviving the mining colleagues was still unduly focused on hopes substantial results but for the economy and might have had few really like others, had seen the shock of the Napoleonic invasion. Rodrigo, against this invasion coming and had been asked to prepare plans neither 'the best He had observed that Portugal itself was was eventuality. of the If the Prince Regent nor the most essential part monarchy." leave Portugal and establish his court forced to choose, then he should taken in 1807-8 and produced the in Brazil. This advice was establishment of an entire regime - remarkable spectacle of the political merchants and ecclesiastics - some 8,000 ministers, judges, flotilla nobles, of ships and being carried across the embarking on board a Brazil. vasion coming and had been asked to prepare plans neither 'the best He had observed that Portugal itself was was eventuality. of the If the Prince Regent nor the most essential part monarchy." leave Portugal and establish his court forced to choose, then he should taken in 1807-8 and produced the in Brazil. This advice was establishment of an entire regime - remarkable spectacle of the political merchants and ecclesiastics - some 8,000 ministers, judges, flotilla nobles, of ships and being carried across the embarking on board a Brazil. The British Navy had encouraged this Atlantic to the soil of contingency plans drawn up for option but it also echoed previous such as 1762 when Spanish Portugal's rulers at times of special danger, of the court from Portugal invasion threatened. Indeed the translation of Brazil's 'maritime to Brazil demonstrated the exceptional autonomy absolutism'. 28th 1808 the Prince Regent issued a decree suspending On January Brazil's trade. Ships of all friendly the Portuguese monopoly over Brazilian ports; imports were taxed nations were now to be free to enter taxes were fixed within each at 24 per cent ad valorem and export --- Page 410 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery extracted a reduction of the captaincy. In 1810 the London government their already import tax on British goods to 15 per cent, consolidating States which had already position and squeezing out the United the strong nation. Based in Rio de Janeiro, royal declared itself a friendly effective centralisation on Brazil than government now imposed a more The various captaincies, the colony had ever previously experienced. had each enjoyed separate lines of often known as 'the Brazils', the Now the captaincommunication and authority with metropolis. Indeed the capital of from Rio as a unified Kingdom. cies were governed for other Portuguese colonies in Brazil itself became the metropolis and financed by the Rio Africa and Asia. Troops commanded France - Brazil ejected government took part in operations against in 1809 and later Governor of French Cayenne, Victor Hugues, in the River Plate zone. The slave-owners undertook forward operations to see royal troops sent against the of the Brazilian south were pleased and to have the Banda Oriental incendiary Uruguayan Patriot, Artigas, annexed to Brazil,.2 vigorously to its new-found freedom. Brazil's commerce responded coffee, sustained a trade which grew from Sugar and cotton, with some million in 1816 and reached £4 million by £1.2 million in 1812 to £2.3 VI, decided to stay in Brazil at the 1822. Dom Joao, now King Joào and in 1815 he raised his Kingdom conclusion of hostilities in Europe that of Portugal itself within the of Brazil to equal stature with ships and merchants were given framework of the Empire. Portuguese insufficient to enable them to recapture tariff advantages but this was The court at Rio assumed some their former position in the Brazil trade. but the economic policies of of the trappings of a 'tropical Versailles', and more to reflect the interests of the exiled monarchy began more of public works the commercial agriculture. In a major programme and a prison built, and warehouses, an arsenal docks were enlarged, with cash found little difficulty in gaining huge roads improved. Those The size and cost of the royal royal land grants (sesmarias). three palaces were built establishment and retinue remained a problem; offices and contracts were for members of the royal family. Titles, but proprietors in areas distributed to Brazilians as well as Portuguese, north-east - shouldered the distant from the court - especially the commensurate benefits. While burden of export taxes without from receiving the presence of the court, the individual Brazilians gained establishment and military Brazilian treasury had to underwrite a royal before. 23 operations on a scale it had not known and confronted by a colony that Portugal, much damaged by the war less of the profits of Empire and had become a rival metropolis, saw ruled by a distant goverment. royal family. Titles, but proprietors in areas distributed to Brazilians as well as Portuguese, north-east - shouldered the distant from the court - especially the commensurate benefits. While burden of export taxes without from receiving the presence of the court, the individual Brazilians gained establishment and military Brazilian treasury had to underwrite a royal before. 23 operations on a scale it had not known and confronted by a colony that Portugal, much damaged by the war less of the profits of Empire and had become a rival metropolis, saw ruled by a distant goverment. In discovered the inconvenience of being --- Page 411 --- Cuba and Brazil August-September 1820 a revolt spread from Portugal calling for the King's Oporto to the rest of constitution. Many of those who return and for the elaboration of a backed this revolt looked reconstructing a more effective colonial forward to guarantees for Portuguese manufacturers system, with watertight market. Ideologically the revolt and merchants in the Brazilian tionalism and the rising in Cadiz. was influenced by Spanish Constituabolish feudal restrictions. There was much talk of the need to republican, partly in Nevertheless the Portuguese revolt was not because the deference to the European powers and monarchy was the essential link with partly Portuguese Constitutionalists demanded the Empire. The their authority over him, and with the return of the King to assert imperial centre in Portugal. hope of reconstructing an In Brazil there was also support for the idea of many Brazilians were weary of the a constitution, since arbitrary powers and expensive, top-heavy court, with its ians thought it a good over-representation idea for the of Portuguese. Many Brazilreturn to Portugal. Juntas King and his Portuguese courtiers to were formed in centres urging Joâo to Rio, Sâo Paulo and other respond to the demand for a promise to respect its conclusions. Pressed convention and to for Portugal in April 1821, and on both sides, Joào did leave and lawyers some 4,000 courtiers, accompanied or followed him. He administrators Regent of the Brazilian Kingdom, left his son Pedro as bureaucracy. Aware that commanding a less overweight weakened, Joâo advised his Portuguese power in Brazil was now much separate itself from the son that, in the event of Brazil seeking to of the movement rather metropolis, Pedro should himself take adventurer',24 than allow 'the Crown to be seized leadership by some of the Brazil's population had now grown to 4 million, a little metropolis. The Portuguese Constitutionalists ahead of that representation which, while formally based devised a system of smaller kingdom a majority of on population, gave the ing at least 1.5 delegates; Brazil's slaves, now million, were simply omitted numberwas allotted 75 delegates in a convention from consideration. Brazil arrived in time to of 205; only 50 Brazilians participate in the delegates insisted that Portugal should proceedings. be The Portuguese legislative hub of the Empire. A Cortes the administrative and responsible for imperial trade meeting in Lisbon would be and justice would also be centred regulations and a budget; administration count as a unified kingdom but its on Lisbon. Brazil would no longer some local powers and be separate provinces would each enjoy Brazilian delegates did represented in the Lisbon Cortes. not like the The but matters were aggravated by the substance of these proposals at all, condescending manner adopted by --- Page 412 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Thus the white Brazilians would entertain some Portuguese delegates. but did not like Portuguese referring to their their own racial conceit its racial mixture. When one Portuguese country in terms derogatory to tutelage and protection delegate insisted that Brazil needed Portuguese he drew the tart riposte that because of the threat of slave revolt, their slaves very well by Brazilian slave-owners could manage was in no state themselves and that, even were this in doubt, Portugal to help them. , condescending manner adopted by --- Page 412 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Thus the white Brazilians would entertain some Portuguese delegates. but did not like Portuguese referring to their their own racial conceit its racial mixture. When one Portuguese country in terms derogatory to tutelage and protection delegate insisted that Brazil needed Portuguese he drew the tart riposte that because of the threat of slave revolt, their slaves very well by Brazilian slave-owners could manage was in no state themselves and that, even were this in doubt, Portugal to help them. opposed the idea of a unified empire with a The Brazilian delegates they pointed to the extreme single Cortes meeting in Lisbon; their estates and families. The inconvenience of journeying SO far from of the royal power such delegates chosen included declared opponents of the Tavares, a priest who had been a leading supporter as Manuel Pernambuco in 1817. Many of the Brazilian delegates Republic of with two assemblies, one in Portugal, argued for a loose dual monarchy that Brazilian conditions were quite the other in Brazil. They argued - and therefore required different from those prevailing in Portugal Interestingly different laws. Slavery was cited as a salient example. who arrived with a well-worked-out enough the Sao Paulo delegation, dual also called for brief elaborating the proposal for a monarchy, and encouragement for European immigrareduced reliance on slavery by insistence that tion. But this mild abolitionism was accompanied itself. It soon Brazil had its own special problems and must govern clear that the Brazilian proposals were completely unacceptable became one suggestion made by the to the Portuguese Constitutionalists; colonies could choose in which Brazilians was that Portugal's overseas that of Lisbon or that of Rio. Cortes they wished to be represented, the Cortes demanded the Alarmed by the spectre of Brazilian autonomy 25 return of Pedro, the Prince Regent, to Portugal. when it was learned that the Opinion in Brazil itself reacted sharply administrative autonomy and Cortes intended to eliminate Brazil's Brazilians were also angered by the divide it into separate provinces. The advent of the constitutional epoch had order given to their Regent. press which reported the permitted the emergence of an independent including real or supposed slights deliberations of the Cortes in detail, These papers had very small on Brazil made by Portugese delegates. they contributed to a developing circulations but, at least in the towns, the rich and powerful but often political culture, still dominated by lawyers or priests and drawing articulated by journalists, doctors, Rio, with 50,000 behind it many kinds of artisan and petty bourgeois. inhabitants. As the crisis inhabitants in 1808 was now a city of 100,000 Portuguese merchants or in relations with Portugal developed remaining officials became the target of popular anger. --- Page 413 --- Cuba and Brazil leading citizens in many parts of Brazil Petitions were drawn up by 9th 1822, in reply to an address urging the Prince to stay. On January Pedro announced that he from the Municipal Council of Rio de Janeiro, First Minister José would not return to Portugal. He appointed official as of 'enlightened' Bonifâcio de Andrade e Silva, a veteran royal council in Sâo Paulo. views and at the time a member of the municipal the authors of the plan Bonifacio had attracted attention as one of José to the Cortes in Portugal. While José taken by the Sâo Paulo delegation of a dual monarchy, as chief of Bonifâcio continued for a while to speak Brazilian Cabinet he pursued a policy of almost unqualified Pedro's acting on the advice of José Bonifâcio, Pedro autonomy. In February, sent to collect him to land at refused to permit the Portuguese squadron who were unhappy at the Rio and later ordered all Portuguese troops The Prince Regent and his situation in Brazil to return to Portugal. to win over or isolate the minister used their powers and authority little for the some of the latter had sympathy Portuguese commanders; while all of them depended on the Rio Treasury to Portuguese Cortes 1822 the Prince called for a pay and supply their troops. In June to be elected by all men Brazilian Constituent Assembly, with delegates minimum income from property or a profession. used to permit the Portuguese squadron who were unhappy at the Rio and later ordered all Portuguese troops The Prince Regent and his situation in Brazil to return to Portugal. to win over or isolate the minister used their powers and authority little for the some of the latter had sympathy Portuguese commanders; while all of them depended on the Rio Treasury to Portuguese Cortes 1822 the Prince called for a pay and supply their troops. In June to be elected by all men Brazilian Constituent Assembly, with delegates minimum income from property or a profession. receiving a certain that the Cortes was preparing a military From Lisbon came news 22nd 1822 Pedro declared expedition against Brazil. On September later that Brazil would be a Brazil's independence; two weeks to be drawn up by the constitutional empire, the constitution a splendid Assembly. Pedro's coronation as Emperor, Constituent December. The fact that Brazilian independence had affair, followed in and royal heir allowed for an been declared by the Prince Regent statehood, with great exceptionally smooth transition to independent and personnel. In the continuity at the levels of both symbolic authority that Pedro had not clearly euphoria of independence it was little noticed throne for his the right of succession to the Portuguese the repudiated was, of course, challenged by children. Brazilian independence of the constitutional order in Portuguese government. The overthrow made this predictable Portuguese Portugal in the latter part of 1823 opposition more rather than less urgent. commander left peacefully after In the south of Brazil the Portuguese from the imperial governreceiving assurances, and perhaps money, never materialised - ment. The threat of an expedition from Portugal of the Brazilian market, the British, who stood to lose from any closing José Bonifacio urged that it would be folly to attempt any in reconquest. Colombia to train the French officer who had fought found a secured the services of Lord Cochrane, whose Brazilian forces; he also garrison in the north. squadron subdued a recalcitrant Portuguese --- Page 414 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and with very little bloodshed, Brazil ejected Within less than a year, In most cases what was required the remaining Portuguese loyalists. allow the Portuguese commanders an was a show of force, sufficient to commander was honourable withdrawal. In one incident a Portuguese Labatut, the French suspected of having fomented slave ordered rebellion; fifty black insurgents to be military expert retained by Pedro, loyalists were whites while the shot. But in general the Portuguese the former colony's racial mixture. The Brazilian militia units reflected Batalhao dos Henriques rallied to the black troops of the historic forces a new Batalhao dos Emperor; to boost the size of the imperial former slaves their masters Libertos was formed, comprised Constitutional of Assembly approved this receiving full compensation. The debates against a background of latter measure and pursued its loyal to Lisbon. 26 continuing confrontation with Portuguese garrisons of Brazilian deliberated on the proper scope The Assembly closed session, the advisability of ending citizenship and, in a special Bonifacio opposed what he slavery and banning the slave trade. José to of liberal democrats and was quite prepared saw as the demagogy them as well as against Portuguese use police powers against catholic concept of citizenship that would sympathisers. But he urged a including former ignore the old caste barriers. Some revolt delegates, of 1817, argued that free participants in the Pernambuco slaves, were not entitled to citizenship Africans, or even all former came down in favour of giving rights. But the Assembly eventually colour; stiff income qualifications for citizenship to all free men of exclude the majority from direct voters and office-holders sufficed to political participation in any case. agogy them as well as against Portuguese use police powers against catholic concept of citizenship that would sympathisers. But he urged a including former ignore the old caste barriers. Some revolt delegates, of 1817, argued that free participants in the Pernambuco slaves, were not entitled to citizenship Africans, or even all former came down in favour of giving rights. But the Assembly eventually colour; stiff income qualifications for citizenship to all free men of exclude the majority from direct voters and office-holders sufficed to political participation in any case. Jose Bonifâcio secured support At the closed session of the Assembly ban on the slave trade. The for easier manumission laws aftermath and a of Cicuta, which may have Assembly was meeting in the should be done about slavery. encouraged the view that something reliance on a huge influx of African Many delegates deplored Brazil's the Empire to a free womb' slaves; however, they would not commit at 20,000-30,000 a year, law. Slave imports at this time were running that could not be contained. leading to the danger of a slave majority arrived for a total or who felt the time had not yet Even delegates knew that there were good reasons to appease British immediate ban British could not be relied on to restrain Portugal's abolitionism. The unless the slave trade was officially denounced; in plans for reconquest itself banned the trade, though many Portuguese theory Portugal had of the traffic. were still involved in every phase the slave traffic was quite genuine. José Bonifâcio's opposition Liberals to he favoured steps to end slavery, Though a scourge of the --- Page 415 --- Cuba and Brazil establish a university and force the encourage European immigration, land which they had not brought large landowners to hand back grants ideas earned him the emnity of into cultivation. His enlightened his social zeal for order had earnt him the conservative interests just as public vision of of the Liberals. Few yet shared the nation-building, the hostility proposals helped to isolate him, José Bonifacio and his abolitionist In many his outstanding role in the moves to independence. of in despite outlook and position came to parallel that Arango ways his Cuba.27 the Assembly arrogated to itself Pedro became uneasy at the powers and everything, leaving him to arbitrate anything and at its willingness concerned when the ceremonial role. He was particularly with an empty majority, to make the Emperor's Assembly refused, by a narrow In November 1823 sanction necessary to the passage of legislation. its constitution; José Pedro dissolved the Assembly and suspended into exile. Pedro's Bonifâcio and leaders of the Assembly were authorities sent in the various actions were endorsed by the municipal The Assembly and met with the consent of the great proprietors. centres number of lawyers, priests, military men had contained quite a large were not firebrands - officials. Though these men exactly in and public years of age and had spent long years most of them were over fifty seemed sensible to the large the service of the monarchy - it probably all their time in who did not themselves intend to spend the a proprietors, continuity and stability by allowing Emperor Rio, to safe-guard and the slave trade were deliberations on slavery veto. The Assembly's for disbanding it but may have made the never mentioned as a reason the slave-owners and slaveEmperor's action more acceptable to large traders. had no difficulty in finding moderate To begin with the Emperor him. In March 1824 he decreed a new Liberals who would work with institutions; slavery was not constitution which guaranteed prevailing sections of the document, though mentioned in the declamatory into minor clauses. Under the references to masters and slaves crept from which of the constitution there was an Assembly to terms be drawn; but the Emperor had the power governments were to and to dismiss the Assembly. slave-owners and slaveEmperor's action more acceptable to large traders. had no difficulty in finding moderate To begin with the Emperor him. In March 1824 he decreed a new Liberals who would work with institutions; slavery was not constitution which guaranteed prevailing sections of the document, though mentioned in the declamatory into minor clauses. Under the references to masters and slaves crept from which of the constitution there was an Assembly to terms be drawn; but the Emperor had the power governments were to and to dismiss the Assembly. appoint ministers, to veto legislation freedmen. The right to vote and Citizenship was extended, as before, to income from hold office was limited to those with a qualifying but the allocation of this might well be slave property slave numbers. property; did not, as in the United States, reflect the representation power' of the Emperor was considerable, While the moderating allowed the large proprietors considerable workings of the constitution latitude in their own regions." --- Page 416 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the slave trade remained a dead letter. The imperial decree against to the Empire in 1825 despite the Britain extended de facto recognition in enforcing the ban had been fact that no agreement on co-operation signed between the reached. A Slave Trade Treaty was eventually traffic for a and Britain in 1827 which allowed for a continuing would Empire inevitably the effectiveness of this treaty further three years; both at the centre depend on the attitude of the imperial be authorities, drawn from, or appointed by, and in the localities; the latter would knew that he had been the large slave-owning proprietors. Canning to Pedro and the lenient with Brazil, but he was anxious to give support validity of regime. Pedro was willing to accept the continuing imperial made between the London and Portuguese previous agreements those which gave the British favourable access governments, including also liked the fact that at least one of to the Brazilian market. Canning indeed the largest of them, had a the new South American states, pressure also paved the way for monarchical regime. British diplomatic - in return for Brazil Portuguese recognition of Brazilian independence £2 million, for its loss of to Portugal, paying out massive compensation London banks advanced Brazil the public property in its former colony. with heavy commitments saddling the new Empire money to pay this, to foreign rentiers. 29 conservatism of Brazilian proprietors was again The relative social challenge which the empire had to face. revealed by the one republican the Constituent Assembly some Liberals of Following the suspension of short-lived Confederation of the the north and north-east mounted a Colombia. The leaders of Equator in 1824, loosely modelled on Greater of the large landowners of the rebellion failed either to win the support to the slaves. Recifethe region or to make a revolutionary appeal of the challenge to the Olinda was once again the main support in the rebellion, authorities in Rio. Some radical Liberals participated man with a considerable such as the doctor Cipriano José Barata, a been the 'intellectual political past by this time: he was thought to he have had played some role author' of the 1798 conspiracy in Bahia, been elected to the Cortes in in the Republic of 1817 and he had played a some1820. The free coloured population of Recife-Olinda of both pardos what confused part in the uprising. The companies commander, Major and blacks rallied to the revolt but a pardo from leading his men had to be restrained Emiliano Mundurucu, of all houses in the city belonging to in the pillage and destruction sacked the palaces of the rich imperial sympathisers. As his men with the free people of merchants and planters they sang a song popular colour: --- Page 417 --- Cuba and Brazil Let us imitate Christophe, The immortal Haitian, Eia! ife-Olinda of both pardos what confused part in the uprising. The companies commander, Major and blacks rallied to the revolt but a pardo from leading his men had to be restrained Emiliano Mundurucu, of all houses in the city belonging to in the pillage and destruction sacked the palaces of the rich imperial sympathisers. As his men with the free people of merchants and planters they sang a song popular colour: --- Page 417 --- Cuba and Brazil Let us imitate Christophe, The immortal Haitian, Eia! Imitate his deeds, O my sovereign people! under control by the Mundurucu and his men were brought revolt of the company of black troops. The Pernambuco commander radicalism of the free urban population reflected the inchoate political Militarily it was quickly and never developed a social programme. command, first blockaded the isolated. The navy, under Cochrane's obliged them to surrender. rebels and then, in concert with land forces, mill-owners of the region The conservative sugar planters and the final assault; a senhor de contributed their own private forces to including could normally mobilise a dozen or more retainers, engenho employees and tenants." period almost entirely That slavery survived the independence methods whereby it was won unscathed reflected not only the particular in the Brazilian social but also the very diffuse nature of slavery slave-owners were the senhores formation. In Bahia the most important slaves each in a who had an average of just over sixty-five all de engenho, together they only held 7.7 per cent of count of 1816-17; however, held over ten slaves each and these slaves. The lauradores de cana of just all slaves. Tobacco farmers held holdings accounted for 22 per cent each but only accounted for 0.2 of just over thirteen slaves an average Smallholders, tenants, fisherman, and employees per cent of all slaves. of between one and six each; they who owned slaves held an average of all slaves between them. Priests, accounted for just under 18 per cent and other urban dwellers each small businessmen, government officials 824 individuals for whom owned a few slaves on average. In this count of 3.4 slaves each and was listed held an average no occupation of all slaves in the count. Altogether about 70 accounted for 38 per cent owned by small proprietors. And a per cent of all slaves were *It is of extreme poverty to not contemporary observed of Bahia: proof convenience but a slave at own a slave; they may lack every domestic any cost. 31 free people, amongst them There were, of course, many very poor Neverthewho were dependent on the larger proprietors. many pardos, common to create a distinctive species less slaveholding was sufficiently "lower middle class'. Possession of a 'middle class' and of slaveholding burdens of daily life for the owners; such slaves few slaves eased the subsistence cultivation, or could be hired worked at household tasks, had a skill. If it is further borne in mind out - very profitably if they --- Page 418 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery web of real and fictive kin relations, and of that there was a dense it becomes easier to understand why between rich and poor, patronage, little disposition to question slavery. there was SO had become the key to power and influence in Property-ownership of the constitution of 1824. Brazil considerably before the provisions formulation of a contemporary This is clearly suggested by the lapidary Brazilian writer who observed: and those who own no property; Political society is divided into proprietors than the latter, as is well known. The the former are infinitely fewer the only possession of the proprietor tries to buy as cheaply as possible The latter in turn tries to sell it as propertyless or wage-earner, his labour. although greater in In this struggle the weaker contestant, dearly as possible. and influence in Property-ownership of the constitution of 1824. Brazil considerably before the provisions formulation of a contemporary This is clearly suggested by the lapidary Brazilian writer who observed: and those who own no property; Political society is divided into proprietors than the latter, as is well known. The the former are infinitely fewer the only possession of the proprietor tries to buy as cheaply as possible The latter in turn tries to sell it as propertyless or wage-earner, his labour. although greater in In this struggle the weaker contestant, dearly as possible. the numbers usually succumbs to stronger. the slaves were the basic labour In the export sector of the economy to the fazendeiro as force. But poor free men were still important and SO forth. Despite henchmen, tenants, share-croppers overseers, in its own way, a social formation thoroughly slavery this was, The main surplus was expenetrated by commercial relationships. of coercion itself extra-economic pressure, but the apparatus tracted by and held in place to a significant extent by economic was assembled forces. from the customs of a traditional estate Brazil had moved far away order. A foreign visitor in 1805 remarked: subordination of rank is known in this It is astonishing to see how little of revolution and citizenship never country; France in its completest state white servant converse with his excelled it in that respect. You see here the despite his commands, and master in the most equal and friendly his better terms, opinion - which the superior wrangle about them if contrary to in. The system does not rest receives in good part and frequently acquiesces the but extends to the mulattos and even to negroes. here and its aftermath can be seen as Both the passage to independence heavily qualified, sense of giving some expression to a particular, the mass of slaves but including freedom and civic equality, excluding and a layer of free people in the the mass of the free urban population Pedro won a following countryside. În the early days of independence since he free of colour and the urban unemployed amongst the people them and protect them than the appeared more disposed to recognise Liberal ideologues. the Empire did not quickly achieve Despite the ballast of slavery found that it was overly political stability. The Brazilian oligarchy --- Page 419 --- Cuba and Brazil who had not entirely renounced his claims as dependent on an Emperor recognition of Brazil Pedro had a Braganza. Following Portuguese himself 'Emperor of Brazil' as a courtesy title. allowed his father to call claimed the Portuguese throne for When his father died in 1826 Pedro devote himself to vindicating her his daughter Maria, and proceeded to Brazilians resented the that of his brother Miguel. Many had cause against and suspected that Pedro agreement to pay £2 million to Portugal because of his residual links and been the more willing to do this with Portugal had involvement with the old metropolis. The agreement colony, that Angola was a Portuguese also required Brazil to recognise empire. Pedro the Brazilian dream of a transatlantic thus ending which made him vulnerable retained many Portuguese in his entourage, the whether on criticisms. The concessions made to British, to nativist weakened the Emperor's support. Pedro often tariffs or the slave trade, fiat; loans were contracted, ignored the Assembly and ruled by imperial without the assent of the hired and treaties entered into foreign troops legislature. the imperial army became bogged down in an In the years 1825-8 retain control of the Banda Oriental, expensive and unsuccessful war to forces and recognition of the ending with the evacuation of Brazilian included a number of state of Uruguay in 1830. The imperial army when new detachments which became unruly in defeat or mercenary foreign Economic difficulties compounded the their pay was not forthcoming. and the Bank of Brazil was obliged first to problems of the Empire dissolve itself. The Brazilian press - there suspend payments and then to in the country - gave their readers were now over forty newspapers of the French King Charles X in pointed accounts of the overthrow by appointing a 1830. forces and recognition of the ending with the evacuation of Brazilian included a number of state of Uruguay in 1830. The imperial army when new detachments which became unruly in defeat or mercenary foreign Economic difficulties compounded the their pay was not forthcoming. and the Bank of Brazil was obliged first to problems of the Empire dissolve itself. The Brazilian press - there suspend payments and then to in the country - gave their readers were now over forty newspapers of the French King Charles X in pointed accounts of the overthrow by appointing a 1830. In March 1831 Pedro conceded to pressure Disliking their first Liberal politicians. Cabinet of semi-oppositional dismiss them but found the greatest he tried to actions as a government, administration. In April 1831 he difficulty in assembling a workable Pedro II. José Bonifacio was abdicated in favour of his five-year-old son, politician become tutor to Pedro II while a conservative persuaded to of Caravellas, was sworn in as Regent. and landowner, the Marquis where he died in 1834, after leading The ex-Emperor went to Portugal defeated the ultra-monarchist which, with British help, an expedition the throne of Portugal for his daughter Maria. Miguelists and regained was an edict of June 1831 which One of the first acts of the Regency valid if ratified by the Assembly. declared that foreign treaties were only and constitutional In appearance a triumph for parliamentarianism the it put in question government, this edict was a gift to slave-traders; British judges and Trade Treaty with Britain, which gave the Slave seize Brazilian vessels suspected of involvement naval officers powers to --- Page 420 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery in the slave trade. The treaty had there were signs of a pause in the come into effect in March 1831 and to see whether the Brazilian Atlantic traffic as slave-traders waited the treaty. However, the broader government would comply with its side of early Regency was hostile to the political and ideological climate of the had expressed a nativist and Liberal slave-traders. The overthrow of Pedro I conservative, Poruguese-inifluenced reaction against what was seen as a in Brazil were regime. Many of the slave-traders the Portuguese, since it was the contacts in Africa. Moreover the business Portuguese traders who had introducing of the slave-trader slave-traders Africans, an activity unwelcome to nativist sentiment. was gained from the Regency, it If the popular but rather was not because they influence because, on the one hand, they had the were find government and, on the other, the resources to a programme or organisation which popular classes failed to rulers. For a decade or SO central could impose itself on the The Brazilian Empire survived the government was weak. (1831-40), though plantation turbulent period of the Regency the radicals in the development was uncertain. Assembly to introduce Attempts by federal structure Liberal reforms and a more Liberal leaders plunged areas of the country into civil disbanded parts of the war. The the National Guard, an armed militia army and in August 1831 set up Despite vociferous commanded by the richer appeals to Liberal citizens. that slaves should not be involved in the principles it was tacitly agreed years saw the last of the large scale, quarrels of free men. These Brazilian north-east; warriors African-inspired revolts in the Africa were particularly captured in the Muslim jibads of West was little communication prone to rebellion on arrival in Brazil. There menu peuple and the between the unstable radicalism of the urban taken by recently arrived African rebels. The chief anti-slavery was opposition to the slave form was no organised abolitionism the trade; though there need for Brazilian legislation more radical Liberals did take up the a law was passed which its against the slave trade. In November 1831 Africans. Brazilian north-east; warriors African-inspired revolts in the Africa were particularly captured in the Muslim jibads of West was little communication prone to rebellion on arrival in Brazil. There menu peuple and the between the unstable radicalism of the urban taken by recently arrived African rebels. The chief anti-slavery was opposition to the slave form was no organised abolitionism the trade; though there need for Brazilian legislation more radical Liberals did take up the a law was passed which its against the slave trade. In November 1831 Africans. But its effects sponsors claimed would end the import of magistrates and juries to proved nugatory since it relied on local found no difficulty in impose penalties on the slave-traders; the latter trade soon regained locating pliant authorities. The now 'illegal" slave For nearly ten something very like its former scale. 34 years Brazil lacked a worst strife erupted in the outlying strong central government; the order was maintained by the National provinces. In the plantation zone resources and power in 1834. Guard, which was given more remained a united Empire Against the expectations of many, Brazil 1824. When Pedro Il's governed in essentials by the constitution of majority was declared 1840, a more coherent central and the Regency ended in authority emerged. The young Emperor --- Page 421 --- Cuba and Brazil of Louis Philippe or of one of the came to rule in the manner The Emperor worked with and Hanoverian illegitimate monarchs'. Conservative or Liberal factions of the through the leaders of the treated with respect, though the Emperor oligarchy. The Assembly was to make and unmake governments. could use his 'moderating power' Cabinet it was responsible for the Once the Emperor had appointed a effective civil administration. A budget and for directing an increasingly created, with beneficial effects and unified army was more disciplined The landowners lived on their estates, for orderly commerce. great and taking little account of central ruling their slaves and tenants, from tariffs and other taxes government. The latter derived its revenues In the course of the 1840s and 1850s levied on the sphere of circulation. in the hinterlands of based on slave labour, spread coffee cultivation, around Sao Paulo, making Brazil into the Rio and Santos and inland world's largest producer: 35 of slavery; the presence of a There was still no public questioning of slaves and their vital contribution large, probably growing, number inhibiting factor. On the remained a powerful to the export economy slave trade was a latent source of other hand, the continuing surface of political life; abolitionist controversy just below the on this and not on slavery as sentiment, such as it was, concentrated and Pedro II himself, contrived such. A number of imperial statesmen, a moderate and judicious themselves as friendly to to present end the of Africans, though the slave abolitionism, designed to import trade continued to thrive down to the early 1850s. in Cuba and Brazil in the epoch of South The survival of slavery reflected the deliberate but not ineffectual American independence They saw no reason for hazardous caution of their slave-owners. when the prevailing regime could give experiments in republicanism, wanted. Just as sharp breaks in regime gave them SO much of what they smooth transition in to abolitionism SO the comparatively an opening that the social order was less vulnerable to Cuba and Brazil meant difficult moments for the conspiracies and revolts. There were certainly times of tension, slave-owners in Cuba and Brazil, especially flourish. at Since political they were not but they found a way to survive the and Cuban and Brazilian leaders had challenging an established order, in the manner of a Bolivar or San Martin. experiments in republicanism, wanted. Just as sharp breaks in regime gave them SO much of what they smooth transition in to abolitionism SO the comparatively an opening that the social order was less vulnerable to Cuba and Brazil meant difficult moments for the conspiracies and revolts. There were certainly times of tension, slave-owners in Cuba and Brazil, especially flourish. at Since political they were not but they found a way to survive the and Cuban and Brazilian leaders had challenging an established order, in the manner of a Bolivar or San Martin. no need to mobilise slaves had the advantage that they The Cuban and Brazilian planters that had been greatly weakened, confronted a metropolitan authority and its consequences. This made it above all by the Napoleonic invasion --- Page 422 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of colonialism and absolutism far easier to dismantle those structures În the Cuban case the metropolis that stifled commercial agriculture. while in the Brazilian case the colony had had great need for the colony, The slave-owners of the British and actually outgrown the metropolis. 1815 faced a far more difficult situation; a large French Caribbean after that could not SO easily be slave majority and metropolitan powers and manipulated, as in Cuba's defied, as in Brazil's case, or ignored case." 37 and the metropolis was a between planters The new relationship the latter's size but also of changes in the inner function not simply of state. The absolutism of character and organisation of the metropolitan of their dynastic ruling houses, the imperial states, and the autonomy invasion had not only broken up the had been destroyed. Napoleon's the imperial link. It had also former state apparatus and snapped themselves: on both sides of the permitted new social forces to assert of nationalism, Atlantic there emerged a strange mixture popular no longer liberalism and forms of military organisation in the programmatic from above. The new state forms which emerged structured themselves on the social aftermath no longer had the capacity to impose and to independent formation but were obliged to adapt to it, successive especially coups and civil economic property. In Spain and Portugal undid restorationist attempts; the wars weakened the imperial state and of revenue and the pedestal for an loss of Empire removed both a source Portugal retained an Empire in important sector of the state apparatus. but the articulation of these new Africa, just as Spain retained Cuba, absolutist predecessors. Nobody empires was quite different from their controlled the apparatus of could doubt that the Madrid government in the eighteenth century; indeed Bourbon administration in America had been called forth precisely because of the impulse to independence of centralised colonial administration, the effectivenesss of the system inspections and rendering of with its short terms of office, regular and Spanish Empires of the period accounts. In the shrunken Portuguese became far more autonomous from the after 1824 colonial officials from traders, especially centre and far more reliant on local sponsorship those in command of slaveslave-traders, and landowners, General especially of Cuba or Angola was henceforth worked estates. The Captain of the metropolis in the colony as a not SO much a representative slavers and slave-owners influenced the conduit through which the 38 The Brazilian Empire came to acquire course of metropolitan politics. coherence and integrity but could not be a somewhat greater degree of demands and interests of the notables who other than attentive to the inhabited it. --- Page 423 --- Cuba and Brazil Britain had played a large role in the and socio-economic shaping new pattern of state forms traders had cagerly development on both sides of the Atlantic. Its fortune had penetrated the imperial markets, its helped to undermine the old soldiers of diplomats had promoted the new structures, its statesmen and recognition in return for advantageous regimes, extending sponsorship and 1820s Latin America accounted for commercial agreements. By the manufacturing export trade, with Brazil over a quarter of Britain's customers. --- Page 423 --- Cuba and Brazil Britain had played a large role in the and socio-economic shaping new pattern of state forms traders had cagerly development on both sides of the Atlantic. Its fortune had penetrated the imperial markets, its helped to undermine the old soldiers of diplomats had promoted the new structures, its statesmen and recognition in return for advantageous regimes, extending sponsorship and 1820s Latin America accounted for commercial agreements. By the manufacturing export trade, with Brazil over a quarter of Britain's customers. The regimes established and Cuba being the best usually with the aid of British with British blessing indeed resembled, as in a sort of caricature, British arms and money - increasingly Spain of Maria Cristina and Isabella 'illegitimate monarchy'. The the Portugal of Maria had II, the Brazil of the two each Pedros, succession. These were now regimes symbolically flouted the rules of not the feudal magnate, but representing a new type of notable, military men, planters and merchants. independent landed proprietors and the sphere of circulation State revenues were drawn from sale of Church (taxes on trade and consumption) and from the sanction. While property; feudal feudal property forms were deprived of legal claimed their own special jurisdictions were suppressed the military notables were involved in exemptions from civil law. The new landed agricultural commodities, but realising in surplus through the sale of labour were not yet as Spain or Portugal capital and other developed as in Hanoverian wage hand, the planters of Cuba and Brazil Britain. On the commitment and vigour that had been revealed an entrepreneurial absentees. The new notables lacking in Britain's West Indian cally not democrats. At local level were fair-weather Liberals but emphatiauthority as well as economic they exercised juridical and political Monarchy gave them a title to power as landlords and employers. Liberal rhetoric allowed them rule, while parliamentary forms and British opinion to feel in the mainstream of might be flattered by imitation, and progress. vigorous sale of textiles in the new gratified by the highly embarrassing aspect of the newly states, but there was at least one statesmen had trumpeted the cause of emerging slave Atlantic order. British international trade abolition at gathering, yet Britain's client states every participants in it. International were the principal had come to symbolise the agreements to suppress the slave traffic proved utterly ineffective. new aspiration to a Pax Britannica yet republican By contrast the United States, with principles and refusal to agree to its more effectively stopped the inflow of slaves. British conditions, had manufactures sent to Havana or Recife Many of those British African coast where they would be were simply en route to the If the liberation of Spanish exchanged for human cargoes. 40 America had encouraged anti-slavery in --- Page 424 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of example, then the continuance of the Old World by means positive credibility in slave traffic to Cuba and Brazil did SO by straining the abolitionism. Britain was meant to be the strongest Britain's official its had little success in catching naval power in the world, yet squadrons glaring in the Caribbean, the slave-traders. This failure was particularly and effective than was the case where the squadron was far less zealous 1820-23 not a single slavethe African coast. Thus in the years on in Caribbean waters by the British. By contrast several trader was caught Colombian or Haitian warships; a paradox slavers were seized by in that one of Boyer's most effective which was the more pointed 41 cruisers was the Wilberforce. had raised slave prices on the The momentum of Atlantic commerce the after 1815 which coast and encouraged a trade in years African the annual averages of the 1780s. frequently equalled, or even exceeded, across the Atlantic in 1828, Nearly 100,000 slaves were carried French colonies; this was destined for Brazil, Cuba and the restored era. British close to the record years of the pre-abolitionist which they very aware of the conflicting objectives statesmen were uneasily power and Britain as to reconcile: Britain as trading were seeking Atlantic order. The momentum of Atlantic commerce the after 1815 which coast and encouraged a trade in years African the annual averages of the 1780s. frequently equalled, or even exceeded, across the Atlantic in 1828, Nearly 100,000 slaves were carried French colonies; this was destined for Brazil, Cuba and the restored era. British close to the record years of the pre-abolitionist which they very aware of the conflicting objectives statesmen were uneasily power and Britain as to reconcile: Britain as trading were seeking Atlantic order. At the time he was negotiating Brazilian arbiter of a new Wilberforce that it would be necessary independence Canning warned the moral feelings of the country'. to satisfy 'the commercial as well as of explained to his In 1828, when Prime Minister, the Duke Wellington The whole question is one Foreign Minister with soldierly directness: the foreign slave We shall never succeed in abolishing of impression. take care to avoid to take any step which may trade. But we must believe that we do not do everything in induce the people of England to it down as soon as possible." 42 to discourage and to put our power candid the Iron Duke's Whether pessimistic, cynical or merely enough judgement in this matter, as in others, was comprehensible of abolitionist zeal. The coming from someone who made little parade awkward in the British became the more stance of the government champions of abolitionism like 1830s and 1840s when vaunted for British policy. Palmerston were responsible Notes of Cuba and Brazil were not reliably counted until 1. The free and slave populations Cuban figures given in the text come from a contemporary later in the century. Fernando The Ortiz, Los Negros Esclavos, Havana 1916, pp- with 22-3. Ortiz estimate cited in for 1825 wnich gives a total population of 715,000, 325,000 of cites an estimate of colour and 290,000 slaves, making 390,000 people whites, 100,000 free people breakdown around 1800 see Lockhart and Schwartz, colour. For Brazil's population --- Page 425 --- Cuba and Brazil from 2.5 million in 398-401. Brazil's total population grew time of Early Latin America, pp. probably larger than that of Portugal, by the 1808 to nearly 4 million, rising, because of heavy imports, from roughly independence, with the slave proportion 34 per cent to over 40 per cent. Conflicts and Conspiracies: Brazil and Portugal, 17502. Kenneth R. Maxwell, 1808, p. Maxwell, 218. Conflicts and Conspiracies, pp. 219-20, 222. Brazilian Bahia, 3. Plantations in the Formation of attack Society: on Nazaré 4. Stuart Schwartz, Sugar 482. The timing of this revolt and the 1550-1835, Cambridge 1985, p: element in the rising or an attempt to of kings' suggest either a religious on the 'day the distraction of the masters' festivals, or both. de 1817, Sâo Paulo 1984. exploit 5. Glacyra L. Leite, A Insurreicào Pernambucana de Morales', Ensayos histôricos, Havana 6. José Luciano Franco, 'La Franco, conspiracion Las minas de Santiago del Prado y la rebelion 1974, pp. 93-100; José Luciano 126-31. de los cobreros, Havana 1975, pp. de 1810 y 1812, Havana 1977; 7. José Luciano Franco, Las conspiraciones de Cuba', Pichardo, Documentos para la historia 'Proyecto de constitution para la isla de Cuba, I, Pp. 253-60. 'La conspiraciôn de Aponte', Ensayos historicos, pp. , 'La Franco, conspiracion Las minas de Santiago del Prado y la rebelion 1974, pp. 93-100; José Luciano 126-31. de los cobreros, Havana 1975, pp. de 1810 y 1812, Havana 1977; 7. José Luciano Franco, Las conspiraciones de Cuba', Pichardo, Documentos para la historia 'Proyecto de constitution para la isla de Cuba, I, Pp. 253-60. 'La conspiraciôn de Aponte', Ensayos historicos, pp. de 8. José Luciano Franco, is sketched in Anne Pérotin-Dumon, 'Aux origines 127-90,. 139. The wider context corsarios insurgentes et "fidelité" cubaine T'impérialisme insulaire nord-américain: d'une libération, Toulouse-Mirail 1979. (1810-30), in Cuba: les étapes Commerce, p. 32. The Consulado was an official body 9. David Murray, Odious merchants and planters. pp. representing the leading 'La conspiracion de Aponte', Ensayos histôricos, 10. José Luciano Franco, Cubano del 127-90. El ingenio: complejo econômico social 11. Manuel Moreno Fraginals, classic work makes clear the "superstructural" changes in Aziicar, pp. 105-11. As Fraginals's the first Cuban sugar boom, the 'dance of the millions' as followed rather than preceded the abolition of the estanco had a political as much 1800-1802. Measures such as of the tobacco farmers. Some of the economic rationale; that of retaining the Documentos loyalty para la historia de Cuba, I, pP. relevant decrees are found in Pichardo, 261-3. 12. Murray, Odious Commerce, pp. 50-71. la necesidad de extinguir la esclavitud de 13. Félix Varela, 'Memorias atendiendo que demuestra a los intereses de sus proprietarios', Documentos los negros en la Isla de Cuba, 276-88. London para la historia de Cuba, I, PP. Letters from Havana during the Year 1820, 14. Robert Francis Jameson, Commission' comprised British and Spanish appointed judges state 1821, P. 8. The 'Mixed brought to Havana by the naval forces of either who tried suspected those slave-traders slaves seized to the local authorities. con los and handed over Portell Vila, Historia de Cuba en suS relaciones 15. Quoted in Herminio Havana 1938, 5 vols, I, P. 141. This rather old-fashioned from all the Estados Unidos y Espania, gives copious and enlightening quotations exercise in diplomatic involved history in the "Cuban question' at the time. Webster, ed., Britain and leading statesmen Canning to Rufus King, August 7th 1825, C.K. the Foreign 16. George America 1812-30: Selected Documents from the Independence of Latin 521. Office Archives, London 1953, p. of Bolivar, edited by H.E. Bierke, 17. Vicente Lecina, compiler, Selected Writings New York 1951, p. 499. de las FAR, Historia de Cuba, pp. 93-103. Support 18. Jorge Ibarra, Direcion politica outside the central zone of plantation for independence came chiefly from regions to Spain that the pro-independence development. The Captain General reported youths' and 'angry and heedless conspiracy was only supported by a few 'irresponsible in it were 'decent people with mulattos and campesinos's; he regretted that mixed the up racial caste system still reigned in Cuba though blacks' (p. p. 499. de las FAR, Historia de Cuba, pp. 93-103. Support 18. Jorge Ibarra, Direcion politica outside the central zone of plantation for independence came chiefly from regions to Spain that the pro-independence development. The Captain General reported youths' and 'angry and heedless conspiracy was only supported by a few 'irresponsible in it were 'decent people with mulattos and campesinos's; he regretted that mixed the up racial caste system still reigned in Cuba though blacks' (p. 99). As this remark implies and black militias. for some time yet there were pardo --- Page 426 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery a further $4 million the latter period the Havana treasury expended P. Garrich, Estado de 19. During of the garrision and squadron. (Raimundo en los anos 1823 annually on maintenance de la tesoreria general de Ejército de Habana Havana los ingresos y erogaciones formado del ôrden del Exmo. Conde de Villaneuva, See à 1849 ambos inclusive, short of funds during this whole period Josep 1850.) The Spanish state was acutely absoluta, Barcelona 1971, and Hacienda y estado the Fontana, La Quiebra de la monarquia espanol, Madrid 1973. For an account of en la crisis final del antiguo régimen de Lara, Estudios sobre el siglo XIX espanol, importance of Cuba to Spain see Tunon Madrid 1978. Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom, London 1970, pp. 156-67, 20. Hugh Thomas, New York 1979, 193-9. Lang, Portugese Brazil: The King's Plantation, 21. Quoted in James Tomo II, O P. 193. de Holanda, Histôria geral da civilizacao Brasileira, The 22. Sérgio Buarque de emancipacào, Sâo Paulo 1965, pp. 278-99. the Brasil mondrquico, vol. 1, O processo defeated As a military measure former "Robespierre of the islands' was who ingloriously. joined in the final assault; a 'model invaders offered freedom and arms to the slaves the first to be captured. Under the terms of estate' belonging to the Governor was among that liberated former slaves would not remain in the treaty of capitulation, it was agreed threat to order, and their former owners were the colony, since this was thought a returned to public France where he was briefly imprisoned; still to receive compensation. Hugues active in the entourage of Fouché, evidently during the "hundred days' he was again his patron. The Establishment of the Royal Court in Brazil', in 23. Maria Odila Silva Diaz, to Nation, Baltimore 1975, PP. 89-108, p. 98. A.J.R. Russell-Wood, ed., From Colony Pedro in a letter to his father which is reprinted in 24. This advice was recalled by do Brasil, Lisbon 1922, pp. 503-7, on p. 504. 101-12. Antônio Vianna, A emancipaciao da independência, Sao Paulo 1972, pp. 25. Oliveira Lima, O movimento revolucao e contra-revoluco, 5 vols, II, 26. José Honôrio Rodrigues, Independôncia: 126-30. The pp. 112-37; III, pp. 121-48; IV, of pp. this complex man see Emilia Viotto da Costa, also 27. For an excellent portrait and Histories, Chicago 1985, pp. 24-52. This volume Brazilian Empire: Myths movement (pp. 1-23) and an incisive contains a helpful summary of the independence sketch of Brazilian liberalism (pp. voluco, 5 vols, II, 26. José Honôrio Rodrigues, Independôncia: 126-30. The pp. 112-37; III, pp. 121-48; IV, of pp. this complex man see Emilia Viotto da Costa, also 27. For an excellent portrait and Histories, Chicago 1985, pp. 24-52. This volume Brazilian Empire: Myths movement (pp. 1-23) and an incisive contains a helpful summary of the independence sketch of Brazilian liberalism (pp. 53-78). Brazil: A New World Experiment in Monarchy, 28. C.H. Haring, Empire in Cambridge 1965, pp. 28-30. do Brazil, 444-67. Tomo II, O 29. Vianna, A Emancipacâo Histôria geral da civilizacao Brasileira, 30. Sérgio Buarque de Holandia, Brasil monarchico, vol. 1, pp. 227-37. in the Formation of Brazilian Society, p. 439. 31. Schwartz, Sugar Plantations século xviti, quoted in Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in 32. Santos Vilhena, A Bahia, no 435. Schwartz also cites a newspaper editorial of the Formation of Brazilian Society, class p. of masters concentrates all political power in Brazil 1834 to the following effect: 'the has little importance they are (at least) free men, and have if the proletariat as a class possess all the constitutional rights and privileges no grounds for complaint because they Two great interests tend to reunite without bias whatever of caste, colour or custom. the sentiment of nationality and the and join all members of a society SO constituted the slaves' (p. 437). necessity of conserving dominion over 'Elite Politics and the Growth of a 33. Thomas Lindly, quoted in Stuart Schwartz, From Colony to Nation, pp. Peasantry in Late Colonial Brazil', in Russell-Wood, 'Late Colonial Brazil', Cambridge History 133-54, pp. 151-2. See also Stuart Schwartz, of Latin America, II, PP. 601-60. das senzalas, Sao Paulo 1959; Mauricio Goulart, 34. Clovis Moura, Rebelioes Brasil, Sâo Paulo 1949, pp. 243-62, 272. Escravidao Africana no of the Brazilian slave system under the Empire is attempted 35. A systematic account the Slave Power, which is a sequel to the present in a companion volume, Nemesis of work. --- Page 427 --- Cuba and Brazil 36. For an account of controversies over slavery in the Empire see Brasil Gerson, Escravidao no império, Rio de Janeiro 1975. 37. For a thoughtful comparative discussion see Fernando A. Novais, 'Passagens para al Novo Mundo', Novos estudos, CEBRAP, July 1984, pp. 2-8. 38. Valentim Alexandre, Origens do colonialismo Portugués moderno, 1822-1891, Lisbon 1979, pp. 5-70. 39. The above is only a preliminary sketch of these regimes; it is amplified in Nemesis of the Slave Power. 40. David Eltis, The Export of Slaves from Africa, 1821-1843", Journal of Economic History, vol. 37, 1977, PP. 409-33. 41. Murray, Odious Commerce, P. 78. 42. Bethell, The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade, p. 66. --- Page 428 --- --- Page 429 --- XI The Struggle for British Slave Emancipation: 1823-38 VONELE a And that slaughter to the nation Shall steam up like inspiration, Eloquent, oracular; A volcano heard afar. And these words shall then become Like oppression's thundered doom Ringing through each heart and brain. Heard again - again again. 'Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep hath fallen on Ye are many - they are few.' you - The Mask of Anarchy (written 1819, published 1832), P.B. Shelley --- Page 430 --- VONELE a And that slaughter to the nation Shall steam up like inspiration, Eloquent, oracular; A volcano heard afar. And these words shall then become Like oppression's thundered doom Ringing through each heart and brain. Heard again - again again. 'Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep hath fallen on Ye are many - they are few.' you - The Mask of Anarchy (written 1819, published 1832), P.B. Shelley --- Page 430 --- --- Page 431 --- British Slave Emancipation in Britain after 1815 was brought to an The lull in abolitionist activity climate in the early 1820s. relaxation of the political end by a gradual weather a crisis with strong measures, but factional The oligarchy could of reform would appear. conflict within it ensured that new champions taxation and continuing was widely blamed for heavy The government The death of George III in 1820 and the economic difficulties. and Queen gave a field day to succeeding conflict between the new King who acted as legal adviser to advocates of reform like Brougham, administration had consented to Queen Caroline. Lord Liverpool's bill to divorce him from his George IV's request for a parliamentary dissolute and adulterous George should wife. That the spectacularly the of her impurity led to a seek to set aside the Queen on ground replete with meetings and widespread public campaign in her defence, since 1815. Wilberforce petitions of the sort which had not been seen settlement but to in an attempt to reach a compromise was approached defeated in the Commons. The oligarchic no avail. The Divorce Bill was in disarray. From this of illegitimate monarchy' was plunged regime administration no longer had the political time on the Liverpool demands: Catholic relief, slave strength to smother Opposition and Acts, and parliaemancipation, repeal of the Test Corporation in and out of Parliament. mentary reform began to be advanced neither by economic success nor Oligarchic government was sustained itself in the very terms to justify by fear and was obliged progressively middle-class reformers." of the challenge made to it by had always privately intended to Wilberforce, Stephen and Macaulay of slavery. In the 1820s they each press for the removal or mitigation in the British colonies pointing published critical surveys of conditions that mortality evidence that the slave populations were declining, to difficult and religion lacking- They argued that the was high, family life emancipation. Reports of the time had come to consider gradual made by Bolivar and other leaders of the emancipationist proclamations liberation movements helped to put British abolitionSpanish American developments were closely followed by the ists on their mettle; these in American markets and because of British interest Spanish press of British volunteers, including Lord Cochrane, because thousands Americans. were fighting with the Spanish including Wilberforce In 1823 a number of the veteran abolitionists, for Mitigating and Gradually established the Society and Brougham, throughout the British Dominions. Once Abolishing the State of Slavery Among new recruits were again Quakers were active in support. advocate of prison reform; and Stephen Lushington, an MP and and a brewer with many Quaker and Thomas Fowell Buxton, an MP invited Buxton to take over the evangelical connections. Wilberforce --- Page 432 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery forces in Parliament. As its title implied work of leading the anti-slavery with modest aims: these included easier the new Society started out of Sunday labour, the promotion of manumission laws, the ending legal recognition of slave religious instruction on the plantations, and the admissibility of marriages, legal recognition of slave property, also mooted the possibility slave evidence in courts of law. The society be freed.2 that the children of slave mothers should abolitionism soon aroused a This cautious rebirth of organised by the emergence of fresh significant popular response, accompanied The ameliorative legislation forces and far more radical perspectives. leading the anti-slavery with modest aims: these included easier the new Society started out of Sunday labour, the promotion of manumission laws, the ending legal recognition of slave religious instruction on the plantations, and the admissibility of marriages, legal recognition of slave property, also mooted the possibility slave evidence in courts of law. The society be freed.2 that the children of slave mothers should abolitionism soon aroused a This cautious rebirth of organised by the emergence of fresh significant popular response, accompanied The ameliorative legislation forces and far more radical perspectives. leaders of the new society was proposed by the parliamentary and by the formation of local supported by a new petition campaign of the society was able to identify societies. The first Annual record Report that 825 petitions had been presented 220 local societies and to session there were a further 674 to Parliament; in the following Glasgow those from four major cities - London, Manchester, That petitions, no less than 168,000 signatures." and Edinburgh - contained lodged within British political abolitionist themes were strategically the build-up of the campaign culture was confirmed not only by rapid Once again reformers found it but also by the government's response. this issue and once again the easy to make a concerted attack on forward its own plans for government deemed it advisable to bring introduced a series of giving some protection to the slaves. Canning of female slaves, the motions that envisaged a ban on the whipping of law, and a programme of admission of slave testimony in courts for emancipating religious instruction; however, the society's proposals the that the the children of slave mothers were rejected on grounds too small and of the West Indies were generally The white populations of free blacks. vulnerable to cope with a large cleared population with at least some of the government's response had been Council embodied some of the colonial proprietors; an Order in left to the colonial assemblies ameliorative proposals, but it was up their own schemes for themselves to interpret the Orders and to 4 enact improving conditions on the plantations.* had been limited to the objectives If the new abolitionist movement leaders, then it might have been simply set out by the parliamentary of the government's compromise prepared to press for implementation anti-slavery current developed which proposals. But instead a radical as well as the distrusted the timid proposals of the parliamentarians In 1825 the accommodating response of the government. which deceptively publication of the The Anti-Slavery Reporter society commenced for debating the proper objectives of furnished it with a means This journal abolitionism as well as for conducting its own propaganda. --- Page 433 --- British Slave Emancipation Macaulay, with assistance from his was initially edited by Zachary It published detailed information on son, Thomas Babington slave Macaulay. trade and on the workings of the various the continuing Atlantic American slave systems. leaders Thomas Clarkson and James Among the veteran abolitionist should be invested in voluntary Stephen insisted that no trust or hope Stephen published a action by the colonial legislatures. of James the inhumanity of the slave compendious and documented account West Indian Colonies Delineated, system, The Slavery of the British eldest son, also published in two volumes in 1824 and 1830. Stephen's the Colonial Office called James, had been engaged as legal counsel his father's to account of the and could supplement from offical sources both Clarkson and Stephen workings of the slave systems. However, The most novel element remained proponents of gradual emancipation. that some within the respectable in the new wave of the 1820s was took the call for immediate ranks of organised abolitionism the up slave-owners. An anonyemancipation, without compensation to Gradual Emancipation, first entitled Immediate Not mous pamphlet had success with the local abolitionist groups. published in 1824, followed great by a stream of anti-slavery writings This pamphlet was and intransigence lacking in parliamentary imbued with a vehemence much of the new 'immediatist' anti-slavery abolitionism. within the respectable in the new wave of the 1820s was took the call for immediate ranks of organised abolitionism the up slave-owners. An anonyemancipation, without compensation to Gradual Emancipation, first entitled Immediate Not mous pamphlet had success with the local abolitionist groups. published in 1824, followed great by a stream of anti-slavery writings This pamphlet was and intransigence lacking in parliamentary imbued with a vehemence much of the new 'immediatist' anti-slavery abolitionism. Interestingly including the pamphlet Immediate writing was the work of women, author was Mrs Elizabeth Heyricke. Not Gradual Abolition whose number of women's groups, a Among the local societies were a The chairwoman of development of which Wilberforce disapproved. to news of Wilberforce's one of these societies responded vigorously only gradually to abolish the worst disapprobation: 'men may propose the most evil bondage. . . I trust no of crimes, and only to mitigate be found with such words attached to it.5 Ladies Association will ever and content of emancipation were not As it turned out the timing decided by British reformers or the matters which would be solely which was to lend extra force to Mrs British Parliament, a circumstance Heyricke's protest. of the French wars and of the suppression of the In the aftermath social and demographic patterns became visible Atlantic slave trade new Between 1807 and 1834 the total slave in the British West Indies. colonies, including occupied territories population of the West Indian from 775,000 to 665,000, a decline formally acquired in 1815, dropped in the new about 14 cent overall. The decline was much sharper of per Demerara-Essequibo, where the plantation developcolonies, notably --- Page 434 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery build-up of recent. The slave ment had been rapid and the established population and more balanced, population in the older colonies, better Barbados there was to be and in the case of declined only slightly brief between 1809-12, with the slave overall growth, apart from a dip between 1808 population of this island rising from 75,000 to Indian 85,000 annual rate of and the early 1830s. The overall British West an improvement population change at -0.4 per cent in fact represented colonies in the growth rates of the slave on the appalling negative reduced the risk of 6 Cessation of the slave trade previous century." of time itself enlarged the core of imported epidemics, while the passage to American American-born slaves with their increased adjustment able to cite Nevertheless anti-slavery advocates were conditions. both low fertility and high mortality, as population decline, reflecting their slaves. In SO that and managers were misusing an index planters link between negative or low growth and far as there was a clear the the anti-slavery intensified slave-driving regimes on plantations advocates were perfectly justified. the size of the slave population was also However, the decline in of the free Free people associated with a growth in the size population. total of the only 2-3 per cent of the population of colour comprised 1770s. In the aftermath of the American war British West Indies in the freedom from the British settled in some blacks who had claimed in St Domingue and the French Jamaica or other islands. The revolution of colour who had, or soon Windwards also led to an influx of people in the British West acquired, their freedom. It was common practice sometimes Indies for overseers or managers to take slave mistresses; of their offspring, would make arrangements for the manumission Because they the size of the free coloured population. thus further expanding inured to the local disease environthe free coloured population was of forced labour it exhibited a positive ment and spared the rigours modest, factor favouring the rise natural growth rate. Jamaica or other islands. The revolution of colour who had, or soon Windwards also led to an influx of people in the British West acquired, their freedom. It was common practice sometimes Indies for overseers or managers to take slave mistresses; of their offspring, would make arrangements for the manumission Because they the size of the free coloured population. thus further expanding inured to the local disease environthe free coloured population was of forced labour it exhibited a positive ment and spared the rigours modest, factor favouring the rise natural growth rate. A further, though enacted in response of the free coloured population was new legislation, cheaper and easier which made manumission to metropolitan pressure, and 1830 the free people of colour grew from to obtain. Between 1810 of the of the British West 6.6 per cent to 12.2 per cent overall population drop in the size of the white Indies. This compares with an cent. In Barbados, with its wellpopulation from 7.2 per cent to 6.6 per of colour still comprised only : established white population, free people in Jamaica the free people of 5.2 per cent of the population in 1830; in 1810, rising to 10.6 colour comprised 7.4 per cent of the population of the colony dropped from cent in 1830 while the white population was at per cent.' 7 Absenteeism amongst the large proprietors 6.9 to 5.0 per record levels. --- Page 435 --- British Slave Emancipation shifts would have put considerable pressure on These demographic even if egalitarian and democratic the traditional racial caste system The British abolitionists were much less ideas had not been in the air. than their French counterparts had concerned with 'mulatto rights' consistent in that he placed quite a low been; Wilberforce was at least at home too. Nevertheless value on civic rights for white Englishmen freedmen should not suffer blatant the abolitionists did urge that black decreed that the testimony of free social discrimination. In 1813 it was in courts of law and it was people of colour would be acceptable and inherit property. recognised that they were competent to transmit brought an armed The formation of the six West Indian regiments from 1807 the black force around 7,000 men strong into existence; and enjoyed similar rights black privates and NCOs were manumitted members of this force were recruited by to their white equivalents. Most Africa but a minority were West Indian purchase or impressment in were disbanded in 1815 the born; when some of the regiments of the soldiers to acceded to pressure to return many education government enrolled the black soldiers received elementary Africa. Once and after the wars the sight of welland religious instruction. During dispirited squads of white accoutred black NCOs commanding Apart from minor incidents the deserters or miscreants was common. in some ways more SO than black soldiers were loyal and disciplined, by local whites as a threat to the white soldiers, yet they were perceived racial hierarchy." of free people of colour in Kingston, Jamaica, In 1815 a group of the ban on their admission to the local petitioned for removal they asked for representation as taxtheatre, and in the following year From 1823 there were regular meetings payers in the Colonial Assembly. at which they demanded equal of free coloured people in Kingston from the Jamaican free people social and political rights. A submission that 400 of their number could be of colour in 1825 estimated worth more than £5,000; a further considered rich, possessing property than £1,000; altogether propertied 5,500 owned property worth more slaves, out of a total slave population of mulattos owned about 50,000 of Jamaica was not as wealthy 310,000. The free coloured population but whereas the latter had its in St Domingue in 1790, as counterpart in numbers to the local whites Jamaica's 45,000 free been roughly equal about 15,000 whites. their number could be of colour in 1825 estimated worth more than £5,000; a further considered rich, possessing property than £1,000; altogether propertied 5,500 owned property worth more slaves, out of a total slave population of mulattos owned about 50,000 of Jamaica was not as wealthy 310,000. The free coloured population but whereas the latter had its in St Domingue in 1790, as counterpart in numbers to the local whites Jamaica's 45,000 free been roughly equal about 15,000 whites. The Colonial Office blacks in 1834 faced only favoured extending citizenship rights, and some of the larger planters better-off coloured freeholders in the hope of including the vote, to the between different freeholders, or ensuring their loyalty. The distinction was no less arbitrary for the free between freeholders and leaseholders, for the white electorates in both coloured population than it was --- Page 436 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery consequently it left many unsatisfied. In 1825 metropolis and colonies; two free men of colour who had the Jamaican Assembly deported that they were agents of Haiti and were organised petitions, alleging The men chosen were of partly French plotting a slave insurrection. links to Haiti and were also involved in a extraction, had commercial from the black Republic. Société de Bienfaisance set up by immigrants far-fetched, the example of Though the allegations against them demand were for civic equality. Following Haiti no doubt encouraged their travelled to London to present their case their deportation the two men With backing from Stephen to the British Parliament and courts. they won the right to return to Lushington and other abolitionists by the moderate and respectable Jamaica. British opinion was impressed the free coloured community in appeals of the two men. Henceforth in London, to represent their Jamaica retained the services of an Agent' assemblies had done for SO long. 10 interests, just as the various island community in Jamaica made the Because of its size the free coloured demanded to be allowed running in the campaign for civic rights. They Their leaders hold office, as well as to vote, if otherwise qualified. to SO long as it was talked of the need to explore a gradual emancipation, 1830 a radically minded accompanied by compensation. In July commenced publication of a coloured bookseller, Edward Jordan, which soon established a twice-weekly newspaper, The Watchman, documented exposés of the reputation for itself with lively and tolerated the planter class. The corruption and abuses practised or by numbered and quoted Watchman declared that the days of slavery were The Watchman reached copiously from British anti-slavery literature. it contributed both only a few thousand readers but the nevertheless slave system; directly by siding directly and indirectly to weakening by attacking the caste system which with the critics of slavery, indirectly black enslavement in the British West had always been a prop of Indies.' 11 religion among the black population, The spread of Nonconformist further factor undermining the slave both free and enslaved, was a white missionaries, and most black system, despite the fact that all and obedient. There had deacons, called for slaves to be hard-working 1754, but the real expansion of been some Moravian missionaries since did not occur until the 1790s. In the churches with a black membership small number of black Baptists found aftermath of the American war a Wesleyan Methodrefuge in Jamaica and began forming 1789; congregations. 1822 they had about 8,000 ists became active in Jamaica from authorities by had generally favoured in their congregations. The British enjoined to preach of missionaries, who were strictly the sending 1834 there were 150 missionaries in the submission at all times. By --- Page 437 --- British Slave Emancipation 58 Methodists, 17 Baptists and British West Indies - 63 Moravians, attached to their chapels and a sundry others - with a total of 47,000 from the missionaries very further 86,000 'hearers or enquirers'. Apart backing to the free blacks gave strong few whites were involved; welcomed their presence in the front Nonconformist Churches, which at the back, as would happen in rather than obliging them to stand slaves, were pew places of worship. British Slave Emancipation 58 Methodists, 17 Baptists and British West Indies - 63 Moravians, attached to their chapels and a sundry others - with a total of 47,000 from the missionaries very further 86,000 'hearers or enquirers'. Apart backing to the free blacks gave strong few whites were involved; welcomed their presence in the front Nonconformist Churches, which at the back, as would happen in rather than obliging them to stand slaves, were pew places of worship. Free blacks, or even the Anglican read and encouraged to hold Bible enrolled as deacons, taught to white were largely met by classes. The religious needs of the population the latter had the services of one hundred or SO Anglican few priests; followers. There were nominal duties towards the slaves but very Moses Baker, who black preachers, such as the Baptist also independent around 3,000; but planters and managers would not had a following of SO they were mainly supported by allow slaves to attend their meetings, slaves. The Assemblies were little free people of colour and urban inculcated by the missionaries, seeing impressed by the piety supposedly the authority system of the plantation. the chapels simply as a threat to Assembly was reported as declaring: The Jamaican and teaching of the sects called Baptist, Wesleyan Methodist, of The preaching the sect called Baptist) had the effect and Moravians (but more especially that they could not serve both a producing in the minds of the slaves, a belief them to resist the temporal and a spiritual master, thereby under occasioning the delusion of rendering lawful authority of their temporal, master. 12 themselves more acceptable to a spiritual and classes would naturally often be conducted Services in the chapels in Christian guise. Black in patois, and African beliefs appear would be articulated in terms of the aspirations to respect and freedom beliefs and symbols that only permitted ideology, a system of Christian for others, and convenient for some, a matter of conviction the was simply attitudes for many. The black deacons found in a mixture of both release from bondage of the Ancient Scriptures the story of the Testament an offer of personal Israelites; they also found in the New to those who had been salvation that may well have been attractive uprooted by the workings of the slave system. of the of the slave trade meant that the creole proportion The ending steadily grew. In Jamaica the proportion of slave population thereafter slave dropped from 45 per African-born slaves in the total population with the fact cent in 1832. This change, together cent in 1807 to 25 per been resident in the West Indies, that the remaining Africans had long slave population. Purely produced a culturally more homogenous to fuel slave revolts in of solidarity, such as had helped African sources --- Page 438 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and before in Jamaica, became less the mid-eighteenth century of slaves could now communicate with important. Virtually the totality and all would share an outlook shaped one another in the local patois slave traffic between plantations and by colonial society. A continuing weakened this more unified basis for slave islands spread rather than community and solidarity. Wars witnessed an intensificaThe years following the Napoleonic and managers strove to increase tion of slave exploitation as planters work-force. A decline in the prices of output from a static or declining planters to maintain their revenue by plantation products encouraged halved between 1815-19 and expanding output. The price of sugar for those aiming at large 1830-34, but there was no alternative crop and steam power were returns. In the new territories land reclamation capacity. But these used to extend cultivation and to boost processing of the slave labour force. the load developments in no way lightened the British West Indies rose from Overall production of sugar in in 1828. The decline in the slave 168,000 tons in 1815 to 202,000 tons the decline in the total slave labour force was even larger than the of the old and the population during these years, since proportion structure developed. Rising young grew as a more normal the population transfer of slaves to sugar cultivation sugar output was the result of those already on the sugar estates. used to extend cultivation and to boost processing of the slave labour force. the load developments in no way lightened the British West Indies rose from Overall production of sugar in in 1828. The decline in the slave 168,000 tons in 1815 to 202,000 tons the decline in the total slave labour force was even larger than the of the old and the population during these years, since proportion structure developed. Rising young grew as a more normal the population transfer of slaves to sugar cultivation sugar output was the result of those already on the sugar estates. Since and relentless pressure on widely recognised as being harsher conditions on the sugar estates were view much born out by vital than those on other estates, a very deteriorating conditions for statistics, these years must have witnessed that the slave population was many. The slave registers show not only but that the rate of decline was declining between 1818 and 1830 cent in 1818 to -1 per cent in increasing in Jamaica from -0.25 per that field slaves could no 1830. The ending of slave imports meant indeed some craft slaves were longer be promoted to lighter tasks; fields instead. With gross revenues probably obliged to work in the the slaves are likely to have been more declining, the rations received by aware of controversies surWhile the "head people' were meagre. local markets and the growth of black congregations rounding slavery, information network. encouraged a black thousand rebel slaves from plantations east In August 1823 about a moved against their managers and of the Demerara river in the Guyanas as they believed to the colonial authorities to demand better conditions, by the news that be their due. The revolt in Demerara was encouraged of amelioration of the the London government had proposed measures of the new abolitionist society slave condition, following the formation inherited something of the in January 1823. The slaves in this colony which had marked the former long tradition of maroon resistance --- Page 439 --- British Slave Emancipation Dutch possession. In the area affected by the slaves had recently been switched rebellion large numbers of the breaking of personal ties between to sugar cultivation; this occasioned conditions, both of these being slaves as well as harsher labour outbreak of 1823 the traditional sources of unrest. In the than to goal was to transform the colonial opt out of it. The government's regime rather were modest enough but still sufficient amelioration measures fundamental to arouse rumours that slave action knew changes the were in prospect. Those who were to lead more the they aroused planter amelioration measures were limited but also that that Sunday should be hostility. The concern of many British abolitionists from kept as a day when the slaves labour, and able to attend a place of should be released of an extra free day to allow the slaves worship, raised the question The 1823 amelioration to cultivate their garden measures banned the plots. Sundays, requiring them to be held holding of markets on observance also offered on a different day. Sunday and political as well as opportunities to the slaves which were social from neighbouring religious. They could meet and talk with slaves plantations. The failure of most planters themselves meant that many slaves had attended to organise religious services up by missionaries from the Nonconformist chapels set arrived in Demerara in England. The first English missionary had eventually persuaded 1808; after initial planter resistance he had the slaves many masters that chapel attendance more industrious and obedient. would make now under the supervision of the By 1817 the Bethel chapel, by about 800 slaves Reverend John Smith, was attended religious instruction. A every number Sunday with about 2,000 in receipt of were responsible for the of the leading deacons of this Demarara. up by missionaries from the Nonconformist chapels set arrived in Demerara in England. The first English missionary had eventually persuaded 1808; after initial planter resistance he had the slaves many masters that chapel attendance more industrious and obedient. would make now under the supervision of the By 1817 the Bethel chapel, by about 800 slaves Reverend John Smith, was attended religious instruction. A every number Sunday with about 2,000 in receipt of were responsible for the of the leading deacons of this Demarara. The resistance movement of August 1823 chapel movement began when the slaves in plantations on Demerara's east coast took on half a dozen white overseers and managers in the over their plantations, placed the Governor. The Governor stocks, and demanded talks with parley with a crowd of about arrived with a militia detachment to armed with pikes, machetes several hundred rebels, some of them or fowling agreed to lay down their arms the pieces. After the slaves had Governor wanted, to which they replied *Our asked them what they limited nature of the amelioration right'. The Governor explained the Secretary but the slave measures proposed by the Colonial "These spokesmen made it clear that they things they said were no comfort to wanted more: of the same flesh and blood them. God had made them being Slaves to them, that their as the whites, and that they were tired of be free and they would not work good King had sent orders they should been fired the Governor broke any more.' After a musket shot had off the discussions and returned to --- Page 440 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the revolt spread to embrace most of the east Georgetown. Meanwhile Governor called out well-armed troops and shore as far as Berbice. The of one of the West India Regiments. At militia, including a detachment force encountered about 2,000 the Adventure plantation the Governor's rebels. noted: *Some of the An eyewitness report of the confrontation lands and three days in the week insurgents called out that they wanted and they would not give up their arms for themselves, besides Sunday, British commander noted: 'At first till they were satisfied.' The freedom and three days than anything else, there was more demand for were all for freedom, and all of but latterly when I came out again they Church on The to Sunday.1 them dwelt considerably on going written series of demands by Jack commanding officer was handed a declared that he Gladstone, one of the rebel leaders. The and commander ordered them to disperse. was unable to meet the rebels' conditions were ordered to fire on the When they refused to do SO the troops killed at a cost to the assembly; about 100-150 rebels were outright, down and Governor's forces of one casualty. Fleeing rebels were flogged. hunted The terror executed on the spot; slave suspects were mercilessly a system of hierarchy unleashed against the slaves aimed at restoring by the resistance and subordination that had been badly damaged deacon who some had Quamina Gladstone, an older movement. tracked down about a month proposed be elected King, was eventually his bullet-riddled body was after the beginning of the rebellion; where the action first displayed in chains in front of the plantation to trial; 51 of Over the next four months 72 slaves were brought lashes and began. 16 sentenced to receive 1,000 these were sentenced to death, Others were tried at a later date, with others to lengthy prison terms. their life. The victims were strung on about 250 slaves in all losing on the affected plantations. gibbets in front of the dwelling quarters the Reverend John Smith was In the furore that followed these events incited the slaves to rebellion. rebellion; where the action first displayed in chains in front of the plantation to trial; 51 of Over the next four months 72 slaves were brought lashes and began. 16 sentenced to receive 1,000 these were sentenced to death, Others were tried at a later date, with others to lengthy prison terms. their life. The victims were strung on about 250 slaves in all losing on the affected plantations. gibbets in front of the dwelling quarters the Reverend John Smith was In the furore that followed these events incited the slaves to rebellion. brought to trial on a charge of having the slaves, writing in letters to the Smith himself did sympathise with him of the way in which pregnant Missionary Society that sponsored hours in the field, the common neglect women were forced to work long and the difficulties married of sick slaves, the pervasive use of the whip, that Smith their But it is most unlikely slaves had in seeing partners. and virtually excluded that he incited knew what the slaves intended, and the existence of his their action. On the other hand, his presence, universe of the slave chapel, represented a fissure in the ideological familiar sources of revolt, the system; together with other more effect, irrespective of the missionary presence did have a destabilising of Pastor Smith himself. The prosecution persuaded pacific intentions --- Page 441 --- British Slave Emancipation leaders of the revolt, Jack Gladstone, son of Quamina, one of the main Gladstone was exempted from the to testify against Smith; in return seriously connected with the death sentence passed on all others weakened by a note he had uprising. Smith's position was further on the eve of the member of his congregation written to another uprising: of the affair you allude to, and your note is To Jacky Reed, I am ignorant learnt that some schemes were in too late to make an enquiry. I yesterday the subject I begged them to be agitation; without asking any questions on and concerted measures are quite quiet. I trust they will; hasty, violent, and I hope you will have nothing to do foreign to the religion we profess, sake. J.S. with them. Yours, for Christ's Smith and he received the death sentence; The local jury found guilty as he was obliged to submitted this sentence to London, the Governor for mercy to be shown. The London do, and added a recommendation Smith's sentence but he died in prison authorities agreed to commute Smith died of consumption following before this news was received; cell. Abolitionists in Britain were incarceration in a dark and damp described in his letters. horrified by Smith's fate and by the conditions themselves Nonconformists Many British abolitionists were, of course, the martyrdom suffered some harassment for their convictions; and had them with outrage. News was also received from of John Smith filled events had led 'a party of respectable Barbados that the Demerara the in retaliation for gentlemen' to burn a Methodist chapel to ground attacks, which have described as 'unmerited and unprovoked what they by Methodist missionaries'. frequently been made on the community debated the events in Demerara When the House of Commons speech while Brougham, Wilberforce delivered his last parliamentary onto the for three hours, threw the planters' representatives speaking as one of his most powerful speeches; defensive in what was acclaimed and Jacky and father of the Sir John Gladstone, owner of Quamina defence of colonial justice. The Liberal statesman, spoke up in Commons but helped to build antiabolitionists lost the vote in the slavery sentiment in the country at large. colonial authorities went to Following the events in Demerara local about to end. Baptists lengths to still rumours that slavery was and to great missionaries were willing to spread the message and Methodist whenever they were allowed to. But there urge obedience on the slaves the slave populations of the British was a new restiveness amongst of controversies British Caribbean. Even without echoes metropolitan to respond to new Indian slaves would have been likely West --- Page 442 --- The Overthrow. of Colonial Slavery conditions. Beginning on Christmas Day opportunities and harsher resistance movement of unprecedented 1831 Jamaica was the scene of a slaves, which swept involving between 20,000 and 30,000 scope, the island. and Methodist whenever they were allowed to. But there urge obedience on the slaves the slave populations of the British was a new restiveness amongst of controversies British Caribbean. Even without echoes metropolitan to respond to new Indian slaves would have been likely West --- Page 442 --- The Overthrow. of Colonial Slavery conditions. Beginning on Christmas Day opportunities and harsher resistance movement of unprecedented 1831 Jamaica was the scene of a slaves, which swept involving between 20,000 and 30,000 scope, the island. The outbreak had been preceded by through the west of imposed on and managers on new regulations many attacks by planters derived, in fact, from the them by the Colonial Office; these regulations to Jamaica had long amelioration proposals of 1823 whose application the idea had spread obstructed by the local Assembly. Once again been decree - an idea possibly that masters were concealing an emancipation Crown slaves. The revolt centred encouraged' by an executive order freeing had many followers. The ofwestern, Jamaica where the Baptists on an area freedmen and slaves to run their own Baptists permitted or encouraged drives. Samuel Sharpe, a black slave services and organise membership the area affected by the revolt. A deacon, travelled widely through that Sharpe witness at a later trial hearing was to report evils and injustices of slavery; asserted the natural referred to the manifold He concluded by observing that equality of man with regard to freedom. resolved upon doing it, the 'whites because the King had made them free, or secret meetings with the and Grignon' (a militia commander) were holding kill all the black men, and doors shut close . and had determined : . them to in slavery. 16 save all the women and children and keep that they would gain Many slaves involved in the revolt were persuaded to force only if their ends if they simply stopped work, resorting refusal to the 1831 Christmas day fell on a Sunday; attacked. In year the action by the slaves an extra day of rest probably sparked out of the grant with great rapidity and soon passed them. The revolt spread As militia forces were control of Sharpe and his Baptist congregation. of the rebels formed a Black assembled to crush the slaves some Colonel but this was Regiment, under a commander known as with Jackson, the advantage of fre exceptional. It took the troops and militia, control of the areas affected and training, two weeks to reassert valued at power Fourteen whites had been killed and property by the revolt. destruction and loss of life would have £1,132,440 was destroyed. The the rebels' main object. Thus on the been much greater if that had been led by the head driver, Edward Georgia estate, Trelawny, the slaves militia detachment armed with a Grant, had simply refused to work. A slaves from their cabins and field piece attacked them at dawn, dragging the case, the repression was shooting one as an example. As was always Some 200 rebels were killed far more bloody than the original uprising. further 312 were executed in the course of suppressing the revolt; a from the estates affected by subsequently. Those killed judicially came --- Page 443 --- British Slave Emancipation the uprising and were those accused by the being involved, or simply because they overseers or managers of 'great rascals', 'notorious were known When runaways' and "liars'. 17 trouble-makers, news of the 'Baptist War' reached Britain abolitionist advocates on the defensive. it at first threw friends could argue that missionary West Indian planters and their to the work, and government abolitionists, were to blame for the havoc concessions Jamaica itself the white colonists had and destruction. In stirring up the slaves: in the aftermath no doubt who was responsible for and six Methodist of the revolt nine Baptist itself chapels were burned by an chapels as the 'Colonial Church Union'. One organisation describing feathered, another expelled from the missionary was tarred and missionaries were jailed, colony. friends could argue that missionary West Indian planters and their to the work, and government abolitionists, were to blame for the havoc concessions Jamaica itself the white colonists had and destruction. In stirring up the slaves: in the aftermath no doubt who was responsible for and six Methodist of the revolt nine Baptist itself chapels were burned by an chapels as the 'Colonial Church Union'. One organisation describing feathered, another expelled from the missionary was tarred and missionaries were jailed, colony. A number of Baptist was no evidence against supposedly them. for their own protection since there The Methodist decided to send several of their number and Baptist missions was happening to them. The back to Britain to explain what themselves from Samuel returning missionaries disassociated arguing that the slave Sharpe and the leaders of the revolt, while outbursts. Their system was bound to generate more violent Britain, but when testimony it took time to reach a broader did SO it shone a public in bloodshed of the repression. Those who spotlight on the brutality and missionaries, Knibb and Burchell, who left at this time included two radical advocates in the proved themselves powerful and Whiteley, who wrote his anti-slavery cause and a businessman, terrorise slaves own account of the Henry and missionaries alike. 18 slaveholders' attempt to The colonial assemblies protested tion of missionary activity and vigorously at government toleraregulations on the plantations. When attempts to impose ameliorative ameliorative measures the Jamaican invited to introduce its own whether to agree to a ban on the 'indecent' assembly debated for four hours that is the flogging of women in flogging of the female slaves deciding that such flogging should a state of undress - before finally Jamaica was crucial to be allowed. As the largest ism. The Jamaica any prospect of planter resistance to abolition- colony 1776 and Assembly issued brave proclamations produced fine denunciations of the reminiscent of Britain's factory districts. Yet the Colonial atrocious conditions in that the white colonists were utterly Office and government knew and that they did not enjoy the dependent on the British garrison colour or of many of the absentee backing either of the free population of authorities tolerated and proprietors. In Jamaica the colonial protected Jordan's they saw the free coloured as a check Watchman in part because white proprietors on the white colonists. Some parts but most white sought to make overtures to their coloured colonists were not interested in a joint defence counter- of --- Page 444 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery their racial privileges. The Watchman found slavery if it meant diluting it from an English paper: acute to reprint the following sufficiently from the West Indies is raised by men who are The cry which resounds than for their caste: these are the persons trembling less for their property sake they may have no possessions but they who love slavery for its own be given few of them will receive a have white faces. Should compensation of with impunity, every Sixpence; but they will lose the power oppressing, man who has a black skin. 19 of colour, and the eruption of The new assertiveness of the free people time when the weight of the large-scale slave resistance, took place at a Patrick colonies within the Empire was declining sharply. slave the value of the annual production of the British Coloquhoun estimated of that of the empire as a whole in 1812; West Indies at 4.8 per cent between 2-3 per cent. 20 In fact over the next two decades it slipped to reorientation of Britain's by the 1820s and 1830s a thoroughgoing The West Indian slave imperial interests was already well underway. were outside the were still quite profitable SO long as they with plantations affected by rebellion. But such troubles combined area of Jamaica could persuade the individual increasingly stiff Cuban competition resources out of the especially the absentees, to switch the owners, and into other areas. at 4.8 per cent between 2-3 per cent. 20 In fact over the next two decades it slipped to reorientation of Britain's by the 1820s and 1830s a thoroughgoing The West Indian slave imperial interests was already well underway. were outside the were still quite profitable SO long as they with plantations affected by rebellion. But such troubles combined area of Jamaica could persuade the individual increasingly stiff Cuban competition resources out of the especially the absentees, to switch the owners, and into other areas. From the imperial standpoint plantations decline of the West Indies was now unmistakable. relative and postwar recession was The contrast between wartime prosperity conditions to find quite sharp as the metropolis exploited peacetime In 1804-6 the West Indies new markets and new sources of supply. British domestic exports; this trade took no less than 21 per cent of 1824-6. By contrast British dropped to 11 per cent of the total by 1804-6 and rose to 34 per cent exports to Asia had been 7 per cent in from 3 per cent to 11 per in 1824-6, while those to Latin America grew produce disappeared cent.21 The British re-export trade in plantation looked to the with the end of wartime conditions. British importers and to purchase United States as their main supplier of cotton despite began having to pay of Cuban and Brazilian sugar small quantities of the protection afforded by the colonial sugar duties on it. Because remained the largest supplier of sugar to system the British West Indies in the years before 1790, it was easy the metropolis, but once again, as the West Indian that British consumers were subsidising to argue them from commercial extinction. Because of planters, or even saving in the cost of plantation supplies the tariff protection and reductions --- Page 445 --- British Slave Emancipation British West Indian planters could still make had declined and SO had the profits, but the profit rate economy. J.R. Ward's scope for reinvesting in the in annual sample of Jamaican plantations witnessed plantation profitability from 9.6 per cent in the a drop per cent in the years 1820-34; in the years 1799-1819 to 5.3 rate dropped from 9.1 Leeward Islands the annual Profits were still per cent to 3.9 per cent over the same profit high in the newly period. British Guiana where annual developing colonies of Trinidad and 1799-1819 rates of return of 16.0 dipped to 13.3 per cent in 1820-34.22 per cent in of the 'new colonies' then If exception is made dwindling asset. In the context plantation of ownership was becoming a lower profitability, and a larger crisis of colonial slavery proprietors more declining estate values, made West The willing to look for a way out. Indian Abolition Act of 1808 had itself the British slave restricted the future growth of demographic plantations to that which could be achieved within the in the relative momentum of the given slave population. Yet the commercial importance of the British West decline principally caused by the prior Indies was not further imports of African slaves. metropolitan decision to suppress efforts to diversify their Britain's traders were bound to make over; the expansion of trading British outlets once wartime conditions were independence by the rule in India and the new Latin conquest of openings. Likewise the wartime American states gave them major new would have been re-export trade in plantation had still been able very difficult to maintain even if the British products United to buy new slaves from Africa. planters States were all well Brazil, Cuba and the offer stiff placed to supply European markets competition to the British and to were to supply Britain with most of the planters. The US planters, who off from Atlantic slave imports. The cotton it needed, were also cut been able to sustain much of a British Caribbean islands had not and did not have the vast re-export trade prior to the French wars suitable for plantation reserves of well-watered and accessible land, expansion of the mainland development, slave that underpinned the post-1815 and in particular systems. were all well Brazil, Cuba and the offer stiff placed to supply European markets competition to the British and to were to supply Britain with most of the planters. The US planters, who off from Atlantic slave imports. The cotton it needed, were also cut been able to sustain much of a British Caribbean islands had not and did not have the vast re-export trade prior to the French wars suitable for plantation reserves of well-watered and accessible land, expansion of the mainland development, slave that underpinned the post-1815 and in particular systems. The so-called 'new colonies', scope for expansion, Demerara-Essequibo but then (Guyana) and Trinidad, did have the estates in the new colonies they did continue to expand. Until 1825 Caribbean colonies, could still buy slaves from other British 1815 and 1825 about though such transfers required a licence; between new colonies. 23 The transfer 20,000 slaves were imported in this way by the course, normal and unrestricted of slaves from old to new areas was, of imposed ban on African slave within each colony. While the Londonplanters, it was offset by the tariff imports was a handicap for British their principal export, sugar. Cuban, protection the metropolis offered to Brazilian and US planters largely --- Page 446 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery And although markets in which they had no tariff advantage. slaves the supplied Brazilian and Cuban planters still imported African the and naval squadrons obliged them to pay activities of British diplomats steadily rising prices for them.24 agitation was to be broadly The advance of British anti-slavery the 1823-38; without with imperial reorientation in period congruent would have been less likely to obtain parliamentthis fact emancipation this does not mean either that the new imperial ary sanction. But emancipation or that the latter would priorities dictated parliamentary other powerful reasons for heeding have occurred if there had not been interests would have been quite the anti-slavery movement. Oligarchic of British colonial slavery, and capable of supporting the continuation they felt under to act would have done SO but for the great pressure the Netherlands differently. Other European colonial powers - France, importance and retained slave colonies of declining and Denmark - also them somewhat longer than it did in the yet slavery was to survive in of slave resistance and revolt was growing British West Indies. The scale itself this too was not a decisive in the British colonies, but by slave colonies despite their consideration. The French clung on to their terms the British In purely military defeat in St Domingue/Haiti. the outbreaks with very low colonial authorities had contained suffered by either France or Britain in casualties compared with those of the could have been period; the size garrison the revolutionary of fostering a new growth in the increased had there been a prospect to contain the domestic planting economy and had it been possible have aroused. In practice the political opposition that this would surely were less inclined to pay West Indian decline meant that governments costs of continuing to defend the considerable political and financial also made in the West Indies and the squeeze on planting profits slavery a abolition of slavery. planters more willing to consider compensated anti-slavery was second only to As a topic of political controversy The Anti-Slavery Society, as it was reform in the years 1830-32. effectively re-founded in May 1830, at a henceforth to be known, was a further 1,500 had to be turned meeting attended by 2,000 supporters; Society was away as there was no room. The new freedom Anti-Slavery for the slaves in the dedicated from the outset to immediate Wilberforce, Brougham and colonies. The platform, which included motion proposed from the Buxton, was surprised when an 'immediatist' carried. The new rise of anti-slavery floor had been overwhelmingly heralded, must be seen against the activity, which this meeting crisis of the oligarchic regime. background of a deepening abolition were bound up together in many The issues of reform and --- Page 447 --- British Slave Emancipation ways. There was little hope that the unreformed brought to accept slave emancipation. dedicated from the outset to immediate Wilberforce, Brougham and colonies. The platform, which included motion proposed from the Buxton, was surprised when an 'immediatist' carried. The new rise of anti-slavery floor had been overwhelmingly heralded, must be seen against the activity, which this meeting crisis of the oligarchic regime. background of a deepening abolition were bound up together in many The issues of reform and --- Page 447 --- British Slave Emancipation ways. There was little hope that the unreformed brought to accept slave emancipation. The Parliament could be strongly represented within it. The West Indian interest was still helped to promote the West Indian wartime colonial planting boom had stronger position within the proprietory interest to an even about thirty "West Indian' MPs oligarchy. in În the 1790s there had been 1828-32 the number the House of Commons; in the Indian rose as high as fifty-six. 25 years interests were even stronger in the Proportionately West proprietors could also rely on large Lords. The colonial any tampering with private majorities in both Houses to oppose property-holders but it property. Not only was this a Parliament of concept of was one built around a property in which far-reaching, yet rigid, were themselves deemed office-holding and the right to choose to be property rights MPs Finally, the unreformed Parliament did acquired by purchase. confidence to undertake a measure not enjoy sufficient public probable demand as large in its and on resources, as slave implications, in its administratively, slave emancipation. Financially, even 'illegitimate monarchy', emancipation seemed beyond the of the other hand, the even supposing the will to have been capacity there. On and 'Old intimate links and affinities between Corruption' meant that slaveholding the established anti-slavery could damage or order, even while discredit anti-slavery agitation attacked the appearing to be non-political. Lastly abolitionist values to which it had oligarchic been regime in the name of 1807. Wilberforce was now too old to officially attached ever since his patronage helped to play much of an active part, but demonstrate this line of government in 1828-30 stood continuity. Wellington's but it still could not disavow four-square with the planting Atlantic slave trade and a formal commitment to ending interest; the The Tory improving the lot of the slaves. governments of the mid- and late grapple with a new panorama of economic 1820s had striven to adopting measures that half-heartedly and social problems by reform from the growing middle-class acknowledged the pressure for announced but the resultant public. A free trade policy was sugar duties did not remove tinkering the with the schedule of corn and pressure they exerted on the cost of protection they afforded nor the religious discrimination living. At last the antique was modified. The system of 1828 after a campaign against it by Test Act was repealed in Catholics. While the English Dissenters English Dissenters and Irish Daniel O'Connell, were petitioned, the Irish, led by movement prepared to threaten was sufficiently rebellion. The Irish ment to enact Catholic menacing to persuade the London governpermitted Catholic emancipation, as it was called, in 1829; this they freeholders to vote and hold swore loyalty to the Protestant succession public office SO long as and denied the right of --- Page 448 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery interfere in British affairs. Neither the Nonconformists nor the Pope to satisfied with these concessions, which left many the Catholics were in place. But they did succeed in Anglican privileges and monopolies of the status quo. In this sense dividing and demoralising the upholders slavery in the similar in effect to the proposals to 'ameliorate' they were colonies. William IV, in June 1830, and the With the accession of a new King, of parliamentary holding of an election, the question consequent The Whigs committed themselves to bringing reform came to the fore. 1830, following the collapse of the in a reform bill and in November to ask the Whig leader, Wellington government, the King was The aim obliged of the reform was to remove Lord Grey, to form a government. oralising the upholders slavery in the similar in effect to the proposals to 'ameliorate' they were colonies. William IV, in June 1830, and the With the accession of a new King, of parliamentary holding of an election, the question consequent The Whigs committed themselves to bringing reform came to the fore. 1830, following the collapse of the in a reform bill and in November to ask the Whig leader, Wellington government, the King was The aim obliged of the reform was to remove Lord Grey, to form a government. the middle classes to a share of political the worst abuses and to admit wealthy could buy their way into the representation. While the very wealth, and resident in new political system those of middling of voice or vote in manufacturing or commercial regions, were deprived In the whole of affairs as well. national affairs - and often local Because of the tiny size of Scotland there were less than 5,000 voters. often themselves members of constituencies about 170 landlords, of the many House of Lords, were in a position to select 355 members the the problem of oligarchic control of the House of Commons. Beyond The abolition of many state was that of its structure and competence. reduce expenditure, sinecures, and successive campaigns to public with tiny staffs; of State operated meant that the great Departments in Whitehall. The apparatus of public usually a few dozen quill-pushers and industrialising society was administration needed by an urbanising almost entirely lacking. 26 dislocation and 1824-32 witnessed serious economic The years beholden to landed and moneyed social distress in Britain; governments for these conditions. The most widely held interests were widely blamed narrowly on the oligarchical state, its radical doctrines focused quite the for popular miseries. protectionism and its fiscality as explanation different terrain, though its The anti-slavery movement occupied a the surges of radical politics. campaigns often shadowed or paralleled above politics and the quarrel of Many of its leaders saw it as standing advocate in fact held to a interests. Yet every prominent anti-slavery of the unreformed Parliament middle ground, eschewing either support There of course, different radical opposition to it. were, or republican middle Buxton and Brougham, despite ways of taking up this ground. at the 1830 meeting of the Anti-Slavery their moment of discomforture advocates. Buxton Society, remained its outstanding parliamentary reform issues, while and other social concentrated on anti-slavery advocacy of political reform. Brougham mixed it in with vigorous --- Page 449 --- British Slave Emancipation Brougham won a Yorkshire seat in the his anti-slavery reputation and used election of 1830 with the help of parliamentary reform. it to campaign flamboyantly for The anti-slavery cause challenged the and did SO in an indirect and selective oligarchy where it was weakest, moral dimension to the reform way. It supplied a social and institutional reform might programme. While political and far-reaching measures, the simply abolition whet the popular appetite for more authority of the of slavery could strengthen the proposals abolished government and the state. The various reform and they each extended privileges the and abuses, while leaving others in short of manhood franchise to an arbitrary place, or even household boundary, much freeing of the slaves, though not without suffrage. its By comparison the self-contained measure. It turned attention practical difficulties, was a bilities of Empire, not inwards to the outwards to the responsiit lent a certain structure of oligarchic spiritual or moral dimension to power. And Nonconformity looked benignly politics. The leaders of Wesleyan Methodist leader, upon anti-slavery. Jabez Bunting, the 1820s; the Methodists, who joined the Abolition Committee in the million, gave strong now numbered more than a backing to the anti-slavery quarter of a In 1831 the work of the national societies and petitions. extended by the creation of an "Agency Anti-Slavery Society was greatly an anti-slavery movement in the Committee' devoted to building staff of five 'stipendiary country. benignly politics. The leaders of Wesleyan Methodist leader, upon anti-slavery. Jabez Bunting, the 1820s; the Methodists, who joined the Abolition Committee in the million, gave strong now numbered more than a backing to the anti-slavery quarter of a In 1831 the work of the national societies and petitions. extended by the creation of an "Agency Anti-Slavery Society was greatly an anti-slavery movement in the Committee' devoted to building staff of five 'stipendiary country. The Agency Committee had a up local societies. The agents', Agency travelling round the country and setting societies. Its petitions attracted hundreds Committee soon built up 1,200 local The money needed to launch the work of of thousands of signatures. 27 furnished by a few Quaker the 'stipendiary agents' was East India merchant from businessmen, notably James Cropper, an merchant from Birmingham. Liverpool, and Joseph Sturge, a wheat drawn from precisely those social Cropper and Sturge were themselves reform: but their abolitionist zeal groups which were pressing for political tinkering was by itself a quite reflected a deep conviction that had a devout belief that political inadequate programme. Cropper free trade, would reveal God's economy, based on free labour and that the new patterns of society plan; had Sturge was animated by a belief social justice as well as freedom. The to demonstrate that they ensured young men and women, anti-slavery cause attracted radical caution of their many of whom were impatient with the In parliamentary champions. 28 acutely troubled times anti-slavery to highlight their socio-economic helped middle-class reformers ideals. bearing on the overall conduct of Anti-slavery thought had a economy. It furnished a model of policy and on the pattern of the legislation dictated by general policy --- Page 450 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery interests. It justified state intervention in rather than particular of economic contract, while sanctifying regulating the workings it as furnishing contract itself. The advocates of emancipation The presented free worker was also a an economic stimulus via market expansion. in Liverpool in 1828 consumer. An abolitionist pamphlet published the West Indies as a market for pointed out that India had overtaken that a fillip would be given to British cotton manufactures and argued The slaves in our West India West Indian demand by emancipation: raise more produce, but also islands, by being made free would not only ,29 consume much more of our manufactures. would help to revive the West The argument that emancipation had a common-sense appeal to Indian market for British manufactures time of commercial recession. workers as well as their employers confidence at a in the superior producSuch assertions were also born of believed that economic tivity of free labour. Many abolitionists methods for motivating arrangements pivoted around two the competing as the title of one anti-slavery the direct producer - Wages Or Whip, works of political economy Harriet pamphlet put it.30 In popularising against slave labour. On Martineau rehearsed the Smithian arguments loomed large in the other hand, the 'economists' who increasingly were little concerned public discussions in the post-Napolconic Committee period refused to make a with slavery. For its part the Agency against colonial slavery economic argument purely or predominantly instructed to make clear that the central objection and its lecturers were Abolitionism as a movement was humanitarian and religious. to slavery with the critique of the operation derived strength from its association than their celebration. West Indian of pure market forces, rather their slaves to death and making planters were attacked for immoral working and irreligious system. profits from an inhuman, could find something to endorse in Both radicals and reactionaries inclined to argue that social conditions anti-slavery themes. The radicals The more conservative in England itself were perilously close to slavery. purely or predominantly instructed to make clear that the central objection and its lecturers were Abolitionism as a movement was humanitarian and religious. to slavery with the critique of the operation derived strength from its association than their celebration. West Indian of pure market forces, rather their slaves to death and making planters were attacked for immoral working and irreligious system. profits from an inhuman, could find something to endorse in Both radicals and reactionaries inclined to argue that social conditions anti-slavery themes. The radicals The more conservative in England itself were perilously close to slavery. in its national leadership, trends in anti-slavery, which predominated also argued that economic, tended to a rosy view of wage labour. They to replace the harsh legal and moral restraints should be constructed Abolitionist thought was physical restraints of the state of slavery. in public policy of the generally quite congruent with the elaboration of 'free labour' broadly coercive constraints needed to make labour'. a system But this was not the only coincident with a system of 'wage Those who favoured themes could be articulated. way anti-slavery producers, or trade union combinaindependent production by petty anti-slavery themes at this also invoked tions, or factory legislation, Tory who had been time. In 1830 Richard Oastler, an evangelical --- Page 451 --- British Slave Emancipation published an attack on what he called involved in anti-slavery agitation, overworking of children and Yorkshire Slavery', namely the pitiless This article initiated a vigorous women by the Yorkshire mill-owners. child labour and the hours of the campaign for legislation to limit imagery and working day which made copious use of anti-slavery While the analogy was a to the employers. became a major challenge striking parallels between the regular loose one, there were indeed in Guyana and the manufacturdemographic deficit of slave plantations manufacturers, or of districts in Leeds. 31 Some of the offending if ing them, supported slave emancipation; but they those who sided with attention from their own system of hoped thereby to distract by itself, did not exploitation they made a mistake. Anti-slavery, but it fundamental critique of capitalism or industrialism encourage any conflicted, humanitarian and familistic did imply that, where they business and property interests, and that values should prevail over should be obliged to adjust to a selfcapitalism and industrialism reproducing human order. of abolitionist ideology, in the Whatever the ultimate implications of parliamentary antipre-emancipation period the main champions machine, went out slavery, and their supporters within the government would be of their way to reassure planters that emancipation the West Indian estates a accomplished in such a way as to ensure to that emancipated continuing supply of labour. They acknowledged supplemented by occasional slaves might choose subsistence cultivation, for the market; were this to happen labour for cash or production widened and wage labour sufficient to markets would not have been been The officials of the plantation production would have lacking. were exercised by these Colonial Office, though favourable to abolition, drawn up prior to emancipation argued: possibilities. A memorandum the escaped the necessity for . A state of things in which negro for his owner. He would be cut off labour would be as bad for him as incentive to better his influences, would have no from civilising but the slightest degree of discipline on condition or to impose any being than his himself. Thus he might well become a more degraded thus included discussion ancestors in Africa.' 2 Schemes for emancipation be barred from significant land of ways in which former slaves could attempts to leave the ownership while vagrancy laws penalised wing of abolitionism, plantations. Buxton, for the parliamentary for the state to introduce conceded that 'it may be extremely necessary in idleness to the detriment of laws for protecting persons from living slaves convicted of vagrancy could the state'.2 He argued that former former slaves be obliged to make a labour contract with only an estate; on the same basis. degraded thus included discussion ancestors in Africa.' 2 Schemes for emancipation be barred from significant land of ways in which former slaves could attempts to leave the ownership while vagrancy laws penalised wing of abolitionism, plantations. Buxton, for the parliamentary for the state to introduce conceded that 'it may be extremely necessary in idleness to the detriment of laws for protecting persons from living slaves convicted of vagrancy could the state'.2 He argued that former former slaves be obliged to make a labour contract with only an estate; on the same basis. might gain possession of their garden plots --- Page 452 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery arrangements with his own practice Buxton compared these proposed the workers in his brewery. Buxton of allotting company houses to would need its own new agreed that the post-slavery labour regime force, an independisciplines and sanctions, including a strong police Since he also believed in dent body of magistrates and a prison system. counterparts of these reforming and strengthening the metropolitan On the other hand, in his approach. institutions, there was consistency Committee did not anti-slavery campaigns of the Agency the popular and rather stressed the need for protective dwell on such matters the wealthy rather than the direct legislation - legislation restraining anti-slavery pamphlet was to be producers. The most popular single in which he urged the need Whiteley's Three Months in Jamaica, those Henry limit the hours of work in British factories, especially 33 for laws to to colonial emancipation. of children, as a domestic counterpart moral radicalism by of this period acquired a greater The anti-slavery of the slave. The Anti Slavery Reporter a new openess to the experience of the abuse of slaves in the and detailed accounts ran regular those who had managed to escape from Caribbean and encouraged of the most affecting narratives to emerge slavery to tell their story. One Prince, A West Indian Slave, in this way was The History of Mary three editions in its first Related by Herself (1831), which went through her owners to Mary Prince had accompanied year of publication. after ill treatment; she wished Britain in 1828, but left their household but feared to return because her her husband in Barbados the to rejoin her. The plight of Mary Prince exposed owners refused to manumit of 1772, the more SO since it appeared limitation of Mansfield's decision The editor of the Anti-Slavery that she still owed service to her owners. her life story and published it as Reporter persuaded Mary Prince to tell with her owner and his own together with correspondence a book, The concluding paragraph of Mary account of her predicament. extensively since it is one of the few Prince's History is worth quoting of colonial slavery and documents available of the slave's experience British abolitionism. The nourished the radicalisation of as since it directly whole of this especially, is given editor notes that 'the paragraph words': in Mary's own nearly as was possible sorrow when I hear some people in this I am often vexed, and I feel great need better usage, and do not want to be country say, that the slaves do not be happy when they have the halter I Not SO. How can slaves and free : say, the upon their back? and are disgraced round their neck and whip from their mothers, and of than beasts? - and are separated thought no more and sisters, just as cattle are sold and separated. Is it husbands, and children, field to take down his wife or sister or child, and happiness for a driver in the manner? - women that have them, and whip them in such a disgraceful strip --- Page 453 --- British Slave Emancipation field to shame! There is no modesty or had children exposed in the open his slaves: men, women and children are decency shown by the owner been to here I have often wondered how English exposed alike. and are separated thought no more and sisters, just as cattle are sold and separated. Is it husbands, and children, field to take down his wife or sister or child, and happiness for a driver in the manner? - women that have them, and whip them in such a disgraceful strip --- Page 453 --- British Slave Emancipation field to shame! There is no modesty or had children exposed in the open his slaves: men, women and children are decency shown by the owner been to here I have often wondered how English exposed alike. Since I have Indies and act in such a beastly manner. But people can go out into the West God and all feeling of shame, I when they go to the West Indies they forget They tie up slaves like hogs - think, since they can see and do such things. as or cattle, or horses them up like cattle, and they lick them, SO hogs, some moor come home and say, and make good never were flogged; and yet they out of slavery. But they put a believe, that slaves don't want to get people who people cloak about the truth. It is not sO. I will say the truth to English down that my good friend, Miss S-, is now writing may read this history - I know what slaves feel - I can tell by for me. I have been a slave myself what they told me. The man that says myself what other slaves feel, and by that don't want to be free - that slaves be quite happy in slavery - and I never they heard a slave say SO. I that man is either ignorant or a lying till person. I heard tell of it in England. Such never heard a Buckra man say SO, They can't do without slaves, people ought to be ashamed of themselves. do without slaves as well as in they say. What's the reason they can't except for wicked England? No slaves here - no whips - no punishments, they are far better off people. Let them work ever SO hard in England, warning and go hire to than slaves. If they get a bad master, they give want. We don't mind hard another. They have their liberty. That's what we like English servants, work, if we had proper treatment, and proper wages the Sabbath. But time given in the week to keep us from breaking sick and proper will have work - work - work, night and day, they won't give it; they and we must not speak up nor look and well, till we are quite done up; And then when we are quite done up, amiss, however much we be abused. lame horse? This is slavery. I tell it to let who cares for us, more than for a will never leave off to pray English people know the truth; and I hope they till all the poor blacks be God, and call loud to the great King of England, to free, and slavery done up for evermore." given does evoke the superior position of the English wage This passage derives from the picture it presents of the slave worker. But its force become enthusiasts for condition; those moved by it would not thereby fourteen hour child labour, or of the employers' right to a afterword English the of the editor in his working day. Indeed argument structures were liable to encouraged a general view that unequal power however decent the individual power-holder. yield abuse, unstable class coalition. It elicited some Anti-slavery assembled an to make major from that section of the oligarchy prepared support middle-class public and to the popular pressure concessions to the new But anti-slavery had an for a less arbitrary and corrupt political system. --- Page 454 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery form it was sustained principally appeal for all classes. In its organized the of its influence it was by the middle-class public but at height and labourers; it attracted endorsed by tradesmen, artisans, domestics uninvolved in politics. coalition. It elicited some Anti-slavery assembled an to make major from that section of the oligarchy prepared support middle-class public and to the popular pressure concessions to the new But anti-slavery had an for a less arbitrary and corrupt political system. --- Page 454 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery form it was sustained principally appeal for all classes. In its organized the of its influence it was by the middle-class public but at height and labourers; it attracted endorsed by tradesmen, artisans, domestics uninvolved in politics. It in villages and rural towns usually a social support and petty bourgeois reformers to project the allowed bourgeois for the fair-minded employer, ideal in which there was a place tenant, and the free waged labourer or responsible salaried employee, The more popular version idealised the ministrations of a clergyman. used anti-slavery themes to justify the independent small producer and and women, and others regulation of the hours of labour. Domestics of directly, well to contest the prevailing structures power not placed and in works like those of Mary Prince and found in abolitionism of fair and decent treatment. Whiteley a means of asserting principles societies and one of the most There were now forty ladies' anti-slavery Friend Society - led the way influential - the Birmingham Ladies Negro's immediate emancipation in 1831. in demanding social aspirations and fears but in Anti-slavery tapped deep-seated test. The last years of the this period it was also put to the political were marked by a unreformed Parliament, and of colonial slavery, interwoven with complex class struggle. The anti-slavery cause was to illustrate the reform, at one moment serving that of parliamentary the regime of vested interests, at noble measures being blocked by commitment which, if another becoming an awkward and expensive Parliament to radical attack. would expose the reform not implemented, slavery was menaced not by a specific, capitalist Ultimately colonial social which capitalism had interest but rather by the struggles The contestation of the unleashed, in both colony and metropolis. in the 1830s that had not been prevailing regime reached an intensity and more legitimate state to contain seen before and required a stronger it. demand for reform was spearheaded by Political Unions The popular minimum, to the elimination of which were committed, as a nomination, the extension of parliamentary seats filled by aristocratic adult male, and head of household, or even to every the vote to every ballot. The parliamentary champions of the institution of a secret but themselves had difficulty reform demanded bold measures in public, middle-class followers and a in retaining the confidence of impatient The leaders of the Whig government, growing working-class movement. were acutely aware that the final in particular Lords Grey and Althorp, to the King and the Lords. package must be acceptable, in extremis, it showed the latter the Popular pressure was salutary SO long as of the most prominent necessity for reform. Of course a number of anti-slavery - notably advocates of reform were also supporters --- Page 455 --- British Slave Emancipation Brougham and T.B. Macaulay. The Whig leader responsible as Viscount Howick in 1807 for Lord Grey had been through the Commons; he was to be steering the Abolition Bill reform than on slave more robust in his initiatives on were needed on both emancipation but knew that large concessions middle-classes questions if the loyalty of the was to be secured. The reform-minded whole, also opponents of slave opponents of reform were, on the was no friend to emancipation, emancipation. The Duke of Wellington Chandos, two of the while Lord Harewood and most vociferous defenders of Viscount Parliament, were also linked to the West the unreformed Gascoyn, who had supported the slave trade Indian interest. than on slave more robust in his initiatives on were needed on both emancipation but knew that large concessions middle-classes questions if the loyalty of the was to be secured. The reform-minded whole, also opponents of slave opponents of reform were, on the was no friend to emancipation, emancipation. The Duke of Wellington Chandos, two of the while Lord Harewood and most vociferous defenders of Viscount Parliament, were also linked to the West the unreformed Gascoyn, who had supported the slave trade Indian interest. General one of the most irreconcilable foes of down to 1807, was to be In 1830-31 the agitation reform. against colonial up steam for reform generally. slavery had helped to build 1831, the battle over However, following the election of specific Reform Bills April entirely displacing, the anti-slavery overshadowed, without belief in divine providence, could question. Even Buxton, with his prospects for the abolition of not be optimistic concerning the slavery in the Without a victory for parliamentary reform unreformed Parliament. not hope to win. the anti-slavery forces could The Hanoverian regime was gripped by pre-revolutionary crisis in the something approaching a stabilising effects were not overcome years 1831-2, a crisis whose deof the July Revolution until 1835 and after. The in Paris in 1830 triumph revolutions did not have to entail showed that political of Louis Philippe bore a certain large-scale blood-letting. The regime 'illegitimate monarchy', which had indeed resemblance to Britain's own who helped to devise it. But the French been the model for those Assembly in which middle-class wealth monarch was answerable to an among the first steps taken by the was more fairly represented; stopping the clandestine slave trade new French government was that of the slave condition. These and announcing plans to alleviate and somehow made revolution developments encouraged reform sentiment Peacetime British seem a less remote possibility. National Debt consumed governments the were quite vulnerable at this time. The lacked the bulk of public revenue and support to re-establish the governments in 1815. By 1832 the public income tax that had been dropped service exchequer was paying £28.3 payments on the National million in million for the armed forces and fs Debt, compared with only £14.4 Austerity measures and the needs of million for all civil expenditure. reduced garrison in Britain. Unrest in imperial security left a greatly be stationed there. Around the Ireland required a large force to in the whole of Britain and of these year 1831 there were only 11,000 troops 7,000 were needed to safeguard the --- Page 456 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery force had been established in London but capital. From 1828 a police civil unrest. In other parts of the country were less well prepared order had against the difficulty 1830-32 the forces oflaw and greatest the years a varied assortment of antagonists. These in holding the line against Swing' riots in the countryside; the included the widespread "Captain organisations, with tens marches and meetings of the new working-class and in mining or of thousands of supporters, in ominous the capital of all, the marches and manufacturing districts; and, most reform, and drilling of Political Unions demanding parliamentary craftsmen from the middle-class as well as artisans, drawing support and labourers. in about a dozen English counties in 1831 was A wave of revolts condition of the labourers; they strangely provoked by the deteriorating the West Indies. Crowds of labourers paralleled the uprisings in machinery and property; while demanded higher wages and destroyed and threatened only one life landlords and magistrates were besieged in Wiltshire. Repression of was taken by the rioters, that of a yeoman to death. Because of a the movement was extensive with 200 sentenced executed but 450 were public outcry only three rioters were actually and excess in the response of transported to Australia. There was panic of class struggle because they confronted a new type the magistrates mechanisms of social control had failed to contain. of labourers paralleled the uprisings in machinery and property; while demanded higher wages and destroyed and threatened only one life landlords and magistrates were besieged in Wiltshire. Repression of was taken by the rioters, that of a yeoman to death. Because of a the movement was extensive with 200 sentenced executed but 450 were public outcry only three rioters were actually and excess in the response of transported to Australia. There was panic of class struggle because they confronted a new type the magistrates mechanisms of social control had failed to contain. which traditional organisations and the danger The emergence of new working-class ally them with the reform-minded that radical Political Unions might threat than rural disorder. middle classes represented an even graver in London held meetings at the The Union of the Working Classes in October 1831 was attended Rotunda and elsewhere; a demonstration craftsmen and labourers. by 70,000 supporters, many of them artisans, were raised, but the Demands for the 'abolition of the wages system' with its corruption and main object of attack was the oligarchic regime, middle-class and workingfiscal exactions. In many parts of the country in Political Unions which class radicals were jointly organised reform, aimed at demanded sweeping measures of parliamentary universal manhood dismantling 'Old Corruption' and establishing Reform Association and suffrage; in Blackburn there was a Ladies' and Anna Wheeler, demanded some radicals, like William Thompson democrats claimed support in 102 towns votes for women. The radical Thomas Attwood's Political Union was and cities. In Birmingham limited Reform Bill but was also prepared to prepared to accept a fairly when the King and the Lords sought to go to the brink of civil war thousands of supporters, uniting both the block it. The Political Union's air at which they middle and working class, met in open meetings Union, which had would march with a military drill. The Birmingham --- Page 457 --- British Slave Emancipation counterparts in other towns, impressed because it orderly and enthusiastic" 37 was 'at once moral, The successive Reform Bills were radical movement and in designed to head off the from the democratic particular to detach the middle-class burgeoning reformers 'pocket agitators. All or most of the 'rotten boroughs' were to be eliminated and boroughs' and Manchester and Birmingham which lacked distributed to towns like proposed reform measures left nine-tenths representation. But all the unenfranchised, since the of the adult the necessary vote would only be granted to men population with the 'rotten property qualification. But any reform which did meeting boroughs' and 'pocket boroughs' away unyielding opposition from vested interests was bound to meet at Court. The "borough-mongers' in the Commons, Lords and monarch and nobility would have would be expropriated and the tive and legitimate Lower House. to contend with a more representaa real danger that the moderate If reform was defeated then there was parliamentary confrontation, radicals would opt for an extraand radicals. In the event the First joining forces with the extreme democrats one vote in the Commons in Reform Bill gained a majority of only defeated in committee. The March 1831 and was subsequently in which supporters of the Reform Whig leader, Lord Grey, called an election The Second Reform Bill Bill did well in all popular contests. large was presented in September majority in the Commons. The and passed by a on its second reading. The House of Lords defeated the bill was outraged; in Bristol a rioting extra-parliamentary mob movement for reform days, and elsewhere there took over the town for several more threatening, outbreaks. were For more disciplined, and in some sense reform did not back down; once the middle-class champions of worst where the Political Unions they could point out that the riots had been feeling, spurred by democratic were weak and spontaneous popular the mobilisation, and agitation, had taken control. law even arming, of their They urged and order. In the House of Commons members in the interests of Macaulay warned: I know of only two ways in which societies by public opinion, or by the sword. I understand can permanently be governed - New York. It is by the assent and how the peace is kept in how the peace is kept at Milan. champions of worst where the Political Unions they could point out that the riots had been feeling, spurred by democratic were weak and spontaneous popular the mobilisation, and agitation, had taken control. law even arming, of their They urged and order. In the House of Commons members in the interests of Macaulay warned: I know of only two ways in which societies by public opinion, or by the sword. I understand can permanently be governed - New York. It is by the assent and how the peace is kept in how the peace is kept at Milan. It is support by the of the people. I understand also But how the peace 1S to be kept when bayonets of the Austrian soldiers. the military force - how the is you have neither popular assent nor acting on the principles of the peace to be kept in England by a Government present opposition, I do not understand.38 Parliamentarians with an abolitionist in presenting the case for reform to the background played a key role Houses of Parliament. The --- Page 458 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery establish the nature of the crisis and terms in which they did SO help to of anti-slavery. In the the reason for the continued significance the issues at stake in the following Commons Macaulay summarised way: which by causes similar to those All history is full of revolutions, produced of the community which had been in England. A portion the are now operating and becomes strong. It demands a place in of no account expands former but to its present power. If this is system, suited, not to its refused weakness, then comes the struggle between the granted all is well. If this is of another. Such was young energy of one class and the ancient privileges against the mother country. the struggle of our North American colonies Estate of France maintained against Such was the struggle which the Third the which the free people of the aristocracy of birth. Such is struggle of skin. Such, finally, is Jamaica are now maintaining against the in aristocracy England are waging against an the struggle which the middle-classes the principle of which is aristocracy of mere locality, against an aristocracy in one place, or the owner of a to invest a hundred drunken pot-wallopers which are withheld from cities ruined hovel in another, with powers the earth for the marvels of their wealth renowned to the furthest ends of reform is still behind. But signs, and industry. The question of Parliamentary the import, do most clearly indicate of which it is impossible to misconceive settled, property, and order, and that, unless that question also be speedily will be exposed to fearful peril." all the institutions of this great monarchy, In the Lords advice was 'reform that you may preserve'. of Macaulay's similar in which he urged the necessity Brougham made a plea of 'those middle classes who are genuine depositories accommodating English feeling : Rouse not, I beseech sober, rational and intelligent 140 adopted by Brougham and you, a resolute people." The approach of an absence of fundamental Macaulay rested on an understanding classes which opened the way for conflicts within the possessing of the references to class corresponded compromise. The obtrusiveness which the middle classes, while insisting on ideology in to a corporatist institutions, did not aspire to seize and rea larger place within ruling declared that property was divided against model them. Macaulay heal the breach. Instead of setting out to itself and that reform would champions of reform offered 'rouse a resolute people' the parliamentary would the venerable in which the middle classes respect a compromise constitutional monarchy, with its powerful structures of the British The landed aristocracy was not to hereditary and oligarchical element. brought closer to its real be swept away, but rather its representation measures of reform not economic and social weight. All the proposed but also the House of Lords and the royal prerogative No only preserved in the House of Commons. over-represented landed property --- Page 459 --- British Slave Emancipation parliamentary advocate rose to echo the slogan that the nothing but must be everything. The Third Estate was in the middle. Despite this modest middle classes knew their place for parliamentary reform attracted and corporatist goal the campaign radical opinion like William vast popular support. its real be swept away, but rather its representation measures of reform not economic and social weight. All the proposed but also the House of Lords and the royal prerogative No only preserved in the House of Commons. over-represented landed property --- Page 459 --- British Slave Emancipation parliamentary advocate rose to echo the slogan that the nothing but must be everything. The Third Estate was in the middle. Despite this modest middle classes knew their place for parliamentary reform attracted and corporatist goal the campaign radical opinion like William vast popular support. The leaders of proposed reform as an essential Cobbett and Francis Place saw the to further extensions of the franchise preliminary that would open the path control of the state. The resistance and further inroads on aristocratic Lords further put up to reform by the King and encouraged the view that a fundamental the prospect and that for the time being all change was in on securing its passage. efforts should be concentrated With mounting popular pressure Lord Reform Bill to the House of Grey presented a Third it completely eliminated the Commons. This bill was radical in SO far as compensation; moderate in that 'rotten it boroughs', and did SO without and actually disenfranchised only enfranchised £10 freeholders formerly popular constituencies many in Westminster and some other qualification. The Third Reform who could not meet the property Commons, with even Members Bill received a large majority in the voting for it. The Lords for boroughs scheduled for abolition the King dismissed the proceeded to block the bill by amendment and Grey ministry in request to create enough peers to ensure May after refusing its House. The King and the Duke of passage of the bill in the Upper the government, intended to introduce Wellington, who was invited to form from Grey's but to make it clear a reform measure little different decision. Before they could do that this was their own civil war. The Birmingham SO the country moved to the brink gracious of armed 1,500 of its members Political Union, led by Thomas Attwood, coup; they faced only 150 warning of the danger of an anti-reform leaders called troopers of doubtful on their followers to demand loyalty. The reform banknotes and refuse to pay taxes. gold payment for their Political Unions openly declared for During these 'Days of May' the clear that they would not obey orders "hostile defence', yeomen made it reaching financial, commercial and to disperse the unions, and a farunder way. In Scotland, where the industrial old stoppage was evidently particularly narrow and the demand for system of representation was very absence of riots made the civic reform particularly strong, the impressive. The determination all the opposition to the Wellington more 'persuasive and terrifying expression of the government was such a decided to recall Grey and to that national will' that the King would be created to ensure the agree if necessary enough peers passage of reform. regarded as one of the more William IVi is usually only for his liking for the insignificant of British monarchs, notable sea. Yet if the 'sailor King' had clung to --- Page 460 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery crisis could easily have taken a violent turn and Wellington the reform have survived. Instead the newly the monarchy itself might reintroduced not the Reform Bill which passed appointed Grey government Tories abstaining, in June. 41 both Houses, with many for reform and support for slave It is scarcely surprising that support correlated. Those who were most emancipation had been strongly aware that their cause stood zealous for slave emancipation were Parliament, given the chance of being approved by the unreformed of no the West India interest in the Commons, the veto power strength of hostile attitude of the King and the oligarchic disposition the Lords, the of all types. And, as suggested above, the to protect private property and abolitionism was by no means simply a affinity between reform calculation. Both movements questioned what product of parliamentary of property. Abolitionism was the perfect they saw as aberrant types for reform, reassuring those who saw it complement to the campaign little. The Dissenters and Methodists offering either too much or too establishment, with its still had important quarrels with the Anglican the secular cause educational and fiscal privileges. They supported many at involvement in the hurly-burly of reform but with some apprehension cause helped to dignify the of political agitation. by no means simply a affinity between reform calculation. Both movements questioned what product of parliamentary of property. Abolitionism was the perfect they saw as aberrant types for reform, reassuring those who saw it complement to the campaign little. The Dissenters and Methodists offering either too much or too establishment, with its still had important quarrels with the Anglican the secular cause educational and fiscal privileges. They supported many at involvement in the hurly-burly of reform but with some apprehension cause helped to dignify the of political agitation. The anti-slavery of the franchise. In a similar way anticoncern with a limited extention to the comparatively slavery helped to lend a more generous aspect embodied in the reform modest step towards representative government with their limited and exclusive proposals. The reform measures, of spiritual nourishment or moral clauses, offered little by way reform, and to use it, was inspiration. Yet the struggle to achieve sustenance of this sort. A pure class sufficiently hard-fought to require reformism would not even have corporatism and a nakedly bourgeois themselves to a sense of their political aroused the middle classes mobilise the middle classes, and a destiny. Anti-slavery helped to that the movement would popular following, without the danger humanistic appeal to a class whose capsize into revolution. It added a and laissez faire - were notably other creeds - Dissent, utilitarianism It raised middle-class morale and lacking in this 'existential' which ingredient. could be taken to the people. gave reformers an issue needed to mobilise their own The leaders of the reform movement 'middle-class' terms on both the constituency if they were to impose the more moderate Political 'upper' and "lower' classes. To some extent were assisted able to this task, but they generally Unions were perform Societies. The Political in doing SO by the existence of Anti-Slavery influence and could not be Unions were open to radical and democratic spokesmen. to follow the lead of the parliamentary relied upon the latter with a connective tissue, bringing them Abolitionism provided --- Page 461 --- British Slave Emancipation the reach of with layers of the population beyond into communication the Political Unions. involved in the reform crisis Buxton While Brougham was centrally in political strife. aloof from too direct an engagement tended to remain both his own unease at the threatening political His diary registers he found in pressing the anti-slavery cause. climate and the consolation records his anguished discussions with His entry for October 26th 1831 from reform or the rejection of Samuel Hoare concerning 'the dangers and the State': reform' and the 'perils of the Church Crisis. Last week the Bristol riots prevailed, We now stand in a peculiar through the country. In this neighbourhood and the same spirit may spread Last week the news arrived that the the incendiary has been briskly at work. in and tomorrow a cholera had really commenced its ravages England; in London. Storms seem meeting of the working classes is to take place soon brake upon my own gathering in every direction, and the tempest may house. comforted by the thought that the Almighty had ordained Buxton was free the slave: *It has pleased God to place that he was to labour to the slaves, and those duties I some duties upon me with regard to poor and persecution, and, what is must not abandon. Oppression, cruelty, to grind that race through worse, absence of religion, must not continue that guilt at his neglect. 42 He was soon to learn of events prompted my own distraction. of the slave insurrection in Jamaica in The arrival of the first news the national sense of conflict and December 1831 contributed to abolitionism. It has pleased God to place that he was to labour to the slaves, and those duties I some duties upon me with regard to poor and persecution, and, what is must not abandon. Oppression, cruelty, to grind that race through worse, absence of religion, must not continue that guilt at his neglect. 42 He was soon to learn of events prompted my own distraction. of the slave insurrection in Jamaica in The arrival of the first news the national sense of conflict and December 1831 contributed to abolitionism. uncertainty without at all favouring parliamentary with the blacks at first led MPs to sympathise Reports of rampaging as the reform crisis itself was planters. In April and May 1832, just learnt of the persecution of the coming to a head, the British public Moderate abolitionists who had Methodist and Baptist missionaries. to see the white colonists as the been alarmed at black insurgence began ranks was stimulated by the eyeproblem. Outrage in the abolitionist who had been expelled. As it witness reports of those missionaries Society coincided both happened the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery abolitionist the of May' in 1832 and with growing with 'Days in the West Indies. Indeed the House of awareness of the atrocities established its own committee to examine Lords had provocatively before it had thrown out the Reform Bill. colonial questions not long demanded that there should be an The Anti-Slavery Convention --- Page 462 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery immediate riposte by its these pressures by a dramatic parliamentary supporters. Buxton responded to the reform issue was settled he new anti-slavery initiative. Even before Parliament to immediate slave introduced a resolution committing grounds that there was no time emancipation. to consider This was voted out on the unexpected degree of support. As a it, but Buxton picked up an to establish a parliamentary committee compromise the government agreed way of frecing the slaves. In to consider the most practical that Britain moving his own resolution Buxton might not retain the colonies if warned asked what the government would do if slavery was upheld and insurrection of the negroes'. 43 faced with 'a general From this point anti-slavery agitation once equalling or exceeding the mobilisation of again went into high gear, reform had now been settled and the 1830-31. The question of principle to investigate slave Whig government had agreed in reports of disturbances in other emancipation. The events in Jamaica, and that there must be no islands, made it clear to more abolitionists Parliament. The calling of the first postponement election or equivocation from furnished a further stimulus to held under the Reform Act leaders ofthe reform movement and abolitionist oft activity. For their part the to choose the the Whig government also platform on which they would needed seeking to explain the progress of fight with great care. In into account both the impulse of emancipation the it is necessary to take calculations of the rulers; emancipation popular movement and the parliamentary act unless it made would not be embodied in a government and the Members of sense to the managers of the Once the King and the Lords had Parliament. of the measure became easier given in over reform the limitations from 4-500,000 to 6-800,000. to see. The electorate was enlarged possessed the vote, a Only a seventh of adult males prevailed in 1714. There proportion very similar to that which had county seats, often dominated was no secret ballot and the number of rural actually increased from 188 to by powerful landlord connections, was the 253. The £10 franchise that 'borough' seats admitted most of the middle prevailed in some craftsmen or artisans also class; in certain areas Westminster qualified, though in many were disenfranchised. The House of Middlesex or hereditary peers and Anglican bishops, retained Lords, with its did the monarch; in practice they had learnt all its formal powers, as them. The Great Reform Act had to be circumspect in using Grey put it, to 'the real and efficient appeared to open up Parliament, as whom the power of the is mass of public opinion without the state remained gentry as nothing'.4 44 But the whole edifice of moderate oligarchic in character. , though in many were disenfranchised. The House of Middlesex or hereditary peers and Anglican bishops, retained Lords, with its did the monarch; in practice they had learnt all its formal powers, as them. The Great Reform Act had to be circumspect in using Grey put it, to 'the real and efficient appeared to open up Parliament, as whom the power of the is mass of public opinion without the state remained gentry as nothing'.4 44 But the whole edifice of moderate oligarchic in character. reform of the East India Macaulay, introducing a Company, justified it in terms that --- Page 463 --- British Slave Emancipation to the Reform Act as well: "The very meaning might have been applied up his chance of complete of compromise is that each party gives against the chance of utter success in order to be able to be secured but it is part of a system failure. The Company is an anomaly, in a case in is an anomaly. . I will not, therefore, where everything to guide me, pull down the which I have neither principle nor precedent 145 The proud is sanctioned by experience. existing system. . . which mumble. rhetoric of 1831 had subsided to a the question of slave Macaulay was himself inclined to approach and expressed his emancipation in a similar spirit of compromise fanaticism of the anti-slavery private annoyance at the single-minded of 1832-3 the anti-slavery cause was campaign. But in the conditions compromise but the advocates of parliamentary taken up not only-by movement, without which by a broad and radical extra-parliamentary done. The Agency might have been extra-parliamentary little or nothing of the caution of the Committee had always been a little suspicious it had new scope for abolitionists; following the reform allies, in the parliamentary the It also found new pressing its case on government. radicals and democrats. shape of previously sceptical exerted themselves in the unprecedented The anti-slavery societies candidates to the support of electoral campaign of 1832 to commit 104 of the new Members immediate slave emancipation. In the event drawn up by had subscribed to a pledge supporting slave emancipation nature of the election, and Society. The unprecedented the Anti-Slavery forward for the attention of the new the throng of issues brought question had to jostle for Parliament, meant that the anti-slavery such as the need for a reform of priority with many other urgent issues, corporations, the need the Poor Laws, the need to reform of municipal the East India Company, the the future for factory legislation, and a host of others. A speech by Edward repeal of the Corn Laws, some idea of the Baines, the editor of the Leeds Mercury, gives Vast commercial and problem. "The fruits of reform are to be gathered. the Church is to be agricultural monopolies are to be abolished, Retrenchment are to be thrown open. reformed. . Closed corporations The shackles of the Slave are to be and economy are to be enforced. broken.' 146 until last but gives a needed flourish to this Emancipation is left As we have seen middle-class litany of middle-class reform objectives. anti-slavery. But radicals and reformers had always solidly supported tending to regard abolitionism democrats had been more circumspect, domestic ills. The link with middle-class as a potential diversion from abolitionism suspect to some of the leading reform had itself made racist comments on the happy radical journalists; thus they would pass --- Page 464 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery negro' in the West Indies, which they condition of the 'sleek and stupid labourers." 47 But such contrasted with the famished state of English election and its aftermath. attitudes were far less common in the 1832 linked the call for slave In a number of contests radical candidates factory hours, or to attacks emancipation to demands for a bill to limit of members of the remaining political influence and privileges on the Radicals knew that the Reform Bill oligarchy with colonial holdings. rule of the landed and rather than abolished the political had qualified seeing anti-slavery as a diversion, financial aristocracy. No longer slave emancipation as a way in radicals and democrats now recognised William Cobbett, which they could renew the assault on the oligarchy. less common in the 1832 linked the call for slave In a number of contests radical candidates factory hours, or to attacks emancipation to demands for a bill to limit of members of the remaining political influence and privileges on the Radicals knew that the Reform Bill oligarchy with colonial holdings. rule of the landed and rather than abolished the political had qualified seeing anti-slavery as a diversion, financial aristocracy. No longer slave emancipation as a way in radicals and democrats now recognised William Cobbett, which they could renew the assault on the oligarchy. West Indian proprietor as always disdained anti-slavery, had a who had his announced conversion to the in the contest at Oldham; an opponent probably helped him to victory and cause of slave emancipation stick with which to belabour both Tories and certainly gave him a new Whigs." 48 drew the programme of measures to When the new Whig Cabinet up the reformed Parliament it did be outlined in the first 'King's speech' to The members of the government include of the slaves. not emancipation initiative on colonial slavery would have to were aware that some new commit themselves to freeing the slaves be taken but felt it unwise to problems which it posed. until they had resolved the enormous practical that would be Of these the most awkward was the huge for the expense loss of their property. involved in compensating the slaveholders act of expropriThe reform movement had just imposed a swingeing because a wing of the It had succeeded in doing SO ation on Parliament. had judged such a concession to be necessary; parliamentary oligarchy for 'rotten boroughs' had voted for the in the end even most Members The Whig Cabinet judged that the extinction of their own seats. would have to be accompanied by abolition of slave property could it be justified to a propertycompensation; only in this way the legitimacy of could strengthen holders' Parliament. Emancipation time when it was under attack from the large-scale private property at a do SO if the principle of socialism - but it could only new working-class by the payment of compensation. economic property was respected committee on the colonies The deliberations of the parliamentary revealed that some West Indian had already and private soundings endorse emancipation SO long as sufficient proprietors were prepared to wrote to his father in compensation was available. T.B. Macaulay St Vincent, and Lord Howard August 1832 that 'Lord Harewood, Indian Lord : . have all . de Walden [three influential West proprietors) as necessary for the declared themselves decidedly for emancipation and reports of of their property"." 49 The Jamaican uprising, safety --- Page 465 --- British Slave Emancipation disturbances in many of the smaller impact on planter calculations. The sugar islands, thus had a visible reconciled to any plan of emancipation West Indian proprietors least new colonies, where there were still were those with a stake in the Some Ministers good prospects of loan, thought the planters should be expansion. others by entitlement to compensated by a period, others by concessions continuing forced labour for a India Committee on taxation or the sugar duties. The lengthy full value of insisted that nothing short of an West the slaves would be outright grant to the Lords could be relied on to acceptable. the Both the King and the on these terms would support West Indians. Yet alienate all those emancipation economical government, and might be calling for lower taxes and who saw no reason to give opposed by radical abolitionists The silence on slavery of the any compensation to former slaveholders. reflected the King's Speech, delivered in February intractability of these 1833, The failure of the new administration problems. emancipation proposal provoked the to come forward with an campaign that had ever been most far-reaching abolitionist thousand persons each were held seen. in Meetings attended by several Glasgow the Ladies' Anti-Slavery most major towns and cities. In 1,800 Society held women; a petition eventually signed meetings attended by drawn up. Altogether more than five by 350,000 women was to Parliament; they were said to contain thousand petitions were presented and a half million people. ability of these 1833, The failure of the new administration problems. emancipation proposal provoked the to come forward with an campaign that had ever been most far-reaching abolitionist thousand persons each were held seen. in Meetings attended by several Glasgow the Ladies' Anti-Slavery most major towns and cities. In 1,800 Society held women; a petition eventually signed meetings attended by drawn up. Altogether more than five by 350,000 women was to Parliament; they were said to contain thousand petitions were presented and a half million people. Professional the signatures of nearly one them to the bar of the House. The strongmen were hired to carry 'Of all the political King's Secretary noted in his diary: feelings, and passions and emancipation is rather more than a matter of such, this rage for struck me as the most interest - it has always this extraordinary and remarkable. >50 The campaign came in an climax of Hall in April. The assembled Anti-Slavery Society Convention at Exeter declared that the delegates of the Anti-Slavery Society scheme that would emancipation leave him of the slave must be integral; 'No beneficial." However, half a slave and half a freeman would be tion to the they were prepared to consider some measures for expropriated the slave-owner or, as they put compensarelief of the it, 'reasonable convention were conveyed planter's1 The decisions of the Minister and Colonial by a 330-strong delegation to the Prime This upsurge of anti-slavery Secretary. reflected still coming in, of the in part the impact of the repression in Jamaica. news, was published at this time; it sold 200,000 Henry Whiteley's pamphlet publication. British Nonconformists copies within a month of treatment of their missionaries were particularly incensed at the the or their co-religionists. anti-slavery issue allowed the Nonconformist More generally Churches to assert --- Page 466 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery in the aftermath of reform. Of the petitions themselves in a seemly way than 1,900 were directly organised by presented to Parliament no less another 800 by other Dissenting Methodist congregations and and Stanley after the Churches." 52 The large delegation sent to Grey clergymen, parading to Exeter Hall Convention included many Downing Street in full canonicals. aware of the brittle state of The Whig government was intensely of reform and of the probability that popular opinion in the aftermath The new House of would be disappointed. many expectations one half of the Members being Commons was very difficult to handle, distinct affiliation. Parliament and the majority refusing a party new to respect for their constituents' wishes. The MPs sought to display great still well but no political families were represented The old aristocratic opinion. The new Members exhibited an less attentive to constituency their first concerns being to open up unlovely streak of class egoism: middle-class electorate, to reduce the municipal corporations to the any irksome limitation ending outdoor poor relief, to prevent rates by of the working day, and SO forth. on the length member of the Whig Cabinet, noted his own sense Lord Holland, a the of maintaining the prestige isolation and of difficulty of government Although we have the prospect of steering of the reform Parliament: and difficult pass, it is too manifest that through this very formidable is less firm than when the Reform Parliament our hold on the country was the single issue that met.' 3 Holland knew that slave emancipation but he felt that its commanded most support in the country, in pressing it without parliamentary advocates had been irresponsible that would be spelling out the precise measures of compensation of madness on the topick After working the people to a state like necessary: emancipation, he [Brougham), of immediate and unconditional for carrying their object into other abolitionists, had no plan execution." 53 worried that if the Whig The Prime Minister, Earl Grey, the was Tories were weakened and government fell at a time when might seize their opportunity, discredited then the radical democrats of the populace on the oligarchic and unleash the pent-up discontents would help to take There could be no doubt that emancipation the work system. on the topick After working the people to a state like necessary: emancipation, he [Brougham), of immediate and unconditional for carrying their object into other abolitionists, had no plan execution." 53 worried that if the Whig The Prime Minister, Earl Grey, the was Tories were weakened and government fell at a time when might seize their opportunity, discredited then the radical democrats of the populace on the oligarchic and unleash the pent-up discontents would help to take There could be no doubt that emancipation the work system. of the sails of those demagogues who traduced the wind out for emancipation also helped to of Parliament. The public outcry Having demanded emancipation surmount the compensation problem. middle-class liberals could scarcely SO noisily even parsimonious The Colonial Secretary, Edward Stanley, complain at financing it. Bill in May 1833, which envisaged introduced an Abolition of Slavery by giving them a public loan of compensating the colonial proprietors --- Page 467 --- British Slave Emancipation £15 million plus the right to the continuing dubbed "apprentices', for a period of twelve labour of their slaves, now months of debate and negotiation these years. In the course of three West Indian proprictors succeeded terms were to be modified, The the bill from a loan to an in changing the monetary clauses of the anti-slavery MPs outright grant of £20 million. ship' from twelve succeeded in reducing the period of Subsequently to six years. Buxton had in "apprenticeanti-slavery MPs to accept the bill, which difficulty persuading some that no other measure had a hope of he supported on the grounds O'Connell, the Irish leader, voted appearing on the statute book. abolitionist convictions would against the bill because his apprenticeship not let him accept its West provisions. Only two out of compensation and Indian proprietors voted thirty-one MPs who were two, one objected to against the emancipation bill; of these abolitionist compensation on economical grounds, the other grounds. Some 'economists' and on grumbled at the size of some 'East Indians' Slavery Bill passed with compensation. But in the end the Abolition of the royal assent at the end large of majorities in both Houses and received The size of the sum August 1833,54 granted to the agreed it. There was a fit of nervous planters surprised even those who following passage of the hilarity when an MP pointed out, haggled for hours before compensation clause, that the House usually salary of £500 a year. At agreeing the close to the creation of a new post with a which the precise of the lengthy Cabinet session at Minister fell asleep compensation where he terms were hammered out the Prime to wake him. The Whig sat; his colleagues tiptoed out in order not commemorated their existence government and the Reform Parliament had satisfaction of the wealthy in a most signal way and could enjoy the donation to charity. The philanthropist who has made a large public close to representing the full compensation value of offered to the planters came were to cover a significant their slaves. The slaves themselves during the "apprenticeship' proportion of the Cost of compensation since plantations and work a ten-hour period they were obliged to remain on the the form of government day. The £20 million grant was paid in sex category. Cobbett bonds, at a standard rate for each slave age and being freed at the complained that the West Indian slaves were paying slaves',55 expense of Britain's own Since interest on the already-burdened 'taxfrom general taxation, mainly Customs compensation bonds was paid point. to cover a significant their slaves. The slaves themselves during the "apprenticeship' proportion of the Cost of compensation since plantations and work a ten-hour period they were obliged to remain on the the form of government day. The £20 million grant was paid in sex category. Cobbett bonds, at a standard rate for each slave age and being freed at the complained that the West Indian slaves were paying slaves',55 expense of Britain's own Since interest on the already-burdened 'taxfrom general taxation, mainly Customs compensation bonds was paid point. But the monetary element in the and Excise, Cobbett had a Britain's system of public finance in compensation was absorbed by footing the bill. Planters could sell the ways that obscured who was new bond issue only added bonds if they wished, while the debt; others things being marginally to the already huge national equal it would have risen by 3 per cent, --- Page 468 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery remained steady as the Chancellor though in fact service payments liabilities. Slaveholder found other ways of reducing government thus facilitated by the compensation in the British colonies was with modest size of slaveholder wealth by comparison relatively and the size of the National Debt; it also demonstrated imperial wealth in a capitalist economy and the mobile character of economic property of public credit did not detract rentier state. Of course the mysteries the of either the real gains of the planters or perceived generosity from thereafter Parliament proceeded to approve a Parliament. Shortly workhouses and stopped reform of the Poor Law which set up which had been running of outdoor relief from the local rates with the payment While this contrasts most instructively at £7 million in 1832.56 and reflected within Parliament as a treatment of the slaveholders, the need for a market in labour disciplined whole a broad consensus on 'idleness', it is only fair to add that several by penal disincentives to the minority which voted abolitionist MPs were to be found among notably those involving the harsher provisions of the Poor Law, against and the break-up of families.7 incarceration in workhouses outside Parliament objected to the Much anti-slavery opinion abolitionist objected to the of compensation and almost every payment But overall the organised anti-slavery proposed term offapprenticeship'. its success. The 1833 Abolition of movement was greatly pleased by colonies in August 1834, had, after all, Slavery Act, to take effect in the thus not the direct responsibility measure and was been a government was later to write that slave of the abolitionists. De Tocqueville been 'the act of the nation and not of its emancipation in Britain had came from the surge in public rulers'. In that the decisive impulse is correct. But the terms of opinion this near-contemporary judgement and neither the abolitionists emancipation were the work of the rulers, them. It was the rulers, also, nor the wider movement fully supported share of the credit for the to themselves a large who appropriated Grey, content that government and Parliapassage of emancipation. a difficult transition, retired in ment had confirmed and consolidated to the safe hands of Lord July 1834, handing over the Premiership opinion in a candid avowal to Melbourne. The latter gave his private what do you think I would the English Primate: I say, Archbishop, business if I had my way? I would have have done about this slavery of nonsense. There have always been done nothing at all. It is all a pack the Romans. However slaves in most civilised countries, the Greeks, abolished slavery. But it is would have their own way and we have they all great folly. 58 consented to both reform and The Tory opposition, having itself with the Tamworth Manifesto in emancipation, relaunched --- Page 469 --- British Slave Emancipation Those who had played a forward part in reform, even December 1834. revolution in its support, found themselves appearing to threaten of life. Brougham was dropped from relegated from the centre political hold office again, while Macaulay was the Melbourne Cabinet, never to left politics and devoted himself dispatched to India, and subsequently author of the Abolition Act and to writing and history. both reform and The Tory opposition, having itself with the Tamworth Manifesto in emancipation, relaunched --- Page 469 --- British Slave Emancipation Those who had played a forward part in reform, even December 1834. revolution in its support, found themselves appearing to threaten of life. Brougham was dropped from relegated from the centre political hold office again, while Macaulay was the Melbourne Cabinet, never to left politics and devoted himself dispatched to India, and subsequently author of the Abolition Act and to writing and history. Edward Stanley, able to take the credit both for later the fourteenth Earl of Derby, was treatment of the planters; he went emancipation and for the generous Prime Minister. Melbourne's on to lead four administrations as challenges to last until Whig-Liberal government survived two concerned brief it never fulfilled its 1841, but SO far as the radicals were conceived middle-class reforms ever promise. Only the more narrowly significant public spending on education made it on to the statute book; far in the future. and infrastructure was still Emancipation Day passed off To the great relief of the abolitionists The Nonconformist Churches rather quietly in the West Indies. and urged continued hard organised decorous thanksgiving services security arrangements and work. The colonial authorities strengthened magistrates' to invigilate began to enlist special officers and stipendiary of slaves continued to labour, glad the apprenticeship scheme. The mass that the physical guarantees of for any slight amelioration and aware removed. Plantation output in their enslavement had not yet been But as the "stipendiary with previous years. 1834-6 was comparable the local assemblies passed local regulations to magistrates' arrived and controversy began to stir again. accompany "apprenticeship' believed, with reason, that the planters and The abolitionists to ensure that apprenticeship was managers would do all in their power contrary to the act, female simply slavery by another name. Thus, New prisons, equipped with apprentices would still be whipped. themselves from the treadmills, were built for apprentices who absented little better than treadmills were fields. The badly constructed colonial laws savagely penalised recalciinstruments of torture. New the derelictions of overseers and trant apprentices while ignoring whose officials had favoured emancipaplanters. The Colonial Office, to invigilate its workings. tion, dispatched 132 stipendiary magistrates by the white colonists but a number Some of these men were overawed conditions on the plantations, or in displayed some scruple in reporting them. The internal life of the deciding such cases as were referred to but in Jamaica and some other plantations was difficult to penetrate wrote to abolitionists in Britain islands the Nonconformist missionaries Knibb that apprentices drawing attention to abuses. William reported abolitionist delegation still being flogged and urged that a British were --- Page 470 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery what meant in practice. should be sent to observe islands 'apprenticeship' the assemblies encouraged a However, in some of the smaller the Assembly. In Antigua approach than did Jamaica less provocative decided that the conflicts that apprenticeship the Colonial Assembly on this small island the planters was likely to produce were too great; land and the field labourers had an effective monopoly of all cultivable if they were to eat. thus found that they had to work on the plantations of its own accord, The island Assembly thus ended apprenticeship granting full freedom to all.59 the abuses of apprenticeship. In British abolitionists were alert to held in Exeter Hall, addressed April 1835 a protest meeting was dismissed Brougham. În autumn of amongst others by the recently Society launched a national 1835 the Birmingham Anti-Slavery at a rally attended by several campaign for the ending of apprenticeship the wealthy backer of the Agency thousand supporters. Joseph Sturge, be a light in this campaign. Committee and now an MP, was to leading of the West Indian colonies, In 1836-7 he made a tour of inspection under the regime of reporting the abuses which he saw flourishing addressed a large rally at "apprenticeship.. a protest meeting was dismissed Brougham. În autumn of amongst others by the recently Society launched a national 1835 the Birmingham Anti-Slavery at a rally attended by several campaign for the ending of apprenticeship the wealthy backer of the Agency thousand supporters. Joseph Sturge, be a light in this campaign. Committee and now an MP, was to leading of the West Indian colonies, In 1836-7 he made a tour of inspection under the regime of reporting the abuses which he saw flourishing addressed a large rally at "apprenticeship.. In November 1837 Sturge Committee. Sturge Exeter Hall which set up a Central Emancipation of James Williams', an the Narrative wrote up as a pamphlet abuse to which the former slaves were still apprentice, showing the and bills ending apprenticeship subject. New petitions were organised the Lords turned down such a were submitted to Parliament. Though campaign on the issue were already bill the beginnings of a new popular Committee launched a journal, The evident. The new Emancipation report on his tour of the West Emancipator, and published Sturge's Indies in January 1838. 60 alarmed at developments The West Indian proprietors became highly Continuation of the both in the colonies and in the and metropolis. of the activity of the missioncampaign against "apprenticeship', abolitionist societies in the colonies, aries and of newly formed of insecurity, with official reports, threatened an unending prospect the risk of black revolt. In deference to the government concessions and had already announced that male apprenabolitionists the government 1838. Some planters were tices could not be flogged after August At all events between March encouraged by the example of Antigua. assemblies introduced legislation and July 1838 the various colonial averted another exercise in By doing SO they ending apprenticeship. with its unwelcome and unsettling publicity. metropolitan intervention, also hoped to secure abolitionist support The West Indian proprietors status for colonial 'free grown' for their attempt to retain a protected trend to free trade. sugar in the face of the already menacing --- Page 471 --- British Slave Emancipation and the Colonial Office had made clear The Melbourne government pointing out to the their support for the ending of apprenticeship, favourable treatment unless they planters that they could not expect embarrassment. There was to be assisted in the removal of this laws against vagrancy and continuing controversy over the stern assemblies. In the long run the squatting introduced by the colonial these laws, since they abolitionists were on weaker ground in attacking Once apprenticeship often echoed metropolitan legislation. SO merely to allow the planters some was ended Fowell Buxton was prepared Anti-Slavery Society latitude, but Joseph Sturge and the Birmingham vigilant in defence of the propounded a radical abolitionism that was of labourers in Britain as freedmen and prepared to defend the rights thought it prudent to pay well as in the colonies. The government though it became increasingly attention to abolitionist representations, order and good labour discipline in the concerned to ensure good of doing this than to support the colonies and saw no other way survived - that is, until planters. So long as the Melbourne government leverage. There was also a had some political 1841 - the abolitionists to distrust the planter assemblies, general metropolitan disposition in 1839 the London government first especially that of Jamaica; Assembly and then secured parliamentary suspended the Jamaica Coloured proprietors and professionals, legislation limiting its powers. within the Assembly; howincluding Jordan, obtained representation themselves with the white such representatives were often to align In ever, against squatters and vagrants. planters when it came to legislation London became a much less effective the 1840s the Colonial Office in in the colonies. concerned restraint on proprietors or employers or freedmen and women played a large part, wherever conditions The the new colonial order. Thus the former slaves permitted, in shaping of their provision grounds sometimes succeeded in asserting possession to buy formal title to their and used income from the sale of provisions situated in the plantation land. , obtained representation themselves with the white such representatives were often to align In ever, against squatters and vagrants. planters when it came to legislation London became a much less effective the 1840s the Colonial Office in in the colonies. concerned restraint on proprietors or employers or freedmen and women played a large part, wherever conditions The the new colonial order. Thus the former slaves permitted, in shaping of their provision grounds sometimes succeeded in asserting possession to buy formal title to their and used income from the sale of provisions situated in the plantation land. The provision grounds were and usually might not be covered by the hinterland, perhaps in the hills, there was extensive Crown land planters' title deeds. In some colonies the freedmen. În Dominica the which was successfully invaded by free population of comparatively large size of the pre-emancipation became the major influence in colour allowed coloured proprietors the to largest of the Windward Islands the island Assembly; Dominica was freedmen claiming and farming and it was difficult for planters to mountains. stop At the time of the ending their old provision grounds in the on Dominica and the of apprenticeship there was only one policeman there. After all, the colonial authorities had no wish to send troops in part because it Parliament had enacted the abolition of slavery British --- Page 472 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery outlays on West Indian security. 61 wished to reduce, not increase, differed from island to island, The precise outcome of emancipation in some of the smaller islands with the planters still in a strong position like those of Antigua, where land was scarce. The planters of Barbados, and to dominate the island managed to preserve the plantation regime and could count on the Assembly, since many of them were residents In these islands support of the relatively numerous white population. blacks excluded from the plantation output was increased and most partly electoral register by property and tax-paying qualifications; for its own from the freedmen and women and partly under pressure the growth of Church of England reasons the plantocracy permitted the other hand, large-scale plantation schools. In Grenada, on recovered from the so-called "Brigands' production had never properly aftermath of emancipation small-scale War' of the 1790s and in the Grenada provisions for proprietorship developed further as considerable produced decline in the other colonies. Overall there was West a Indies and even where it plantation economy of the British relationship with the work-force. survived it did SO by accepting a new 36 cent if the average production Annual sugar output declined by per Women, who had is with that for 1839-46."2 of 1824-33 compared in the slave gangs, were now more rarely seen played an important Wherever part the former slaves were dependent on in the cane fields. the planters could exact a labour planters' land for their subsistence prices for their sugar and were rent. The planters feared declining investments in plant and generally unwilling to undertake new were offered to Wages of 6d.-8d. a day for cane cutting equipment. the planters felt they could pay no more yet begin with in Jamaica; forthcoming at this wage. William Knibb, the insufficient labour was against the terms on which the missionary, campaigned in Jamaica The Jamaican planters had Colonial Assembly had ended apprenticeship. their labourers with rate of 6d. a day and threatened set a general plots and huts if they refused to agree. Knibb eviction from their garden attended by thousands of attacked the 'sixpenny plot' at meetings could not be permitted by the apprentices. He urged that mass eviction did pay somewhat higher colonial government. In the event planters eviction difficult. The suspension wages, often over 1s. a day, and found the limitation of its Assembly in 1839, and subsequent of the Jamaican the freedmen. The London price of sugar rose powers, gave a respite to and the protectionist in the years 1837-42 as colonial output of sagged foreign sugars. About half regime prevented the large-scale successfully import adjusted to a wage labour the plantations of Jamaica of squeezed by a sharp regime, the remainder going out production, drop in prices from 1842. wages, often over 1s. a day, and found the limitation of its Assembly in 1839, and subsequent of the Jamaican the freedmen. The London price of sugar rose powers, gave a respite to and the protectionist in the years 1837-42 as colonial output of sagged foreign sugars. About half regime prevented the large-scale successfully import adjusted to a wage labour the plantations of Jamaica of squeezed by a sharp regime, the remainder going out production, drop in prices from 1842. 63 --- Page 473 --- British Slave Emancipation improved for the freedmen up to the Material conditions probably for male labourers rose in most middle of the 1840s. The wages they were a little lower than this in colonies to over 1s. a day, though Women rarely received Grenada where there were few plantations. the better paid or more much over 1s. a day and few belonged to of women working for the permanent work-force. The overall numbers devoted most of their time planters contracted sharply and cultivation freedwomen and petty trading. Plantation to domestic labour, subsistence at between 1s.8d. and 2s. a wages were probably highest in Guyana, from Jamaica and the Windwards day; several thousand immigrants the hope of more advantageous employment. were drawn to Guyana by Indies artisan freedmen were able to Throughout the British 2s. West and 4s. a day, or even as much as 6s. a day. secure wages of between artisans recorded in Barbados, 17,500 in In 1844 there were 12,000 in Antigua. The Nonconformist Jamaica, 6,000 in Guyana and 2,500 the colonies and received a small Churches established schools in might occasionally government subsidy to assist them. The missionaries but they side with the freedmen in disputes with their employers, rather than trade encouraged former slaves to become smallholders missionaries as Knibb, Bleby, unionists. In Jamaica and elsewhere such 'model villages'. More Phillippo, Clerk and Burchell helped could to sponsor build houses and buy land generally freedmen found that they from their plots. titles, saving money from wages and selling provisions steadily, though The number of black or coloured smallholders grew there were found to be the typical Iholding would be very small; in, Jamaica in 1845 and as many as 2,114 smallholders in 1838, rising to 27,379 of new smallholders being 50,000 by 1861, with the great majority a few acres in size; former slaves. Most smallholdings were between only ten and fifty acres. with only 4,000 in Jamaica in 1861 being in the extent of there was also a considerable growth In Guyana 40,000 former slaves living on 11,000 black smallholding, with some the smaller islands there was a growth of small farms by 1851. Even on period. In Grenada in the post-emancipation black petty proprietorship in 1845 rising to 3,571 in 1853; in St there were 1,943 smallholdings freeholders in 1845 rising to 2,343 in 1853. In Lucia there were 1,345 smallholders by 1849 and in Tobago 2,367 Trinidad there were 7,000 freeholders and 2,300 by 1853. On St Kitts there were 2,800 of these freeholders and leaseholders in 1845. The previous civic status would but the majority of new proprietors leaseholders is not clear, all the British colonies there was a wave of have formerly been slaves. slaves In and in most a considerable increase in house-building by former visitors remarked on the absence of school attendance. By the 1850s church and chapel attendance, the low level of crime, high paupers, --- Page 474 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery births and the appearance of a moderately high levels of illegitimate 64 The spread of coloured land ownerprosperous coloured peasantry." coloured representation in some of the ship also led to an increase in weakened the plantation colonial assemblies. was a wave of have formerly been slaves. slaves In and in most a considerable increase in house-building by former visitors remarked on the absence of school attendance. By the 1850s church and chapel attendance, the low level of crime, high paupers, --- Page 474 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery births and the appearance of a moderately high levels of illegitimate 64 The spread of coloured land ownerprosperous coloured peasantry." coloured representation in some of the ship also led to an increase in weakened the plantation colonial assemblies. Thus while emancipation former slaves; the end of economy it brought tangible benefit for many freedom, the possibility of a super-exploitation, a measure of personal of smallholding, based on more stable family life and the growth international markets. production for local use rather than for Indies had, with the exception of The populations of the British West of though at a slower rate Barbados, declined in the last years slavery, levels In the decades after emancipation population than previously. positive growth rates in every colony began a slow recovery, recording This achievement is the more remarkable during the rest of the century. in the islands declined considerably as in that the numbers of doctors down. Jamaica's total population the sugar estates cut costs or closed count is available; the around 376,000 in 1834, though no precise was held in 1844, recorded a population first census after emancipation, of a cholera epidemic at mid-century of 377,000; despite the ravages in 1861 and to 506,000 in 1871. In the population rose to 441,000 slave population had a crude birth rate of last years of slavery Jamaica's this had risen to 37.4 per 1,000. Jamaican 32 per 1,000; by 1881-5 to have been little different from infant mortality rates in 1881 seem the other hand, the death rate for those in the last days of slavery; on lower. Thus the ending those aged five years and over was slaves considerably in the elementary sense that it of slavery was good for the 65 allowed them to live longer. where there were still good In British Guyana and Trinidad, the planters faced continuing prospects for plantation expansion, slaves, including a number of hard-fought resistance from their former of the Colonial Office the British Guyanese strikes. With the permission of the empire for an alternative supply planters turned to another part Indians were signed of plantation labour. In the 1840s poverty-stricken contractors for sale to the planters, up and brought to the Caribbean by to work for three, five or seven for whom they were then legally obliged that contract labourers were being years. When it was discovered Gladstone estates, there was an abolitionist flogged like slaves on the labourers was suspended in outcry in Britain. The import of contract when abolitionist influence was 1839, but resumed a few years later had agreed that the indentured in retreat and after the planters minimum personal rights. Altogether labourers possessed certain Asian contract labourers were between 1834 and 1865 96,580 for work on the plantations. The imported by West Indian proprietors West Indies lagged behind its most dynamic sugar output of the British --- Page 475 --- British Slave Emancipation around mid-century there was some recovery. In competitors, but from 184,000 tons; in 1839-46 output dropped 66 1834-6 they had produced had risen again to 191,000 tons. to 131,000 tons; by 1857-66 output abolitionism had been both signal and The triumphs of British that they were made possible by: substantive. It has been suggested of slave revolt (in the French Caribbean in the 1790s (a) the pressure and the British Caribbean in 1815-32); of first the relative economic importance (b) the modest or declining slave trade and then colonial slavery; with the ideal image of a reformed (c) the congruence of abolitionism bourgeois order and global British role; reinforce their legitimacy and (d) the need of British governments times to of and national support at imperial to maximise popular political crisis; of (c) and concomitant of (d), massive popular (e) a qualification colonial slavery, reflecting the ability of antimobilisations against traditional conceptions of "English liberty' slavery themes to extend by the industrial capitalist order. importance (b) the modest or declining slave trade and then colonial slavery; with the ideal image of a reformed (c) the congruence of abolitionism bourgeois order and global British role; reinforce their legitimacy and (d) the need of British governments times to of and national support at imperial to maximise popular political crisis; of (c) and concomitant of (d), massive popular (e) a qualification colonial slavery, reflecting the ability of antimobilisations against traditional conceptions of "English liberty' slavery themes to extend by the industrial capitalist order. and to articulate fears aroused of 1806-14 and of 1832-8 were the product The abolitionist successes various considerations and conditions. of the conjunction of these conditions, slave resistance While factors (b) and (c) were permissive ruling order, contestation, threatening a vulnerable and popular emancipation in the 1830s. of the imposed first in St Domingue because Emancipation had triumphed French and the tensions depth of the political crisis of the the full monarchy flood of development, the generated by plantation slavery in the insubordination of the centrifugal impulse of colonial wealth, the vulnerability of the planters, the explosion of slave resistance, of rivalry and the bourgeoisie, the impact imperial French commercial egalitarianism. The British Empire and ascendance of revolutionary less extreme conflicts. But as the social formation was riven by was overtaken by its own Hanoverian regime of 'illegitimate monarchy' with the challenge of abolitionism helped its rulers to grapple wealth of success, growth in the numbers and global pre-eminence, a prodigious of a working-class movement the 'middle classes', and the emergence doctrines. animated by democratic and semi-socialist or anti-capitalist had aliowed the These conclusions do not mean that anti-slavery The abolitionist British 'middle classes' to achieve hegemony in society. --- Page 476 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery mobilisations had been most in 'the classes' - that is, in forging an important alliance making of the middle and merchants, professional between middling manufacturers salaried clerks, and men, shopkeepers, newspaper farmers. In the great proprietors, Reform Act, and during the crucial struggles that led to the the anti-slavery test of the first reform Parliament, themselves and campaigns helped these middle classes to assert supplied a certain ideological popular sentiment in ways that did not safety-catch, mobilising to the oligarchy or to the new constitute a fundamental threat establishing middle-class bourgeois order. But it fell short of To begin with, because hegemony in at least two decisive respects. decision, taken up by the anti-slavery more was eventually, at the moment of Of course Wilberforce, Buxton far-sighted section of the oligarchy itself. and own eccentric ways, each members Brougham of the were themselves, in their significant was the sponsorship extended oligarchy. But even more earls, outstanding members of the to abolition by three belted remarkable contribution Whig faction of the to abolitionist success of oligarchy. The and Derby is too often overlooked: it Lords Grenville, Grey parliamentary acceptance of the was they who ensured the suggested above, the of acts of 1807 and 1833. And, as such passage these abolitionist prestige on Parliament that it reduced measures conferred reaching changes, including changes which pressure on it for more farthoroughgoing middle-class would have permitted a more garchic rule as a fundamental victory. Anti-slavery never identified olisee abolitionism obstacle, and its as integral to a reformed and moralised mainstream inclined to established order. version of the However, a second caveat must be entered anti-slavery. If abolitionism was concerning the impact of middle-class political something less than a formula for something more than hegemony it was also, in an an ideology of undiluted important sense, doctrines were, of course, compatible with capitalism. middle-class would have permitted a more garchic rule as a fundamental victory. Anti-slavery never identified olisee abolitionism obstacle, and its as integral to a reformed and moralised mainstream inclined to established order. version of the However, a second caveat must be entered anti-slavery. If abolitionism was concerning the impact of middle-class political something less than a formula for something more than hegemony it was also, in an an ideology of undiluted important sense, doctrines were, of course, compatible with capitalism. Anti-slavery social relations. But they wage labour and capitalist and artisans as well as corresponded to the ideals of small be independent larger capitalists; the antithesis of producers production or slavery could They could also serve to justify trade employment rather than wage labour. 1834 anti-slavery themes unionism. In fact in the years after trade unionists and later by were drawn upon by domestic radicals, by were to declare sympathy and Chartists; Sturge and many of his associates they inclined to sympathise support with for Chartism. In the West Indies the recourse to indentured labour. The freedman and to attack the artisanaté and growth of a free black or coloured between the smallholding class in the West Indies more radical dimensions of testified to a 'fit' of many former slaves. And anti-slavery and the aspirations despite the many problems faced by the --- Page 477 --- British Slave Emancipation newly free population of the West Indies both reflected and reinforced their new position in untrammelled rule of a restraint that had been society the white colonists and applied to the British anti-slavery radicals of the large-scale capital. So far as went on to become political and social 1830s were concerned, many just as anti-slavery moderates, such. radicals on domestic pioneered by the as Bright and Cobden, used techniques questions name of free-market anti-slavery movement to attack the Corn Laws in the capitalism. came to attack the sugar duties However, when the free trading liberals 'slave-grown sugar' they and to advocate the free import of organised abolitionism. British met resistance from the main bodies of legacy. As a passively received anti-slavery bequeathed a contested truthfully to claim to have struck tradition it allowed Britain's rulers order which British down colonial slavery. But the world shaped and dominated governments and British capital now others forms of was to witness an expansion of increasingly trade. In servile labour; there was even to be slavery and of this context consequent a continuing slave the logic of British capitalism and anti-slavery of was often to conflict with governments found themselves its 'empire of free trade'. British slavery policy in deference on the one hand committed to antiwith governments beholden to public opinion; on the other 'illegitimate to slave-owners and even slave-traders. entangled The monarchy' aimed to legitimate and accepting the abolitionist "bourgeoisify' itself by doing SO. The abolitionist programme. But it did not thereby succeed in temporary boost initiatives of 1807 and 1833 to governments that were in gave a welcome prefiguring later sources of legitimacy, and difficulty, symbolically gradual transition to a new formula of helping to make possible a reign of Victoria the extension of the bourgeois rule. During the long British Empire made possible a suffrage and the growth of the democracy and new basis for the legitimacy of the state: looked back and imperialism. If abolitionism looked forward it gave a new twist to the moral also monarchy' and in particular to the notion that the economy of 'illegitimate guarantee of social freedom as a compensation subject was offered a oligarchy to rule. difficulty, symbolically gradual transition to a new formula of helping to make possible a reign of Victoria the extension of the bourgeois rule. During the long British Empire made possible a suffrage and the growth of the democracy and new basis for the legitimacy of the state: looked back and imperialism. If abolitionism looked forward it gave a new twist to the moral also monarchy' and in particular to the notion that the economy of 'illegitimate guarantee of social freedom as a compensation subject was offered a oligarchy to rule. for permitting the ruling With the ending of British colonial was deemed to have anointed slavery a species of abolitionism Fowell Buxton established Britain's oligarchy. In 1839 Sir Thomas Trade and the Civilisation the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Prince Albert, of Africa, presided over by none consort of the new Queen. The other than this organisation is suggested by the fact heavy respectability of included five Dukes, four that its Vice-Presidents archbishops, eighteen bishops. b7 In this same the eight marquises, fifteen earls and attention at the Royal Academy year picture which commanded all show was Turner's The Slave Ship, --- Page 478 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery originally entitled Slavers Throwing Typhoon Coming On. Turner's Overboard the Dead and Dying by commissions from own early career had been his a "West Indian' MP. The terrible deeds sponsored multi-coloured *Guernica', and its depicted in are redeemed by bravura sense of impending apocalypse, and sky. It is not, composition and the 'tinted steam' of rulers could perhaps, too far-fetched to that spray have seen in this suggest Britain's jettisoning his cargo but also painting not simply the slave-trader sacrifice of slavery, in order a symbolic representation of their own in a storm. to render the ship of state more seaworthy Notes 1. Elie Halévy, The Liberal 214-18, Awakening: 1815-1830, London 1949, Pp. 2. Fladeland, Men and Brothers, 80-154, 3. Fladeland, Men and Brothers, Pp. 168-72. 4. Reginald Coupland, The British p. 177. 125-6. Anti-Slavery Movement, London 1964, S. Quoted in Gratus, The Great White pp. 6. B.W. Higman, Slave Lie, p. 197. 1984, p. 72. These bare facts Populations of of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834, London partly because of registration, and were continuing used population decline were well the slave systems. Buxton declared that by abolitionists as the ultimate established, not rely on any 'excitement of feeling' this and evidence was particularly telling indictment since it did of stewardship of a manager in part by his since planters themselves would the numbers. Cf. Higman, Slave success in maintaining or judge problem, since the ending of Populations, the Atlantic p. 303. However, this was to increasing slave temporarily reduce population slave trade did have some effects oversimplify which the women of child-bearing age in reproduction the rates, notably a decline in the would of developed within it. On a colony by colony population basis as a more normal age proportion figures do show that the main the pattern was distribution the worst sugar producers - Jamaica and complex, yet Higman's growth but demographic this worsened record: as an old colony Jamaica had Demerara-Esequbo a low - had Essequibo) had a in the 1820s, while the new colony of negative rate of heavy, but erratic, Guyana some of the other smaller islands, negative growth rate. rates, notably a decline in the would of developed within it. On a colony by colony population basis as a more normal age proportion figures do show that the main the pattern was distribution the worst sugar producers - Jamaica and complex, yet Higman's growth but demographic this worsened record: as an old colony Jamaica had Demerara-Esequbo a low - had Essequibo) had a in the 1820s, while the new colony of negative rate of heavy, but erratic, Guyana some of the other smaller islands, negative growth rate. Not only (Demerarawas less pronounced, especially those where Barbados, but also showed large-scale after 1815 (Higman, Slave convincing improvements in the rate plantation of natural production 7. Higman, Slave Populations, Populations, pp. 307-13). increase 8. p. 77. 9. E. Buckley, Slaves in Red Coats, p. 143. Braithwaite, The Oxford 1971, especially Pp. 152-65, Development 194-8. of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770-1820, 10. W.A. Green, British Slave Experiment, 1830-1865, Oxford 1976, Emancipation, 12-15; the Sugar Colonies and the Great Change in a Slave Society: A Socio-political PP. Mavis C. Campbell, The Dynamics of 1800-1865, Madison and London 1976, History of the Free Coloureds of 11. Campbell, The Dynamics of P. 62. Jamaica, long-standing Wesleyan; cf. Turner, Change Slaves in a Slave Society, pp. 160-63. Jordan was Jamaican Slave Society, 1797-1834, Urbana and Missionaries: The a 12. Campbell, Dynamics of 1982, p. 198. Disintegration of Slaves and Missionaries, Pp. 1-64. Change in a Slave Society, PP. 102-17; Mary Mary Turner links the disintegrative effect of Turner, black --- Page 479 --- British Slave Emancipation Christianity and trading to the ways in which the latter reflected and in the colonial complex among slaves; she also stresses African strengthened the petty producing patois. The ultimately survivals in slave culture Jamaican blacks must be seen in relation disruptive to impact of Nonconformist religion and free blacks and the tensions of the the size of this colony, the large number among of furnishes an interesting case. Observers Jamaican claimed slave system. The small island of Antigua orderly there transition from slavery on this island and that Methodist influence an were disturbances on Antigua in Easter there was even a Methodist promoted militia. Yet impose Sunday working. See Goveia, Slave 1831, caused by the planters to and Craton, Testing the Chains, Society in the British Leeward attempt 13. B.W. Higman, p. 291. Islands, p. 297, bridge 1976, pp. 76, 231-3, Slave 223-4. Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834, Cam14. Quoted in Michael Craton, 'Slave Culture, Emancipation in the British West Indies', in Resistance and the Achievement of 100-122, on p. 120. For the course of the Walvin, ed., Slavery and British Chains, Pp. 267-90. Demerara revolt see also Craton, Society, Testing Pp. the 15. Deerr, A History of Sugar, II, 16. Quoted in Craton, Testing the pp. 324-5. 17. Turner, Slaves and Chains, p. 300. pp. 291-321. As SO often, the Missionaries, rebels included Pp. 148-78; Craton, Testing the 18. Turner, Slaves and Missionaries, drivers and skilled slaves. Chains, 316-21; Gratus, The Great White Lie, Pp. 168-73; Craton, Testing the 1832. One of the missionaries who visited PP: 223-4. Sharpe was executed on Chains, times deliver a brief extemporancous him in his cell wrote: 'I heard him two May or 23rd many of them being confined address to his fellow prisoners on three power and freedom with which together he in the same cell, and I was amazed religious both topics, auditory. Turner, Slaves and Missionaries, drivers and skilled slaves. Chains, 316-21; Gratus, The Great White Lie, Pp. 168-73; Craton, Testing the 1832. One of the missionaries who visited PP: 223-4. Sharpe was executed on Chains, times deliver a brief extemporancous him in his cell wrote: 'I heard him two May or 23rd many of them being confined address to his fellow prisoners on three power and freedom with which together he in the same cell, and I was amazed religious both topics, auditory. He appeared to have the spoke, and at the effect which was produced at the command; feelings and upon his said but when I listened to him once, I passions of his hearers at to me, "that when ceased to be surprised at what completely his Gardner, was "wrought Sharpe spoke to him and others on the Gardner had of Slavery, London up almost to a state of madness' s : : subject of slavery", he, 1853, p. 116. Henry Bleby, Death 19. Campbell, The Dynamics of Slave Struggles 20. Patrick Coloquhon, A Treatise Society in Jamaica, p. 160. Empire, London 1815, pp. 97-8; while On the the value Wealth, Power and Resources of the British period West 1811-31, rising from £169 to #303 million of British GNP nearly doubled in the Indies remained static or even declined. in constant prices, that of the British Cole, British Economic Growth, For UK national income see constant prices, dropped from £4.6 Pp. 8, 166. The value of Jamaica's Deane and Higman, Slave million in 1805-9 to £3.4 exports, also at Trinidad partially Population and Economy in Jamaica, p. 213. The million in 1830-34. Cf. of stagnation if the compensated value, for Jamaican decline, but the overall growth of Guyana and 21. Calculated rather than volume, of picture was still one from R. Davis, The Industrial output is considered. p. 88. Revolution and British Overseas 22. J.R. Ward, 'The Trade, 1650-1834, Economic History Profitability Review, of Sugar Planting in the British West flationary condition of the British 2nd series, XXXI, 1978. The Indies, uneven decline in profitability economy after the Napoleonic wars generally deslave investments. The being anything like a compelling reason for prevents this investments, even though average rate of return on British West abandoning rate offered by government running bonds. at only a half of its wartime level, was Indian still plantation the slave In an unpublished paper Ward double the J.R. Ward, plantations were still a viable business himself has insisted that "The Profitability and Viability of proposition on the eve of 1807-1834, paper British West Indian emancipation: University, presented at the Institute of Plantation Slavery, February 28th 1979. Commonwealth Studies, London 23. For the reasons adduced above it is not Seymour Drescher's book Econocide, possible to accept the consequence of the 1807 act; however, namely that British West Indian implication decline of it should be said that Drescher's was a most informative --- Page 480 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery considerable value of the British West Indies prior study concentrates on showing the very much beyond this point. to 1814 and does not pursue its analysis figure given in the text is from Higman, Slave The new colony slave import 81. The inter-colonial slave traffic effectively Populations of the British Caribbean, reflect P. the differences in produetwipypmoflabilioy ceased in 1828. Slave prices came colonies, to with the price in Guyana of a field labourer between the 'old' and the 'new' the early 1830s (compare Higman, Slave Populations, reflected being twice that in Jamaica by to the British West Indian plantations P. 79). The rise of other competitors and profits as steam-age technology enabled extensive in similar differances in productivity and the United States. ial slave traffic effectively Populations of the British Caribbean, reflect P. the differences in produetwipypmoflabilioy ceased in 1828. Slave prices came colonies, to with the price in Guyana of a field labourer between the 'old' and the 'new' the early 1830s (compare Higman, Slave Populations, reflected being twice that in Jamaica by to the British West Indian plantations P. 79). The rise of other competitors and profits as steam-age technology enabled extensive in similar differances in productivity and the United States. See *Slavery in the Steam Age', inland cultivation in Cuba, Brazil volume, The Nemesis of the Slave Power. New the present author's companion British Slave Trade Suppression Policies, 1821-1865, 24. E. Phillip Le Veen, and York 1977. of British Abolitionism in the Eighteenth 25. Roger Anstey, "The pattern Anti-Slavery, Religion and Reform, pp. Nineteenth Centuries', in Bolt and Drescher, wealth in Britain's oligarchy is drawn attention 19-42, on P. 24. The salience of colonial The Triumph of Reform, London 1950, in Halévy's classic studies. Cf. Elie Halévy, between reform and antito This work gives an excellent account of the alliance P. 80-81. Essays, slavery. 'Lord Althorp and the Reform Bill of 1832', Biographical Britain 26. Walter Bagehot, 334. Norman Gash, Aristocracy and People: London 1895, pp. 305-46, on p. About three-quarters of the MPs over the whole 1815-1865, London 1982, pp. 43-51. with the land according to G.P.J Judd, Members MPs of period 1734 and 1832 were connected Haven 1955, p. 71; in 1826 one-quarter of the 658 Parliament, 1734-1832, New but only eight of these were manufacturers, were businessmen of some description, East Indian traders. Cf. B. Gordon, compared with forty-two bankers and forty-four 1824-1830, London 1979, p.5. Economic Doctrine and Tory Liberalism, of Anti-Slavery', in Walvin, ed., Slavery and 27. James Walvin, The Propaganda also Edith Hurwitz, Politics and Public British Society, PP. 49-68, on pP., 53-6; Abolitionist see Movement in Britain, London 1973, Conscience: Slave Emancipation and the 1833-1870, London 1972, pp1-24; Howard Temperley, British Anti-Slavery, pp. 182-6. 12-18. and Human Progress, Oxford 1984, PP: that 28. David Brion Davis, Slavery printed by George Smith, 1827. It is likely free 29. West India Sugar, Liverpool, given its place of publication and strong Cropper wrote or inspired this pamphlet, trade orientation. Whip, London 1833. This pamphlet was to be cited 30. Josiah Conder, Wages or the abolition. Compare Patricia Hollis, Anti-Slavery and by MPs as justification for Radicalism', supporting in Bolt and Drescher, Anti-Slavery, Religion the and British Working Class 305-6. Conder's argument was based in part on Reform, pp. 294-315, on PP. Tale of Demerara: Illustrations of Political Economy, approach of Harriet Martineau's London 1832. Radical: The Life of Richard Oastler, New York 1946, and pP: 31. Cecil Driver, Tory Drescher, 'Cart Whip and Billy Roller; or Anti-Slavery 1981, 36-57. See also Seymour of Social History, vol. 15, Fall pp. in Industrial Britain', Journal Reform Symbolism Capitalism and Anti-Slavery, PP. 144-9. in Walvin, Slavery 3-24; and Drescher, Abolitionist Perceptions of Society after Slavery', which gave 32, David Eltis, 195-213, P. , New York 1946, and pP: 31. Cecil Driver, Tory Drescher, 'Cart Whip and Billy Roller; or Anti-Slavery 1981, 36-57. See also Seymour of Social History, vol. 15, Fall pp. in Industrial Britain', Journal Reform Symbolism Capitalism and Anti-Slavery, PP. 144-9. in Walvin, Slavery 3-24; and Drescher, Abolitionist Perceptions of Society after Slavery', which gave 32, David Eltis, 195-213, P. 199, 201. It was, of course, this period in which he and British Society, pp. Wakefield's famous theory of slavery and colonisation secure a rise to Edward Gibbon where land was freely available only slavery would or argued that in colonies was used to argue the need for restrictions permanent labour force; this observation thus obliging new settlers to work for wages. Cf. taxes on land use in new colonies, England and America, London 1834. did Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Three Months in Jamaica, London 1833. While he Whiteley slavery 33. Henry Whiteley, Hours Bill regulating factory work, found look forward to the passage of a Ten industrial districts; child labour is 'very bad' than the conditions in the more objectionable in the West Indies is 'infinitely worse' (p. 16). edited with but outright slavery Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, 34. The History of --- Page 481 --- British Slave Emancipation an introduction by Moira Ferguson, London 35. For a recent estimate of the 1987, pp. 83-4. Malcolm Thomis and Peter Holt, Threats (un)preparedness of the state at this time 1977, Pp. 87-9. The persistence of the of Revolution in Britain, see its minimal central localistic ideal within 1789-1848, London state, is remarkable. 'illegitimate an army in peace to protect the metropolis Lord Liverpool explained in 1819: monarchy', 'We must have with Parliament and the Bank. We must have a li.e.London), including as it does, the Dock Yards, and other regular force likewise for the King, the taught to protect itself.' great public depots - but the Property of the protection of our p. 81. For the onset of the Quoted in Hilton, Corn, Cash and Commerce, Country must be London 1973, Reform crisis see Michael Brock, London 1977, pp. 186-9. The Great Reform 36. Eric Hobsbawm and George Rudé, Act, 37. G.M. Trevelyan, Lord Grey of the Captain Swing, London 1976, p. 47. 38. Quoted in Trevelyan, Grey of the Reform Bill, London 1920, p. 287. 39. Thomas Babington Macaulay, Reform Bill, p. 311. 1889, PP. 483-92. Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches, London 40. Quoted in Thompson, The Making of the Thompson splendidly stresses Brougham's demagogic role as false English friend Working Class, p. 889. solid malicious portrait of Brougham, revealing that his to the radicals. For a 41. bourgeois foes, see Bagehot's essay on him in demagogy also earned him Trevelyan, Grey of the Reform Bill, p. 261. Biographical Essays. questioned by John Cannon, Parliamentary The perils of the 'Days of May' are 242-63, but even in his account the of Reform, 1640-1832, Cambridge the King. Under the regime of peace the realm turns on the political 1973, pp. could still play a decisive role; see 'illegitimate also monarchy', now on its way out, the sagacity monarch of of Parties', Historical Journal, XIII, B.W. Hill, "Executive Monarchy and the 42. Quoted in Hurwitz, Politics and 1970, pp. 379-401. Challenge 43. Mary Turner, 'The Baptist War and the Public Conscience, Pp. 121-2. XIII, 1982. Sce also M. Craton, Abolition', Jamaica Historical Review, vol. turns on the political 1973, pp. could still play a decisive role; see 'illegitimate also monarchy', now on its way out, the sagacity monarch of of Parties', Historical Journal, XIII, B.W. Hill, "Executive Monarchy and the 42. Quoted in Hurwitz, Politics and 1970, pp. 379-401. Challenge 43. Mary Turner, 'The Baptist War and the Public Conscience, Pp. 121-2. XIII, 1982. Sce also M. Craton, Abolition', Jamaica Historical Review, vol. Slavery, London 1985, Pp. 110-31. 'Emancipation from Below?' in J. Hayward, Out 44. Gash, Aristocracy and the People, of 45. C.H. Phillips, The East India p. 147. 46. Thompson, The Making of the Company, 1784-1834, Manchester 1968, 294. 47. For this and many other English Working Class, p. 901. P. Patricia Hollis, "Anti-Slavery and expressions British of radical hostility to abolitionism see Reform', in Bolt and Drescher, Working Class Radicalism in the Years of especially Pp. 296, 299-30. William Anti-Slavery, Cobbett and Religion and Reform, Pp. 294-315, outstanding that black popular journalists of the day, embellished Bronterre O'Brien, the two most slaves were far better off than with racist epithets the Undoubtedly some of their animus is to be English agricultural labourers or argument had, as suggested above, enabled explained by the very fact that mill-hands. there was no doubt popular racial middle-class reform to win a popular anti-slavery While slavery fecling. The West India Committee prejudice there is very little evidence following. of but these were mainly of those with did organise meetings with a popular pro48. Drescher, "Cart a direct stake in the colonies. large attendance, Methodist leader Jabez Whip or Billy Roller', Journal of Social voted for a "West Bunting, despite his long adherence to the History, Pp. 7-11. The election, because of his Indian', and against a radical anti-slavery abolitionist movement, Destruction of opposition to radical politics. Drescher, candidate in the 1832 49. Slavery', in Walvin, Slavery and British *Public Opinion and the Higman, Slave Population and Society, p. 30. 50. Charles Greville, A Journal of the Economy in Jamaica, p. 231. IV, ed. Henry Reeve, New York 1886, II, Reigns of King George IV and King William 51. Hurwitz, Politics and Public p. 139. anti-slavery Cobbett published the full Conscience, text of p. 81. As a sign of his new interest in 80, May 18th 1833, p. 433. this statement in the Political Register, vol. 52. Drescher, Capitalism and this time artisans were heavily Antislavery, pp. 120-34; Drescher out 23.5 per cent of English society over-represented in Nonconformist ranks. points that at yet 62.7 per cent of all Wesleyans and 63 They comprised per cent of the --- Page 482 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery token nearly every other social category - Baptists and Congregationalists. By the same ranks. Since nearly every adult in Nonconformist except miners - was under-represented abolitionist petition in 1833, this information Wesleyan Methodist in Britain signed an reached far outside the middle class in certainly establishes that support for anti-slavery this year. ed., The Holland House Diaries, 1831-40, London 1977, 53. Abraham D. Kriegel, James Stephen had elaborated an emancipation plan p. 208, 212-13. In fact the younger schemes are discussed in Green, British but it was not used. The various emancipation Slave Emancipation, pp. 114-20. Abolition of Negro Slavery and British Parliamentary Politics, 54. Izhak Gross, Journal, "The vol. 23, no. I, (1980), pp. 63-85. ed., The Holland House Diaries, 1831-40, London 1977, 53. Abraham D. Kriegel, James Stephen had elaborated an emancipation plan p. 208, 212-13. In fact the younger schemes are discussed in Green, British but it was not used. The various emancipation Slave Emancipation, pp. 114-20. Abolition of Negro Slavery and British Parliamentary Politics, 54. Izhak Gross, Journal, "The vol. 23, no. I, (1980), pp. 63-85. see 1832-3', Historical Guardian, July 1833. For the value represented by compensation no. 3, 55. Poor Man's Prices', Journal of Legal Studies, Fogel and Engerman, Philanthropy at Bargain element in the compensation amounted 1974. These authors estimate that the monetary the basis of current values, while the to 49 per cent of the value of slave would property have on been worth a further 47 per cent, giving the prospective sxyear'apprenucalipn Ward has argued that these estimates overstate a total compensation of 96 per cent. and that the compensation was worth value of the prospective six-year 'apprenticeship" values. Indeed, taking into account the decline in only 77 per cent of previous slave he suggests that the real compensation plantation valuations subsequent to emancipation, that most proprietors in no way welcomed to 60 cent. He also insists Cf. rate was nearer per on them by Parliament and public opinion. emancipation which they saw as imposed of British West Indian Plantation Slavery, Ward, "The Profitability and Viability that the planters did oppose emancipation SO long 1807-1834'. While it is worth noting out of fear that worse might befall able, and only settled for compensation The grant of as they were that they received was still very impressive. million in them, the level of compensation British revenue of only £54.5 £20 million compares with total Keith, government British Political Facts, 1830-1900, London 1831. See Chris Cook and Brandan 1985, P: 239. Law Report of 1834, S.G. and E.O. Checkland, eds, 56. Introduction, The Poor London 1974, Slavery p: 41. and Human Progress, p. 340, n. 26. was a Whig 57. Davis, David Cecil, Lord M., London 1954, PP. 9-10. Melbourne the arch58. Lord who no doubt took some glee in shocking he grandee with a distaste for humbug the West Indian blacks; the governments bishop. He had no particular animus favour against of the freedmen and women, under pressure from was to lead were to intervene in London the latter and the abolitionists. and Apprenticeship in the British West Indies, 59. W.L. Burn, Emancipation British Anti-Slavery, PP: 30-36. 1937, pp. 196-266; British Temperley, Slave Emancipation, pp. 35-49. 60. Mathiesen, British Anti-Slavery, pp. 36-41. 61. Temperley, British Slave Emancipation, p. 82. 62. Mathiesen, British Slave Emancipation, pp. 165-70. The Ordeal of Free 63. Green, contemporary survey see W.G. Sewell, York 1862), 64. For a well-documented West Indies, London 1968 (original edition New Labor in the British 79-80, 87, 245, 247-55. Sewell was a moderate bourgeois tribute to especially PP. 45, 71, 75, class and racial prejudices make the book's Jamaica, abolitionist; his naively expressed See also Douglas Hall, Free the freedmen and women all the more and impressive. for an informative survey,J.R. Ward, Poverty 1838-1865, New Haven 1959,p. 1800-1960, 193; London 1985, pp.31-45. (original edition New Labor in the British 79-80, 87, 245, 247-55. Sewell was a moderate bourgeois tribute to especially PP. 45, 71, 75, class and racial prejudices make the book's Jamaica, abolitionist; his naively expressed See also Douglas Hall, Free the freedmen and women all the more and impressive. for an informative survey,J.R. Ward, Poverty 1838-1865, New Haven 1959,p. 1800-1960, 193; London 1985, pp.31-45. and Progress in the Caribbean, of Jamaica, Cambridge 1957, pp. 49-51, 65. 247. For 65. G.W. Roberts, The Population see p. 309 and for higher fertility rates P. the lower mortality rates after emancipation pp. 191-229; Craton, Searching for 66. Green, British Slave Emancipation, reconstruction of the Worthy Park records shows Invisible Man, pp. 48, 116-7. Craton's which was most destructive of the plantation pattern, been that it was the fall of sugar prices uneconomic to engage as many labourers as had since this drop made it hopelessly of slavery (pp. 275-93). employed during the days p. 55. 67. Temperley, British Anti-Slavery, --- Page 483 --- XII Restoration Slavery French and 1848 lasted about six years, from 1810 to 1816 . . . It was "This period just as today one apes Parliament fashionable then to ape royalty, with chairmen, viceby forming all sorts of committees complete silk-growers, chairmen and secretaries; societies of flax-growers, the societies. We have even got to point agricultural and industrial evils in order to form societies to cure them.' of discovering social Cousin Pons (1847), Honoré de Balzac yourself, dear angel, if you imagine that its King 'You're deluding we're ruled by, and he has no illusions on that Louis-Philippe that as we all do, that above the Charter score himself. He knows, solid, adored, gracious, beautiful, there stands the holy, venerable, franc.' noble, ever young, almighty Cousin Bette (1847), Honoré de Balzac --- Page 484 --- --- Page 485 --- French Restoration Slavery Following the second Bourbon restoration it ment of Louis XVIII was reconciled seemed that the governthe failure of its to a ban on the slave trade and Louis intrigue to return Haiti ('St to gave a personal Domingue') to French rule. disavowing the slave trade. undertaking Yet the to the British Prince Regent seen to vindicate French colonial pressure on the French King to be than ever. Colonial proprietors, interests was as strong, or stronger, supporters of the Restoration; past and present, remained reliable Days' this was an after the experience of the 'Hundred believed that the important consideration. It was also generally flourishing prestige of France and of the colonies. Before the Revolution the monarchy required been the most dynamic and successful French sugar islands had Britain's colonies had been shown in the Caribbean; the value of Municipal delegations during the conflict with ministers of the need were soon at hand to remind the Napoleon. to restore the prosperity of the royalist publication in 1819 of Comte Chaptal's 'Balance' Atlantic ports. The underlined the colonial and mercantile of French commerce the surveys of Morreau de Jonnès achievements of the past, while Le (Prosperité des Commerce au Dix-neuvième Siècle, Colonies, 1822, and competition and future 1825) drew attention to present prospects. al delegations during the conflict with ministers of the need were soon at hand to remind the Napoleon. to restore the prosperity of the royalist publication in 1819 of Comte Chaptal's 'Balance' Atlantic ports. The underlined the colonial and mercantile of French commerce the surveys of Morreau de Jonnès achievements of the past, while Le (Prosperité des Commerce au Dix-neuvième Siècle, Colonies, 1822, and competition and future 1825) drew attention to present prospects. Despite its solemn undertakings the French show of banning the slave trade. A royal government made only a inforced by the Law of April 1818, declared ordinance of January 1817, retrading vessels, if apprehended, would that the captains of slavetheir cargoes would be liable be deprived of their licences and African coast in search of to seizure. A cruiser was sent to the West These were probably the minimum slave-traders in 1818, but to little effect. ensure its readmittance to the steps required if France was to ofa all its lost colonies European concert and regain 1817, (Senegal was not handed back the possession Guyane not until 1818). The Governors of the by British until simply turned a blind eye to a continuing French Caribbean relatively small size of the islands of clandestine traffic. The that enforcement of a slave trade ban Guadeloupe and Martinique meant real obstacle was that French posed no practical difficulties. The stock their plantation after a decade planters in were clamouring for slaves to rehad reached them. The French which no new supplies of slaves demand; in doing SO they also armateurs were keen to meet this West Africa. The fact that helped to restore the French in a legal Atlantic slave presence Spanish colonies (until 1820), and to Brazil trade persisted to the British planters in the 'new' colonies (until 1830), and that older Caribbean could buy slaves from Britain's been possessions, made it seem that the slave trade imposed on France's colonies as an act of ban had measure of competition; the misdeeds of revenge and as an unfair Napoleon were being visited --- Page 486 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery who had been staunch members of the royalist on French planters and political climate of the newly restored opposition. The intellectual about slavery or the the slave trade. monarchy encouraged few qualms for the fate of the Natchez, Chateaubriand, who made Europe weep the blacks, after the coldly inquired Who will now plead the cause of surviving member crimes they have committed?" The most prominent the Abbé Grégoire; as a of the former Amis des Noirs was association with constitutional priest and regicide his continuing Madame de Stael abolitionism scarcely recommended it trade to Legitimists. but since they were open to and her circle also opposed the slave Liberals their endorsement did not attack as Protestants, Anglophiles or run the failure of France's royal help abolitionism either. In the long out the slave trade to implement its commitment to stamp But the government reflect either on its competence or on its integrity. was bound to regime was to show its zeal in the overriding priority of the legitimist The Navy Ministry also had an pursuit of French interest and power. since its own establishment institutional stake in colonial rehabilitation, could be partially underwritten by colonial revenues. between vessels were sent out in 1814; The first French slave-trading new slaves were introduced to the that year and 1831 about 125,000 the course of about 700 voyages. trade to implement its commitment to stamp But the government reflect either on its competence or on its integrity. was bound to regime was to show its zeal in the overriding priority of the legitimist The Navy Ministry also had an pursuit of French interest and power. since its own establishment institutional stake in colonial rehabilitation, could be partially underwritten by colonial revenues. between vessels were sent out in 1814; The first French slave-trading new slaves were introduced to the that year and 1831 about 125,000 the course of about 700 voyages. 2 High Caribbean by French traders in to buy slaves, if possible prices for sugar and coffee made planters eager this demand. Slave and encouraged merchants to supply on credit, doubled since the 1780s but pent-up metropolitan prices had roughly drove forward a new colonial boom. demand for plantation produce significant protection and rose to Colonial commerce was accorded of total French trade. In the early account for just under 10 per cent was running at 50,000 tons a 1820s French colonial sugar production 80,000 tons, equivalent to the year and by 1828 it had reached over including St Domingue, in quantity produced in all French colonies, domestic this was enough to supply a greatly expanded the mid-1770s; trade. Colonial sugar, though itself market and a modest re-export tariff; by the late 1820s duties on protected, had to pay a stiff revenue million francs annually, equivalent to colonial imports raised 36-40 This contribution two-thirds of the entire budget of the Navy Ministry." obsessed with the the more since the Bourbons were was appreciated books and to avoid at all costs the need to balance the government's the events of 1788. Tariffs sort of financial crises which had precipitated with colonial trade limited to a on colonial imports were easy to collect, could recover the tariff paid on refew ports; as in the past, merchants exported sugar. administration and navy were restaffed with prominent The colonial interests. Following the death members of the mercantile and planting --- Page 487 --- French Restoration Slavery of Malouet in 1815 Baron head of the Colonial Bureau Portal, an armateur from Bordeaux, became Minister (1818-21). Portal (1815-18) and then replaced Molé as Navy Martinique and Foullon d'Ecotier reappointed Du Buc as Governor of Portal's successor to the in at the Colonial Bureau Intendancy Guadeloupe. royalist official in St Domingue. The was Mauduit, a ci-devant the Legitimist Restoration, Villèle, longest-serving Prime Minister of whose years 1821-8, was himself a planter from administrations spanned the this Indian Ocean colony Ile de Bourbon (Réunion); similar to those developed a slave plantation economy prevailing in the Caribbean and very quarter of France's colonial commerce. furnished about a not only made him familiar with the Villèle's colonial background him a certain planters' problems but also From 1826 the experience as an administrator and financial gave Colonial Bureau was administered manager. Hilaire, who was to win the confidence of the by Filleau de Saint department until 1842.4 planters and direct this The regime that was restored in the colonies replica of that which had been was a scaled-down Revolution. Not only was the Exclusif swept away in the course of the limited to just a few ports, restored but colonial trade was these towns did not quite amongst them Nantes and Bordeaux. While a comeback; Nantes, recover their former splendour they did partly thanks to the activities stage became a major of the slave-traders, Governors and Intendants manufacturing centre. In the colonies themselves the slaves were again once more discharged their functions while and the British had subject to the Code Noir of Louis XIV. resistance; the combined to stamp out the embers Napoleon of of resumption of the slave trade had the black furnishing the plantations with incidental benefit the Caribbean in the 1790s. Those labourers who had no memories of had been recognised blacks and mulattos whose by the freedom principle retained their status; this Bonapartist or British authorities in manumitted at government included some slaves who had been 1801-10. once more discharged their functions while and the British had subject to the Code Noir of Louis XIV. resistance; the combined to stamp out the embers Napoleon of of resumption of the slave trade had the black furnishing the plantations with incidental benefit the Caribbean in the 1790s. Those labourers who had no memories of had been recognised blacks and mulattos whose by the freedom principle retained their status; this Bonapartist or British authorities in manumitted at government included some slaves who had been 1801-10. Those who could expense to serve in the militia in the vulnerable to re-enslavement not prove their title to freedom years were authorities for service in special or were impressed by the colonial of the old colonial battalions of sappers. The regime encountered some reimposition was a slave outbreak at Carbet in opposition. In 1822 there followed by the execution of Martinique; its suppression was security measures subsequently seven participants and suspects. The resistance from free enforced by the authorities people of colour whose dwellings provoked anti-slavery materials. An educated free were searched for ofl his friends were arrested for mulatto, Cyril Bissette, and two the denial of civic possession of a pamphlet which rights to free people of colour. The attacked sentence passed --- Page 488 --- The Ouverthrow of Colonial Slavery in 1824 involved confiscation on these men by the colonial magistrature the - they were branded of their property and a life sentence to galleys were shocked at this savage Metropolitan liberals GAL in consequence. and the matter became something of a display of ancien régime justice cause célèbre.s incidents the subjugation of the mass of slaves Despite such serious and good profits were to be made by was successfully maintained merchants. The regime of slave labour on colonial planters and from that in Martinique Guadeloupe differed in one significant respect itself. The which had existed before 1789 in Guadeloupe or that which field slaves worked a shift in the notorious night-shift system, by The night-shift had mill as well on alternate nights, was not reinstituted. restored with slavery in during the 1790s and not been suppressed that this would provoke because it was anticipated 1802, presumably be worthwhile. The planters of Guadeloupe too much unrest to because of colonial protection received good prices for their sugar live with this concession; they may which made it easier for them to had raised discovered that suppression of the extra night-shift also have of the field slaves involved would be fertility, since a high proportion and Martinique the standard slave women. On both Guadeloupe would be sun-up to sun-down, excluding working day on the cash crop hours; they would have to cultivate meal breaks betwen nine and eleven 'free day' if they in the evenings and on their the provision grounds were to have enough to eat.6 colonial system of the Restoration The successfully rehabilitated sort. Under the ancien created problems of a new and unexpected the colonial market for régime the exclusifhad been designed to reserve rather to reserve the manufacturers. In the 1820s its effect was had French for French planters. Of course the Exclusif metropolitan market but in the eighteenth century always involved some reciprocity and cheapest producer of sugar in St Domingue had become the largest being clayed rather than raw the Americas, with much of its output out foreign sugars but The tariff system of the Restoration kept extending sugar. of metropolitan refineries by encouraged the growth tariff favouring French protection only to raw sugar. The preference price rather high. In turn colonial suppliers kept the metropolitan the sugar of a sugar beet this created conditions in the 1820s for re-emergence from beets had Methods for extracting sugar industry in the metropolis. sugar in St Domingue had become the largest being clayed rather than raw the Americas, with much of its output out foreign sugars but The tariff system of the Restoration kept extending sugar. of metropolitan refineries by encouraged the growth tariff favouring French protection only to raw sugar. The preference price rather high. In turn colonial suppliers kept the metropolitan the sugar of a sugar beet this created conditions in the 1820s for re-emergence from beets had Methods for extracting sugar industry in the metropolis. from Prussia in the last years of the Empire, been introduced to France had collapsed in the first years of the but most of these sugar factories had to pay a revenue tax sugar peace. However, while colonial sugar By the late 1820s about beet produced in the metropolis was ignored. by the beet refiners, not yet 5,000 tons a year were being produced --- Page 489 --- French Restoration Slavery enough to bring down sugar prices or to deprive market, but troubling to the latter all the colonial producers of a in ruling circles over the extent of tariff same. There was controversy over the remission of duty that protection of French sugar and exported colonial produce. This device was granted to merchants who redrew off supplies which would was costly for the Treasury and politan sugar prices. The price of otherwise have forced down metroelement in the cost of living. Some Atlantic sugar was, of course, a significant to meet the competition of beet merchants would have liked sugar from Brazil or Cuba. The sugar by importing the cheaper cane a tax on beet sugar were essential planters for the argued that protection and and naval establishment. The whole maintenance of the imperial not resolved by a commission of issue was publicly ventilated but 1828. inquiry set up by the government in The virtual exclusion of foreign internal market made this by far the sugars from France's growing Caribbean planters could cultivate. In most the profitable product that the about 50 per cent by value of French 1780s sugar accounted for cacao, indigo and coffee made the Caribbean exports while cotton, 1830s the planters of up remainder. In the 1820s and and concentrated Guadeloupe abandoned these on sugar until such 'secondary' crops cent of the colony's exports. The crops supplied less than 10 per British had long occupation of encouraged a switch from coffee Martinique by the there was a better British market for to sugar cultivation since exports of coffee had reached 3,400 the latter crop. Martinique's in 1820 and under 1,000 tons in 1788 but were 3,700 tons virtually 100 tons in 1835. While the colonies per cent of France's sugar in supplied supplied 49 per cent of its coffee and 3.9 imports 1821 they only textile manufacturers did not wish per cent of its cotton. French colonial cotton and looked to be burdened with the rather to the United high-priced raw material they needed. So far States for supplies of supplies accounted for a as coffee was concerned colonial imports; they did not receive steadily the dwindling proportion of French sugar. Sugar had always been regarded strong tariff protection accorded to crop and, given its great by colonial planters as the prime profitability in the persuaded to devote themselves to it. The 1820s, they were easily able to buy English processing sugar plantations had been there were about a dozen equipment in the years of steam occupation; The slave plantations in engines installed in Martinique in 1815. seventy-nine in the 1820s; this Guadeloupe had an average crew size of but in the given was on the low side for sugar conditions this did not plantations very lucrative.? , given its great by colonial planters as the prime profitability in the persuaded to devote themselves to it. The 1820s, they were easily able to buy English processing sugar plantations had been there were about a dozen equipment in the years of steam occupation; The slave plantations in engines installed in Martinique in 1815. seventy-nine in the 1820s; this Guadeloupe had an average crew size of but in the given was on the low side for sugar conditions this did not plantations very lucrative.? The prevent their operation willingness of the French being concentrate on sugar made it easier for France colonial planters to to reach a new --- Page 490 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery with Haiti, under the terms of which France commercial relationship to compensate expropriadmitted Haitian coffee and Haiti promised of wider This arrangement was a by-product ated French planters. diplomatic and military dispositions. concert of powers at the back into the European France was accepted in 1818 and was able to play an important Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle the affairs of Spain and its remaining part in the 1820s in arbitrating the Congress of Verona in 1822 American possessions. Following Alliance for an French invasion of France had the backing of the Holy of Ferdinand's absolutist Spain in April 1823, leading to the restoration French fleet was dispatched to the regime by September of that year. A of revolution there. It Caribbean with the aim of preventing the spread American the outcome of the conflict on the Spanish could not change deter the from mounting an mainland but it did help to Republicans Rico. for the liberation of Cuba or Puerto expedition now united under President Boyer, Paying a 'courtesy' visit to Haiti, to accept the obligation the French fleet pressed the Haitian government of St Domingue. The to the former proprietors the to pay compensation that the reconquest of Haiti was out of royalist government knew with for the St Domingue question but it needed to come up something had lost in France who property planters; the more SO since émigrés handsome compensation in the itself during the Revolution received was prepared to 1823-4. For its part the Haitian government years if this included French diplomatic recognition come to an arrangement to this Haiti was not recognised and a commercial agreement - up point of 150 milEventually Boyer agreed to pay an indemnity Since by any power. £6 million - to the former French proprietors. lion francs - about were worth about Haiti's means - total exports this sum was beyond was made to float £1.25 million annually at this time - an arrangement The loan proved in Paris to finance the compensation payments. a loan for the Haitian treasury, though for many years a crippling burden made. The Haitian government also agreed to a service payments were which lowered tariffs on French imports; commercial treaty with France Franco-Haitian trade but it limited the this agreement did promote raise revenue from tariffs. On the ability of the Haitian government to Haiti to become one of France's other hand, the agreement did permit of Charles X was one of the largest suppliers of coffee. The government of reaction. Yet in its in Europe in an epoch general for a most reactionary it became the first, and zeal to reward its old colonial supporters the black Republic. 8 long time the only, government to recognise the military and of the restoration in diplomatic, The successes that France was again undeniably a great power colonial fields meant to the sort of intervention it and for that reason itself less vulnerable --- Page 491 --- French Restoration Slavery This gain for France was not SO reassuring to had mounted in Spain. aroused only tepid loyalty amongst its own the dynasty, since the latter itself anew in a social formation which soldiers and had failed to root Revolution. old colonial supporters the black Republic. 8 long time the only, government to recognise the military and of the restoration in diplomatic, The successes that France was again undeniably a great power colonial fields meant to the sort of intervention it and for that reason itself less vulnerable --- Page 491 --- French Restoration Slavery This gain for France was not SO reassuring to had mounted in Spain. aroused only tepid loyalty amongst its own the dynasty, since the latter itself anew in a social formation which soldiers and had failed to root Revolution. Foreign bayonets had had been transformed by the Great 1814 and 1815, but as the restored the Legitimists to the throne in unlikely that this could 1820s progressed it appeared increasingly of a Republic might proclamation happen again - though admittedly The Legitimists had been given an have provoked some new intervention. the dynasty and failed to develop a opportunity in which to re-establish reconcile the different factions of political formula of rule which could by Talleyrand to classes. Louis XVIII had been persuaded the possessing charter, with a Chamber of Deputies elected endorse a constitutional franchise and guarantees for an on a narrow property-holders' ultras the King to satisfy the independent press. While the pressed reaction, some also defended material and symbolic demands of royalist laws of liberties and an uncensored press - the press a constitutional though publishers had to put up 1817 and 1818 lifted censorship, of irresponsibility which would be lost if they were found guilty bond lacked either the authority or the social basis or alarmism. The regime electing to clothe itself in the latter's of absolutism, while unwisely of Charles X in 1825 was an orgy unloved vestments. The coronation himself clerico-monarchist ritual; the King prostrated of medieval the traditional gesture of touching the before the archbishop, prior to himself delivered a sermon in prelate's scrofular, while the archbishop infringement of which he denounced the charter as a blasphemous Divine Right. of Charles X (1825-30) confronted a sharply The governments with poor harvests, multiplying deteriorating domestic economy, The Legitimists were not bankruptcies and rising unemployment. but their fear of debt led them responsible for the economic conjuncture Government distrust to raise taxes and retrench on public expenditure. of the National Guard in of the middle classes led to disbandment the ultra-royalist faction, the 1827. When Charles opted to rely on Journal des Débats declared: that bond of love and trust that tied the people Thus it is broken once again, the court with its old grudges, the to the monarch! Here they are again, with its hatred of freedom, emigration with its prejudices, the priesthood and the King. Koblenz, Waterloo, throwing themselves between France the three protagonists of our new 1815! These are the three principles, government" administration was defeated in the Chamber of Deputies When the new for new elections. Despite the limitations in June 1830 Charles X called --- Page 492 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavéry the Charles X issued an of the franchise these strengthened the opposition. Chamber but this time also ordinance in July again dissolving of election and clamping down on the drastically revising the method and in a matter of days Charles X was in press. The barricades went up of hand the opposition deputies and exile. Before matters could get out of the Hotel de Ville offered the Crown the moderate liberal bourgeois Orleans, after he promised to respect and to Louis Philippe, Duke of of the charter. Lafayette was strengthen the constitutional provisions National Guard and the Commander-in-Chief of a reformed appointed the fleur-de-lys as the national flag. tricolour replaced a minor part in the popular Colonial and slavery issues played only At a secondary level effervescence that overthrew the Legitimist regime. went up of hand the opposition deputies and exile. Before matters could get out of the Hotel de Ville offered the Crown the moderate liberal bourgeois Orleans, after he promised to respect and to Louis Philippe, Duke of of the charter. Lafayette was strengthen the constitutional provisions National Guard and the Commander-in-Chief of a reformed appointed the fleur-de-lys as the national flag. tricolour replaced a minor part in the popular Colonial and slavery issues played only At a secondary level effervescence that overthrew the Legitimist regime. colonial policy, that perception, also borne out by there was a popular concerned to advance the was chiefly the Legitimist government whatever the consequences for the mass interests of faithful monarchists rehabilitation of the French plantations had of the French people. The of cheap sugars from elsewhere; been achieved thanks to the exclusion remained very high. of in Paris in the mid-1820s the price sugar city to have a revolutionary journée Bordeaux was the only provincial of the longstanding civic in July 1830. In part this was an expression face of provocation. liberalism of the Bordelais in the excise ultra-royalist station and plantation However, rioters in the city attacked the could not afford to produce entered free of duty. The new regime SO the excise officers dispense with customs or taxes on consumption about sugar were to loom were soon back at work - though disputes large in the affairs of the July Monarchy. X would no doubt have occurred While the overthrow of Charles of a species of irrespective of colonial policy, the re-emergence discreet contribution to abolitionism in the 1820s did make a The colonial successes of monarchist formula. assembling an alternative as we have seen, at the cost of the Restoration had been brought, trade. the 1820s this was seen by a flouting the ban on the slave By to the dignity of widening circle of respectable opinion as derogatory to morality. If the Legitimist governments France as well as contrary trade ban then at least they could have had openly rejected the slave decrees against the slave adopted a consistent posture. But to disturbed publish bien pensants concerned traffic and then fail to enforce them monarchists took up the issue of the monarchy. Liberal at the integrity slave traffic, aware that here was an issue of of the clandestine Criticism of the slave trade international as well as national significance. Chrétienne, founded in orchestrated by the Societé de la Morale was highly respectable and moderate liberals. This 1821 and sponsored by of the preoccupations which agitated organisation exhibited many --- Page 493 --- French Restoration Slavery of of family Wilberforce and his milieu - the reform morals, of the promotion slave trade. The life, religious education as well as abolition drawn from the baute bourgeoisie society had a select male membership of Protestants. It and liberal professions, with an over-representation in 1827, yet their names had only 255 members in 1823, rising to 338 of the July Monarchy. read like a roll-call of the ministers and of notables the society. Others included Louis Philippe was himself a member Charles de Remusat, the Duc de Broglie, the Comte d'Argout, from the world of finance, Sébastiani, and Guizot together with, The writer Benjamin Constant Casimir Périer and the André brothers. committee; he campaigned, to the society's slave trade was Secretary the savage sentences passed on together with F.A. Isambert, against Bissette and his colleagues in Martinique. the critique of the In France in the 1820s as in Britain in earlier and years humanitarian terms. slave trade was not couched in purely moral attacks on the liberal economists Sismondi and J.-B. Say published The its connection with a wasteful and inefficient slave traffic, emphasising flourish in the artificial climate created labour regime which could only became linked to advocacy of free by tariff protection. Abolitionism of bankers and merchants who found trade and attracted the support of Charles X. against Bissette and his colleagues in Martinique. the critique of the In France in the 1820s as in Britain in earlier and years humanitarian terms. slave trade was not couched in purely moral attacks on the liberal economists Sismondi and J.-B. Say published The its connection with a wasteful and inefficient slave traffic, emphasising flourish in the artificial climate created labour regime which could only became linked to advocacy of free by tariff protection. Abolitionism of bankers and merchants who found trade and attracted the support of Charles X. irksome the protectionism of the governments of the Scottish Sismondi and Say also rehearsed the arguments more productive economists to the effect that free labour was of the political than slave labour. The slave trade committee and profitable Chrétienne organised a petition from French Société de la Morale that it was inimical to commercial merchants against the trade, arguing 150 merchants from the leading seagrowth; the petition was signed of by Nantes where only the Protestant ports - with the exception would come out against the slave shipbuilder Thomas Dobrée traffic. abolitionism did not engage in the campaigning This new French of its British counterpart. When the activity which marked the high-tide Paris against the trade in 1825 it was society presented a petition from had secured the support of 130 of 'the happy to announce that it reports and held meetings, published foremost citizens'. . It private the in the Chamber and in to be made in press, urged representations ministers and to the King. The considerable memoranda to government British abolitionists and from French support it received from without removing its political value Protestants limited its broad appeal failure of the executive to implement the to liberal monarchists. The liberal suspicion of the regime's Chamber's law of 1818 encouraged law with stiffer penalties against absolutist inclinations. In 1828 a new the was overthrown slave-traders was debated and passed, but dynasty --- Page 494 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery be clear whether this was to be enforced any more before it could effectively than its predecessor. maintained to the end that action against The Legitimist governments of the British demand for a the slave trade did not require acceptance demand was seen as arrogant and mutual right of search; the British for Britain's traditional demeaning, indeed little more than a cloak view and advocated maritime claims. The abolitionists took a different and the others would co-operation with London. Guizot, de Broglie approach was likely to have been aware that their more accommodating and would win sympathy from a power whose consent intervention recognition by the Holy facilitate any change of regime and deter any Alliance. Monarchy brought a speedy end to the The governments of the July colonies. The Comte d'Argout, as clandestine slave traffic to the French the slave trade in 1831. Navy Minister, introduced a new law against with the Minister, negotiated an agreement Sébastiani, as Foreign in stamping out the Atlantic slave London government to co-operate of search to the other in the case of trade; each state conceded a right mercantile marine was the more suspect vessels. The French navy and had regularly seized willing to concede this, since the British squadrons between 1817 and 1831 the French suspects without benefit of a treaty; 12 The French authorities had British had seized 108 French slave ships. to recover the slaves been poorly placed to protest and in no African position coast or settled in the who were generally returned to of the 1831 put an end to these unseemly British islands. The agreement occasioned. In 1833, with the Duc incidents and the legal tangles they right of search Minister, the Anglo-French de Broglie as Foreign Slave-trading vessels continued agreement was extended and reinforced. 1831 the French suspects without benefit of a treaty; 12 The French authorities had British had seized 108 French slave ships. to recover the slaves been poorly placed to protest and in no African position coast or settled in the who were generally returned to of the 1831 put an end to these unseemly British islands. The agreement occasioned. In 1833, with the Duc incidents and the legal tangles they right of search Minister, the Anglo-French de Broglie as Foreign Slave-trading vessels continued agreement was extended and reinforced. did not the French flag nor call to make for the Caribbean, but they fly over the 'right of search' at Guadeloupe or Martinique. the Controversy late 1830s and early 1840s, but the was to flare up again in trade had been brought to an end. specifically French slave were willing to reform the The governments of the July Monarchy be done cheaply and without colonial system in SO far as this could for re-exports was endangering property rights. The bounty The racial system code in the colonies was abolished and the Exclusif modified. abolitionists of the 1820s had taken up speedily dismantled. French somewhat in the spirit of their Girondin questions of civic equality the sentences passed on Bissette and forebears. The campaign against the of free people of his colleagues had drawn attention to persecution release from prison. In 1829 resulted in Bissette's colour and eventually and Guadeloupe petitioned the free people of colour in Martinique of their condition and received Chamber of Deputies for alleviation --- Page 495 --- French Restoration Slavery some support from liberal deputies. A 1830 ordered French colonial ministerial directive of November officials to imposed extra handicaps on free people of disregard all laws which 1832 set out a new framework colour. A royal ordinance of of legal rights. In 1833 there conferring on all free citizens an equality local whites were serious clashes in sought to intimidate free Martinique when black prisoners and people of colour, garrotting some wounding seven coloured Bissette, who remained in France, founded members of the militia. which he monitored the Journal des Colonies in incidents in Martinique. developments in the Antilles and publicised the Though those responsible for the Martinique were not brought to book the colonial outrages in henceforth kept the white colons on a administration themselves fully aware concessions tighter rein. As ministers were strengthened the colonial to the free people of colour slave regime. The two actually garrison of 6,000 troops, backed French Antilles had a militia; free people of colour up by 5,000-6,000 members of the militia units. 13 were recruited to both the regular and the In 1829 the abolitionists of the Société had advocating the gradual emancipation of the published a pamphlet French abolitionists still slaves. But in general the displaying lively approached this question concern for the property very gingerly, need to ensure continuing good order rights of slaveholders and the of 1831 had suppressed the and subordination. An ordinance prohibitive tax formerly manumission; a licence to manumit had required to register the price of a slave. This measure enabled cost 4,200 francs, or more than many thousands of libérés whose recognition of the freedom of doubtful. But like other reforms it did position had previously been as such. However, in 1834 the Duc de not encroach on the slave system Société de la Morale Chrétienne Broglie and other members of the pour l'Abolition de decided to set up a Société Francaise prompted by the dramatic l'Esclavage. This decision may well have been the Orleans dynasty had been advances of British anti-slavery. And since been seen as linked to abolitionism it is likely to necessary to the prestige of the have conjuncture in France, which remained regime. The political several years after the coup unsettled and menacing for Orleanists to reaffirm the liberal d'état, also encouraged prominent was the custodian. members of the pour l'Abolition de decided to set up a Société Francaise prompted by the dramatic l'Esclavage. This decision may well have been the Orleans dynasty had been advances of British anti-slavery. And since been seen as linked to abolitionism it is likely to necessary to the prestige of the have conjuncture in France, which remained regime. The political several years after the coup unsettled and menacing for Orleanists to reaffirm the liberal d'état, also encouraged prominent was the custodian. The bourgeois values of which the regime twist in the economic crisis change of regime was followed by a further electorate conceded and by republican attacks on the by the new constitution. narrow socialism made thousands of converts. It The new doctrine of unceasing conflict by promised to save society from imposing a - collective property a cure that was worse than the disease discipline on private Orleanist bourgeoisie. In 1834, in the eyes of the following an insurrection in Lyons, --- Page 496 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery to outlaw worker's combinations. This stringent measures were taken where some Orleanist notables felt the was a political and social climate liberal promise and in which bourgeois need to reassert the regime's extol the virtues of free labour. philanthropists felt the need to the endorsement of many leading The Abolition Society attracted Passy and Odilon Barrot. Yet it politicians, including Guizot, ineffective. Hyppolite For many years it eschewed any was to prove remarkably and concentrated on decorous statements appeal to a wider public to it. In 1837 Passy introduced a issued by the notables who belonged to be achieved by a 'free of the slaves, bill for gradual emancipation however, before the birth' clause and easier manumission arrangements; who joined the government as Chamber could decide on this Passy, remit his bill for further Finance Minister, was persuaded to another sponsor of the Abolition consideration. In 1839 de Tocqueville, proposal to the Chamber; Society, submitted a different emancipation in freeing all slaves after a six-year this followed the British legislation of 150 million francs for the "apprenticeship' with compensation slaves now to be found in the owners of the quarter of a million or SO them in the French Caribbean). French colonies (nearly 200,000 of tabled de bill for the managers also Tocqueville's However, government A committee on colonial slavery was set up, further consideration. de and including several representapresided over by the Duc Broglie Filleau de Saint Hilaire, head of tives of the colonial interest, notably commission undertook lengthy the Colonial Bureau. While this was agreed - 650,000 francs hearings an immediate palliative measure education of slaves in the colonies. 14 was voted to promote the moral the de Broglie committee produced a After several years' deliberations eloquent arguments for report in 1843 which marshalled summarised many objections to each and emancipation - it also skilfully its work method of accomplishing it. The commission approached to be carried every and practical spirit, refusing to allow itself with a cautious While short-term emancipation schemes away by emotion or rhetoric. because of the compensation payments were bound to be expensive, long-run solutions, freeing future that would have to be made, would at a certain point reduce generations through the 'free womb', they could sustain the the slave crews below the threshold at American which and North American impetus of gang labour. The Spanish 'free womb' did not rely on slave labour states which had adopted the of the French sugar like the extent that was characteristic to anything Commission recommended a ten year islands. The de Broglie the slaves would underwrite the programme of emancipation in which and to rewards of their own liberation; their right to a peculium cost their free day would encourage thrift and labour. for working on --- Page 497 --- French Restoration Slavery Despite their moderation the commission opposition and the government backed proposals provoked fierce Mackau, the Navy Minister and down. rely on slave labour states which had adopted the of the French sugar like the extent that was characteristic to anything Commission recommended a ten year islands. The de Broglie the slaves would underwrite the programme of emancipation in which and to rewards of their own liberation; their right to a peculium cost their free day would encourage thrift and labour. for working on --- Page 497 --- French Restoration Slavery Despite their moderation the commission opposition and the government backed proposals provoked fierce Mackau, the Navy Minister and down. In default of this Baron introduced a law of April 1845 a former governor of Martinique, amelioration measures and which incorporated a series of confirmed a ban on the supposedly facilitated manumissions. It families should have their whipping of female slaves. It stipulated that should have possession of own separate dwelling units and that slaves applied this Loi Mackau a garden and a free day to cultivate it. If slave condition. alleviated the slave lot without One advantage of which both cancelling the would have been most sensible is that it minister and deputies radical abolitionists argued that little cost very little. The more legislation, which would be frustrated was to be expected of such the planters and the administrators. thanks to the combined efforts of enrolled by 1845 in the schools Only twelve slaves had been new law led to few set up by the money voted in 1839. The Général in Guadeloupe prosecutions or manumissions. The Procureur satisfied with the soon drily noted that 'the colonists and the colonists magistrates are magistrates. This reciprocity is are satisfied with the planters attacked the law certainly significant. >16 Nevertheless the it had been introduced because it recognised slave rights and as an abolitionist because The various reforms undertaken measure. decline in slave numbers and a by the Orleanist regime led to some free population. Slave numbers corresponding fell in increase in the size of the to 93,000 in 1838 and reached Guadeloupe from 97,000 in 1831 number of slaves dropped from 88,000 in 1848; in Martinique the 75,000 in 1848. With the 86,500 in 1831 to 76,500 in 1838 and numbers ending of the slave trade was likely. However, the strength of the some dip in slave suffered less than the fall in numbers field gangs probably encouragement given to manumission led might suggest. The official slaves, while field slaves remained to the freeing of domestic Martinique rose from in bondage. The free population 23,000 in 1831 to over 40,000 in of Guadeloupe from 22,000 in 1831 to 35,000 in 1838. 1838, that of colour now outnumbered the white colons The free people of In Martinique the free people of colour as they had not in the 1790s. in 1838 and about a third of the owned about a ninth of the land The tariff urban dwellings. 17 abolished by protection the afforded to colonial sugar was reduced but differential duty governments of the July Monarchy. A 33.3 not helped to bring down per cent admitted a few thousand tons of sugar prices a bit but only the colonial sugar plantations foreign sugar a year. The real threat to domestic beet came from the sugar industry. development of the the early 1830s to 64,000 Output rose from 7,000 tons tons in 1848. 18 The planters annually in persuaded the --- Page 498 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery beet in 1837 but only opened up fierce Paris government to tax sugar of the between partisans of the two sugars. Representatives polemics concentrated in northern France, were naturally beet cultivators, On the other hand, the dignitaries inclined to question colonial slavery. The Duc de Broglie of the Abolition Society did not always reciprocate. that he supported continuing made it quite clear in his report of 1843 this was said partly to favourable treatment of the planters. throw of Colonial Slavery beet in 1837 but only opened up fierce Paris government to tax sugar of the between partisans of the two sugars. Representatives polemics concentrated in northern France, were naturally beet cultivators, On the other hand, the dignitaries inclined to question colonial slavery. The Duc de Broglie of the Abolition Society did not always reciprocate. that he supported continuing made it quite clear in his report of 1843 this was said partly to favourable treatment of the planters. Perhaps conduct of the moderate placate them, but in fact the whole and fellow feeling with, abolitionists displayed consideration towards, refiners and the smallholders of the colonial planters. The sugar beet that their product had northern France who supplied them were angry in the a tax in the interests of protecting planters been forced to pay Antilles. politicians to defend the interests of The disposition of Orleanist or protection from the Antillean planters, whether over emancipation they would have is puzzling, because of the political price beet interests, slave-owners undermined the July Indulgence to Caribbean of to pay. coherence and its ability to appeal to a layer Monarchy's ideological be by the regime's even greater the peasantry. It can partly explained institutions with a vested interest concern to defend those powerful slavery; the Treasury found sugar either in sugar taxation or in colonial armed forces saw colonies as an convenient while the taxation very The equalisation of sugar duties honourable outlet for martial energies. francs. This measure would also calculated to raise 17 million was continue collecting large revenues from colonial enable the customs to and other colonial products made sugar. The taxes placed on cane sugar in 1844 colonial trade only contribution to fiscal returns; of a major of all trade but it yielded 27 per cent accounted for 5 per cent that the average annual output of a customs receipts. It was calculated of sugar; at the going rate of duty slave on a plantation was 850 420 kilos francs to the Treasury per annum, each slave thus contributed stand for the Chamber had they been enough to entitle them to vote or free citizens of France. 19 by the Navy Minister and The sugar colonies were administered establishment. Several senior military provided justification for a naval to be Governor of Algeria men such as Clauzel, the General appointed of and contacts in the after the July Revolution, had experience the first Orleanist colonies. To dispel the uncertainty which plagued nominal head of Marshal Soult was brought in as the governments and this imperial veteran was to adorn regime, government in 1832 down to 1847. Military men saw colonial with a few short breaks, win fame and fortune; they would not expansion as an opportunity to ruined France's plantation colonies, with be happy with a policy which --- Page 499 --- French Restoration Slavery establishments, for the sake of some half-baked their military philanthropic ideology. beet producers had been left untaxed If France's domestic sugar 33.3 cent, then many colonial while colonial sugar still had to pay per the wall. The excessively planters would certainly have gone to of the July Monarchy moderate abolitionists who filled the Cabinets and deprive the realised that this would bankrupt the sugar of their plantations economic raison d'être. French Antilles and Réunion of most they deemed it only fair to Planning some day to move against slavery of As it was the sugar equalise the duties paid on the two types sugar. 1830 onwards as the planters ran into severe problems from as well as the metropolitan price tumbled; beet sugar competition in tariff protection generalised economic downturn and the reduction the taxes did not produced this fall. The 1837 decision to equalise refineries sugar to be closed in the satisfy the planters who asked for the beet of colonial Frenchmen. Indeed the planters' representatives interests with indemnification (of the beet refineries) advocated expropriation abolitionists demanded rather more vigorously than the parliamentary equivalent measures to eliminate Nantes slavery. and Le Havre had no relish for The bourgeoisie of Bordeaux, traditional reason. The Antillean planters slave emancipation for a very often secured on the value of their owed them large sums of money, the 1830s had greatly aggravated the properties. closed in the satisfy the planters who asked for the beet of colonial Frenchmen. Indeed the planters' representatives interests with indemnification (of the beet refineries) advocated expropriation abolitionists demanded rather more vigorously than the parliamentary equivalent measures to eliminate Nantes slavery. and Le Havre had no relish for The bourgeoisie of Bordeaux, traditional reason. The Antillean planters slave emancipation for a very often secured on the value of their owed them large sums of money, the 1830s had greatly aggravated the properties. The drop in prices in without having intended it, perennial indebtedness of the planters; credit converted into longmetropolitan merchants found short-term accumulated debt rose In Guadeloupe the planters' term mortgages. francs in 1836 to 94 million francs in 1842. Those from 70 million in case holding these debts thus looked to compensation arrangements The whole that would enable them to be discharged. of emancipation further complicated by the fact that they question of planters' debts was from seizure in case of default. The aim traditionally enjoyed protection the integrity of the plantation as a of this protection was to preserve local creditors from seizing slaves or productive ensemble; it prevented of the planter but of his other equipment to the detriment not only Mackau further reinforced the creditors. The proyisions of the Loi slaves more immobility of the factors of production since they gave of slave plantation and prevented the break-up rights in a given families. 20 of the Atlantic ports was not positively pro-slavery The bourgeoisie advocate the most cautious measures in the and preferred simply to The regime of Louis Philippe was strongly handling of colonial slavery. the various compromises on colonial supported in Bordeaux as were The Courier de la slavery approved by the Chamber of Deputies. --- Page 500 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery that the Loi Mackau was most judicious: We will see Gironde thought beings brutalised by the most whether liberal slavery, which tempers them laborious, intelligent and rude barbarism in order to make end towards which Christian, will not better achieve the which emancipatory tends to keep them at the the world moves than wild liberty fallen. 21 bottom of the ladder where they have slave was left to a busy The task of positively justifying the colonial regime themwell-funded clique maintained by the proprietors and defended the planters in the Paris selves. Adolphe Granier de Cassagnac and deputies. The and in pamphlets that were sent to all peers press were at least assured of a respectful hearing larger colonial proprietors maintained establishments in Paris: 'the in the official circles. Many creole families, were integrated into large Antillean planters, the great often attending the same Parisian the world of the notables, their sons schools. 22 of the understood the need to leaders regime The more far-sighted Without decisive action it tackle the thorny question of colonial slavery. The halfof its amour-propre. could only rob the Orleanist bourgeoisie the further disadvantage of measures actually adopted had labour way efficient colonial producers of the they depriving the most of steam power and more industrial needed to take proper advantage interests of the slaveprocessing methods. Undoubtedly the property they could not the heart of the problem. On the one hand, owners were on the other, the cost of simply be expropriated without excessive. compensation; This problem was very much compensating them was found accentuated by the very nature of the regime. into for forms of government in France had run problems Previous of the possessing classes. The July being insufficiently representative of propertied interests. It Monarchy was, by contrast, too representative and without sufficient represented them, as it were, indiscriminately which would assert general class provision for mediating institutions of the Orleanist regime Jardin interests. In a discussion of the nature and sugar as textbook and Tudesq cite the paralysis over slavery examples of the regime's failings: of the central power was neutralised by opposing pressure The effectiveness material interests (as in the case of the two kinds groups representing either or moral interests. . The July being insufficiently representative of propertied interests. It Monarchy was, by contrast, too representative and without sufficient represented them, as it were, indiscriminately which would assert general class provision for mediating institutions of the Orleanist regime Jardin interests. In a discussion of the nature and sugar as textbook and Tudesq cite the paralysis over slavery examples of the regime's failings: of the central power was neutralised by opposing pressure The effectiveness material interests (as in the case of the two kinds groups representing either or moral interests. The of sugar, the very symbol of a hopeless predicament) of slavery in the colonies, was favourable to the abolition Guizot government but since no about its methods . and SO was public opinion continued. 23 agreement could be reached, the status quo furnishing the was sacrosanct for the July Monarchy, Private property system. Its Finance Ministers were basis and principle of its political --- Page 501 --- French Restoration Slavery or income since these were seen as keen to avoid taxes on property individual and harbingers of socialism. infringements of the rights of the hollow imitation of the ancien The Legitimist order had been a The Orleanist regime was, by régime, or of some medievalistic fantasy. model of illegitimate monarchy'. In contrast, influenced by the British mixed Wars Britain's supposedly the aftermath of the Napoleonic than ever before. The Gallic edition constitution enjoyed more prestige than the original yet, beneath was in some ways more tidy and logical it bore to it a definite family all differences of epoch and situation, of the state and army was resemblance. The administrative apparatus and the state collected its larger but office-holding was not hereditary confused with the The finances of the state were no longer own taxes. the public funds and budget acted as a capitalist monarch's household; in Thiers' phrase, was meant to 'reign not regulator. The monarch, III, Louis Philippe did not quite see it govern', though, as with George land of financiers, of industrial this way. France was increasingly landlords a and peasants. Defying any promoters, of incipiently capitalist the Legitimist notables were simple equation of politics and economics the same could be often in the vanguard of agricultural improvement; who began to adopt the new said of some of their Antillean cousins, used in the beet sugar factories. integrated methods of sugar extraction was, of course, far The social weight of the smallholding France peasantry than it had been in greater in early nineteenth-century an obstacle to the developcighteenth-century Britain. This constituted And in France a semiment of large-scale capitalist farming. large claims on national autonomous military caste was able to make to the elementary expectations resources. But the state corresponded financiers and and needs of the notables: large landed proprietors, on a national or bankers, merchants and manufacturers operating of fire with scale. They had passed through a baptism international and Legitimism. They wanted a sovereign Jacobinism, Bonapartism the democratic rabble and to power strong enough to overawe but too weak to invade their property guarantee the national debt; adventures. The government should be rights and to embark on ruinous though not to the vast mass of responsible to the tax-paying proprietors indeed swelled the taxes on consumption; citizens whose expenditures in the sphere of circulation began to overtake the contribution of taxes Charles X and taxes on income were unthinkable. taxes on property flee in part by the collapse of confidence in had been persuaded to public bonds and a threatened tax strike. French 'illegitimate perfectly fitted the bill for a Louis Philippe cadet branch of the Bourbons he could monarch'. As the member of a As a monarch he could focus not hope to impose a wilful royal power. ponsible to the tax-paying proprietors indeed swelled the taxes on consumption; citizens whose expenditures in the sphere of circulation began to overtake the contribution of taxes Charles X and taxes on income were unthinkable. taxes on property flee in part by the collapse of confidence in had been persuaded to public bonds and a threatened tax strike. French 'illegitimate perfectly fitted the bill for a Louis Philippe cadet branch of the Bourbons he could monarch'. As the member of a As a monarch he could focus not hope to impose a wilful royal power. --- Page 502 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery As the son of Philippe Egalité, traditional loyalties in a harmless way. of he did of the constitution in 1791 and veteran Jemappes, supporter social order. But, just as important, not threaten the post-revolutionary legitimacy of popular assemblies and he lacked the dangerous had made Louis Philippe as plebiscites." 24 These various attributes he was to a decisive nucleus of acceptable to the European powers as they did not equip the the French possessing classes. However, with the great Antillean planters or Orleanist regime for a confrontation France's colonial possessions. for any policy that would jeopardise had been underpinned by colonial Britain's illegitimate monarchy' of the Orleanist regime were expansion, and the North African projects for martial energies and surplus now thought to supply a a safe outlet population. the charter for colonisation in Abolitionism itself helped to provide de l'Afrique advocated 'a great Africa. In the years 1842-8 an Institut the of the African work, the colonisation of Africa, and regeneration and the slave trade'. This people by means of the abolition of slavery abolitionists like Thomas Fowell body enjoyed the backing of British and of the Governor of Buxton, of Isaac L'Ouverture (son of Toussaint) that 'there can be no solid Algeria, General Bugeaud, who warned colonisation'.2 25 The colonialist achievement in Africa without European the slave trade in Africa but it was not ethos might permit attacks on conducive to emancipation in the Antilles. echoed of the the of the juste milieu something Just as politics oligarchy, SO the frustrated abolitionism outlook of the late Hanoverian in common with the meliorist of Guizot or de Broglie had something the of the Orleanist gestures of a Pitt or Canning. It made of a governments more radical and consequent regime vulnerable to the development inclinations. The Société pour l'Abolition abolitionism, with republican somewhat more secular and radical de l'Esclavage had attracted a la Morale Chrétienne though one membership than the Société pour of the wealthy; the mulatto Bissette drawn exclusively from the ranks because he could not afford the did not become a member, either to feel out of place. 26 subscription or because he was made Victor Schoelcher, son of a The outstanding younger abolitionist was the daily reality of manufacturer; he had encountered large porcelain his father sent him on a tour of the Caribbean in 1829-30 slavery when outlets. Schoelcher was in Mexico City when the in search of colonial announced. He sent accounts of decree abolishing slavery there was Paris magazine and advocated slave markets and slave punishments to a he was attracted by the ending of slavery. On his return a gradual and socialist opposition but soon devoted projects of the republican on the slavery question, eventually himself mainly to agitation --- Page 503 --- French Restoration Slavery houses to emancipation could not becoming convinced that faith half-way of the planter class. In a series of articles work because of the bad schemes of ameliorhe pointed to the weakness of the parliamentary officials and planters. In ation and to their frustration by recalcitrant L'Abolition de l'Esclavage, with 1840 he published a booklet entitled contre la Couleur des the subtitle Examen Critique des Préjugés another trip to the Africains et des Sang-mëlés, and in 1842, following colonies subtitled Abolition Antilles, a substantial work on the French Immédiate de l'Esclavage. work because of the bad schemes of ameliorhe pointed to the weakness of the parliamentary officials and planters. In ation and to their frustration by recalcitrant L'Abolition de l'Esclavage, with 1840 he published a booklet entitled contre la Couleur des the subtitle Examen Critique des Préjugés another trip to the Africains et des Sang-mëlés, and in 1842, following colonies subtitled Abolition Antilles, a substantial work on the French Immédiate de l'Esclavage. 27 P'Abolition de P'Esclavage In the years 1839-40 the Société pour Victor Hugo, Louis Blanc, received a new influx of members including like de Broglie who were now Lamartine and Cavaignac. Those colonial policy were not thoroughly implicated in the government's from making itself felt well placed to prevent a more radical approach elected President of the in the abolitionist ranks. In 1840 Lamartine was sympathies his society. Despite Lamartine's radical, indeed republican, been fairly cautious. In position on colonial slavery had up to this point 1836 he had warned the Chamber: that each inflammable word pronounced here touches We must not forget of or the anxiety of the colons, but not simply the conscience hundred our colleagues thousand slaves; that which we discuss also reaches the ears of three from this tribune, concerns the property, the calmly and without danger in the colonies.2 fortune and the life of our compatriots and statesman saw that the whole issue of By the 1840s the liberal poet fudged and that it exposed the colonial slavery could not be indefinitely Indeed the demoralising fiasco of regime to very damaging attacks. colonial slavery could be seen as Orleanist policy with respect to solutions to the 'social symptomatic of the regime's failure to propose were prepared to urge Schoelcher and Lamartine question' at home. but they still thought it politic to propose immediate abolition, Likewise they envisaged regimes of compensation to the slave-owners. would encourage the former slaves not transition from slavery which cash crop cultivation. simply to abandon large-scale broadened or the scope of its activities in the midThe Abolition Society from British anti-slavery bodies the society 1840s. With financial help the Abolitioniste Français. A petition began publication of a journal, Schoelcher and Bissette attracted the against slavery drawn up in by the Paris region in 1844. The King was signature of 7,000 workers of his government looked bad; in 1846 himself aware that the paralysis all slaves belonging to the royal domain. he issued an ordinance freeing of Bissette, presented to the In April 1847 Fabien, a mulatto colleague --- Page 504 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery for immediate emancipation signed by Chamber a petition calling and Protestants combined in 11,000 citizens. Liberal Catholics contained the signatures of several supporting this petitition which The liberal Catholics around the hundred priests and pastors. for the abolition of slavery and declared newspaper L'Univers called in 1848 that would be aimed at their willingness to back a new petition in 1847. The Archbishop broader public than those who had signed a he wrong with this activity on the of Paris announced that saw nothing part of the Catholic laity.2 difficult, was easy The issue of slavery in the colonies, though which confronted compared with the harsh choices and polarisations the of silkclass conflicts, such as uprising France itself. hundred priests and pastors. for the abolition of slavery and declared newspaper L'Univers called in 1848 that would be aimed at their willingness to back a new petition in 1847. The Archbishop broader public than those who had signed a he wrong with this activity on the of Paris announced that saw nothing part of the Catholic laity.2 difficult, was easy The issue of slavery in the colonies, though which confronted compared with the harsh choices and polarisations the of silkclass conflicts, such as uprising France itself. Desperate in the wake of capitalist weavers in Lyons in 1834, were erupting of workers and their families industrialisation, while large numbers when there were bad harvests and were threatened by actual starvation 1846-8. The political classes were downturn as in an economic with the workings of the electoral system. increasingly dissatisfied Lamartine urged a wider franchise, even 'universal Oppositionists like which would cater to all Frenchmen suffrage' to produce a government activity was subject and not simply a narrow elite. Since legal political was organised in 1847 to regulations a banquet campaign to stiff police of the franchise, an 'end to corruption', the urge an extension and programmes for the 'abolition of restoration of political integrity', citizens subscribed to the poverty through work."' About 22,000 that number came to listen to the banquets while about three times campaign was only a descant to toasts and speeches. The anti-slavery both had a momentum dangerous for the this chorus of agitation, but prevailing order.2 electoral reform and called on The King refused to countenance any the attempted cancellation of a Molé to form a government. Following clashes with troops that resulted in fifty banquet in Paris there were the refused any longer to defend dead. The National Guard in capital the Tuileries. On the government and a threatening crowd approached abdicated in Louis Philippe February 24th the seventy-five-year-old În its critical hour the Orleanist regime favour of his infant grandson. and even if it had it might still have been failed to find a strong man In Britain in 1832 the far engulfed by the tide of popular republicanism. had been more skilfully defended by better rooted Hanoverian regime and when to stand his William IV, who had known when to give way in his andi lin Lord Grey he had found a more capable accomplice ranks of ground; than had been forthcoming from the discredited hour of need Orleanist politicians. movement a provisional In an attempt to rein in the surging popular --- Page 505 --- French Restoration Slavery government was formed at the Hotel de Ville members were drawn from the Paris on February 24th. Its opposition. Amongst them municipality and the were Louis Blanc, parliamentary Ministry, Ledru-Rollin at Home Affairs Lamartine at the Foreign Ministry - all former and Arago at the One of the few sponsors or members of the Abolition Navy members of the provisional Society. could not be said was Albert, leader of government of whom this societies whose members had one of the proletarian secret barricades played a critical part throughout the capital. by erecting planters' Arago was immediately colonists' representatives in Paris to give a commitment pressed by property would be respected. He that the them but invited Victor was inclined to reassure Bureau of the Ministry. Schoelcher to join him as chief of the Colonial of March 3rd and Schoelcher arrived at the Ministry on the issued persuaded Arago that an immediate night by the provisional government. He decree should be "In the name of the French produced a draft which read: Republic, considering that people, the provisional government of the slaves, Decrees that: no French territory can a Commission is set within any longer hold Ministry of the Navy and Colonies up the provisional possible an act of immediate to prepare within the shortest time Republic. join him as chief of the Colonial of March 3rd and Schoelcher arrived at the Ministry on the issued persuaded Arago that an immediate night by the provisional government. He decree should be "In the name of the French produced a draft which read: Republic, considering that people, the provisional government of the slaves, Decrees that: no French territory can a Commission is set within any longer hold Ministry of the Navy and Colonies up the provisional possible an act of immediate to prepare within the shortest time Republic. The Ministry of the emancipation in all the colonies of the present decree. 30 Navy is charged with execution of the On March 3rd Schoelcher had just his arrival at the office of the returned from Senegal. Prior to reassuring message to the Governors Navy of the Ministry Arago had sent a their posts. However, when Schoelcher Antilles confirming them in was needed Arago and other members insisted that immediate action supported him. At least one member of of the the provisional government Marrast, future maire of Paris, was provisional government, members of the commission sympathetic to the planters. Several immediately to emancipation argued that it was wrong to proceed Assembly to convoke; and without waiting for the Constituent Assembly from deciding a fortiori it was wrong to pre-empt the citizenship. whether the freedmen should be Schoelcher, who knew that the hour to given through all objections and diversions. He strike had come, cut the commission and on the was able to impose his will on a majority which government because both bodies contained feared respected him - and to become the target of his considerable obstructionist minorities who Schoelcher was appointed talents as a polemicist. President of the Commission Under-Secretary for the Colonies as well as official of the colonial on Slavery. The Commission comprised an artillery officer and Henri bureau, a lawyer, a clockmaker, a mulatto and slavery in the Ancient Wallon, author of a treatise on World. Schoelcher Christianity was given authority to --- Page 506 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery April 15th the commission had elaborated a arbitrate disagreements. By with the text of twelve detailed decree emancipating the slaves together credit and civic rights, education, agricultural other decrees concerning administration. The slaves were to be every other branch of colonial the date of the proclamation of the entirely free two months from the fifth clause of the decree the National abolition decree. According to of the indemnity which should be Assembly was to decide 'the size other edicts one provided the given to the colons'. 31 Amongst the finance the institutions of a society colonies with 26 million francs to nurseries, clinics, and labour based on free labour, such as schools, to qualify for Adult males freed from slavery were immediately of courts. decrees' extended to the colonies the system the vote. The 'social workshops) which were to be such a ateliers nationaux (national of the Provisional government. controversial feature of the programme to work' while those who The former slaves were promised the 'right (social security). In the infirm the droit au secours were ill or enjoyed cantonaux to arbitrate conflicts; these localities there were to be jurys the and three of the of employers bodies had three representatives of the peace as chairman. A Fête du workers, with the local justice celebrate emancipation day. 32 The Travail was to be held each year to by the Provisional crucial decree on emancipation was approved in the Moniteur on May 2nd, government on April 27th and published the day before the opening of the Assembly. or violent to 1848 there were no large-scale In the years prior which might be compared with the outbreaks of slave resistance, a lull Caribbean in the 1780s or in the absence of slave revolts in the French 1816. , with the local justice celebrate emancipation day. 32 The Travail was to be held each year to by the Provisional crucial decree on emancipation was approved in the Moniteur on May 2nd, government on April 27th and published the day before the opening of the Assembly. or violent to 1848 there were no large-scale In the years prior which might be compared with the outbreaks of slave resistance, a lull Caribbean in the 1780s or in the absence of slave revolts in the French 1816. But the parallel does not British Caribbean in the years before of the pre-1848 French Antilles. itself explain the relative quiescence and Guadeloupe must Sizeable military forces present in Martinique had also been the case in have helped to deter slave resistance, as in 1791-1815. In addition to St Domingue in 1776-84 and in Jamaica the Governors of the garrison of 3,000 regular troops apiece a nominal could also each call upon a militia force of 5,000 two French colonies coloured as well as white population; the or SO, drawn from the of colour had broadened the base Orleanist concessions to free people was certainly still a of the slave regime in the Antilles. Marronage islands included mountain problem; the regular troops stationed on the in the interior. regiments specially trained to track down fugitives of the slaves had Schoelcher believed that the material position and because the improved somewhat as a result of the new regulations interest in the ending of the slave trade gave the planters a stronger However, he stressed survival and reproduction of their slave crews. subject to the arbitrary that the slave was still in all essential respects --- Page 507 --- French Restoration Slavery and commandeurs; since it was this as much domination of the planters slave resistance, amelioration conditions which inspired as material stimulate unrest, as they had done in British measures could even that slave awareness of the debates over Guyana. It seems likely the decade or SO prior to 1848. The Chamber abolition grew steadily in debates on slavery and had of Deputies had held several major set-piece on the subject. While commissioned its most senior members to report of slavery the most there were some who came out openly in defence who insisted that the only authoritative statements were by ministers would lead most securely and real dispute was over which methods have hoped to benefit from the Some slaves may safely to emancipation. provisions of the 1845 law. The creole manumission and apprenticeship which might be expected to follow proportion of the slave population, in 1848 Africans such debates most attentively, was growing; compared with 46 constituted only 14 per cent of the slave populaton became concerned at the cent in 1790. In the 1840s the authorities per subversive variety of Freemasonry; two important development of a ordered to be disbanded in 1846. There lodges on Martinique were on the plantations was harder to were also reports that labour discipline Antilles in the 1840s were biding maintain. The slaves of the French for them to The relative ease with which it was possible their time. islands may also help to explain the absence of escape to nearby British of slave escapes of this sort and plantation risings. Planters complained of both successful and failed attempts. Schoelcher publicised a number Monarchy and of the decree The news of the overthrow of the July Antilles. The colonial of March 4th had an electric impact in the French the of the the islands did their best to lower expectations officials on on Martinique issued a slaves. The chief of the interior department Nothing is changed up to the statement on March 31st warning: of the law.' The You remain slaves until promulgation that the present. dampened hopes on April 3rd. He conceded Governor further receive their freedom because their masters slaves would in due course wished it', and he added: existed in France. . The colonial of March 4th had an electric impact in the French the of the the islands did their best to lower expectations officials on on Martinique issued a slaves. The chief of the interior department Nothing is changed up to the statement on March 31st warning: of the law.' The You remain slaves until promulgation that the present. dampened hopes on April 3rd. He conceded Governor further receive their freedom because their masters slaves would in due course wished it', and he added: existed in France. It proclaimed During the time of your fathers a republic without organising labour. It liberty without indemnity for the owners, that they would have to work and thought that the slaves would understand deserted their work and became avoid creating disorder. But they the to put you back into increasingly unhappy. They forced government slavery," had been proclaimed was received favourably The news that a Republic colour. Towards the end of April the by many of the free people of began to move, thousands of slaves on many plantations in Martinique --- Page 508 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and the other towns. The Governor of them streaming into St Pierre 28th that the definitive emancipation Martinique warned Paris on April and that the least incident with every steam packet law was expected Slaves simply abandoned the plantations and could turn into a revolution. discussing the situation. The groups of slaves were seen everywhere blacks took their fate into their slave order was simply decomposing hesitated as to order repressive action own hands. The colonial authorities would obey orders. But on May and doubted that the coloured troops one at St Pierre in which 22nd there were several clashes, including Governor feared an explosion. On thirty-five slaves lost their lives. The received of the abolition decree of May 23rd, still with no news yet to declare slavery at an April 27th, the Governor urged the municipality vote it did SO. The Governor end without further ado; in a unanimous the de la force all anciens citoyens to rally to agents also urged publique. 34 and clashes in Martinique helped to stir News of the demonstrations the Commercial of similar unrest in Guadeloupe. The planters' journal seize the initiative: the authorities to April Sth had already urged that failure to take the If one consults history one sees, on every disasters. page, Let us fear divisions, initiative leads to large and irreparable in communism, all of which parliamentary struggles, noxious experiments and will habituate the slave to would have their repercussions in the colonies 35 discussions, to parties and to disorders. public assessment of the situation from This candid, and in its own way reinforced lucid, by their awareness that the the planters' point of view was of productive effort and political disturbances had led to a slackening situation. On May 27th the discipline as the slaves tested the new unconditional abolition of municipal council in Guadeloupe declared Réunion did emancipation await slavery. Only in French Guyana and the two-month delay the arrival of the decree of April 27th or respect for which it called. Schoelcher argued that only the swift action With some justification had averted an explosion. The slave of the provisional government and the subsequent municipal decrees demonstrations of April and May that the new Republic had, as of abolition came in the wake of the news would be ended. In default of one of its first acts, declared that slavery the further bloody clashes feared such news there might well have been With abolition declared in by the planters and colonial officials. be relied on to repress principle the troops and militia could no longer now the slaves and the planters retreated; their main preoccupations with which and labour legislation. The speed became compensation --- Page 509 --- French Restoration Slavery Schoelcher's commission had moved to elaborate helped to consolidate the a new colonial regime commission were sent to the Antilles emancipation process. Members of the decrees: Perrinon, the mulatto to supervise implementation of the Gatine, a lawyer, to artillery officer, was sent to Martinique, returned to their Guadeloupe. and militia could no longer now the slaves and the planters retreated; their main preoccupations with which and labour legislation. The speed became compensation --- Page 509 --- French Restoration Slavery Schoelcher's commission had moved to elaborate helped to consolidate the a new colonial regime commission were sent to the Antilles emancipation process. Members of the decrees: Perrinon, the mulatto to supervise implementation of the Gatine, a lawyer, to artillery officer, was sent to Martinique, returned to their Guadeloupe. In most cases the former slaves and garden plots. plantations, The animated by attachment to their homes instances the libérés sugar harvest was not complete though in republican were persuaded to work for a few weeks some constitution provided for the French more. The representatives for the National colonies to elect suffrage' (actually manhood Assembly on the basis of *universal Schoelcher was elected by both suffrage). In the elections of August 1848 just as well since he had failed to Guadeloupe be and Martinique; this was was also elected for elected on the Paris list. Bissette Guadeloupe. Martinique, while Perrinon was returned for Schoelcher identified himself with the Mountain described himself as a socialist; he in the Assembly and relish for street-fighting but favoured was not a doctrinaire and had no thropic solutions to popular ample civic rights and philanreceived the misery. His emancipation support of the provisional programme had question of colonial government in part because the slavery, SO long debated press, offered them the opportunity for in Parliament and the a time when popular expectations decisive and dramatic action at might alleviate proletarian were mounting. The measures that to identify and distress in the metropolis were more difficult agitation agree upon. While insurrectionary and spread in Paris and some other communist Constituent Assembly revealed that moderate centres, the elections to the monarchists still held sway in liberals and conservative 1848 an order many parts of the countryside. In dismantling Louis June voked proletarian rebellion Blanc's National in the capital; this Workshops proCavaignac, the Republican General, with was suppressed by the deportation of 15,000 of the considerable bloodshed and appointed President of the insurrectionists. Cavaignac was soon vengeful Assembly majority. Republic to appease a frightened and Schoelcher took no part in the June Paris crowd to respect republican Days; his Minister urged the Monsieur Arago, you've legality only to be told: never been *Ah, distressed by these events and urged the release hungry!36 Schoelcher was imprisoned and respect for the decree of those who had been another cause for which he had abolishing the death penalty Ministry following the laboured. Schoelcher left the July. completion of the work of his Navy However, he continued to be commission in new Navy Minister; he urged the consulted on policy by Tracy, the institution of a regular steam service --- Page 510 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and credit facilities to stimulate the colonial economy. to the Antilles cut short the term of office of the The aftermath of the June Days military Governors were Commissioners sent to the colonies; republican However, the Commissioners appointed to the Antilles in September. establishing the foundations of had made good use of their four months literature and sponsoring the a republican political culture, circulating La Concorde. One of the formation of clubs, notably Guadeloupe's who had been born leaders of this club, Louisy Mathieu, a typographer the National Assembly and in slavery, was elected as a suppléant to The Schoelcher's seat when he opted to represent Martinique. took Governors did not end the process of advent of the military of the social guarantees politicisation but it did lead to suspension in November 1848 of a envisaged in the April decrees and the issuing that able-bodied adults without gainful employment new regulation from 5 to 25 francs. adeloupe's who had been born leaders of this club, Louisy Mathieu, a typographer the National Assembly and in slavery, was elected as a suppléant to The Schoelcher's seat when he opted to represent Martinique. took Governors did not end the process of advent of the military of the social guarantees politicisation but it did lead to suspension in November 1848 of a envisaged in the April decrees and the issuing that able-bodied adults without gainful employment new regulation from 5 to 25 francs. The new would be liable to fines ranging in December promised constitution of the Republic promulgated phrase used to deprive special laws' for the colonies, a menacing in France itself. citizens in the colonies of rights they might enjoy as President in With the election of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte official influence and December 1848 Schoelcher lost any remaining in the Assembly. Bissette were made to deprive him of his seat attempts with Louis Napoleon and reached a new understanding aligned himself almost certainly a rigged election with the planters. In what was lawyer and and a fellow montagnard - Pory Papy, a mulatto Schoelcher in the elections of 1849; the Freemason - were defeated in Martinique 19,000 to 500 in less than a year. vote of Pory Papy plummeted Schoelcher from and Perrinon were re-elected, However, in Guadeloupe thanks to support from while Bissette and his followers were defeated, the though women were not enfranchised the nowveaux citoyens; benefited from the campaigning endorsement of victors in Guadeloupe Schoelcheristes de Fort de France. The activities the Société des Femmes also by the of the club La Concorde were now entitled supplemented Le Progrès. In publication of a schoelcheriste newspaper, elected Louisy Mathieu to the January 1850 the schoelcheristes 37 municipality in Point à Pitre. helped to neutralise the The relationship of forces in Guadeloupe of abolition slaves in on the eve influence of the military government; cent of the population compared Guadeloupe comprised nearly 70 per coloured militia in Guadeloupe with 58 per cent in Martinique. The support for the schoelwhile in Martinique popular was stronger, Pory Papy had earned cheristes was more easily driven underground. agitating for the emnity of the proprietors on Martinique by the special and a distribution of land to landless break-up of the large estates --- Page 511 --- French Restoration Slavery citizens, whether new or old. Similar demands had Eugène Lacaille, attacked as 'the been made by had led six of his sons, it patriarch of incendiarism' because he properties of some large was alleged, on an expedition to burn the radical abolitionists planters. The role of Bissette in Martinique; he had been weakened the prestige of his struggles in the 1820s and able to capitalise on the some grounds for distrusting the 1830s. Bissette no doubt had decision to throw in his lot with metropolitan the abolitionists, though his in every respect since they dropped him Bonapartists proved short-sighted In July 1849 the National soon afterwards. the former slave-owners Assembly voted to grant to the extent of compensation to their slaves; 6 millions francs in cash and approximately half the value of cent bonds. Schoelcher believed that 120 million francs in 5 per to confirm the compensation should be emancipation and to stimulate colonial paid plantation colonies had long been short of credit. The medium which impeded the coins and circulating root problem was the new relations development of a wages system. But the The nowveaux libres between labourers and the Antillean displayed no zeal for the 1849 sugar harvest planters. of compensation to their slaves; 6 millions francs in cash and approximately half the value of cent bonds. Schoelcher believed that 120 million francs in 5 per to confirm the compensation should be emancipation and to stimulate colonial paid plantation colonies had long been short of credit. The medium which impeded the coins and circulating root problem was the new relations development of a wages system. But the The nowveaux libres between labourers and the Antillean displayed no zeal for the 1849 sugar harvest planters. and labour planters besieged the new President laws against squatting, idleness and demanding stiff new lent a ready ear to these complaints, vagrancy. Louis Napoleon well with his general partly because they chimed in SO the inclination to roll back the Republic and partly because the crisis of proletarian gains under clear for all to see. Guadeloupe's the colonial economy was 38,000 tons in 1847 to 20,000 sugar exports had dropped from tons in 1849. 38 This tons in 1848 and reached only 13,000 sharp drop was a to emancipation as the former slaves exercised testimony the reality of by refusing to work in the fields, their new-found freedom private plots. The years 1848-50 concentrating instead on their own in imports of foreign saw a drop in sugar prices and a rise The sugar. the republican order in the colonies made a contribution plantation economy, since neither the to a crisis of authorities nor the local gendarmerie newly elected municipal with the nowveaux libres. The laws were willing to provoke a conflict were often ignored. Schoelcher relating to vagrancy or squatting would enable a free labour believed that republican institutions planters and labourers. In system to emerge from bargaining between the plantations and principle he did not favour the no arrangements had break-up of to the freedmen. The ability of the the been made to distribute land independent livelihood after nouveaux libres to secure an property rights conceded by emancipation the owed as much to the slave republican institutions. previous amelioration schemes as to Schoelcher himself had long believed that the plantations should be --- Page 512 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery credit. His socialism was that of the idealistic haute resuscitated by and smallholding a fetter on the bourgeoisie; he saw in petty production forces and the scope for human selfsize of the market, the productive Association has such powerful virtues realisation. In 1843 he wrote: thus in common presents an aspect that even slave labour performed dismal labour of our peasants." 39 In this less sad than the solitary and with the plans of some of the area Schoelcher's ideas were congruent who were constructing a ambitious entrepreneurs in the colonies, in most called *an industrial revolution' new system based on what they cultivation and processing to be separsugar-making, which required of scale. In this that the latter could achieve economies ated SO usines centrales, would be built linking conception new sugar factories, integrated processing methods steam-powered mills with the highly centrales would service used by the beet sugar factories; the would usines then concentrate wholly on several different plantations which back SO much sugar for every ton of cane cultivation and would receive the cane they supplied. in this direction had been set up in 1844 by The first experiments from the Lafitte bank. By 1848 Compagnie des Antilles, with backing in Guadeloupe and four there were twelve usines centrales in operation between three and six each processing cane for in Martinique, the usines centrales had plantations. Despite heavy initial investments of 7-11 per cent net per year. 41 achieved a reasonable rate of return the first usines centrales had used Because of the shortage of free labour with planters sometimes slaves as the basic labour force; the contracts for work in the usines. the Lafitte bank. By 1848 Compagnie des Antilles, with backing in Guadeloupe and four there were twelve usines centrales in operation between three and six each processing cane for in Martinique, the usines centrales had plantations. Despite heavy initial investments of 7-11 per cent net per year. 41 achieved a reasonable rate of return the first usines centrales had used Because of the shortage of free labour with planters sometimes slaves as the basic labour force; the contracts for work in the usines. required them to make slaves available checked the Emancipation and the decline of sugar output temporarily to further but the Republic removed the blockages new system It swept away the planters' protection productive reorganisation. In principle this made it easier to against forfeiture as well as slavery. and to persuade smaller organise factors of production profitably companies rather than go it planters to enter agreements with the sugar to the slave-owners to fund alone. The use of compensation further payments usines centrales could be set up. development banks meant that advent of the Empire and the recovery of However, it was not until the confidence that further usines were constructed. business endeared itself to the planters and sugar The Bonapartist regime and vigorous measures to ensure a companies by taking immediate labour force. In Febuary 1852 an imperial larger and more disciplined and self-government; edict suppressed all colonial representation been banned. Draconian labour Guadeloupe's Le Progrès had already to carry a livret introduced. Every adult was obliged legislation was and residence; those failing to comply could with details of employment --- Page 513 --- French Restoration Slavery be subjected to penal labour. those occupying plantation lands Subsequent should regulations stipulated that planters, for which they render labour services to the between might receive nominal employers and labourers were to payment. Contracts maire. All heads of household be enforced by the local inducement to enter the labour were required to pay a tax, as a further been driven into market. Victor Schoelcher, who exile, was to denounce the new had 42 Ironically it had created the conditions in which colonial regime. industrial credit and associated labour his own enthusiasm for linked to education and civic ceased to be a generous by the colonial rights, and became a grim utopia, state and furnishing rich reality, policed speculators. The accent of the new labour pickings for metropolitan rather than physical coercion. The slave had regime was on economic the whip; the ex-slave was forced into been forced to work by to prove gainful occupation an unequal contract by the need legislation to this end was enacted or to pay a capitation tax. Further however, suggest that the in 1854 and 1856; such reiterations, slaves made good their legislation was not wholly effective. Many extogether to occupation of plots in the hills or operate a fishing-boat; they could make clubbed selling foodstuffs to the plantations. The some money by Antillean labourers and continuing recalcitrance oft the planters and the peasants explains the interest of both the An authorities in securing alternative edict of March 1852 sources of labour. buy African permitted the employers of the engagés, that is, contract labourers from Antilles to engagés had supposedly entered a contract Senegal. The years; abolitionists urged that this to work for a period of trading. The British was thinly veiled slavery and slavegovernment was in violation of the complained that the traffic in engagés trade; around the year 1860 Anglo-French it agreements against the slave 16,000 African engagés had been was brought to an end. In all about significance was to be the steady brought to the Antilles. engagés, that is, contract labourers from Antilles to engagés had supposedly entered a contract Senegal. The years; abolitionists urged that this to work for a period of trading. The British was thinly veiled slavery and slavegovernment was in violation of the complained that the traffic in engagés trade; around the year 1860 Anglo-French it agreements against the slave 16,000 African engagés had been was brought to an end. In all about significance was to be the steady brought to the Antilles. 43 Of greater labourers, also under a system of introduction of East Indian contract the African engagés probably had engagements been réguliers. While many of expeditions, the East Indians the victims of famine and were more likely to be slave-raiding poverty. Between 1852 and 1887 refugees from 1,300 Chinese and 500 Vietnamese some 77,000 Indians, Antilles under contracts were introduced to the French of the African ranging from three to seven years. While engagés of the 1850s were sent most Guadeloupe was later to take a to Martinique, indentures. 44 higher proportion of the Indian Louis Napoleon also helped the colonial 1852-9 by lowering the duty sugar interests in the years The colonial regime of the payable Second on their product by about a fifth. Empire and the more buoyant --- Page 514 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery in plantation output. By conjuncture of the 1850s led to a recovery and Réunion had reached a 1857 the value of exports from Martinique in Guadeloupe was level 50 per cent higher than that of 1847. Recovery the labourers and peasants; because of resistance from the slower, perhaps from Guadeloupe had only reached in 1857 the value of exports 45 of colonial output and the level of a decade earlier." The rehabilitation by banks which construction of new usines centrales was promoted such as the Banque de enjoyed official encouragement and contracts, Guadeloupe and the Credit Foncier Colonial. end in the French colonies that slavery had come to an Yet to suggest organisation of the sugar in order to allow a more effective productive For, on the one hand, the sugar industry would be quite misconcieved. have been modernised without industry of the French Antilles could the abolition of slavery created as abolishing slavery and, on the other, and staffing the sugar-mills problems as it solved. Cutting cane many toil even with the introduction of steam engines was still back-breaking some extent the new equipment simply and vacuum pans. Indeed to labour needed to produce sugar. A small extended and intensified the were required in the and salaried engineers number of highly qualified labour show, the planters and usines but, as the figures for indentured tied labour force, earning only sugar companies still preferred a to move from one employer to nominal wages and denied the possibility of Martinique and another. It is true that the sugar earnings decade or SO before 1848; Guadeloupe had been stagnant for a continued. The however, this was not true of Réunion where expansion laws alleviating the slave ending of slave imports and the successive slaves and free people of colour condition, and the disposition of some which such had set new limits to the superexploitation to invoke laws, of the slave plantation. Planters who were had been characteristic against expropriation forcée and heavily in debt were legally protected from selling slaves to more profitable were themselves legally prohibited elsewhere in the Americas. In this sense and efficient slave enterprises abolitionism created problems which the half-measures of moderate then called for more radical solutions. for the metropolitan The protection of colonial sugar was the costly 1840s as foreign sugars were consumers and had become more SO in tariff of 75-80 per cent, increasing available at cheaper prices. Despite a in 1850 such imports quantities of foreign sugar were imported: abolitionists did not agitate for totalled 30,000 tons. in debt were legally protected from selling slaves to more profitable were themselves legally prohibited elsewhere in the Americas. In this sense and efficient slave enterprises abolitionism created problems which the half-measures of moderate then called for more radical solutions. for the metropolitan The protection of colonial sugar was the costly 1840s as foreign sugars were consumers and had become more SO in tariff of 75-80 per cent, increasing available at cheaper prices. Despite a in 1850 such imports quantities of foreign sugar were imported: abolitionists did not agitate for totalled 30,000 tons. But metropolitan No doubt some support for the ending of colonial protection. beet interests and sugar emancipation was forthcoming from weaken sugar colonial competition, as it workers who reckoned that it would of the 1840s combined did in the short-run. But the abolitionists --- Page 515 --- French Restoration Slavery advocacy of emancipation and colonial commerce. With the slaves support freed for favourable treatment of cmancipationists were Schoelcher and other The free trade happy to be champions of the colonial interest. leading pamphlets of Say and Sismondi phase of abolitionism and had belonged to an earlier emancipation in 1848. The no bearing on the adoption of favour abandonment of sugar beet interests themselves did not tion more than colonial protection; they came to fear foreign competiThe imperial competition. sugar in the 1850s, government temporarily lowered the tariff on colonial judging it wise to promote Emperor, no less than Louis Philippe, also had colonial recovery. The of the naval, military and colonial to cater to the interests sought to provide colonial lobbies. But while Napoleon III conditions they needed sugar manufacturers and planters with Antillean to stage a comeback, he did not the proprietors to dictate policy. The allow the the compensation they had planters objected loudly that received - slave - was only a third or a half of between their 400 and 500 francs per £20 per slave it was quite close to what value; at between £16 and received, but without any period the British slave-owners had money was forthcoming for the of'apprentieeship'. However, no more asked for the exclusion of the planters. Colonial sugar interests also but Napoleon III did foreign product from the French large not comply. During the 1860s market, quantities of cheap raw sugar from Cuba; this France imported refining industry, brought down stimulated the revenue. 46 During the 'Liberal sugar prices and raised a reasonable less concerned Empire' of the 1860s to placate colonial Napoleon III was to ingratiate himself with the special interests and more concerned all, played a major part in ejecting populace his of the metropolis who had, after it is surprising that Napoleon III did royal predecessors. None the less producers, who would have benefited not do more for the beet kindly treatment of the colonial from more protectionism and less While economic motives did not planters. dictate at least emancipation did not entail abolition in the French case, dwindled to only 5 per cent of the intolerable total; costs. Colonial trade had sugar duties could as easily be raised even the revenue raised from The Republic sanctioned and the from importing foreign sugars. compensate the proprietors of the Antilles. Empire honoured the promise to immense, and was financed almost The sum involved was not could easily be offset against the entirely by a bond issue; its cost British annual takings of the compensation, in total, cost sugar tariff. there had been far more slaves in the nearly Six times as much because French abolitionism British colonies. long been discredited, succeeded in 1848 because, first, had even in official doctrine, slavery secondly, an incoming --- Page 516 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the new radical current of republican regime could not flout control the situation in the abolitionism in the metropolis, nor expect to slavery. entirely by a bond issue; its cost British annual takings of the compensation, in total, cost sugar tariff. there had been far more slaves in the nearly Six times as much because French abolitionism British colonies. long been discredited, succeeded in 1848 because, first, had even in official doctrine, slavery secondly, an incoming --- Page 516 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the new radical current of republican regime could not flout control the situation in the abolitionism in the metropolis, nor expect to slavery. The association colonies, without immediately moving against with the Abolition Society of SO many of the prominent new politicians and gave Schoelcher a linked republicanism with emancipationism of the provisional bargaining position in the vital early days out of strong of slavery had long fallen government. Positive justifications black, Bouk Jugal, showed fashion. Victor Hugo's story of a wronged still respond to the plight of the that the romantic imagination had could written a verse drama on Toussaint slave. Lamartine himself The members of Louverture's tragic fate, prior to becoming premier. aware of the weight of were certainly the provisional government shoulders and of the pressure of a new type history they carried on their could not fall behind the of class struggle. The Second Republic the First and must reassure the emancipatory achievements ideals of were not to be degraded by the sordid proletarian masses that its Mathieu, the black deputy from interests of slaveholders. When Louisy he was greeted with Guadeloupe, entered the National Assembly equalled by Louis Napoleon. applause and cheers - a reception only and virtue, The Assembly was here acclaiming its own generosity in the aftermath which it had all the more need of reaffirming qualities of the June Days. abolitionism of 1848 struck an answering The French republican in the manifestations of May but also in chord in the Antilles not simply of 1848-51 and the tough struggle over the intense political mobilisation the of schoelcherisme. The the next two decades to keep alive principles in identifying with of the Antilles had no difficulty black Republicans regime; it is not surprising to find radical opposition to the Bonapartist of Paris. Schoelcher amongst the communards men such as Pory Papy with the Commune nor its bloody himself was happy neither from Martinique in 1871 suppression. He was elected first as deputy for a repeal of the amidst much acclaim and, as such, campaigned treatment of the indentured colonial labour decrees, against the in the colonies. In Martinique labourers, and against racist practices encouraged the development of a and Guadeloupe the schoelcheristes enterprises amongst the public education system and of co-operative humanitarianism and smallholders and fishermen. While Schoelcher's social could never be in doubt, his paternalistic good intentions linking the coloured population republicanism became the integument stalwarts of moderate abolitionism to French colonialism. The former Henri Wallon, Schoelcher's became pillars of the Third Republic; colleague of 1848, drafted the constitution. --- Page 517 --- French Restoration Slavery 1848 and the Americas The events of 1848 in Paris famously Europe; the events of the French concentrated the attention of May 22nd in had Caribbean, notably the of The Governor Martinique, of Cuba an impact throughout the uprising Caribbean. had happened in prevented the local press from reporting what brought in by visitors Martinique and any papers relating to these events Dutch islands of the Lesser were impounded. The Governors of the small were unable to the Antilles - St Martin, St Eustatius and Saba - learning of the events prevent in the several hundred slaves they contained small French enclave nearby French Windward Islands on St Martin was administered since a Guadeloupe. The sound of drums and conch as a dependency of and encouraged a defiant mood in the Dutch shells greeted liberation refused to continue behaving as slaves and slaves. They simply the means to coerce them back into the Dutch colonists lacked emancipation and the slave-owners did bondage. Governors of the small were unable to the Antilles - St Martin, St Eustatius and Saba - learning of the events prevent in the several hundred slaves they contained small French enclave nearby French Windward Islands on St Martin was administered since a Guadeloupe. The sound of drums and conch as a dependency of and encouraged a defiant mood in the Dutch shells greeted liberation refused to continue behaving as slaves and slaves. They simply the means to coerce them back into the Dutch colonists lacked emancipation and the slave-owners did bondage. This was not a legal many years latter. 47 From the Dutch not receive compensation until in Guadeloupe and islands the news of developments Islands. Martinique reached the nearby Danish Virgin In the Danish island of Ste Croix the first upheaval amongst the colony's 25,000 days of July witnessed an uprising in Martinique. Denmark had slaves which directly echoed the trade in 1804 but in the 1830s and 1840s pioneered abolition of the slave had agonised over colonial the royal Danish government governments of the July slavery much after the fashion of the eventually endorsed a 'free Monarchy womb' -with the difference that they had ship' clause, in July 1847. The law, with a twelve-year 'apprenticePeter von Scholten, had made Governor of the Danish West Indies, equal treatment for the free a name for himself as a supporter of of the Danish West Indies, people of colour. Many of the Moravian Church. So far whether free or slave, were members population of the had itself owned slaves. In from 1842 opposing the slavery the Moravian Church considerable financial Moravian mission, which received attacked for its tolerance support of from British Protestants, had been Anti-Slavery Society. slaveholding by the British and Fearing to become the of Foreign campaign the Moravians eventually targets an international slaves owned by the Church. The agreed, in 1846, to manumit all weakened condition when institution of slavery was already in a delivered the coup de news of the events in the French island The first sign of movement grace. on the evening of Sunday amongst the slaves of Ste Croix was given July 2nd, when bands of rebels took over --- Page 518 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery bells and blew conch shells. At seven o'clock plantation buildings, rang of rebels entered Fredrickstadt, the capital of next morning a large party all blacks to leave their places of work and Ste Croix, appealing to The houses of several leading citizens were demand emancipation. those of the police chief, of the judge and of a attacked, including of the rebels. The main body of merchant who had asked for repression freedom. In other parts of the rebels surrounded the fort and demanded demonstrations but little or no island there were further noisy in the face of an bloodshed. The small garrison was powerless those who emerged enthusiastic but restrained crowd of rebels. Among Buddhoe. leaders of the movement were Martin King and 'General' as in the hands of the rebels the Governor, on his With the island already on July 3rd; while this decree own authority, decreed emancipation retain for three months suppressed slavery it added that 'estate negroes grounds which they from this date the use of the houses and provision this decree and urged Buddhoe accepted have hitherto possessed'. However, some retreated to the interior. other rebels to do the same. landed on the island, sent by the On July 8th 580 Spanish troops to an appeal from van Scholten; Governor of Puerto Rico in answer ofthe rebellion were suppressed. with these reinforcements the remnants 14th. Denmark experienced its Van Scholten left for Denmark on July by the agitation over in 1848 and was menaced to own upheavals Scholten succeeded in persuading the King Schleswig-Holstein. Van 22nd. ratify his decree of emancipation on September in the Danish West Indies settlement The post-emancipation the former slaves back into a position of attempted to thrust former masters and the colonial state, using dependence vis-à-vis their found elsewhere in the post-emancipation devices similar to those 1849 obliged all those who wished to continue Caribbean. left for Denmark on July by the agitation over in 1848 and was menaced to own upheavals Scholten succeeded in persuading the King Schleswig-Holstein. Van 22nd. ratify his decree of emancipation on September in the Danish West Indies settlement The post-emancipation the former slaves back into a position of attempted to thrust former masters and the colonial state, using dependence vis-à-vis their found elsewhere in the post-emancipation devices similar to those 1849 obliged all those who wished to continue Caribbean. A decree of work their grounds to enter to live on the plantations and to Those identified provision as leaders of the labour contracts with the planters. or, as in the case of Buddhoe, July rebellion were either imprisoned from the planters the Danish deported. After many representations of $50 for eventually agreed in 1853 to pay compensation 49 government each slave; a total of $2 million was paid out. overthrown throughout the With the events of 1848 slavery had been islands where it had flourished lesser Antilles and in all those Caribbean Looking at the Americas as a in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. It survived only on the two whole, colonial slavery had been eclipsed. Spanish islands and in Surinam. during Surinam had experienced a boost to plantation had reverted development to being a Wars but following this it the Napoleonic slave seems to have been fairly colonial backwater. The ban on imports --- Page 519 --- French Restoration Slavery effective, with the slave population 1820 to about 33,000 in the 1850s. declining from about 50,000 in of plantations dropped from 590 Over the same period the number to 162. The pursued a policy towards colonial royal Dutch government of the governments of Louis slavery strongly reminiscent of that favourable to abolition and Philippe, with ministerial pronouncements education. British abolitionists ineffective, weakly funded schemes of slave Protestant Churches to manumit brought the pressure to bear on the Dutch had some effect in slaves they owned; this part because the pressure Moravian and other Churches received missionary activities of the from British Nonconformists. considerable financial support from emancipation because of However the Dutch governments shrank compensating slave-owners. The costs that would be involved in escaped unscathed from the Dutch variant of oligarchic monarchy conceded revolutions of 1848, some moderate constitutional though William II Liberal-Catholic coalition to form the reforms and called on a not enacted in Surinam until government. Emancipation was been 1863, a time when the brought to the fore by the Civil War in slavery issue had 1860s the Dutch government North America. By the the colonial was showing a considerable account, following the surplus on 'cultivation system' in Java, a of development of the so-called slaves in Surinam were system colonial forced labour. The against and desert their renowned for their propensity to conspire 8,000 maroons in the owners. backlands There were thought to be as many as escaped to British in the 1850s; fugitive slaves also possibly acted Guyana after 1838. The maroon from the as a safety valve drawing off the most communities plantations and reducing the chances of rebellious slaves piecemeal manumission of the large mass outbreaks. The also have made it seem that slaveholdings of the Churches may Surinam. 50 slavery was being wound down in Spain also escaped the no doubt helps to explain revolutionary why commotions of 1848 and this Spanish islands. But political life in slavery the survived unscathed in the was stimulated by events in Europe and since Spanish American Republics special prestige the ending of slavery in the the French Republic had a some echo in South America. The French colonies was to have residual brought to an end in 1851; within slavery in Colombia was Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia two or three years Argentina, Slavery was, of course, in had all followed suit. point, since the original any case facing a sharp decline at this thirty-five emancipation laws had been decreed years previously. unscathed in the was stimulated by events in Europe and since Spanish American Republics special prestige the ending of slavery in the the French Republic had a some echo in South America. The French colonies was to have residual brought to an end in 1851; within slavery in Colombia was Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia two or three years Argentina, Slavery was, of course, in had all followed suit. point, since the original any case facing a sharp decline at this thirty-five emancipation laws had been decreed years previously. Manumisos could thirty or between the ages of twenty-five and claim their freedom remained enslaved would thirty, while the population that contain a higher and higher proportion of --- Page 520 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery their life. The value of the remaining those reaching the end of working or as collateral was now slaves and manumisos either as a work-force created by 'free womb' laws was bound to diminish. The residual slavery and vulnerable than a full slave also in some respects more provocative slaves had readily volunteered to take system. In Venezuela in the 1840s factions. Since free birth in armed clashes between rival oligarchic or part in 1821, there would be slaves aged twenty-five thirty-five only began The freeing of the first manumisos condemned to lifelong slavery. of free blacks whose accentuated this tension and created a layer and elder siblings were still enslaved. to parents American emancipations of the early 1850s helped The Spanish in society and the state. They came at a confirm wider transformations caudillos of the post-independence period time when the conservative the scene and a new attempt was being made to were being driven from In Venezuela Pâez allowed construct authoritative Liberal governments. the Liberal general José Tadeo himself to be replaced in 1847 by that Monagas intended to be Monagas. When it became clear in 1848 those who helped to more than a puppet civil war broke out; amongst who had escorted defeat Paez was Renato Beluche the patriot privateer of the Apure, a Bolivar from Haiti to Venezuela. In 1849 the Governor letter to his fellow where there were no slaves, wrote a province the immediate ending of all remaining slavery. governors recommending that fugitive slaves aggravated the problem It was widely acknowledged to participate in rebellion. of rural banditry and were often willing regime escalated rapidly to Conservative opposition to the Monagas over the Presidency to his armed action when José Tadeo handed in March Gregorio in 1853. Emancipation was proclaimed brother José the Conservatives enlisting slaves in the 1854 partly in order to prevent of course, also proclaimed as a rebel forces. The act of liberation was, of Simon Bolivar. The owners of fulfilment of the glorious heritage Venezuela's 12,000 or SO slaves were promised compensation. slaves in 1851 and the The Colombian decree freeing all remaining similar to those Argentinian edict of 1853 originated in circumstances the measure which favoured emancipation in Venezuela. In Argentina In Colombia (known followed shortly after the ejection of Rosas. from the 1830s to the 1860s) officially as the Republic of New Granada slaves in 1850. In 1849 the there were still as many as 20,000 by the Liberal José Hilario Conservative Tomâs Mosquera was replaced of the conservative cause. Lopez, who was soon resisted 1850-1 by partisans came at a time when the Lopez The emancipation decree of slave rebels had seized land in the regime faced open rebellion and slaveholders were offered compensation mining districts. Once again deflated by the advance of manumission. based on slave prices already --- Page 521 --- French Restoration Slavery American Republics is such that the The instability of the Spanish not be thought and civil war might coincidence of emancipation made to renovate the significant. But in each case an attempt was being tradition formula of the state and to renew the Liberal republican had travestied. In which, it was claimed, the conservative caudillos of the slaves was Colombia and Ecuador the freeing Peru Argentina, of new constitutions. again deflated by the advance of manumission. based on slave prices already --- Page 521 --- French Restoration Slavery American Republics is such that the The instability of the Spanish not be thought and civil war might coincidence of emancipation made to renovate the significant. But in each case an attempt was being tradition formula of the state and to renew the Liberal republican had travestied. In which, it was claimed, the conservative caudillos of the slaves was Colombia and Ecuador the freeing Peru Argentina, of new constitutions. In accomplished as part of the promulgation economic rather than political emancipation was an accompaniment to of the Indian tribute transformations. It coincided with the ending to free to restructure the economy according system and an attempt the more rapid exploitation of market principles in order to promote entitling them to work the deposits. Those holding concessions Indian labour guano found that neither residual slavery nor of guano deposits needs. From the late 1840s tens of thousands were adequate to their were introduced to supply the Chinese contract labourers, 'coolies', not to bring slavery to an end deficiency. The only South American state which retained its by the early 1850s was Paraguay, a Republic generally isolationist stance. territories in the Americas where By 1860 there were only three of the United States, the slavery still led a vigorous existence: the south and the Empire of Brazil. It Spanish Caribbean islands, especially Cuba, of the ending of slavery to end the above account American is perhaps appropriate the Danish islands and the South in the French islands, of a Colombian Republics with the reflections on emancipation Mosquera Mosquera. This man, brother to Tomâs slaveholder, Joaquin to Bolivar in 1830, had President of Colombia in succession and himself or whittle away the emancipationist fought tenaciously to postpone Law of 1821. But once emancipation arrived implications of the Cicuta and relief, giving he met it with a strange blend of bitterness, arrogance who have figured in into the mentality of the patriot planters an insight of this book. In a letter to a friend he wrote: earlier chapters kind letter of March 3rd because I have been I am replying tardily to your my mining properties; it is no travelling in the district of Carloto visiting liberation of the slaves there rhetorical flourish to say that the simultaneous I have not effect like that of an earthquake on a city. However, has had an spirit with those who have been lacked resignation, patience and a generous them with benevolence since slaves. It is only right that I should treat and my and respect me. I called them all together congratulated they love me their rights and duties as free men, just as if them on their liberty, explaining United States; and I told them that they had to I was some abolitionist in the of and imagine that I was a stranger forget all the customs and ideas slavery first time, SO that we would treat one whom they were meeting for the lasted a week at my another as man to man among free men. My meetings --- Page 522 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery I have rented out these mine Ensoluado and another at the Aguablanca. the slaves the houses in which properties at a miserable price; I have given families and alloting some to they live and their gardens, dividing them up by and tools at half the old people and the sick; I have sold them equipment around here and have let to price they could buy them from the merchants head. They are now them the cattle grounds for two reales annually per of ownership that will of leaving to me a species the lords my properties, obtained, if they pay me at all bring only a fifth of the revenues I formerly much: but it has lifted an immense which I very much doubt. a miserable price; I have given families and alloting some to they live and their gardens, dividing them up by and tools at half the old people and the sick; I have sold them equipment around here and have let to price they could buy them from the merchants head. They are now them the cattle grounds for two reales annually per of ownership that will of leaving to me a species the lords my properties, obtained, if they pay me at all bring only a fifth of the revenues I formerly much: but it has lifted an immense which I very much doubt. I have lost character. The manumission of weight which bore down on me, against my my slaves has freed me too." Notes Génie du Christianisme, Ou Beauté de la 1. François-Auguste Chateaubriand, 5 vols, IV, p. 189. This work was much reprinted. It Religion Chrétienne, Paris 1802, with the Catholic tradition which made 'the masters contrasts the work of the Revolution slaves more virtuous - it served the cause of mankind more compassionate and the subversion of order and private property, without any injury to the country, or lost - even public compassion was paralysed : With fine words of philanthropy all was Paris 1854, p. 187. Chateaubriand, The Genius of Christianity, "The Direction and Fluctuation of the Transatlantic 2. Estimated from David Eltis, and Hogendorn, The Uncommon Market, pp. Slave Trade 1821-1843', in Gemery 'British Repression of the Illegal French Slave 273-302, pP. 287-8; and Serge Market, Daget, 419-42. Trade', also in The Uncommon de pP. 1829: Rapport au Roi, Paris April 1828, p. 3. Ministère de la Marine, Budget francs covered the cost of salaries, supplies and a 185. The Ministry's budget at. 57 million the administration of the colonies. Taxes raised major construction programme as well 7.4 as million francs. For colonial customs revenue of within the colonies themselves raised Quelques Réflexions SUT les Colonies, Paris 36-40 million francs see Alexandre Foignet, Du Droit de Colonies Françaises, Paris 1832, 1831, p. 30, and Poiré de Saint-Aurèle, out that the colonial market took 50-55 million p. 23. This latter author also pointed He further insisted that France's commercial interest francs of French goods each year. favourable to the colonies: 'No colonies, no and geographical situation dictate policies marine would have only a vulnerable and precarious navy. Without a navy the merchant Saint Aurèle was an apologist, but his appeal to commercial a existence' (p. 25). Of course Choiseul's famous vindication of colonies as interest strikes a very different note from prop of royal power. de la Colonisation Française, II, PP. 47-56. 4. Blet, Histoire in the French West Indies, Westport (Conn.), pp. 5. Shelby McCloy, The Negro 135-6. Histoire de PIndustrie Sucrière en Guadeloupe Paris aux 6. Christian Schnakenbourg, Tome I, La Crise du Système Esclavagiste, (1835-1847), XIXe et XXe Siècles: 1980, p. 54. Sugar and Slavery in Martinique, 7. Dale Tomic, Prelude to Emancipation: 118; Schnakenbourg, La Crise du Système 1830-48, PhD thesis, Madison 1978, P. Esclavagiste, PP. 50, 137-43. Coloniale de Saint Domingue et la Question des 8. Benoit Joachim, 'L'Indemnité 1971, pp. 359-76; also Benoit Rapatriés', Revue Historique, no. 500, October-December Franco-Haitienne aux XIXe Siècle', Joachim, "Commerce et Décolonisation: l'Experience Annales, 1972, pp. 1,497-1,525. Tudesq, Restoration and Reaction: 9. Quoted in André Jardin and André-Jean 1815-1848, Cambridge 1983, p. 8. Benoit Joachim, 'L'Indemnité 1971, pp. 359-76; also Benoit Rapatriés', Revue Historique, no. 500, October-December Franco-Haitienne aux XIXe Siècle', Joachim, "Commerce et Décolonisation: l'Experience Annales, 1972, pp. 1,497-1,525. Tudesq, Restoration and Reaction: 9. Quoted in André Jardin and André-Jean 1815-1848, Cambridge 1983, p. 95. --- Page 523 --- French Restoration Slavery Abolitionist Movement', in Bolt and Drescher, 10. Daget, 'A Model of the French 71-2. Anti-Slavery, Religion and Reform, pp. Abolitionist Movement', in Bolt and Drescher, 11. Daget, *A Model of the French 72. Criticism of the slave trade was not confined to Anti-Slavery, Religion and Reform, p. though the latter's representations had the most the Société de la Morale Chrétienne continued to attack the slave traffic until his political significance. The Abbé Grégoire the Abbé Guidicelly, a 'patriot priest' from Corsica, and death in 1829, collaborating with Provence. Morenas wrote a detailed indictment of the J.E. Morenas, a Freemason from de la Traite des Noirs et de l'Esclavage Colonial, French slave traffic (Précis Historique lacked the standing and prospects of the respectable Paris 1828). However, these men eventually went to Haiti as a bishop, dignitaries who supported the Société. abolitionists Guidicelly in West Africa. while Morenas worked for the British the French Slave Trade', in Gemery and 12. Daget, 'British Repression of Illegal Hogendorn, The Uncommon Market, p. French 429. West Indies, pp. 137-8. The military 13. McCloy, The Negro in the in the official Notices Statistiques SUT les Colonies establishment in the Antilles is given Following the 1833 incidents the Martinique Françaises, Paris 1837, PP. 81, 192-3. and the regular garrison raised to 4,103 militia, both white and coloured, was suspended troops (p. 81). P'Abolition de P'Esclavage, Paris 1843, P: 7. The 14. Questions Relatives à abolitionists and politicians are well analysed deliberations and evasions of the Orleanist Democracy: de Tocqueville and Modernization, in Seymour Drescher, Dilemmas of Pittsburg 1968, pp. 88-123, 151-97. account of the de Broglie reforms describes 15. Auguste Cochin's typically indulgent of emancipation which would 'encourage the them as a judicious ten-year programme by the peculium, the peculium by the free day, morals slave family by marriage, property education'. L'Abolition de l'Esclavage, il, p. 53. by religion, intelligence by Antilles Françaises, XVII-XIXe Siècles, Fribourg 16. Antoine Gisler, L'Esclavage aux are discussed pP. 47-51, 142; the impact of the reforms on slave conditions Emile Tersen and with 1965, 133-8. p. See also Victor Schoelcher, Esclavage et Colonisation, 120. This book ed. is a useful collection of by Aimé Césaire, Paris 1948, p. of the 1840s. Schoclcher's an introduction and other writings by the leading French abolitionist slave advancement and the articles to be amply borne out by the exiguous signs of see warnings were resulted from application of the Loi Mackau, Compte trickle of manumissions that des Esclaves, Imprimerie Royale, Paris 1847. 156-7; Rendu au Roi sur le Régime Colonies Françaises, 4th part, Paris 1840, pp. 17. Notices Statistiques SUT les Françaises, Part I, Paris 1837, p. introduction and other writings by the leading French abolitionist slave advancement and the articles to be amply borne out by the exiguous signs of see warnings were resulted from application of the Loi Mackau, Compte trickle of manumissions that des Esclaves, Imprimerie Royale, Paris 1847. 156-7; Rendu au Roi sur le Régime Colonies Françaises, 4th part, Paris 1840, pp. 17. Notices Statistiques SUT les Françaises, Part I, Paris 1837, p. 93. In Guadeloupe Notices Statistiques SUT les Colonies under 10,000 slaves in 1835. (Brian Weinstein, "The the free people of colour owned Kilson just and R.I. Rotberg, The African Diaspora, Cambridge, French West Indies', in M.L. Mass. 1976, pp. 237-79, P. 244.) Sugar and Slavery in Martinique, 18. Dale Tomic, Prelude to Emancipation: 68. 1830-48, PhD thesis, Madison 1978, P. colonial trade to the total of customs revenue is 19. The contribution of duties on Accounts and Papers, 1849, vol. LIII, p. 168. The calculated from House of Commons, is taken from Tomic, Prelude to Emancipation, value and revenue of slave production p. 65. authors of studies on Martinique and Guadeloupe 20. Tomic and Schnakenbourg, on the thesis that the survival of slavery respectively, have placed great emphasis of the French Antilles because of planter frustrated the economic development resources in slaves as property, and the immobilisation Tomic, indebtedness, the tying up capital the slave regime. See for Martinique, of factors of production under prevailing 49-88 and 137-75; for Guadeloupe, SchnakenPrelude to Emancipation, especially pp. especially pp. 120-36. Certainly the 1840s bourg, La Crise du Système Esclavagiste, of the French Antilles, though if the French witnessed stagnation in the economy the influence of abolitionism itself would plantations are compared with those in Cuba The crisis of French colonial slavery was not have to be noted as one factor involved. This point, to which we return below, IS forcefully essentially economic in character. --- Page 524 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery made by Edouard de Lépine, Sur l'Abolition de Antillaise, 21. Fort-de-France 1978, Pp. 25-166, l'Esclavage', in Questions sur I'Histoire André-Jean Tudesq, Les Grands especially pp. 96-102. II, p. 842. Sec also L.C. Jennings. 'La Presse Notables en France, 1840-9, 2 vols, Paris 1964, CCLXXII, 1984. Havraise et l'Esclavage', Revue 22. Tudesq, Les Grands Notables Historique, 23. Jardin and Tudesq, Restoration en France, 1, p. 837. 24. Tudesq writes: "The world of the and notables Reaction, p. 135. society in transition between two represents not only the ruling class where there is a weakening of the socio-economic structures but also the social of a His description of the Juste Milieu centre' with (Les Grands Notables en France, form an 'equilibrium between order its obsessive respect for and II, p. 1,231). summarised by David Cecil and liberty' is reminiscent of property concern for the enclosure of land; as follows: 'All believed in ordered that Whig orthodoxy Melbourne, all disbelieved in despotism and liberty, low taxation and p. 8). Another observation by Cecil also had democracy' (The Young Monarchy: hush and "The Whigs despised the royal family; and there its counterpart under the July Orleanist punctilio of court existence about them' was certainly none of the regime and the Hanoverian order were, of (p. ,231). summarised by David Cecil and liberty' is reminiscent of property concern for the enclosure of land; as follows: 'All believed in ordered that Whig orthodoxy Melbourne, all disbelieved in despotism and liberty, low taxation and p. 8). Another observation by Cecil also had democracy' (The Young Monarchy: hush and "The Whigs despised the royal family; and there its counterpart under the July Orleanist punctilio of court existence about them' was certainly none of the regime and the Hanoverian order were, of (p. 6). The resemblances between the Spanish from America had shown, constitutions could course, deliberate; but, as the case of one social formation to another. The not always be successfully 'illegitimate monarchy', albeit viability of the Orleanist transplanted transformations in French short-lived, had been made possible experiment in 25. Daget, 'A Model of society wrought by the Great Revolution. by the deeper Anti-Slavery, the French Abolitionist 26. Religion and Reform, P. 76. Movement', in Bolt and Drescher, Membership of the Abolition for a worker equivalent to two weeks' Society required two sponsors and cost 25 evidence to the wages. Bissette was barred from francs, see Drescher, Dilemmas Parliamentary of Commission on Emancipation apparently because of his giving 27. For Schoelcher's Democracy, p. 162-3. colour; PEsclavage pendant les Deux critique Dernières of amelioration attempts see Schoelcher, Paris 1847); extracts in Années (a collection of articles Histoire de 28. Quoted in Janine Esclavage et Colonisation, pp. 108-39. and pamphlets, 29. Seymour Drescher, Alexandre-Debray, "Two Variants of Schoelcher, Paris 1983, P: 68. Slavery, Religion and Reform, p. 52; Anti-Slavery", in Bolt and Drescher, AntiColonies Françaises, p. 291. Gaston-Martin, Histoire de l'Esclavage dans les 30. Schoelcher, Esclavage et role see Edouard de Lépine, Colonisation, p. 140. For an appreciation of 31. Oruno Lara, La Questions SuT I'Histoire Antillaise, pp. 36-45, Schoelcher's 32. Schoelcher, Des Guadeloupe Colonies dans I'Histoire, pp. 223-4. 99-110. Colonisation, Pp. 63-9.) Françaises, pp. 101-12, 375-7. 33. Alexandre-Debray, (Esclavage et 34. Tersen quotes the Schoelcher, Governor's p. 129. p. 134n. Once again there is an admirable decree, discussion Schoelcher, Esclavage et Colonisation, Martinique accelerated and shaped of how the slave mobilisations in I'Histoire Antillaise, emancipation in Edouard de l'Esclavage à la Martinique, Pp. 125-47; see also the full account in Léo Lépine, Questions Sur France, Memoires de la Société d'Histoire de Elizabeth, la L'Abolition de considerable Martinique role 1983, especially Pp. 33-80. Martinique, Fort-deof Freemasonry in preparing the Elizabeth draws attention to the emancipationism in Martinique. ground for republicanism and 35. Quoted in Schoelcher, 'La Verité aux Ouvriers (1849), in Esclavage et 160. et Cultivateurs de la who accused him of having Colonisation, p. In this pamphlet Schoelcher Martinique' planters themselves brought chaos to the colonies replies to those insurrection were aware that slavery had become by pointing out that the motivated the alarmed editorials he untenable; clearly fear of slave 36. Maurice Agulhon, The Republican cites. p. 57. Experiment: 1848-52, Cambridge 1985, 37. Oruno Lara, La Guadeloupe dans l'Histoire, pp. 231-3. This work, despite its --- Page 525 --- French Restoration Slavery effects of the struggles in the Antilles in informality, gives a vivid idea of the enduring Schoelcher did not visit the Antilles at this time these years. by pointing out that the motivated the alarmed editorials he untenable; clearly fear of slave 36. Maurice Agulhon, The Republican cites. p. 57. Experiment: 1848-52, Cambridge 1985, 37. Oruno Lara, La Guadeloupe dans l'Histoire, pp. 231-3. This work, despite its --- Page 525 --- French Restoration Slavery effects of the struggles in the Antilles in informality, gives a vivid idea of the enduring Schoelcher did not visit the Antilles at this time these years. It is interesting to note that black and mulatto emancipationists in the but made himself the tribune of radical never went beyond legal and peaceful colonies. Schoelcher insisted that his supporters the Bissettistes collaborating with them. While forms of resistance to the planters, and Governors of the Antilles allowed the planters to there is little doubt that the military it is also the case that the latter resisted intimidate the nouveaux citoyens with impunity, them, for a time successfully in vigorously the provocations committed Planters who against took a hard line with labourers or tenants Guadeloupe and Marie Galante. for the wave of suspected arson in risked a fire in their cane fields and the estate French buildings; West Indies, pp. 155-6. For the eruption 1849-50 see McCloy, The Negro in estates in Martinique see Elizabeth, L'Abolition of demands for the break-up of the large de l'Esclavage à la Martinique, pp. 90-7. in Kilson and Rotberg, The African "The French West Indies', 38. Weinstein, Diaspora, pP. 248-9, 274-5. quoted in Tomic, Prelude to Emancipation, 39. Schoelcher, Des Colonies Françaises, p. 196. La Crise du Système Esclavagiste, pp. 212-20; Tomic, Prelude to 40. Schnakenbourg, Emancipation, PP. 125 et seq. du Système Esclavagiste, p. 238. These findings 41. Schnakenbourg, La Crise des Antilles show that despite slavery and concerning the profitability of the Compagnic could yield reasonable profits right down to the end the Loi Mackau the colonial system of the July Monarchy. 'La Verité aux Ouvriers et Cultivateurs' and *Polemique 42. Victor Schoelcher, 168-74, 185-88. Coloniale' (1871-81), in Esclavage et Colonisation, 472-3. pp. 43. Cochin, L'Abolition de l'Esclavage, I1, pp. Paris 1949, p. 61. 44. Eugène Revert, La France d'Amérique, II, 474-6. 45. Cochin, L'Abolition de l'Esclavage, I1, pp. 472-7. 46. Cochin, L'Abolition de l'Esclavage, the Netherlands, pp. Antilles and Surinam, pp. 150-1. 47. Goslinga, A Short History of the Virgin Islands of the United States, Virgin 48. Isaac Dookhan, A History of Islands 1974, pp. 173-4. the Virgin Islands, pp. 175, 190-8. 49. Dookhan, A History of the Netherlands, Antilles and Surinam, pp. 153-61; 50. Goslinga, A Short History of 331-4. et Fieldhouse, The Colonial Empires, PP: of Slavery in Venezuela, pp. 135 The Decline and Abolition Negro 51. Lombardi, Bogota 1938, 2 seq. Canal, La Libertad de los Esclavos en Colombia, Devil and 52. Carlos Restrepo For the slaves' land seizures see Michael Taussig, The vols, II, pp. 169-73. America, Hill 1980, pP. 47-9. Goslinga, A Short History of 331-4. et Fieldhouse, The Colonial Empires, PP: of Slavery in Venezuela, pp. 135 The Decline and Abolition Negro 51. Lombardi, Bogota 1938, 2 seq. Canal, La Libertad de los Esclavos en Colombia, Devil and 52. Carlos Restrepo For the slaves' land seizures see Michael Taussig, The vols, II, pp. 169-73. America, Hill 1980, pP. 47-9. Tulio Halperin Commodity Fetishism in South final Chapel coincided with a new Donghi makes the point that these emancipations American Republics, 'Economy and configuration of political economy in the America', Spanish in Leslie Bethell, ed., The Cambridge Society in post-Independence Spanish Cambridge 1985, pp. 299-345, p. 341. According to History of Latin America, vol Iil, to Buenos Aires until 1860 when that province Andrews full emancipation did not extend The Afro-Argentines, pp. 56-7. ratified the Constitution; Andrews, en Colombia, Bogotâ 1933, pp. 83-8. 53. Eduardo Posada, La Esclavitud --- Page 526 --- --- Page 527 --- XIII Conclusion: Results and Prospects No more of rapine and its wasted plains Its stolen victims and unhallowed gains, Its Christian merchants, and the brigands bold Who wage their wars and do their work for gold. No more of sorrows sick'ning to the heart, Commercial murders and the crowded mart; The living cargoes and the constant trace Of pain and anguish in each shrunken face! . 'No one perhaps, replied the Count, can more The sad, but strong necessity deplore, Of buying men to cultivate our plains And holding these, our fellow men in chains. The very name of slavery, to me Is vile and odious to the last degree Think not, I pray, I advocate this cause, Or speak of such a system with applause; Sir in the abstract it must be condemned, It is the practice only I defend For ad quo morals, nothing can be worse But ad quo sugar, 'tis the sole resource.' The Sugar Estate (1840), R.R. Madden --- Page 528 --- --- Page 529 --- Conclusion France, Spain and Portugal had possessed flourishing In 1770 Britain, In the succession of political and social slave colonies in the Americas. colonial empire and slavery were both struggles covered in this book century these upheavals challenged. Down to the mid-nineteenth and destroyed slavery destroyed colonial rule on most of the mainland, of this thus of the Caribbean. The revolutionary events epoch in most and fundamental restructuring of slavery brought about a simultaneous is clear enough. În the United States and of empire. The broad picture rejected but slavery and Brazil the colonial relationship was successfully mainland Spanish America flourished. In Haiti and survived - indeed defeated. In the British and French both slavery and colonial rule were but colonial rule survived. The only West Indies slavery was suppressed the Americas by 1850 was Spanish Cuba: flourishing slave colony left in born of the slaveholders' fear a new colonial pact had been negotiated, metropolis to allow of the slaves and the willingness of an impoverished confirmed of a rich slave colony. Slave emancipation the development colonial rule in the British and French West and probably reinforced and Brazil independence confirmed and Indies. In the United States of the slave system. The strengrhened the vigour and dynamism aspects, whose destruction of colonial slavery thus had contradictory implications must now be considered. has been made to give any detailed account of In this book no attempt revolutions and wars, or of the course of the the major metropolitan this backdrop of an 'age of revolution' has only industrial revolution; the extent that it impinged on the been summarily introduced to the advance of capitalism and fortunes of colonial slavery. In this period and contradictory of bourgeois revolution had an uneven the progress and power of wealth-holders was promoted character. the vigour and dynamism aspects, whose destruction of colonial slavery thus had contradictory implications must now be considered. has been made to give any detailed account of In this book no attempt revolutions and wars, or of the course of the the major metropolitan this backdrop of an 'age of revolution' has only industrial revolution; the extent that it impinged on the been summarily introduced to the advance of capitalism and fortunes of colonial slavery. In this period and contradictory of bourgeois revolution had an uneven the progress and power of wealth-holders was promoted character. The autonomy the retreat of mercantilism, the by the dismantling of absolutism, respect for contract and private elaboration of legal codes enshrining and the construction of property, the greater speed of communication, of the possessing classes. political regimes more broadly representative sought to check or But at the same time the underlying populations ruling classes. Increasing control the power of the new or rejuvenated and consumption, greater ease of dependence on commodity production active created new movement, the extension of passive or of citizenship association and a new hopes and fears, and created new forms and abolition must be terrain of contestation. The advance of slavery cross-currents and in this context - it partook of similar seen contradictions. correlation between the rise of abolitionism as a There was a definite and the onset of a phase of increasing significant mass movement --- Page 530 --- The Overtbrow of Colonial Slavery society: Britain in 1788-92 and 'dynamic density' in bourgeois in the 1840s (and, 1830-38; France, weakly in 1789-91, more strongly It is as if the Northern US states of 1830-65). the to anticipate, resonance within social formations making abolitionism had special the classes had to transition from the transition - where social exploiting contestation as riots or contend with less particularistic forms of co-ordinated and rick-burning merged into, and gave way to, failure more of Spain, or the politicised forms of class struggle. The abolitionist movements also Netherlands or Denmark to develop industrial order with the slower development of an capitalist correlates broad correlations seem to invite the in those countries. These direct relation of cause and effect between conclusion that there was a The conclusion proposed capitalist advance and the rise of anti-slavery. misconstrue the causal here is different: such a simplified view would slavery of the epoch or link and fail to account for the 'para-industrial'" in character and impulses that were not bourgeois for vital anti-slavery To the extent that capitalist advance did were even anti-capitalist. because of the class struggles to promote anti-slavery it was indirectly, the of the new type of state which it gave rise and because of capacities created in the wake of industrial revolution. in this book is that The main conclusion of the accounts presented but where it became slavery was not overthrown for economic reasons struggles within and politically untenable. Intense political and military conditions in which slavery between the leading Atlantic powers created of the places where it had been could be successfully challenged in many overthrown in the in 1770. The slave systems of most importance stricken down by rival economic interests, period 1776-1848 were not contributed to capital accumubecause they no longer of or condemned by market pressure. The solid ranks lation, or driven out of existence favoured anti-slavery at all, to a the bourgeoisie inclined, when they in stormy of abolitionism. The slave systems perished moderate species colonies and metropolis. The economic class struggles in both of colonial slavery were not industrialists beneficiaries of the overthrow still able and willing to but other American slave-owning St planters, Domingue was at the height of supply the industrialising regions. British West Indies had achieved a pinnacle its prosperity in 1789. The around 1807 and the West Indian slave of commercial profitability in the 1820s. The Dutch farmers plantations were still quite profitable in the 1810s, the in New York in the 1790s, the Venezuelan planters slaves because of wider Antillean of the 1840s lost their French planters revolutions and class struggles. willing to but other American slave-owning St planters, Domingue was at the height of supply the industrialising regions. British West Indies had achieved a pinnacle its prosperity in 1789. The around 1807 and the West Indian slave of commercial profitability in the 1820s. The Dutch farmers plantations were still quite profitable in the 1810s, the in New York in the 1790s, the Venezuelan planters slaves because of wider Antillean of the 1840s lost their French planters revolutions and class struggles. In each of social and political conflicts, vulnerable not economically unprofitthese cases slavery was politically the slave-owner's natural able; and in a politically viable slave system --- Page 531 --- Conclusion but the sale of surplus response to poor profits was not of emancipation the slave economy. Slave emancislaves to more dynamic sectors political crises and social pation was put on the agenda for by the englobing rise of the challenge to slavery and contestation. The key dates tension in the polity and the slave trade marked moments of exceptional 1793-4 in France and St social formation: 1780 in Pennsylvania, 1821 in Gran Colombia, Domingue, 1804 in Haiti, 1807 in Britain, Lesser Antilles. As regimes, 1833 in Britain, 1848 in the French and unmade SO anti-slavery forces, governments and states were made the opportunity to isolate and including the slaves themselves, gained and households had defeat the slaveholders. The slave based enterprises to reproduce the but never fully adequate, capacity the a considerable, Political events which opened a rift between subjection of slaves. to slave resistance; slaveholders and the government gave opportunities Britain in the 1770s, or France any state challenged by slaveholders, South as America, would be tempted in the 1790s, or Spain after 1811 in Likewise those seeking withdrawing support for slavery. to retaliate by system found in abolitionism a to establish or shape a new political calculated to evoke symbol of legitimacy, a social programme potent of wide layers of the non-slaveholding the spontaneous consent population. should be noted. If prevailing economic interests But a qualification the slave trade or slave emancipation it remains did not dictate bans on lose much by the anti-slavery moves at the true that neither did they of particular national slave time they were made. The suppresion The slave and involved no expropriation. trades benefited some planters had been buoyant in 1789 but it was in system in the French Caribbean of the decree of Pluviose 1794. North full disintegration by the time where slavery was already American emancipation only made headway born. Likewise anti-slavery weak and generally freed only those not yet where slaves were few, but gained ground in Spanish South America, thrived. While slave plantations not in Cuba or Brazil, where slavery in the British West Indies in the 1820s may still have been profitable in the 1840s, the economic significance of and in the French Antilles ruling classes was small and trade with slaveholding to the metropolitan În both cases incipient slave resistance the colonial Caribbean in eclipse. emancipation. the planters to a compensated was a factor reconciling these governments allowed The resources available to metropolitan without great strain, essentially them to finance compensation schemes fraction of total imperial represented only a tiny because slaveholding helped to buy off wealth. In the British case generous compensation in the French compenopposition from the West Indian proprietors; for private property and sation was promised out of general respect --- Page 532 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of the party of order around Louis paid following the rallying Napoleon. emancipation. the planters to a compensated was a factor reconciling these governments allowed The resources available to metropolitan without great strain, essentially them to finance compensation schemes fraction of total imperial represented only a tiny because slaveholding helped to buy off wealth. In the British case generous compensation in the French compenopposition from the West Indian proprietors; for private property and sation was promised out of general respect --- Page 532 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of the party of order around Louis paid following the rallying Napoleon. triumphed in this period where three factors Slave emancipation coalesced: (i) a political crisis favourable to such an outcome birth to a new type of state; (ii) marginalising slaveholders and giving (iii) social of slave resistance or rebellion; the actuality or prospect the partisans of reform or revolution to rally mobilisations encouraging popular sentiment with anti-slavery acts. by itself, did not necessarily destroy slave subordination Political crisis, discredit slave-owners, as the example of North or disorganise and shows. Where there was a native, resident America after 1776 amply class it could exploit political crisis to and strongly entrenched planter fortified rather than menaced slavesponsor political forms which strongly correlate with the rise holding. Political crisis did nevertheless of those parts of North America of anti-slavery; this was true isolated. even A challenge to the established where slaveholders could be slave outbreaks or desperate class order could set the scene for dramatic widening of a secular public struggles; it could also lead to a became more visible and in which the workings of slavery space controversial. broadly speaking, three types of During this period there were, different phases in the development of political regime corresponding to contexts and possibilities for anticapitalism and producing different absolutist regimes in which slavery. First, there were the late feudal social relationship; mercantile slavery was an accepted but regulated development in special enclaves; the capital could sponsor slave-based by royal statute not by the play of slave status was defined, in principle, required it slaves might economic forces; if the defence of royal power would have their own duties be armed and freed; free people of colour The second type of regime, and privileges as a regulated caste or estate. revolution, that of produced in the wake of the first wave of bourgeois Commonwealth or state whether republic, the early capitalist much scope to privatised wealth illegitimate monarchy' - gave greater further and more intensive phase and power, and typically sponsored a accumulation; while of colonial slavery and mercantlelmanufacturing might be ventilated these moderate abolitionist aspirations some inhospitable terrain for the triumph of anti-slavery. regimes furnished often thrown up as a consequence of the crisis The third type of regime, oligarchy, was that in of the regimes of absolutism or bourgeois forced to make concessions to which bourgeois forces found themselves skilled labourers, clerical workers small property owners, artisans and the state was called upon and the humbler layers of professional people; --- Page 533 --- Conclusion to regulate capitalist forces and to undertake ensure social reproduction; more ample functions to progress under this type of anti-slavery had a greater chance of different scope of regime. Before briefly the anti-slavery in these considering that this proposed threefold settings it should be made clear chronological typology does not exactly to sequence since some correspond a revolution - Philadelphia in 'intermediary' phases of bourgeois later dilemmas and 1778-80, Paris in 1793-9 - anticipated stabilise them; premonitions developments of the without being able to contain or prevent regression to the second. 'third' type they were unable to Because late feudal and absolutist sanction they possessed ready-made regimes uniformly claimed divine and normalising the social relations ideological resources for concealing traditional framework the of slavery. Fortified by such a pressures of the age with royal the authorities in Madrid responded to the policy of selective and new slave code of 1789 and a military or Venezuela. opportune slave manumission in Santo Slavery as such only became the Domingo Spain during the short-lived constitutional object of controversy in eccentric absolutist regimes in period (1811-14). they were unable to Because late feudal and absolutist sanction they possessed ready-made regimes uniformly claimed divine and normalising the social relations ideological resources for concealing traditional framework the of slavery. Fortified by such a pressures of the age with royal the authorities in Madrid responded to the policy of selective and new slave code of 1789 and a military or Venezuela. opportune slave manumission in Santo Slavery as such only became the Domingo Spain during the short-lived constitutional object of controversy in eccentric absolutist regimes in period (1811-14). The and limited measures Portugal and Denmark took the aim of against the slave trade but under duress particular and avoiding abolitionist mobilisation. So with colonial structures of absolutism did long as they lasted the rhetoric of enlightened universalism. encourage opponents to adopt a tilism provoked patriot Absolutist autocracy and mercanradicalism, but its was sapped by the Atlantic boom ability to resist the Patriots shocks of war and revolution. The even before it was shattered by the had been the first to break because slave regime in French St Domingue metropolitan order and because of the depth of the crisis of the sufficiently cohesive and hegemonic colonial structures had not enabled a The political structures of planter class to develop. slaveholding becoming 'illegitimate monarchy' did not enfranchise controversial but they did prevent economic interest as a defence of legitimate and represented a form of the state with a limited slavery; and they society. A moderate species of abolitionism ability to intervene in civil such regimes but not until was to become typical of as in Britain in 1831-3 'illegitimate monarchy' itself was in The advent of or France in 1848 - did anti-slavery question republicanism did not triumph. success, especially where a cohesive automatically ensure anti-slavery over a sizeable planter class retained hegemony institutions did non-slaveholding free population. But put slave-owners to a republican develop new justificatory demanding test, requiring them to ideologies and new ensuring their hegemony. The North political instruments for the 1780s, for all their limitations, did American emancipation laws of prepare the ground for the more --- Page 534 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery that were to appear within the French and radical challenges to slavery an unresolved contradiction to British Empires; and they bequeathed States itself. Just as the advance of republican institutions in the United slavery more brought class struggle in its train, making created a capitalism SO the advance of bourgeois revolution difficult to defend, which also created openings for anti-slavery. secular political space revolutions created states that were not only The cycle of bourgeois of property and commerce to the dynamic independent more responsive for that very reason, mobilise greater socio-economic but could also, that they replaced. and military resources than the absolutist also polities sought to give, or at least Asking more from their citizens they component of the promise, more. Civic freedom was an indispensable and Liberals; and at least package offered by Patriots, Republicans naked tyranny or plutocracy. The sufficient civic equality to outlaw probably bring us even closer to popular patriotic songs of the period characteristic of the period than do the new type of inter-subjectivity Britannia' (1740), the *Marseillaise' (1791), political tracts: and in 'Rule national anthem (1821), Banner' (1814), or Peru's the Star-Spangled banishes slavery. As the dates we find the proud boast that citizenship far from having consistent anti-slavery make clear patriot ideology was between practice and implications. But the tension it characteristic introduced of the feudal-clerical ideology was different from that whether slaves were being fairly order. It raised the question not of be tolerated. treated but of whether slavery should 'illegitimate monarchy' or the From the slaveholders' standpoint promising release from limited bourgeois Republic could be attractive, But for this to apply absolutist regulation or colonial tutelage. principle based on slaveholding had to be protected by an exclusionary of the two, and the competence property or race, or some combination circumscribed. ideology was between practice and implications. But the tension it characteristic introduced of the feudal-clerical ideology was different from that whether slaves were being fairly order. It raised the question not of be tolerated. treated but of whether slavery should 'illegitimate monarchy' or the From the slaveholders' standpoint promising release from limited bourgeois Republic could be attractive, But for this to apply absolutist regulation or colonial tutelage. principle based on slaveholding had to be protected by an exclusionary of the two, and the competence property or race, or some combination circumscribed. Britain's original model of of the state had to be strictly recognition and guarantees to proper- 'illegitimate monarchy' extended of slaveholders; while it provided tied interests, including the interests deflected and the setting for the rise of abolitionism, it eventful SO moderated, half-century elapsed delayed the impact of anti-slavery that committee an and the emancipation between the founding of the abolition of the slaves in the British colonies. by respect for private In the United States slaveholding was protected and by strict limits on the legal property, by a system of racial privilege the ethnic balance was such that a scope for state intervention. In Brazil would not have strengrhened the US-style bi-polar racial ideology slaveholders, numbers of whom were defences of slavery. Brazil's could draw on the Lusothemselves of partly coloured extraction, --- Page 535 --- Conclusion racial spectrum in which dress, Brazilian tradition of a hierarchical skin. The Brazilian slave social manners and money "lightened' the by a strongly oligarchic formation was embedded within and protected order. The larger fazendeiros political system and socio-economic in the countryside through a enjoyed almost untrammelled local power the franchise and combination of patronage and thuggery; property urban citizens; the National Guard directly empowered the wealthier but not interfere with Emperor could make and unmake governments life on the estates. a powerful factor in neutralising Respect for property was certainly The blockages and delays encounpressure. or diminishing anti-slavery abolition stemmed more from the solidarity tered by British and French from racial solidarity. In the early of the propertied classes than the ideological challenge of antibourgeois Republics and monarchies species of abolitionism which slavery could be met by a moderate to ending the slave confining its objectives shunned expropriation, manumission and regulating the plantatrade, encouraging voluntary did not aim at more than this prior to the tions. British abolitionism des Amis des Noirs, as we have seen, did not 1820s. The French Société its stand on equal rights for free people demand emancipation but took of colour. of patriotism nourished a civic ideal that The new secular ideology but refrained from attacking important cohabited uneasily with slavery Americas the patriotic abolitionism of sources of national wealth. In the the of Africans and nation-builders aimed to stop import the early in the zone. The slave gradually reduce reliance on slavery between plantation 1775 and 1807 had trade bans adopted by North Americans though they encouraged opposition no direct anti-slavery consequences, traffic. Where slavery remained strong patriot elsewhere to the slave of slaveholders, even while abolitionists respected the property rights Arango and Feijo. But lamenting their fate in the manner of Jefferson, there was Patriots did reconcile themselves to slaveholding, while many by the outsize powers of slaveholders within a still a tension provoked offered equal rights to all free citizens. It framework that supposedly dissonance' within patriot would be wrong to dwell on 'cognitive patriot ideals became most ideology and miss the fact that conflicting were best placed to when non-slaveholding free citizens embarrassing It was the pressure of the political dispute slaveholder hegemony. of smallholders, artisans, port-workers conjuncture and the aspirations could make planter Patriots anxious to or the maritime fraternity that of Methodism in the US South in the 1780s disavow slavery. The spread of the white colons of the French or the intense anti-planter patriotism --- Page 536 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Windward Islands in the 1790s slaveholders which was hidden in stable showed a latent animosity to were themselves aware. periods but of which planters In normal periods the parliamentary monarchies' was a typically weak and abolitionism of the 'illegitimate slavery breakthroughs were made rather contradictory formation. to or the maritime fraternity that of Methodism in the US South in the 1780s disavow slavery. The spread of the white colons of the French or the intense anti-planter patriotism --- Page 536 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery Windward Islands in the 1790s slaveholders which was hidden in stable showed a latent animosity to were themselves aware. periods but of which planters In normal periods the parliamentary monarchies' was a typically weak and abolitionism of the 'illegitimate slavery breakthroughs were made rather contradictory formation. Antirevolutionary or under the pressure of of slave resistance. proto-revolutionary The events, and the actuality or threat book has tried to narrative of emancipation presented in bring out the cumulative character this colonial slavery, even though each of the challenge to or imperial story. Each abolitionist individual chapter pursues a national that which preceded in advance derived some Atlantic it, a sequence which impetus from every five or ten years between 1780 zigzagged across the national boundaries remain and 1848. Imperial or or motives had a purely local significant not because anti-slavery impulses could only be stabilised character but because slave within national state emancipation meant creating a new state as it did in St structures, even if this the period 1776-1825 warfare Domingue/Haiti. Of course in sweepingly than the wars of the challenged territorial divisions far more and became instruments previous epoch. Wars broke up empires secular ofrevolutionary transformation. ideologies in a new way, They mobilised severe test, and subjecting rival regimes to the French requiring new rallying cries and material most emancipation of 1794 and the sacrifice, The 1807 were greatly facilitated by the English slave trade abolition of conflict. emergency atmosphere of military Patriotism called into political existence populations of the Atlantic states. Its wider layers of the Hanoverian Britain, to North America, development has been traced from and on to South America. At the back to revolutionary Europe faced a life and death extreme, where the patriot cause itself envisage arming blacks struggle, and some radical Patriots were prepared to previously noted safety catches extending of promises of emancipation. The however. The most radical property and race would still inhibit, Americans yet even they chose patriot slow and abolitionists were the Spanish Patriot abolitionism was not a stable partial means to emancipation. or dissipate in the aftermath of formation, tending to disintegrate and exalted moments secular revolutionary crisis. In its most radical emancipationism were difficult universalism, to national messianism and contributed most to anti-slavery often disentangle. The Patriots who ations (Paine, the Jacobins and nourished cosmopolitan aspircontributions were made by individual Hébertistes, Bolivar), while crucial former slaves like Equiano who owed Quakers, Freemasons, and patriotism might offer allegiance to no state. Radical anti-slavery tactical or conjunctural support, but --- Page 537 --- Conclusion fell to 'Black Jacobins' whose commitment the critical breakthrough rather than national identity. was to social freedom between slave insurgency and French The negotiation of the alliance the history of New World slavery republicanism in the 1790s changed the alliance. It led to the construction of by transforming both parties to which defeated the two leading imperial a black power and government France. The revolutionary powers of the day: Britain and Caribbean Napoleonic did not confine itself to vague emancipationism of the French but laid low what had been the promises and postnate manumission in the Americas. It set a standard against most successful slave system of moderate abolitionism could be which the evasions and betrayals Louverture impressed itself on the measured. The figure of Toussaint armies he created demonstrated the imagination of the epoch, while the had thrown off slavery. parties to which defeated the two leading imperial a black power and government France. The revolutionary powers of the day: Britain and Caribbean Napoleonic did not confine itself to vague emancipationism of the French but laid low what had been the promises and postnate manumission in the Americas. It set a standard against most successful slave system of moderate abolitionism could be which the evasions and betrayals Louverture impressed itself on the measured. The figure of Toussaint armies he created demonstrated the imagination of the epoch, while the had thrown off slavery. The slaves' unconquerable spirit of those who Sonthonax, Laveaux and willingness to fight for freedom persuaded intrigue and defend the Vincent to defy the vagaries of metropolitan likewise the stubborn resistance to grandeur of the emancipation policy; to break with him. The Leclerc persuaded Dessalines and Christophe Caribbean and the rest of the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the free of colour and helped Americas inspired groups of slaves and people Patriots. As Genovese to radicalise a section of Spanish American slave resistance itself acquired stressed in From Rebellion to Revolution the context of the revolutionary a new meaning and potential in of slave struggles of the 1790s. There was an incipient 'politicisation' and could it achieved forms which aimed at, guarantee, resistance as of the Atlantic world of the general emancipation. In the conditions take the form of legislation backed early nineteenth century this had to by an effective territorial state. crucially depended on black witness, The progress of abolition of the and on the 'Black Jabobin' breakthrough on slave resistance, and the varied in different 1790s. Whether small or large, proportions was absolutely times and places, the black contribution to Without anti-slavery the early "freedom critical to establishing a wider response. the writings of Equiano and suits' and black petitions, without Louverture and Moyse, Christophe and Cugoano, without Toussaint Julien Fédon, Padilla and Romero, Dessalines, Pierrot and Goman, Bissette and Pory Papy, Pétion and Jordan and Sharpe, Mary Prince, black rebels and abolitionists, the challenge Buddhoe and SO many other have triumphed. As the colonial to colonial slavery could not possibly the likelihood of black slave formations 'matured' they also multiplied in Barbados in 1816, contestation. The escalating slave resistance achieved both a larger scale Guyana in 1823 and Jamaica in 1831-2 --- Page 538 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery with the slave regime than any and a more intimate engagement Caribbean. They were also more clearly previous revolts in the British The armed demonstrations aimed at contesting the whole slave system. advance for the black of slaves in Martinique in 1848 also marked an occasion they did not of the French Windwards, since on this masses to agents from the metropolis. entrust emancipation revolt revealed both the unity and the diversity Black resistance and latent of free blacks to and the antagonism of the slave community often a leading role in plantation slavery. Skilled or 'elite' slaves played Caribbean colonies of Britain and revolts and urban conspiracies. In the management was France, as was noted in the Introduction, within plantation the slave crew because particularly reliant on the 'head people' as drivers or artisans. of free labourers available to work of the shortage in local markets was also more In these colonies slave participation the of slavery itself in extensive. In a political crisis, with legitimacy information and the elite slaves were well placed both to relay United States, question, resistance. Plantation security in the to foment collective vulnerable because there were more free Cuba and Brazil was less their assistants and because workers available for hire as overseers or worked by only a few there was a much larger number of small estates was often a critical slaves. of free labourers available to work of the shortage in local markets was also more In these colonies slave participation the of slavery itself in extensive. In a political crisis, with legitimacy information and the elite slaves were well placed both to relay United States, question, resistance. Plantation security in the to foment collective vulnerable because there were more free Cuba and Brazil was less their assistants and because workers available for hire as overseers or worked by only a few there was a much larger number of small estates was often a critical slaves. But while the disposition of the "head people' the level of conspiracy factor slave resistance did not get of beyond field slaves. The field slaves on without the involvement of the mass for resistance, plantations had a notable capacity Caribbean sugar size of these estates and partly partly because of the large average implement the cane cutting because their standard agricultural The 'maturing' of the slave machete - could also be used as a weapon. linked the slaves to the free colonies meant that kinship ties increasingly house slaves, those on one blacks, creoles to Africans, field slaves to of the slave systems estate to those on another. The ferocious pressure coloured into a itself tended to weld the enslaved and order. population It gave rise to if differentiated, antagonism to the ruling common, should work for themselves and their families the demand that slaves Slave resistance was in this sense as rather than for their exploiters. the revolts of Captain Swing's much a form of class struggle as were And while the point of followers or of the proletariat of Lyons. of conflict the character and production might provide the initial site issues of contestation in both control of public authority were vital colonies and metropolis. and French colonial slavery in the The defeats inflicted on British of a slaveholding order Caribbean reflected the special vulnerability În the colonies themselves dependent on a distant metropolitan state. minorities. The and race defined very small privileged property --- Page 539 --- Conclusion of racial identity as a support of slaveholding was shortmobilisation black majorities and where there were sighted where there were large blacks. And SO far as the metropolis was growing minorities of free as did in Virginia, concerned it was scarcely possible to argue, white Jefferson citizens, since the slaves that emancipation would be a disaster for how much popular racism thousands of miles away. It is not clear were found in Britain or France at the time of the struggles over was to be rather little - but even if this estimate is faulty emancipation - possibly much mileage out of it; likewise in the slave-owners could not get America where there were very few certain parts of North and South favour laws banning the introducslaves racial animosities could even the time of emancipation the British tion of any more black slaves. By to the ruling authorities and French planters were an embarrassment defend themselves; colonial and lacked effective political instruments to lobbies isolated or dispersed. assemblies were discredited, and planter absentees; their situation Many British and French proprietors were than residents. Unable to made them more prone to compromise their own social weight these enforce slave subjection through but as colonial slavery proprietors needed metropolitan support; this support eventually ebbed became more discredited and troublesome bourgeois distaste for expropriaaway, despite continuing and lively abolitionism and class struggle tion. The dialectic of slave resistance, itself out over several decades. was a complex one and only worked to read a draft of this book was A friend who was good enough allotted in it to British abolitionism when disconcerted by the space the overthrow of colonialism and compared with that accorded to feeling . that it is wrong to slavery in Spanish America. I can't help abolitionism than to these devote SO much more space to British of a of across two continents - the activities parcel gigantic upheavals hypocrites studied SO microscopimewling vicars and parliamentary is reserved for the heroic twentycally, while the broadest of brushes and justification I would year wars of the Liberators!" În explanation however unappealing some of its plead that British emancipation, destruction of a major slave system and the protagonists, involved the slaves. slavery in Spanish America. I can't help abolitionism than to these devote SO much more space to British of a of across two continents - the activities parcel gigantic upheavals hypocrites studied SO microscopimewling vicars and parliamentary is reserved for the heroic twentycally, while the broadest of brushes and justification I would year wars of the Liberators!" În explanation however unappealing some of its plead that British emancipation, destruction of a major slave system and the protagonists, involved the slaves. The anti-slavery actions of speedy liberation of some 700,000 were aimed at weak slave the Spanish American liberation movements took a very gradual systems and, SO far as many slaves were liberation concerned, struggle it is unlikely or risky form; during the twenty-year slaves were freed, out of a total of roughly that more than about 70,000 the achievements of the three times that number. Yet undeniably terms, should not be measured only in these quantitative Liberators itself shamed Britain's parliamentary partly because their example --- Page 540 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery because they closed a vast extent of American hypocrites and partly Venezuela or Colombia or Peru or Central territory to slavery. If like Cuba, or had failed to enact America had remained Spanish formidable new slave systems could have emancipation like Brazil, then the Atlantic power of the been built there. Because Britain was leading and British slavery must struggles relating to the British slave trade shows age, I hope that the resulting account be considered in depth, though referred to. wider forces at work than the 'parcel' aim to underline The chapters on British and French emancipation forces converged and whereby anti-slavery the many-sided process There are two ready-made but deceptive slaveholders were isolated. which I have sought to challenge. One of approaches to emancipation abolitionthese concentrates all attention on respectable for metropolitan the pristine virtues of ism; the other nourishes a romantic regard by the idea of slavery can lead rebellion. The very revulsion how prompted it was to end it. If the historical view of easy to an oversimplified becomes clear that abolitionism was often timid record is examined, it of slavery had great resources of and ineffective, that the defenders and that the critical advances brought procrastination and diversion, forces untouched by 'literary' anti-slavery. into play elemental social carried But from this it does not follow that a spontaneous stacked anti-slavery against slave all before it. The record also shows the odds were difficult and that unifying the oppressed was extraordinarily resistance, forms of anti-slavery often did not mesh together. that the different alliance and post-slavery order were most Constructing an anti-slavery demanding and arduous undertakings. ideas which fail to advance understanding Among the ready-made dynamic in an essentially are all those which locate the anti-slavery well-known theses on dyadic relationship of master and slave. Hegel's Sartre pointed out in The the master-slave dialectic fails, as Jean-Paul of the dialectic between Critique of Dialectical Reason, to 'dialectic take account of the subject' also fails to one master and another.' The could develop between address the problem of how inter-subjectivity different extraction; and likewise it slaves in differing situations and of 'third' as free people of fails to consider the role played by such groups crisis of the slaveholdwhites. The political colour or non-slaveholding when slaveholders lost their ability to ing order was always aggravated population of the slave zone; the hegemonise the non-slaveholding mobilised free people of colour in St presence of alienated and in the 1830s, was a major ingredient Domingue in 1791, or in Jamaica despite the numbers of them in precipitating the crisis of the slave order, who were themselves slaveholders. hird' as free people of fails to consider the role played by such groups crisis of the slaveholdwhites. The political colour or non-slaveholding when slaveholders lost their ability to ing order was always aggravated population of the slave zone; the hegemonise the non-slaveholding mobilised free people of colour in St presence of alienated and in the 1830s, was a major ingredient Domingue in 1791, or in Jamaica despite the numbers of them in precipitating the crisis of the slave order, who were themselves slaveholders. required a complex of means and The systems of colonial slavery --- Page 541 --- Conclusion instruments in order to ensure the colonialism - racial privileges, militia reproduction of slavery and assemblies, laws concerning forces, slave-catchers, local forth. Their property, commercial regulations and book has traced disintegration was bound to be a SO the circumstances in which many-sided affair. This was contested and an anti-slavery bond the power of slaveholders rebels and anti-slavery radicals, could spring up between slave democratic upheavals. This political metropolitan abolitionism and wider also cumulative. The half-way houses process was jerky and uneven if often neither elegant nor durable, constructed along the road were together with the unreliable anti-slavery planks being held political opportunism. But such mortar of patriotism or demagogy or avoided unless emancipation had way-stations been could scarcely have been master contradiction. the working out of a single This book has attempted to identify relevant struggles of the metropolis and those of the links between the class both within a wider context of capitalist plantation zone, and place revolution. While such an account will development and bourgeois aims to avoid the problem of at best be an it an 'idealist' approximation, unfolding of events is already historiography in which the contents of abolitionist pre-programmed - whether by the rebellion. At the risk of ideology or by the tragedy of romantic scholarship, I will cite as appearing disrespectful to works of admirable problems have not been examples of studies in which the foregoing Progress by David Brion satisfactorily Davis and resolved Slavery and Human Craton. Greatly illuminating Testing the Chains by Michael us in a closed history where though these books are, they risk escaped the imperative of trapping (Davis), or slave rebels are doomed progress cannot be (Craton). to cyclical repetition It is in the context of the messy and alliance that I can address an uneven growth of an anti-slavery clusions drawn here and the narratives apparent contradiction between the conI have suggested that presented in preceding chapters. up by the arc of bourgeois anti-slavery grew in the secular space opened often received revolution. Yet manifestly strong sponsorship from religious anti-slavery Methodists, radical abbés, black enthusiasts: Quakers, voodoo houngans. The conclusion deacons, I wish revolutionary deists and slavery was itself purely secular in to suggest IS not that antirequired a secular setting. Enforcement inspiration, but that its achievements laws was entrusted to magistrates and of the various emancipation policemen and, within limits, to the commissioners, civil servants and themselves. They did not rely vigilance of the former slaves to the conscience of the slaveholder. upon any appeal to divine providence or The generally ineffective and half531 --- Page 542 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery slavery by moderate abolitionists did baked attempts made to regulate and missionaries - as in the sometimes give responsibilities to priests the French Antilles in the 1830s - British West Indies in the 1820s or formal role in the postbodies had little or no but religious In the British case missionaries and black deacons emancipation order. did not rely vigilance of the former slaves to the conscience of the slaveholder. upon any appeal to divine providence or The generally ineffective and half531 --- Page 542 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery slavery by moderate abolitionists did baked attempts made to regulate and missionaries - as in the sometimes give responsibilities to priests the French Antilles in the 1830s - British West Indies in the 1820s or formal role in the postbodies had little or no but religious In the British case missionaries and black deacons emancipation order. role in the 1820s and 1830s. Despite their did play an outstanding Methodism and Baptism in the British many conservative features colonial slavery and to develop an implicit Empire helped to de-stabilise slave and of the metropolitan alliance between layers of the population bear with those populace. The activities of Sharpe or Knibb comparison and in both cases it of William Loveless and the Tolpuddle Nonconformist martyrs self-organisation would seem that the experience of its and directed the impulse to resist, strengthening both tempered content at the expense of purely expressive, secular and instrumental (though not, of course, entirely displacing symbolic or ritual elements of the black preachers and white the latter). The achievements Indies had a secular context and character. missionaries in the West and police, albeit with some They were enforced by civil magistrates and black deacons. Religion ancillary mobilisation by missionaries of former and self-respect to some populations helped to give identity the freedom to move about, slaves; but SO did land-ownership, music and song, local languages. memories of resistance to slavery, element in this mixture in the Religion was probably a more element significant in the French and former Spanish British West Indies; a weaker itself often enjoyed some legitimacy as a territories. The colonial state ideological complex in the consequence of emancipation; the resulting radicalism than to anticolonial Caribbean was more open to social colonial nationalism. of anti-slavery was convenient for ruling groups While endorsement with slaveholding it would be wrong to who could afford to dispense interests. It might seem that ignore the real gains made by emancipatory merely sugared the bitter pill of abolition of abject personal dependence the citizen of the new states and more encompassing state powers over or the plantation zone antiregimes. But whether in the metropolis bound citizens to one another slavery was also a doctrine that the state. The resort to antiirrespective of the state, and even against corner noted in many of the slavery by political authorities in a tight that they sought thereby to foregoing chapters powerfully suggests adhesion of popularity from enhance their standing, anticipating an well as from slaves. sectors of the free population as many 1776-1848 witnessed intense class struggles as exploiters The period and servants', office holders and tax-payers, and exploited, 'masters merchants and landed notables and farmers or peasants, monopolistic --- Page 543 --- Conclusion each sought to defend or advance their independent small producers, industrial manufacture and the decline of essential interests. The rise of and dangers to all the old mercantilism held out both opportunities with its roots in a centuries-old popular social groups. Abolitionism, offer for the future - anti-slavery reflex, also appeared to guarantees of accumulation that the enlarged circuit capital basically a guarantee and extend personal bondage. Anti-slavery would not simply reinforce to those who were caught in the as a doctrine had a special appeal cross-class bloc. And as we have middle or were seeking to construct a more general resentment at to the slave trade often tapped seen hostility of merchants. Emancipationism was certainly the power or wealth of wage labour and thus congruent compatible with ideal projections But the ideal of 'free labour' or with capitalist industrialisation. abolitionism claimed to protect had popular 'independent labour' which to the small producer, the appeal because it could also be taken to refer free to work on their the each of whom were artisan or professional, Women, normally excluded own account rather than for a capitalist. in anti-slavery; while from political life, played a significant part inspired the first campaigns abolitionism idealised the family it directly for civic equality for women.? wealth of wage labour and thus congruent compatible with ideal projections But the ideal of 'free labour' or with capitalist industrialisation. abolitionism claimed to protect had popular 'independent labour' which to the small producer, the appeal because it could also be taken to refer free to work on their the each of whom were artisan or professional, Women, normally excluded own account rather than for a capitalist. in anti-slavery; while from political life, played a significant part inspired the first campaigns abolitionism idealised the family it directly for civic equality for women.? from those nostalgic for a Anti-slavery sometimes drew strength of a 'commercial age'. traditional order which prevented the excesses aim to restore medieval movements did not, in fact, But the anti-slavery life. The laws at which they aimed assumed regulation of economic responsive to popular interests some form of representative government of anti-slavery were attracted to and demands. Many of the pioneers Wilberforce, the most famous democratic and anti-capitalist ideas. and of course, the abolitionist of them all, is in this respect not typical; trade rather than slavery. main target of his campaigns was the slave Paine, Grégoire, Hidalgo, The anti-slavery of Wallace, Sharp, Pechmeja, property, had to be prepared to challenge private Artigas or Schoelcher do SO. These men were not in any modern and was often prepared to social democrats. But they were critics sense socialists or communists or when it was a sacred and central of private property in an age world. Moreover all the anti-slavery institution throughout the Atlantic radical social movements were movements thrived at moments when of wealth and challenge to those possessed posing a profound North America in the early 1780s, to Paris in privileges: ranging from to South America in the throes 1794, to the Mexican Bajio in 1811-4, and France in 1848. of revolution, to Britain in 1830-4, moderate species of abolitionism and There were, as we have seen, There was certainly a specifically moderate uses of anti-slavery. for anti-slavery which insisted on generous compensation capitalist --- Page 544 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery slave-owners and which accompanied the attempts to develop labour disciplines suppression of slavery with troublesome or expensive which did not depend on a cates of apparatus of direct coercion. anti-slavery were also ardent Many advonew poor law or. vagrancy prison reformers or devotees of capable of directly systems. Abolitionism as an ideology was bourgeois ideals and articulating a fairly comprehensive projection of capitalist an idealistic minority rather than disciplines. Nevertheless it appealed to leaders of the business to the mass of capitalists or to such of over a hundred community as Sir Robert Peel (who headed a list abolition of the slave manufacturers trade and merchants petitioning Baring, as late as 1806) while against Lafitte, Rothschild and Ardouin banking houses like investing in the slave colonies. jostled for the privilege of The sincere and dedicated bourgeois century usually had a generous and abolitionists of the nineteenth schemes of reform can not all be reduced even utopian side to them. Their social discipline since many to recipes for more effective establish checks on economic campaigned and to extend civic rights and to revisers of capitalism and political power. These reformers and those who have bourgeois revolution may be tried, or are trying, to check or reverse the compared to authoritarian and ecologically destructive inegalitarian, lation process in our own times; an ideal consequences of the accumupossibilities was undertaken in the projection of contemporary potential of newly released social cause of rescuing the progressive Abolitionists like powers, not of refining oppression. social discipline since many to recipes for more effective establish checks on economic campaigned and to extend civic rights and to revisers of capitalism and political power. These reformers and those who have bourgeois revolution may be tried, or are trying, to check or reverse the compared to authoritarian and ecologically destructive inegalitarian, lation process in our own times; an ideal consequences of the accumupossibilities was undertaken in the projection of contemporary potential of newly released social cause of rescuing the progressive Abolitionists like powers, not of refining oppression. without Sturge or Schoelcher remained ever being in the mainstream or eminently bourgeois The term 'bourgeois' meant even specifically pro-capitalist. category which was by no means roughly middle class townsman, a social since there were agrarian coextensive with that of capitalist, dwellers without capitalist landlords as well as capital. It is as well to retain middling townas well as the overlap between the a sense of the discrepancy also help us to understand why bourgeois and the capitalist; this may advance capitalist interests, bourgeois revolutions did not despite their simply as the old order was concerned, The ground-clearing function SO far fuse bourgeois and abolitionist alliance did sometimes periods when capitalists in one bloc but there were bourgeois radicals directed their important challenging the prevailing pattern of capitalist main efforts at trade, slave plantations, slave-related economy, with its slave lated factory system and SO forth; commerce, child labour, unreguto challenge the prevailing bourgeois radicals were also willing oligarchic and exclusionary bourgeois political regimes, with their many in the 1840s or Schoelcher's principles. Sturge's support for the Chartists sympathy with 'socialism' testify to the --- Page 545 --- Conclusion that was characteristic existence of a current of bourgeois progressivism but also eccentric. abolitionism was itself the product of the new What of the thesis that forces capitalist social relations? scope and freedom given to market transactions by educated the moral in market Had growing participation their horizons and broadening their perceptions of the masses, enlarging in foregoing chapters show that 'moral economy"'? The accounts given impulse. Market forces often this view fails to identify the anti-slavery that actually permitted and ruthlessness worked with an impersonality accumulation nourished by slave and promoted a circuit of capitalist found that it was not easy to win over exploitation. The abolitionists in the slave-related trades; consumer those most directly involved while businessmen faced with a profitable boycotts had neglible effect it to a rival. While a few individuals investment saw no reason to leave in slavery there was did withdraw for ethical reasons from involvement Markets set up a of those willing to take their place. not a shortage erase individual responsibility for the structure which appeared to often bankers and trustees would have pattern of resultant action. Very interests if they had not seized profitable been negligent of their clients' sector. openings available to them in the slave-related since the popular reaction But there is more to be said on this topic relations did help to evoke 'marketisation' of social to the increasing Slaves like Mary Prince, quoted in chapter 11, support for anti-slavery. in a free labour market as a saw the prospect of participation and, even under slavery, many slaves substantial advance over slavery; and trading to be one way of found petty commodity production of autonomy from their owner. Another acquiring some small measure would be to say that Mary Prince saw a way of putting these points to a market in human beings and market in labour power as preferable to acquire some that slaves used local markets in subsistence the market goods in export crops. While leverage against those who controlled former slaves carried into the postpreferring free wage labour some of them nourished emancipation period substantive expectations, employers could not satisfy. and, even under slavery, many slaves substantial advance over slavery; and trading to be one way of found petty commodity production of autonomy from their owner. Another acquiring some small measure would be to say that Mary Prince saw a way of putting these points to a market in human beings and market in labour power as preferable to acquire some that slaves used local markets in subsistence the market goods in export crops. While leverage against those who controlled former slaves carried into the postpreferring free wage labour some of them nourished emancipation period substantive expectations, employers could not satisfy. by the market, which their prospecive anti-slavery often tapped anxieties Likewise in the metropolis popular which generalised commodity bred by the new sense of dependence was both an extreme and a distant production entailed. Colonial slavery brought it closer, in terms of mode of exploitation; Atlantic commerce abolitionism to awaken popular social space, allowing metropolitan on employers or on the fickle anxieties about extreme dependence and slave trading set market mechanism. The attack on slaveholding writers ground rules for fair dealing. While some anti-slavery minimum --- Page 546 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery as a self-sufficient and adequate programme certainly saw emancipation of society this was not for taming and reforming the prevailing pattern activists and enthusiasts, who the case for the majority of anti-slavery effort to extend freedom in ways saw their work as part of a wider human interests. In the eyes of congruent with respect for universal refusing to accept the notion of a radical abolitionists this often meant challenging and suppressing, homogenous market system and instead markets by legislation or by the restraining or restructuring, particular new forms of social COredistribution of wealth, and by promoting operation. themes had a resonance within all In Britain and France anti-slavery gestures a convenient social classes. The rulers could find anti-slavery and middle off for reform. The wider bourgeoisie way to stave pressure itself on the oligarchy behind abolitionist class could seek to impose to subdue the restiveness of the rallying cries; and they might even hope lectures and sermons. And last labouring classes through abolitionist artisans and all types of wage but not least small producers, domestics, measures a check on the earner could see in anti-slavery or salary These various interpretations were even offered powers of the wealthy. Wilberforce was not at all averse to at the time by leading abolitionists; and socio-economic side-effects of pointing out the salutary political do not decide the matter. The official anti-slavery. But such declarations did little or nothing historical record suggests that anti-slavery gestures or working class opposition to oligarchy, to undermine popular tide of British anti-slavery in 1831-8 opposition to capital. The high by the rise of Chartism, the most was almost immediately followed oligarchy in modern British challenge to the ruling radical popular abolitionists support Chartism but leading history. Not only did leading ideas by drawing on the anti-slavery Chartists articulated their influential tract The Rise and tradition, as in Bronterre O'Brien's slavery' helped to of Human Slavery. The term 'wage Progress dimension into the perhaps 'over-political" radicalism introduce a social breakthrough was made of the time. In France in 1848 the abolitionist at the height of their when socialist and proletarian currents were strength. the most radical abolitionists advanced a The fact that few of even for supposing critique of capitalism is not good grounds end systematic ideologues. It was not, of course, until the very them to be capitalist this book that Karl Marx began to analyse of the period considered in between particular abuses the workings of capitalism, distinguishing accumulation. Capitalist and the essential functioning of capitalist did not constitute for Marx a relations, market relations and slavery tensions existed between them totality, since necessary or homogenous --- Page 547 --- Conclusion form without the other. most radical abolitionists advanced a The fact that few of even for supposing critique of capitalism is not good grounds end systematic ideologues. It was not, of course, until the very them to be capitalist this book that Karl Marx began to analyse of the period considered in between particular abuses the workings of capitalism, distinguishing accumulation. Capitalist and the essential functioning of capitalist did not constitute for Marx a relations, market relations and slavery tensions existed between them totality, since necessary or homogenous --- Page 547 --- Conclusion form without the other. But at a given and each could exist in some structure of domination moment they could well constitute a complex Moreover Marx of its own. and exploitation with a historical logic by capitalism as a himself saw resistance to particular abuses generated onslaught. He followed for a more fundamental necessary preparation in slavery in the Americas, seeing many of the early socialists attacking of the New World as a necessary the overthrow of the 'open slavery' of the Old. Moreover in SO prelude to an attack on the 'veiled slavery' liberal reformists such as John doing he did not mind associating with of the Atlantic zone in the midStuart Mill. The social formations an observer like Marx, nineteenth century were in flux and even could believe that the the of deep structures, attentive to determinations contest the juggernaut of capital best way to assemble forces to such as slave accumulation was to campaign for particular measures, and SO forth. Marx universal suffrage, the eight hour day that such emancipation, have been surprised if he had learnt would not, perhaps, the end of capitalism or even that they had popular gains did not spell societies. They still had value helped to create more expansive bourgeois for class struggle at a higher level; in themselves and as stepping stones could scarcely hope to take on without them human collective powers the global system of capital accumulation. in its various Once all due credit has been paid to abolitionism the abolitionists manifestations it must still be asked to what extent and the results of were in fact the authors of emancipation; to see to what extent they were emancipation must also be scrutinised whether bourgeois or petty shaped by metropolitan abolitionism, bourgeois, patrician or plebeian. in this book do not show a one to one The events considered and 'abolitionism', especially correspondence between emancipation abolitionism which has been SO copiously that official and respectable The Philadelphia emancipation documented and thoroughly analysed. when anti-slavery by democratic radicals at a time many was promoted retreat. The decree of Pluviose had been enthusiasts were in political des Noirs was a defunct organisation. enacted at a time when the Amis for the most part, without Emancipation in Spanish America proceeded, In the British case of distinct abolitionist organisations. the instigation did indeed play an important role, but they abolitionist mobilisations of escalating slave resistance and did not win on their own; the prospect were needed to ensure victory. In the pressure of domestic class struggle abolitionist movement: France in 1848 there was no comparable Revolution, of a bold abolitionist emancipation was the work of the The distinction minister and of the pressure of slave insurgence. --- Page 548 --- The Overtbrow of Colonial Slavery abolitionists also had significance in the between radical and moderate with radicals, such as Sturge or Schoelcher, aftermath of emancipation, of the former slaves while inclined to support the new struggles turned to other matters. moderates, such as Buxton or de Tocqueville, radicals could be helpful the former But while the representations of their own interests. slaves had found ways of directly which pursuing tells us that the former slaves were The facile pessimistic reflex had been under slavery cannot be really no better off than they and contrast sustained. To begin with there is a large of impressive the slave systems. between vital statistics before and after the ending had positive Around 1770 none of the Caribbean black populations slaveholding Spanish natural growth rates; a century later they all did, number of the smaller Cuba alone excepted. In Haiti, Jamaica and a of slaves now owned Caribbean islands former slaves and descendants subsistence crops and small plots of land on which they cultivated They developed perhaps some coffee. They built homes for themselves. would have been quite family life and cultural forms in ways left that marks on both the freed impossible under slavery. is a large of impressive the slave systems. between vital statistics before and after the ending had positive Around 1770 none of the Caribbean black populations slaveholding Spanish natural growth rates; a century later they all did, number of the smaller Cuba alone excepted. In Haiti, Jamaica and a of slaves now owned Caribbean islands former slaves and descendants subsistence crops and small plots of land on which they cultivated They developed perhaps some coffee. They built homes for themselves. would have been quite family life and cultural forms in ways left that marks on both the freed impossible under slavery. Slavery still difficult for the former slaves - people and their rulers. Life was were not hard to structures of class and racial inequality or descendants oppression now lived longer, identify. But the former slaves and their While the majority of former and more freely, than in slavery days. land they could move from one slaves had no land or insufficient island to another. Back-handed employer to another, or from one of the former slaves is provided acknowledgement of the new autonomy looked for other sources by the fact that planters and other employers influx of indentured labourers into of unfree labour. The considerable Indies and into Peru showed that economic the British and French West The new resort demand for tied labour had by no means disappeared. itself had labourers also demonstrated that emancipation to indentured of capital's demand for a new type of labour not been the end-product to sustain the given form of slavery." but rather of capital's inability vindicate the thesis that anti-slavery was The results of emancipation democratic' revolution linked to an over-arching process of 'bourgeois that was simply an the narrower view emancipation while contradicting world-view or bourgeois progress. Petty emanation of the bourgeois had goals which cut across the producers, artisans and professionals just as they did in France." bourgeois programme in the Caribbean pure itself often had, as we have seen, 'proto-peasant' Slave resistance ill former slaves became peasants, characteristics. For good or many let alone industrial wage rather few became wage labourers of any sort, in this epoch was labourers. The labour force released by emancipation capitalism or even, in most made available to industrial not thereby --- Page 549 --- Conclusion cases, to fully capitalist plantation latter were certainly to be found in agriculture, though enclaves of the other smaller French and British islands. Barbados, Martinique and some grown coffee had been In 1780 nearly all American free or peasant labour. slave-cultivated; In the last by 1840 the bulk was grown by large in the cane-cutting days of slavery women had loomed gangs; following likely to be seen tending garden emancipation they were more than working in the planters' fields. plots or carrying produce to market planters could find enough landless In some of the smaller islands the at something like former levels but labourers the to maintain sugar output territories where unfree labour could be big advances were made in position of former slaves often directly mobilised. The improved by reducing their availability for contradicted capitalist progress, 'de-subordination' of the former plantation labour. But this incipient gathering disfavour by the slaves was generally seen with opportunities to make the former public slaves authorities, who looked for repression carried out by Governor more compliant: the ferocious case in point. The new social freedoms Eyre in Jamaica in the 1860s is a slaves were almost universally enjoyed by the mass of former political power; in this sense accompanied the by effective exclusion from consolidation of bourgeois states set secular its space opened up by the own limits on emancipation. The fate of the Republic of Haiti in the significance for the events considered in this years 1825-50 has a special been alluded to above, book for reasons that have Writing about his escaped slave in North America in the experiences as a slave and anti-slavery advocate Frederick 1830s and 40s the outstanding interest in learning about Haiti led Douglass him observed that his passionate he could find concerning the first to devour every scrap of news the only American state to have American state to outlaw slavery and President a black government. Boyer ruled Haiti until 1843. the Republic of Haiti in the significance for the events considered in this years 1825-50 has a special been alluded to above, book for reasons that have Writing about his escaped slave in North America in the experiences as a slave and anti-slavery advocate Frederick 1830s and 40s the outstanding interest in learning about Haiti led Douglass him observed that his passionate he could find concerning the first to devour every scrap of news the only American state to have American state to outlaw slavery and President a black government. Boyer ruled Haiti until 1843. The was poor but dignified. While the President Republic which he led Assembly of notables was allowed took all real decisions an prices held up, a layer of Haitian to debate them. So long as coffee little above subsistence. peasants and landowners could rise a history the black While a small educated elite wrote threw masses elaborated a rich poetry or up local irregulars as a check on syncretistic folklore and Boyer's success in occupying the East and predominantly his mulatto rulers. 'official opposition' willingness to allow an 1840s eventually set the scene for his when, as coffee revenues fell, he downfall in the the East and revolt in the West. was challenged by secession in Spanish-speaking half of the island Boyer the had sought to extend to the military administration which mixture of smallholding and prevailed in the West. All remaining --- Page 550 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery in 1822-3 and those of military age slaves had been emancipated An attempt had been made to divide up formed into special regiments. church land and to create a numerous smallcommunal land and reform ran into strong opposition holding peasantry. But this agrarian favouritism and clumsy because it was accompanied by military who to let their cattle taxation; moreover it alienated those wherever preferred they found them roam widely and to cut precious woods of land. Smuggling thrived. rather than become owners of little plots that they should inhabitants of the East believed that it was unjust The to reimburse the French former pay taxes to enable the Republic Boyer's invasion in 1822 had enjoyed proprietors of estates in the West. dissipated by the early some internal support but this was entirely by opposition in 1840s. Boyer's troubles in the East were compounded mulatto urban elite the West. On the one hand a young, predominantly inclinations; on the other the autocratic chafed at Boyer's supposedly the influence of wealthy mulattos and the black peasantry resented and control them. And there was a suspicion that state's attempts to tax to make further concessions to Boyer or those close to him were willing a naval base. The traditions the French by allowing them to establish period led to some interesting and structures ofthe heroic revolutionary led by a Society for the Rights of echoes. The opposition to Boyer was of Boyer the Presidency Man and the Citizen'. Following the four departure black veterans of the struggles was occupied in quick succession by who had rallied to Sonthonax in 1793 against the French; Louis Pierrot, of Haiti in 1845, nominated by mulatto at Le Cap, became President the black masses that their politicians who sought thus to reassure chief, Faustin Soulouque, interests were safe. In 1848-9 a black military cliques and established an destroyed the power of the mulatto political that of Dessalines; reports of regime supposedly modelled on imperial this had some impact in Martinique." found it impossible to However successive Haitian governments a the finances of the state and failed to promote prosperous rehabilitate estates were broken up but the minifundist peasantry peasantry. Large subsistence cultivation. Any significant had no incentive to move out of attracted taxation or official move into commodity production simply The only large Atlantic pillage. black military cliques and established an destroyed the power of the mulatto political that of Dessalines; reports of regime supposedly modelled on imperial this had some impact in Martinique." found it impossible to However successive Haitian governments a the finances of the state and failed to promote prosperous rehabilitate estates were broken up but the minifundist peasantry peasantry. Large subsistence cultivation. Any significant had no incentive to move out of attracted taxation or official move into commodity production simply The only large Atlantic pillage. Soil erosion became a serious with problem. Haiti was France - and French state prepared to do business of the compensation loan of 1825 governments pressed for repayment Down to the 1870s service payments and of its various successors. of the national budget while military accounted for at least a quarter half. The major Atlantic powers were expenditures usually for at least a Haiti enfeebled and quarantined quite content to see the government of troubles elsewhere." 7 as a way of reducing its power to inspire --- Page 551 --- Conclusion utopia but neither was it Post-revolutionary Haiti was no abolitionist image of the 'world the reincarnation of the old order. The compulsive reversal of roles, the Saturnalia turned upside down', the Carnivalesque While such images had a does not really apply to this black state. of social roles ended up by subversive appeal their permutation Yet in Haiti the structures too confirming the immutability of structure. arisen. The out of all recognition and quite new problems had changed treasury had parallels in South America problems of Haiti's public had more in common while the afflictions of the subsistence peasantry than with those of of in Sardinia or Sicily with the problems peasants Cuban While the liberated the slaves incarcerated on the had plantations. the overseer's whip to contend blacks of the Caribbean no longer of from unfree with it is true that they still felt the pressure reflected competition the steeply rising labour; thus the decline in coffee prices output of Brazil's slave plantations. of this book has been to trace the course of the If the main concern it has also sought to identify the blockage challenge to slavery newly independent states and in the encountered in the two strongest revolution had developed remodelled slave colony of Cuba. Bourgeois slaveholders to retain the in these lands in ways which enabled formation and to suppress any leadership of the slaveholding social stirrings of emancipationism. themselves capable of becoming American slaveholders had proved statesmen. They had greater selfrevolutionaries and bold outstanding where they were resident in the Americas confidence, not surprisingly, New World planters had a and on their estates. The slaveholding revolution, of the divided soul. They were products of the commercial agriculture and of the Enlightenment, of the new rise of American wished to build new nations liberal pattern of society and politics; they were built on the brutal yet their most splendid achievements blacks. Their possession of exploitation and oppression of enslaved allowed them to pursue a slaves gave them confidence, and also sometimes set limits on the type of political revolutionary vocation, yet it and it involved them in participation they would offer non-slaveholders dominated by the industrialising an Atlantic system of exchanges regions. the United States, Cuba and Brazil eagerly rushed to The planters of of from St Domingue; they also fill the gaps left by the decline exports of insulating themselves paid the Haitian Revolution the homage While Haiti was subjected to against its example by all means possible. the United States and Brazil were diplomatic and commercial isolation of nations. The reaction of the slave rapidly admitted to the concert --- Page 552 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the complicity with them of supposedly powers was scarcely surprising; and instructive. Britain abolitionist governments is more remarkable against the Atlantic slave prided itself on its international campaign cotton, sugar trade but could not bring itself to boycott of slave-produced duty from the beginning; or coffee. themselves paid the Haitian Revolution the homage While Haiti was subjected to against its example by all means possible. the United States and Brazil were diplomatic and commercial isolation of nations. The reaction of the slave rapidly admitted to the concert --- Page 552 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery the complicity with them of supposedly powers was scarcely surprising; and instructive. Britain abolitionist governments is more remarkable against the Atlantic slave prided itself on its international campaign cotton, sugar trade but could not bring itself to boycott of slave-produced duty from the beginning; or coffee. US cotton was admitted free were lifted in deference to between 1846 and 1851 all duties on sugar champions of free trade the agitation for free trade. Some prominent but the majority of organised had earlier supported anti-slavery thus given to slave abolitionists were outraged at the encouragement British Britain's official abolitionism did not prevent agriculture. and increasingly unfettered commerce merchants conducting a thriving after 1848 also moved, though more with the slave plantations. France of free trade. Around mid-century the cautiously, in the direction of the Americas had never prospects for marketing the slave economic produce system - and as a social been better. Capitalism as economic an had a quite new salience and formation in which the and integrated the expanding independence - thoroughly permeated in the 1850s. British capital found slave systems of the Americas the slave states of the advantageous outlets in each of expanding plantations and finance Americas, helping to build railways, equip liberated blacks of the thus 'outflanked' the newly trade. Capitalism the sturdier slave systems of the mainland.* Caribbean, battening on United States, Brazil and Cuba had been able The slaveholders of the resistance and to retain or reassert their to anticipate or repress slave numbers of free persons who did not own leadership over sizeable was extensive and rural in character slaves. The slave-based economy alliances with urban-based but the slaveholders had formed strategic revolution. The vigour elites in the challenging epoch of bourgeois a good livelihood to of the slave systems was such that they gave in such centres as of businessmen, lawyers and politicians de a layer Havana, Madrid, Barcelona and Rio New York, Washington, these bourgeois factions showed a Janeiro. The alliances made by with non-capitalist forces, in a promiscuous ability to compromise the of bourgeois reform symmetrically opposite direction to impulse noted above. were strong enough and flexible enough The American slave systems by the of the new market opportunities presented to take advantage mercantilism and the vigorous demand for collapse of colonial of independence by the mainland plantation produce. The conquest in the states linked to the plantation territories led to economic growth in much of Spanish South America, boom but to stagnation or recession mercantilism was an where slavery was weak. In the slave zone received imperial its impetus from the impediment to further advance, which --- Page 553 --- Conclusion dynamic of the slave social formations and spontaneous and expansive of Spanish South America, notably Mexico Atlantic economy. In much of empire had still conserved a productive and Peru, the infrastructure colonial That 'liberation of civil rationale at the close of the of epoch. advance for the planters in the society' which ushered in a new epoch the extensive and United States and Brazil weakened and fractured hacienda and village co-ordination of the mining, state-imposed South America. In Cuba the metropolis economy in mainland withdrawing state regulation from the stimulated development by back to extract revenue from the internal economy and standing customs system. of Atlantic economy, independence Thus, from the standpoint and slavery seemed to work best seemed to work best with slavery As symbols of the new America without metropolitan interference. at Washington, buildings were constructed splendid new government and Rio de Janeiro, with its enlarged with its White House Capitol, Intendancy and Governor's royal Palaces, and Havana, with its enlarged to be the largest and most Palace and impressive new prison, reputed edifices were constructed by slave modern in the hemisphere. to extract revenue from the internal economy and standing customs system. of Atlantic economy, independence Thus, from the standpoint and slavery seemed to work best seemed to work best with slavery As symbols of the new America without metropolitan interference. at Washington, buildings were constructed splendid new government and Rio de Janeiro, with its enlarged with its White House Capitol, Intendancy and Governor's royal Palaces, and Havana, with its enlarged to be the largest and most Palace and impressive new prison, reputed edifices were constructed by slave modern in the hemisphere. These classicism. The governments labour yet were monuments to enlightened over inland which inhabited them were soon able to claim jurisdiction The President which had largely escaped colonial administration. areas the Emperor of Brazil or the Captain General of of the United States, the and in this sense the Cuba could not regulate life on But plantations these states could effectively powers of the state were limited. did not succumb to the fissiparous defend their own territory and the 'United Provinces'. tendencies of Gran Colombia or the American mainland, and on The destiny of this new slavery on forms the central subject matter of the largest of the Caribbean islands, the chapters it has already the sequel to this volume. But in foregoing these territories depended not been seen that the survival of slavery of in social forces - with slaves only on a favourable relationship large one, of the population - but constituting a minority, albeit a very slave Slave plantations also on the economic vitality of the plantations. index of participation in the thrived most in territories with the highest from rising demand for Atlantic economy. This vitality stemmed that progresproduce and a system of Atlantic exchanges and plantation to free trade. The British, French, Spanish sively approximated be destroyed, or as in the Cuban case Portuguese Empires had to make this The creation of reorganised along quite new lines, to and possible. of a new colonial pact the United States, of the Brazilian Empire, of revolution between Cuba and Spain, partook of the sweep bourgeois to its economic in the Atlantic world, and contributed massively --- Page 554 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery still made use of the crutch of advance; it demonstrated that capital more ancient forms of exploitation. the defeats inflicted on empire had Seen from a certain perspective but had simply promoted its growth in hardly weakened slavery at all slave-owners had immensely greater three territories where the in the old colonies. Small island prospects and opportunities than have been marginalised by railways, slavery would in any case In 1770 there had been steamships, breech-loading rifles and cartridges. Despite the overthrow of roughly 2,340,000 slaves in the Americas. of slaves in the Americas had risen slavery in St Domingue the number further emancipations, to 6 million in to 3 million in 1800 and, cultivated despite by slaves grew by a similar or larger 1860. The land area of the South-western United States, Cuba proportion, as the interior agriculture. The small and Brazil was opened up to extensive plantation such a huge rise islands did not have the space to accommodate methods of cultivating in plantation agriculture or the new large-scale not colonial but and coffee. New World slavery was now cotton, sugar colonising. noted that where slavery survived there was continuity It should be however dramatic the changes in the in the local forms of government, In Cuba this is evident relationship to a wider polity and economy. Brazil the movement for enough. And in Virginia no less than in local institution of independence was led by the already of existing in the other the government; in the one case the House Burgesses, noted correlation Braganza dynasty. This contrasts with the already the French and the advent of new regimes: between emancipation the American Republics, Britain's Republic of the 1790s, Haiti, Spanish of 1848. however dramatic the changes in the in the local forms of government, In Cuba this is evident relationship to a wider polity and economy. Brazil the movement for enough. And in Virginia no less than in local institution of independence was led by the already of existing in the other the government; in the one case the House Burgesses, noted correlation Braganza dynasty. This contrasts with the already the French and the advent of new regimes: between emancipation the American Republics, Britain's Republic of the 1790s, Haiti, Spanish of 1848. And in SO far as any Reform Parliament, the French Republic sentiment in North America, Cuba or appeal was made to abolitionist and renewal, such as Philadelphia Brazil it was at moments of rupture in 1824. in 1775, Cadiz in 1811 or Rio de Janeiro dominant forms of colonial slavery The collapse of the previously of Atlantic capitalism suggests combined with the continuing expansion and slavery itself were only that colonialism, monarchism, racism relations of production. In contingent superstructures upon capitalist survive without all of them. But in theory, perhaps, capitalism could less anomalous social forms necessary practice it found these more or social relations, and and convenient. At root this was because capitalist deeply implanted and their presuppositions, were not sufficiently would be battened upon SO long as because potential sources of surplus numbers of propertyless Thus capital needed large this was possible. of subsistence but could not find them. labourers excluded from means also found that slave plantations brought The industrialising regions --- Page 555 --- Conclusion cotton or coffee more rapidly into production than new land for cane or did smallholders. Atlantic state in which capitalism In 1770 Britain was the only major Britain artificially constricted had gained the upper hand, although American even colonies. The overthow of the path of accumulation in its and the defeat of colonial absolutism in France, Spain and Portugal, led to the emergence of a mercantilism in most parts of the Americas, attuned to the expansion in the Atlantic world, more new state system industry. These states no longer directly of commerce and capitalist they sought to tax but not intervened in the process of production; of circulation. But these incorporate overseas commerce and the sphere of new regimes of steps. The appearance one were only preliminary represented a sort of capitalist progress, but 'illegitimate monarchy' of agrarian magnates, some of them still limited by the localism slaveholders. States had made the most progress towards dismantling The United Britain had taken the most thoroughgoing state parasitism just as But conversely the North American measures against colonial slavery. stabilised slavery while Britain's oligarchy Republic had triumphantly itself within the new 'reformed' Palace of had skilfully retrenched faced the danger that this uneven and Westminster. Both states skewer them on its contradictions. The paradoxical advance would American Republic had recognised slavery Constitution of the North of the rights of the constituent states; at but not resolved the question 1814 New Englanders had raised the the Hartford Convention of 1860 the slaveholder Republic and the spectre of secession. Down to for domination of the hemisphere, a abolitionist Empire contended some bizarre alliances. circumstance which was to lead to of the slave-traders Britain claimed to police the oceans as scourge client states within the main slave powers of the Atlantic were Brazil yet the 'illegitimate monarchies' of Spain, Britain's informal Empire; with vital British support - the latter and Portugal had been established of loans, volunteers, and embracing diplomacy, naval shows strength, in the Atlantic zone British commercial predominance secret agents. back into collusion with the slave trade as well as drew British interests now more freely available than ever slavery, as British manufactures, slave-traders, were briskly and Hispano-Cuban to Luso-Brazilian for captives on the coast of Africa. of the Atlantic were Brazil yet the 'illegitimate monarchies' of Spain, Britain's informal Empire; with vital British support - the latter and Portugal had been established of loans, volunteers, and embracing diplomacy, naval shows strength, in the Atlantic zone British commercial predominance secret agents. back into collusion with the slave trade as well as drew British interests now more freely available than ever slavery, as British manufactures, slave-traders, were briskly and Hispano-Cuban to Luso-Brazilian for captives on the coast of Africa. exchanged Atlantic traffic had been one of the first and most The ending of the anti-slavery. In 1815 the Atlantic slave moderate goals of respectable denounced by all the powers and by 1820 the trade had been solemnly the Treaty had come to interval allowed in Anglo-Spanish preparatory --- Page 556 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery an end. In the decade of the 1820s a total of entered the Americas as just over 600,000 Africans 1780s but above that of the slaves, a volume somewhat below that of the over 500,000. eighteenth century decadal During most of the 1820s the Brazilian average of just only semi-illegal in the sense that though slave trade was made specific international vague declarations had been From 1830 the Anglo-Brazilian agreements had not been entered into. supposedly came into force and for Treaty suppressing the slave traffic imports did decline. In 1835 a year or two the volume of slave Britain and Spain entered supposedly more rigorous agreement but this into a new and Cuban import figures. Altogether had little impact on Americas in the 1830s. In the 1840s 560,000 slave slaves were introduced to the due to more vigorous imports fell somewhat, partly decade. The million slaves patrolling, who but still totalled 445,000 in the and 1850 had done had entered the Americas between SO in violation of both national international treaty. In the years 1851-2 the legislation and responding both to domestic sentiment and imperial authorities, British warships, began to take more a menacing squadron of to stop the Atlantic slave-traders. effective action within Brazil itself to be the case was uncertain. But for how long this would continue slave imports to a temporary halt The Captain General of Cuba brought to its old level once he was in 1853 9 but the traffic soon returned So long as slavery flourished replaced. in the difficult to stop the Atlantic slave trade. Americas it was going to be meant high slave prices. Control of the trade A flourishing slave system difficult by the length of coast-lines involved was made exceptionally natural obstacles were greatly and the expanse of ocean; to buy the fastest steam compounded by the slave-traders' ability factors meant that any slave clippers and to pay large bribes. All these ordination between the maritime trade suppression policy required COimporting and exporting powers and the governments of the effective in stopping the regions. The US ban of 1808 was quite clandestine trade did, importation of slaves to North America; a slaves Or more a year. With however, the continue and introduced a thousand over $1,000 each by price of slaves in the US South rising to smuggle slaves in. The mid-century British ban there was certainly an incentive to became far more SO from the of 1808 was fairly effective but The French ban mid-1830s with the abolition of was quite ineffective before slavery. clandestine imports would have been 1831 but thereafter invigilating access to the small French very small because of the ease of Cuba and Brazil imported islands. Down to 1850 both international large numbers of slaves, of agreements; there was regardless trade by North American, British and certainly some involvement in this French traders. Control of the --- Page 557 --- Conclusion slave traffic was rendered particularly the United States and France difficult by the failure of the oceans. For a few to agree on a joint approach to Britain, years in the 1830s there was a policing agreement but this was not renewed in joint Anglo-French agreement were bedevilled by national 1838. Down to 1850 both international large numbers of slaves, of agreements; there was regardless trade by North American, British and certainly some involvement in this French traders. Control of the --- Page 557 --- Conclusion slave traffic was rendered particularly the United States and France difficult by the failure of the oceans. For a few to agree on a joint approach to Britain, years in the 1830s there was a policing agreement but this was not renewed in joint Anglo-French agreement were bedevilled by national 1838. Attempts to reach rivalries. As the largest maritime belligerence and imperial apparently reciprocal and equal power Britain stood to gain most by and detention. British agreements conceding rights of search Palmerston's bullying further aggravated the outrageous treatment of a problem, as in 1830s that had a genuine desire to Portuguese government in the Bandeira. In fact the British suppress slave trading, that of Sa de both the United States and France government in came close to declaring war on largely unconnected with the early and mid 1840s on issues governments slavery; and in 1853-4 the British and 'rule the again came close to war. A British US waves' and lack of zeal in disposition to claim to traders helped to inflame Washington for prosecuting slave both powers to spread their Anglo-US relations, as did the concern of sensitive Caribbean influence in the Americas, and Central especially in the there were relatively good relations American zone. Even at times when London and Washington, slave trade between London and Paris, or there was a co-operative reaction suppression from benefited little unless territories involved in the traffic. the governments of the of the Many slaves were African coast under nominal exported from parts forces in Portugal hostile to the slave Portuguese traffic sovereignty. There were not strong enough to withstand the but the Portugese state was trade. Not only were slaves the interests bound up in the slave Guinea and Mozambique but the most valuable export of Angola, from Portuguese Africa combined value of slave national budget. was considerably in excess of the exports would Colonial officials from the Portuguese receive rich pickings if they Governors downwards Moreover the whole social formation co-operated with the slave-traders. geared to this highly lucrative of the Portuguese colonies was difficult for metropolitan officials business, making it extraordinarily Between 1770 and 1850 to find local allies. 10 Africa for a New World well over five million slaves were taken from than in the destination; more, that is, in these preceding two hundred and eighty years the Napoleonic wars had a greater eighty years. During this period the volume of the traffic than the slave immediate, if temporary, impact on future prospects of the trade trade bans and diplomacy. The developments in the United States, very much depended on political Anti-slavery was to remain or to become Brazil, Spain, France and Britain. the outlook in the 1850s a force in all these states colonial rule was ominous indeed, The but had given a new impetus to doctrines of spread of European white supremacy. --- Page 558 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery of Carlyle and Gobineau a romantic racism In the purple prose notions counterpart to widespread pseudo-scientific furnished a literary rulers of Britain and France might still draw the of racial hierarchy. The to accept the respectability line at slave-traders but were quite prepared for diplomatic and of American slaveholders, and to compete commercial advantage in the slave zone. had foundered in the Americas in this epoch because Colonial slavery enough to contain concerted the colonial form was not strong slaves. But as in some social challenges from either slaveholders or of the fittest' the stronger slave Darwinian struggle for the 'survival admit a "functional' level of regimes had pulled through, obliging of how it us was to that some were swept away explanation into our account while others flourished. in this period the actual area of land Despite anti-slavery gains Millions upon cultivated by slaves had been constantly the expanding. American South-west, the millions of acres in the cotton lands of West in Brazil were opened to plains of Matanzas in Cuba and Paulista this spread of development for the first time. the stronger slave Darwinian struggle for the 'survival admit a "functional' level of regimes had pulled through, obliging of how it us was to that some were swept away explanation into our account while others flourished. in this period the actual area of land Despite anti-slavery gains Millions upon cultivated by slaves had been constantly the expanding. American South-west, the millions of acres in the cotton lands of West in Brazil were opened to plains of Matanzas in Cuba and Paulista this spread of development for the first time. Moreover rivalries plantation international and imperial slavery was coupled with aggravated abolition in the 1850s. The major slave which created bad prospects for the full flood of expansion and seemed powers themselves were in for slavery. After the war between the poised to conquer new territory 1845-8, following which Mexico lost a United States and Mexico in the bluster of successive third of her national territory, it did not need destiny to make clear speaking of their country's imperial US Presidents of the threat from that quarter. North American the seriousness in 1856-7; 'President' Walker thereupon fillibusters invaded Nicaragua With the help of a buoyant Cuban legalised slaveholding once again. in 1859, converting it once treasury, Spain reoccupied Santo Domingo expedition landed in more into a slave colony. A Franco-Spanish debts, and a quarrel simmered Mexico, supposedly to recover unpaid to lead to war. The Brazilian between Spain and Chile that was soon for asserting Brazilian Empire entered the 1860s with its own plans contained the seeds of a interests in the River Plate region; this too future war. volume will consider the character and dynamic of The sequel to this and of the new anti-slavery challenges they met. the new slave systems lessons of the struggles against colonial slavery The memory and the a role in precipitating and informing from 1776 to 1848 itself played defended slavery. The new challenges had the crisis of the states which because these states had formidable obstacles to overcome, precisely epoch, but they already been tested by the storms of a revolutionary --- Page 559 --- Conclusion accumulated by the principally derived from internal antagonisms of the events itself. In that sense the full significance advance of slavery be assessed and the conclusions recounted in this book remains to offered here must remain partial and provisional. the 1850s may seem an Such is the pressure of hindsight that even with the awkward and arbitrary time to close this narrative, because the new I would contest this not simply prospect of a sequel. colonial slavery but also because American slavery did differ from will be contradictions and whatever closing date is chosen there the world as it must have ambiguities. It is salutary today to consider of the ideals and example appeared to those living in the 1850s, aware of the surging tide of epoch but aware, too, of the revolutionary incandescent dates like Atlantic, slave-based commerce. Privileging unless the years complacency 1776, 1789 and 1848 simply encourages also their due. Is reversal or restoration are given of disappointment, date than 1940? While it added new 1945 really a more reassuring of 1940? William Blake's peril, had it really laid to rest the menace Damn braces, bless should apply to historical work too; advice relaxes." Notes criticised for describing the Master and the Slave, 1. Sartre observes: 'Hegel can be the relations of a master and his slave through for describing In to that is say, ultimately, their relations to other slaves or other masters. reality universals, without reference to character of every society cause the Master as such, the plurality of masters and the serial truth within the ensemble of his class." J-P. peril, had it really laid to rest the menace Damn braces, bless should apply to historical work too; advice relaxes." Notes criticised for describing the Master and the Slave, 1. Sartre observes: 'Hegel can be the relations of a master and his slave through for describing In to that is say, ultimately, their relations to other slaves or other masters. reality universals, without reference to character of every society cause the Master as such, the plurality of masters and the serial truth within the ensemble of his class." J-P. even in idealist terms, to find a different Reason, vol. I, London 1976, PP., 158 n. In the second and Sartre, The Critique of Dialectical this line of thought in an examination of racism volume of the Critique Sartre pursues II, Paris 1985, PP. 470-1. For an illuminating violence; Critique de la Raison Dialectique, Fineberg, 'Resources in Class Conflict and discussion of slave dispositions see Harry and Slave Revolts', Manchester University, Collective Action with Reference to Slavery Government Department 1987. Louis Billington and Rosamund Billington. "A 2. On the role of women see Women in the British Anti-slavery Movement', in 1987. Jane Burning Zeal for Righteousness": Women's Politics in Britain 1800-1914, Oxford La Rendall, ed., Equal Or Different: in the anti-slavery of this period see Di Tella, On radical or 'populist' elements 95-6. Rebelion de los Esclavos de Haiti, pp. and survey see Robert Miles, Capitalism and Unfree 3. For an insightful discussion London 1987. from Labour: Anomaly or Necessity, Revolution, pp. 177-9, for a discussion which goes 4. Hobsbawm, The Age of to obstacles in the United States. George obstacles to capitalist advance in France to cast doubt upon the whole concept of Comninel has recently used evidence such as Re-thinking this the French Revolution, London 'bourgeois revolution' (George Comninel, some of the obstacles to capitalist advance in 1987). Hobsbawm certainly attributes class struggle in the shape of Jacobinism. But he does France to the eruption of popular of peasant ownership in France that no bourgeois not conclude from the prevalence while Comninel allows Marx to lead him into greatly revolution had taken place. And --- Page 560 --- The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery exaggerating the role of state autonomy under Napoleon III, Hobsbawm elsewhere out that the Second Empire actually anticipated many features of liberal economics points and politics. E.J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, London 1975, chapter 6. 5. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, a Slave; Written by Himself, Boston 1845. 6. Frank Moya Pons, "The Land Question in Haiti and Santo Domingo: The SocioPolitical Context of the Transition from Slavery to Free Labor, 1801-1843", in Between Slavery and Free Labor: The Spanish-speaking Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Frank Moya Pons and Stanley Engerman, Baltimore 1985, pp. 181-214. eds, 7. Sir Spenser St John, Hayti or the Black Republic, London 1884, pp. 380-9. 8. My use of this term owes something to Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, though Mann himself would probably not agree that the constitution of economic level in a social formation dominated by capitalism gives such the power to exploiters. outflanking 9. Murray, Odious Commerce, pp. 92-113, 208-70. 10. These patterns, referred to in chapter 9 above, are much illuminated The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade, and Alexandre, Origens do Colonialismo by Bethell, Portugués Moderno. 380-9. 8. My use of this term owes something to Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, though Mann himself would probably not agree that the constitution of economic level in a social formation dominated by capitalism gives such the power to exploiters. outflanking 9. Murray, Odious Commerce, pp. 92-113, 208-70. 10. These patterns, referred to in chapter 9 above, are much illuminated The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade, and Alexandre, Origens do Colonialismo by Bethell, Portugués Moderno. --- Page 561 --- Index Abolition Committee (British) 299, 300, 303, 304, 308, 310 Agency Committee, see Anti-Slavery Abolition of Slavery Act 1833 Society (British) 456, 457, 458 Aix-la-Chapelle, Congress of 480 abolition societies, see Abolition Alexander, Tsar of Russia 321 Society; Abolitoniste Français; Alfonso X of Spain 39 Ams des Noirs; Anti-Slavery Amard, Tupuc 355 Society; Birmingham Amiens, Peace of 295, 298, 299, 311 Society, Birmingham Anti-Slavery Ladies Amis des Noirs 145, 169-76, 195, Negro's Friend Society; 252, 525, 537; members have Manumisson Society; Morale trouble 178-9, 224 Chrétienne, Société; New York The Anti-Slavery Reporter 422, 442 Manumission Society; Société des Anti-Slavery Society (British) 436-8, Femmes Schoelcheristes de Fort 450-1, 453, 455, 460-1, 507; de France; Société Française pour Agency Committee 439, 440, 442 l'Abolition de l'Esclavage; Aponte, José Antonio 340, 389-90 Spencean Philanthropists Arango y Parreno, Francisco 318, Abolition Society (British) 136-8, 388, 393, 395, 398 d'Argout, Comte 484 Abolition Society (French) 495, 506 Arguélles, Augustin 317-18, 389 Abolitionist National Convention d'Arsy, Marquis Gouy 173-4, 185 Artigas, José Gervasio 352, 368, Abolitioniste Français 493 400, 533 abolitionism 35-54, 141-50, 325-6; Attucks, Crispus 92 British revival 298-300, 421-3, Attwood, Thomas 446, 449 438-43; French 170-1, 482-92, Agustin (Irurbide) I of Mexico 505-6; middle class values The 371-2 Axe 25-29, 60, 136-40, 443-4, 453, Laid to the Root 466-7,533-4; see also slave (Wedderburn) 325-6 trade ban Adams, John 91, 119, 281, 282 Baines, Edward 453 Addington, Henry, see Sidmouth, Baker, Moses 427 Lord Balzac, Honoré de: Cousin Bette Age of Revolution (Hobsbawm) 473; Cousin Pons 473 24-5 Baptists 73, 120, 432-3, 531 Barata, Cipriano José 406 --- Page 562 --- Index Antoine 166-7, 177-81, Borghella, Jérome 257 Barnave, Bouk Jugal (Hugo) 506 184, 185, 189-90 Boves, Tomâs 343-4 Beattie, James 155 Boyer, Jean Pierre 256, 326, 394, Beauharnais, Alexandre 165 480,539 Beauharnais, Josephine 245 Brigands, War of the 302, 462 Beauvais 220, 228 Brissot de Warville, Jacques-Pierre Behn, Aphra, Oroonoko 43, 145, 171-2, 179, 195-8, 203 Belley-Mars, Jean-Baptiste 224 Broglie, Achille Charles, Duc de 484, Beluché, Renato 290-1, 345, 510 485, 486, 488 Benezet, Anthony 96-7, 118, 156-7; Henry, 1st Baron Historical Account of Guinea 98, Brougham, 316, 322; Abolition 138; A Short Account of. Oroonoko 43, 145, 171-2, 179, 195-8, 203 Belley-Mars, Jean-Baptiste 224 Broglie, Achille Charles, Duc de 484, Beluché, Renato 290-1, 345, 510 485, 486, 488 Benezet, Anthony 96-7, 118, 156-7; Henry, 1st Baron Historical Account of Guinea 98, Brougham, 316, 322; Abolition 138; A Short Account of. 312-13, Committee 300-3; Anti-Slavery Africa 50-1 Society and 436, 438, 439; Bentham, Jeremy 326, 366 dismissed from cabinet 459, 460; Biassou 193, 205, 221, 229 Reform Bill and 445, 448, 451, Birmingham Anti-Slavery Society 460-1 Friend Buddhoe, General 508 Birmingham Ladies Negro's Bugeaud, General 492 Society 444 Bunting, Jabez 439 Birmingham Political Union 446-7, Buonaparte in the West Indies 477-8, 483, 493, 499, (Stephen) 303 Bissette, Cyril Colonies 484-5 Burdett, Sir Francis 299 501; Journal des Burke, Edmund 147-8, 150, 156 The Black Dwarf 326 28, 30 Burr, Aaron 120 The Black Jacobins (James) Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell 421-2, Blackstone, Sir William: 452, 457, 461; anti-slavery Commentaries on the Laws of societies 436, 438, 467; on England 80-2, 99, 102 former slaves 441-2; Reform Bill Blake, William, America 131, 161-2 and 445, 451 Blanc, Louis 499 Les Six Livres de la Bodin, Jean 36; Calhoun, John C. 396 République 40-1 Viscount 76 Canas y Villacorta, José Simeôn 372 Bolingbroke, Henry, 1st 304-5,314, 406, Simon 361-3,397; rise to Canning, George Bolivar, 342, 345-7, 348-50; San 414, 422 (Williams) power Capitalism and Slavery Martin and 357,359, Bonaparte, Joseph 339 Caravellas, Marquis of (regent of Bonaparte, Louis-Napoleon 500, Brazil) 409-10 502-3, 505 Casas, Bartolomé de las 39 Bonaparte, Napoleon 240, 245-50, Adolphe Granier de 490 259, 288, 299; British and 296, Cassagnac, Robert Stewart, 298, 308, 311; escape from Elba Castlereagh, Viscount 319, 320, 322, 324 320; sells Louisiana 250, 283, Central Emancipation Committee 285; Spain and 317, 339, 388 Bonifâcio de Andrade e Silva, José Chandos, James Brydes, 1st duke 403-5, 409 Borghella, Bertrand 244 --- Page 563 --- Index Charles X of France 480-2 Cugoano, Ottobah 140, 176 Charmilly, Vernault de 204 Currency Act (1764) 83 Chase, Samuel 123 Chateaubriand, François René de Danton, George Jacques 225 Davis, David Brion 152; The Chatoyer,J Joseph 227, 232 Problem of. José Chandos, James Brydes, 1st duke 403-5, 409 Borghella, Bertrand 244 --- Page 563 --- Index Charles X of France 480-2 Cugoano, Ottobah 140, 176 Charmilly, Vernault de 204 Currency Act (1764) 83 Chase, Samuel 123 Chateaubriand, François René de Danton, George Jacques 225 Davis, David Brion 152; The Chatoyer,J Joseph 227, 232 Problem of. Slavery in Age of Chaumette, Pierre Gaspar 226 Revolution 26-7; Slavery and Chevalerie, Bacon de 175, 177, 184 Human Progress 530-1 Chrétien, Pierre 226 De Republica Anglorum (Smith) 39 Christophe, Henry, see Henry I, Defoe, Daniel 153-4; History of the King of Haiti Pyrates 45-6 Clarkson, Thomas 150, 256, 423; Delgrès, Louis 203, 249, 258 abolition committee 299, 144; Derby, Earl of 456, 466 Abolition Society and 138-9, Dessalines, General Jean Jacques 142; History of the Abolition of 219, 241, 247, 249; ruling Haiti British Slave Trade 35-6, 176 250-5, 256, 281; Toussaint and class struggle 25-9, 37-8, 445-6, 219,527 450; slavery & capitalism 520-1, Dobrée, Thomas 483 530-6, 544 Dolben, Sir William 141 Clinton, De Witt 288 Dolivier, Pierre 223 Club Massiac, see Massiac Club Douglass, Frederick 539 Cobbett, William 308, 449, 454, Du Buc, Louis-François 181-2, 185, 202, 203-4, 253, 477 Cochrane, Admiral Sir Alexander Dundas, Henry, see Melville, Earl of Dunmore, Lord, Gov. of Virginia Cochrane, Lord, Earl of Dundonald 103, 104, 112, 114 299,355, 421 Duperrier, Jean-Baptiste (Goman) 254 Cockburn, Admiral Sir George 288 Duport, Adrien 177-8 Code Noir 44, 477 Dutty, Boukman 191-3 Coll y Pratt, Archbishop 341 Coloquhoun, Patrick 434 d'Ecottier, Foullon 185 Commentaries on the Laws of Edwards, Bryan 157, 302 England (Blackstone) 80-2, 99, Egana, Juan de 359 Egana, Mariano de 358 Common Sense (Paine) 87, 111 Ellis, C. R. 304 Condorcet, Antoine-Nicolas de The Emancipator 460 170-1, 176, 195, 229, 230 Equiano, Olaudah 140, 141, 147, 156 Constant, Benjamin 483 Esprit des Lois (Montesquieu) 36, Constitutions of governments: 47, 48 Britain 70-4; France 172-9, Extinction of Slave Trade & 187-90, 195-7, 224-6; USA Civilisaton of Africa, Society for 116-128, 270-2 Coutinho, Bishop Azeredo 399 Coutinho, D. 176, 195, 229, 230 Equiano, Olaudah 140, 141, 147, 156 Constant, Benjamin 483 Esprit des Lois (Montesquieu) 36, Constitutions of governments: 47, 48 Britain 70-4; France 172-9, Extinction of Slave Trade & 187-90, 195-7, 224-6; USA Civilisaton of Africa, Society for 116-128, 270-2 Coutinho, Bishop Azeredo 399 Coutinho, D. Rodrigo de Sousa 399 Fabien 493-4 Craton, Michael, Testing the Chains Family (and abolitionism) 53, 60, 530-1 94, 101-2, 153, 483, 533 Cropper,James 439 Fédon, Julien 227, 232, 527 --- Page 564 --- Index Fernando VII of Spain 320, 340, Goldsmith, Oliver 95 343, 480; restoration 388, 389, Goman, see Duperrier 8 Gorender, Jacobo Granger, Gideon 279-80 Feuillants 189-90 Grégoire, Abbé 172, 180-1, 252, Filmer, Sir Robert 42 256, 476; presides over Fox, Charles James 296, 299, Convention 222 307-12, 315 Grenville, William, Baron 299, Fox, George 43 307-15, 466 Fraginals, Manuel Moreno 8 Grey, Charles, 2nd Earl 438, 456, François, Jean 193, 194, 205, 229, 466; Reform Bill 444, 449 83, 124 Grotius, Hugo 35 Franklin, Benjamin 166-7, Guerrero, Vicente 370-2 free people of colour 18, 58, Guinea, Historical Account of 335-9, 426, 502-3, 522; (Benezet) 98, 138 enfranchisement 187-90, 230, Guizot, François Pierre 490 383, 405; land and work 234-5, Guridi y Alcocer, José Miguel 370, 352, 461-5; life after 371, 389 emancipation 22, 43-4, 235-6, 241-2, 253-4, 477, 537-8; Haitian revolution, see revolution, soldiers 19, 114-116, 232, 348; soldiers of liberation 182-3, 340, Haiti Alexander 120, 272 343, 352-3, 357; soldiers of Hamilton, Lord Chancellor 80-1, oppression 16, 302, 384; see also Hardwick, revolts and resistance soil Hardy, Thomas 147 freedom suits: slaves on free Harewood, Lord 444-5 80-2, 99-100; wrongful Hartford Convention 544 enslavement 90-1, 99, 119 Lord 231, 306-7 free womb 157, 348-51, 368, 486 Hawkesbury, Commissioner 239-40 Hédouville, Freire, Ramôn 358 Hegel, Georg 530 From Rebellion to Revolution Henry 1, King of Haiti 32, 390, 527; (Genovese) 27, 527 rise to power 221, 241, 247, 249, 253; crowned 255-7 Galbaud, General 215-16 Hermonas, Marquis de 205, 219 Gascoygne, General 313, 445 Heureuse, Claire 243 Genovese, Elizabeth Fox 7 Heyricke, Mrs Elizabeth 423 Genovese, Eugene 7, 27; From Hidalgo, Miguel 369-70, 533 Rebellion to Revolution 527 Histoire des Deux Indes (Raynal) 6, George I of England 74 George III of England 88, 142, 143, History of. General 215-16 Hermonas, Marquis de 205, 219 Gascoygne, General 313, 445 Heureuse, Claire 243 Genovese, Elizabeth Fox 7 Heyricke, Mrs Elizabeth 423 Genovese, Eugene 7, 27; From Hidalgo, Miguel 369-70, 533 Rebellion to Revolution 527 Histoire des Deux Indes (Raynal) 6, George I of England 74 George III of England 88, 142, 143, History of. Jamaica (Long) 154-5 307-8, 309; Abolition Bill History of Mary Prince, A West 314-15; American Independence Indian Slave 442 and 103, 133-4; Pitt and 149, History of the Abolition ofthe British Slave Trade (Clarkson) George IV of England 421 35-6 Gladstone, Jack 430-1 History ofthe Pyrates (Defoe) 45-6 Gladstone, Quamina 430-1 Benjamin 71 Gladstone, Sir John 431, 464 Hoadly, --- Page 565 --- Index Hobsbawm, E.J. 24-5 Knibb, William 433, 459, 462 Holland, Lord 456 Hugo, Victor, Bouk Jugal 506 La Concorde (club) 500 Hugues, Victor 226-9, 248, 253, La Serna, José de 355-7 282, 400 Labourers, Statute of 40 Hume, David 154, 156 Lacaille, Eugène 501 Hutcheson, Francis: System of Lacrosse, Captain 202, 220, 249 Moral Philosophy 48-50, 60 Ladies' Anti-Siavery Society 455 Hyacinth 194, 236 Ladies' Reform Association 446 Lamartine, Alphonse de 493, 494, 'illegitimate monarchy': Britain and North America 69-74, 78, 83, Lameth, Alexandre 177-8 95, 122, 298, 315, 421, 437, Lameth, Charles 165 467, - 523-6; Spain and Brazil Lamethists 189 413,5 545; France 490-2, 514, Lapointe, J. B. 182 523-6 Laurens, John 115 Immediate Not Gradual Laveaux, General Etienne 199, 237, Emancipation 423 248, 253; battles for Infante, José Miguel 358 emancipation 215, 221, 228, Isambert, F. A. 483 233,527 Iturbide, Augustin 371-2 Law of Scotland (Wallace) 50 Leclerc, General 245-50, 527 Jackson, Andrew 289, 291 Leopard (warship) 184 James, C. , John 115 Immediate Not Gradual Laveaux, General Etienne 199, 237, Emancipation 423 248, 253; battles for Infante, José Miguel 358 emancipation 215, 221, 228, Isambert, F. A. 483 233,527 Iturbide, Augustin 371-2 Law of Scotland (Wallace) 50 Leclerc, General 245-50, 527 Jackson, Andrew 289, 291 Leopard (warship) 184 James, C. L. R.: The Black Jacobins Les Six Livres de la République 28, 30, 194 (Bodin) 40 James II of England 72 Léveillé, B. 233 Jardin, André 490 Liverpool, Lord, see Hawkesbury, Jaucourt, Louis de 50 Lord Jay, John 121, 272, 281-2 Locke, John 42, 71 Jefferson, Thomas 103, 128, 244, Loi Mackau 487, 489, 490 265, 274; anti-British 281-2; London Corresponding Society 147 emancipation fears 112,528; Long, Edward 55, 156; History of Louisiana Purchase 283-7; Notes Jamaica 154-5 on Virginia 126, 127, 155; views Lopez, José Hilario 510 on government 271-2, 276-7 Louis Philippe of France 445, 482, Joào VI of Brazil 399-401 483, 491-2, 494 Johnson, Samuel 93 Louis XIV of France 44, 477 Jonnès, Moreau de 475 Louis XVI of France 148, 189, 198, Jordan, Edward 426, 433-4 201, 296 Journal des Colonies (Bissette) 485 Louis XVIII of France 319, 320, 481 Jumécourt, Hanus de 196 Louverture, Paul 246 Justinian I, Emperor of Byzantium Louverture, Toussaint, see Toussaint Louverture, François Dominique Luddites 315 Kames, Lord 154-5 Lushington, Stephen 421, 426 King, Martin 508 Luther, Martin 35 --- Page 566 --- Index Mably, Abbé, Observations 223 'illegitimate monarchy' Macaulay, Thomas Babington 445, Monroe, James 274, 279, 397 447-8, 452-3, 454, 459 Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Macaulay, Zachary 300, 421, 423 Esprit des Lois 36, 47-8, 154 Machiavelli, Niccolo 38, 76 Moore, General 231-2 Mackau, Baron, see Loi Mackau Morale Chrétienne, Société de la Madison, James 274, 277, 287, 288 482-3, 485, 492-3 Malouet, Pierre-Victor 174, 189, Morales, Nicolas 387 238, 253,319-20 Morales, Tomas 343 Mansfield, William M., 1st Earl of Moravian Church 507 99-100, 136, 442 More, Hannah 153 Manumission Law (Bolivia) 360-5, Moreau de Saint Méry 174, 188; see also Massiac Club Manumission Society 120 Morelos, José Maria 370 Marbois, Barbé de 126, 166, 175, Morillo, Pablo 343-4, 346, 349 185, 238, 245 Morris, Robert 117 Martineau, Harriet 440 Mosquera, Joaquin 511-12 Martinez Pinillos 389, 398 Mosquera, Tomâs 510 Marx, Karl 167, 536 Moyse (commander under The Mask of Anarchy (Shelley) 419 Toussaint) 219, 246 Massey, Joseph 94 Mundurucu, Emiliano 406-7 Massiac Club 172, 180, 188, 204; formation 167, 174-5 Napoleon, see Bonaparte Mather, Joseph 109 Narciso, Gil 390 Mathieu, Louisy 500, 506 Narrative of James Williams Melbourne, William Lamb, 2nd (Sturge) 460 Viscount 458-9, 461 Nemours, Dupont de 188 Melville, Earl of (Henry Dundas) New York Emancipation Law 143, 146, 149-50, 231, 306-7 273-5 Mendouca, Lourenco da Silva de New York Manumission Society 43-4 133, 272-3 Mercado, Tomâs de 39 Newton, John 138, 140 Meslier, Jean, Testament 223 North, Frederick, Lord 133-4 Viscount 458-9, 461 Nemours, Dupont de 188 Melville, Earl of (Henry Dundas) New York Emancipation Law 143, 146, 149-50, 231, 306-7 273-5 Mendouca, Lourenco da Silva de New York Manumission Society 43-4 133, 272-3 Mercado, Tomâs de 39 Newton, John 138, 140 Meslier, Jean, Testament 223 North, Frederick, Lord 133-4 Methodists 96, 120, 147, 153, 439, Notes on Virginia (Jefferson) 126-7, 531; see also Wesley, John Methuen Treaty 77 Michel, Colonel Pierre 221, 223 O Etiope Resgatado (da Rocha) 62 Middleton, Christopher 138 O'Brien, Bronterre, The Rise and Middleton, Sir Charles 307 Progress of Human Slavery Mill, John Stuart 536 535-6 Millar, John: The Origin of the O'Connell, Daniel 437, 457 Distinction of Ranks 52-3, 60 O'Farrill, Ricardo 388 Mirabeau, Honoré, Comte de 173-4 O'Higgins, Bernardo 353-4, 358, Miranda, Francisco de 341 Monagas, José Gregario 510 Oastler, Richard 440-1 Monagas, José Tadeo 510 Observations (Mably) 223 monarchy, illegitimate, see Ogé, Vincent 179, 182, 183, 188 --- Page 567 --- Index 276-7; see also Massiac Club; The Origin of the Distinction of revolts and resistance Ranks 52-3 Pluchon, Pierre 244, 245 Oroonoko (Behn) 43, 156 Polverel, Commissioner 197, 200, Otis, James 91 215, 216-17, 221 Pombal, Marquès de 17, 62 Padilla, Admiral 363 Pâez, José Antonio 347, 363, 365, Presbyterians Prince, Mary 442-4, 534 The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Paine, Thomas 92, 147, 161, 533; Revolution (Davis) 26-7 Common Sense 87, 111 Le Progrès 500, 502 Papy, Pory 500-1 319-20 Prosser, Gabriel 278-9 Paris, Peace of 82, 90, 255, Passy, Hyppolite 486 87-9, 101; British 72-3, patriotism 75-6, 82-3, Quakers 73, 44-5, 526-7; and abolitionism 61-3, 136-7, 147; Pennsylvanian 93-5, 269, 289-90; paradox of 61, 96-8, 156 liberty & slavery 89-90, 93, 111-112, 524-5 racism and racial attitudes 91-3, peasantry 37, 40, 374-5, 407-8; see of 111, 126, 230, 374, 528; blacks also class struggle; free persons 35-6, 42-4, 46-7, as property colour 524-5; fear of slaves 37,58, Péchmèja,. Jean de 54, 170, 533 112-13, 154, 278-81, 383, 402 Pedro I of Brazil 401-3, 405, Raimond,. Julien 179, 233, 239, 241, 408-10 Pedro II 409-11 Ramirez, Alejandro 393 Peel, Sir Robert 533 Randolph, Edmund 85 Pélage, Magloire 203, 249 Raynal, Abbé G. T.F. 6, 170, 204, Pétion, Alexandre 249, 255-7,345 243; Histoire des Deux Indes 53, Pierrot, Louis 216, 228, 539 Pinchinat, Pierre 182, 220 Restrepo,J. 239, 241, 408-10 Pedro II 409-11 Ramirez, Alejandro 393 Peel, Sir Robert 533 Randolph, Edmund 85 Pélage, Magloire 203, 249 Raynal, Abbé G. T.F. 6, 170, 204, Pétion, Alexandre 249, 255-7,345 243; Histoire des Deux Indes 53, Pierrot, Louis 216, 228, 539 Pinchinat, Pierre 182, 220 Restrepo,J. F. 348 Pitt, William, the Elder 75, 94 Reubel, Jean François 181, 188, 229 Pitt, William, the Younger 148-9, revolts and resistance 19-20, 54-5, 303-4, 307; reform and 134-6, 333, 340; British West Indies 298-9; slave trade and 141, 427-34, 451-2; Cuban 387-91; 143-4, 157, 306; Wilberforce Haiti 191-5, 198-207, 218-22, and 142, 146, 151-2 239-40; small-scale 56-8, Place, Francis 449 502; 103-4, 182-3, 323-4; Spanish plantations 3, 181-3, 383, 462, America 337-8, 343, 363, and commercial slavery 5-6, 385-6, 406-7 10-11, 13, 399-400, 435-6; revolutions and political overthrow Cuban 361, 388, 393-4; French 24-5, 519-20, 526; Argentina, Antilles 501-5; Haitian 256-7; Chile and Peru 350-60; Brazil illegitimate monarchy and 77-9, 388-406; Cuba 387-91, 395-6; 84-5, 143; planters' attitudes France 482; effect of France on 14-17, 23-4, 86-7, 304; others 144, 147-8; French profitability 51-3, 163, 344-5, colonies 163-5, 181-7, 197-8, 361, 488-9, 541-2; USA 270-1, --- Page 568 --- Index Brazil Schimmelman, Ernst 146 Chile and Peru 350-60; Victor 492-8, 503, 506, 388-406; Cuba 387-91, 12 395-6; Schoelcher, 533-4; emancipation scheme France 482; effect of France on 499-502, 505; L'Abolition de others 144, 147-8; French P'Esclavage 493 colonies 163-5, 181-7, 197-8, Scholten, Peter von 507-8 268; Gran Colombia 340-50; Louis Phillipe 165 Haiti 246-56; effect of Haiti Ségur, 345-6, 390, 407, 426, 527; Shangô-Teddum Granville 98-100, 137-8, Mexico 368-72; Year of 1848 Sharp, 493-4, 497-500, 507; United 157,533 Samuel 432-3,527 States 111-28 Sharpe, Shays's Rebellion 119, 122 Rigaud, André 216, 217, 234, Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Mask of 237-9, 257; against Toussaint 220, Anarchy 293, 419 240, 243; loyalty to France Sidmouth, Lord (Henry Addington) 228, 249, 290 of Human Slavery 312, 314 Rise and Progress Simon, Suzanne (wife of Toussaint (O'Brien) 535-6 Louverture) 243 Rivadavia (Argentine patriot) Simonde de Sismondi, J. , André 216, 217, 234, Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Mask of 237-9, 257; against Toussaint 220, Anarchy 293, 419 240, 243; loyalty to France Sidmouth, Lord (Henry Addington) 228, 249, 290 of Human Slavery 312, 314 Rise and Progress Simon, Suzanne (wife of Toussaint (O'Brien) 535-6 Louverture) 243 Rivadavia (Argentine patriot) Simonde de Sismondi, J. C. L. 483, 350-1, 366 Maximilien de 180-1 Human Robespierre, 153-4 Sketch of. . Progress of Robinson Crusoe (Defoe) Mind (Condorcet) 230 Rocha, Ribiera da, O Etiope The Slave Ship (Turner) 467 Resgatado 62 Comte slave populations 20-1, 23, 543; Rochambeau, Jean-Baptiste, colonies origins 9-12, 37-9; British 423, de 199, 245; battles in for 427-8; French 163, 487; Spanish 201-3, 220, 250-1; speaking 334-5, 353, 401; USA 5, 280 planters 234, 238, 239 slave trade ban 40-1, 51-3, 145-6, Rochefoucauld, Duc de la 174 286, 298-316, 496-7; Rodriguez de Francia, José Gaspar enforcement 394, 409-10, 414, 475-6, 545-7; international Romero, José 359 agreement 62-3, 103, 173, Romilly, Sir Samuel 315 316-22, 333, 406; Spanish Rosas, Juan Manuel de 367 America 39, 340, 356, 395, Roume, Commissioner 233, 239, 404-6, 410 Slavery and Human Progress (Davis) Rousseau,. Jean-Jacques 50 530-1 Royal Africa Company 42, 79 The Slavery of the British West Rush, Benjamin 92, 117 Indian Colonies (Stephen) 423 Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations 51 Saint Hilaire, Filleau de 477 Smith, Melancton 273 Salas, Manuel de 354 Smith, Reverend John 429-31 San Martin, José 353, 354-7 Smith, Thomas, De Republica Sandoval, Alonso de 39 Anglorum 39 Santander de Paula, Francisco socialism 53-4, 59-60, 454, 485-6 348-9, 362-3, 396-7 Société Française pour P'Abolition de Sartre, Jean-Paul 530 PEsclavage 492-3, 485-6, 488 Say, Jean Baptiste 483, 505 --- Page 569 --- Index Société des Femmes Schoelcheristes de Fort-de-France 500 Toussaint Bréda, see Toussaint Somerset, James 99-101 Louverture Sonthonax, Léger Felicité 197-200, Toussaint Louverture, François 228-9, 233, 253, 527; Dominique 193, 205, 228, 283; emancipation and 222, 224, resistance 218-222; British and 234-5; slave revolt and 215-19, 238, 240, 282; rise to power 233, 236-7, 239; style of rule 242, Soulouque, Faustin 540 243-7; death 250-2; legend of Soult, Nicolas, Duc de Dalmatie 488 253, 257, 303, 506, 527 Spence, Thomas 59-60 Truguet, Admiral 229 Spencean Philanthropists, Society of Tudesq, André-Jean 490 Turner,, J.. slave revolt and 215-19, 238, 240, 282; rise to power 233, 236-7, 239; style of rule 242, Soulouque, Faustin 540 243-7; death 250-2; legend of Soult, Nicolas, Duc de Dalmatie 488 253, 257, 303, 506, 527 Spence, Thomas 59-60 Truguet, Admiral 229 Spencean Philanthropists, Society of Tudesq, André-Jean 490 Turner,, J.. M. W., The Slave Ship Staël, Madame Germaine de 476 Two 467 Stanley, Edward, see Derby, Lord Treatises of Government Stephen, James père 252, 300-1, (Locke) 42 388, 421; abolition bill 304, 309-10, 313; History of Union of the Working Classes 446 Toussaint Louverture 303; Utrecht, Treaty of 11, 35, 77 Slavery of British W.I. Colonies 42; War in Disguise 305-6 Valiente, Juan Pablo 389 Stephen, James fils 423 Varela, Padre Félix Strong, Jonathan 99 Vaublanc, Viennot 238-9 394-5,397 Sturge, Joseph 439, 461, 533-4; Verona, Congress of 480 Narrative ofJames Williams 460 Vienna, Congress of Sucre, José Antonio de 350, 357, Villanueva, Conde de 256, 320-1 360, 362, 363 Pinillos see Martinez Sugar Act (1764) 83 Villatte,J. B. 182, 228, 233 System of Moral Philosophy Villèle, Prime Minister 477 (Hutcheson) 48-50 Vincent, Colonel 253, 527 Tacky's Revolt 55, 84, 90 Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles de 245, Walden, Howard de 454 255, 283-4, 311, 481 Walker, Quock 119 Tamworth Manifesto 458-9 Wallace, George, Law of Scotland Tarleton, Banastre 115 50,533 Tavares, Manuel 402 Wallon, Henri 495 Testament (Meslier) 223 Walpole, George 313-14 Testing the Chains (Craton) 530-1 Walpole, Horace 95 Thompson, William 446 War in Disguise (Stephen) 305-6 Thomson, James, Rule Britannia 67, Ward,J. 481 Walker, Quock 119 Tamworth Manifesto 458-9 Wallace, George, Law of Scotland Tarleton, Banastre 115 50,533 Tavares, Manuel 402 Wallon, Henri 495 Testament (Meslier) 223 Walpole, George 313-14 Testing the Chains (Craton) 530-1 Walpole, Horace 95 Thompson, William 446 War in Disguise (Stephen) 305-6 Thomson, James, Rule Britannia 67, Ward,J. R. 435 Washington, George 112 The Thoughts on Slavery (Wesley) 100-3 Watchman (Jordan) 426, 433-4 Three Months in Jamaica (Whiteley) Wealth of Nations (Smith) 51 Weber, Max 69 Tocqueville, Alexis de 486 Wedderburn, Robert, The Axe Laid Torre Tagle, Marquis of 356-7 to the Root 325-6 Wedgewood, Josiah 139 --- Page 570 --- Index Wesley, John 96, 101-3 women abolitionists and 153, 423 Wheeler, Anna 446 William II of the Netherlands 509 White, Charles 156 William IV of England 143, 308-9, Whiteley, Henry, Three Months in 438, 449, 450 Jamaica 433, 442, 444, 455 Williams, Eric 26 Whitfield, George 100-101 women and abolitionism 153, 423, Whitney, Eli, invents cotton gin 276, 442-4, 500, 533; and evangelical religion 101-2, 145; Wilberforce, William 315, 320, 322, freedwomen 254, 463-4, 500, 425; abolition bill 144-6, 309, 538-9 421; Abolition Society 138; Woolman, John 96-7 France 147, 149, 151, 296, 303; Wordsworth, William 252 international respect 256, 318, Wyville, Christopher 139 348; Pitt and 134, 141-2, 152, 298, 307; politics and 150-1, Yorke, Sir Philip see Hardwicke, 326, 532, 535; retirement 431, Lord 437; slave registery bill 323-5; Young, Arthur 166 --- Page 571 --- --- Page 572 --- 1810616 0980821 6