The Nineteenth Century Law of the Sea and the British Abolition of the Slave Trade

This study focuses on British attempts during the nineteenth century to outlaw the Atlantic Slave Trade internationally, for which it was successful, after seventy-five years of effort. It considers the lack of willingness to allow Great Britain, at the Congress of Vienna and during the Concert of Europe, to establish a universal treaty outlawing the slave trade. As a result, this mandated a change in British tactics, which would ultimately prove to be successful – the establishment of a web of bilateral agreements which came to included all maritime powers. The study then moves on to consider the evolution of these bilateral agreements while highlighting the relationship between Great Britain and States (Brazil, France, Portugal and the United States) which were obstinate in their willingness to join this bilateral regime. Finally, consideration is given to the move towards the establishment of the 1890 General Act of Brussels; and thus the conclusion of the decades long British foreign policy objective of a universal instrument meant to suppress the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Figuring Abjection: The Slave Mother in the Early Creole Novel

While twentieth century Caribbean literature in French (particularly post-Césaire) has generated a large body of criticism, writing from the nineteenth century has been largely neglected. This article begins by contextualising the Creole novel of the early nineteenth century in cultural and historical terms, before proceeding to an analysis of two novels published in 1835 by Martinican authors: Outre-mer by Louis de Maynard, and Les Créoles by Jules Levilloux. In the few studies that exist, these texts have been read in opposition to each other in terms of their portrayal of the (male) mulatto; Levilloux has generally been considered the more progressive writer in this regard. However they are in fact in striking harmony in their depiction of the black mother, a figure (in both senses, as her physiognomy is central in her portrayal) who has until now been overlooked. For both writers, the elderly black mother is an abject and wretched creature. She has necessarily to be shown to be repulsive, filthy and morally hideous in old age in order to counteract the fascination she provokes, and to embody a phantasised repellent to the desires of the white male.

The After Slavery Website: A New Online Resource for Teaching U. S. Slave Emancipation

Historiographical essay and evaluation of textbooks and web-based resource for teaching slave emancipation. Published to coincide with re-launch of After Slavery website (www.afterslavery.com) in partnership with Lowcountry Digital Library, College of Charleston, SC.

Learning Not to Curse: Swearing, Testimony, and Truth in Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative

This article addresses swearing and testimony in Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative (1789) by reading the work in the context of a broader contemporary discourse concerning profane swearing and cursing. Acts of profane enunciation inform a number of key episodes in Equiano’s life, and bear particular significance for his spiritual development and abolitionist witnessing. Within the Narrative, swearing is cast as a failure of piety, civility, and humanity, and shown to be actively avenged by a retributive deity. In Britain, profane swearing was also thought to undermine the validity of legal testimony; while, in the British West Indies, slaves were denied recourse to such testimony against their oppressors. By disavowing profane swearing and cursing, the essay argues, Equiano sought to assert both the validity of his oath and the truth of his testimony against the iniquities of the British slave trade.

Pristine Early Eocene Wood Buried Deeply in Kimberlite from Northern Canada

We report exceptional preservation of fossil wood buried deeply in a kimberlite pipe that intruded northwestern Canada's Slave Province 53.3±0.6 million years ago (Ma), revealed during excavation of diamond source rock. The wood originated from forest surrounding the eruption zone and collapsed into the diatreme before resettling in volcaniclastic kimberlite to depths >300 m, where it was mummified in a sterile environment. Anatomy of the unpermineralized wood permits conclusive identification to the genus Metasequoia (Cupressaceae). The wood yields genuine cellulose and occluded amber, both of which have been characterized spectroscopically and isotopically. From cellulose d O and d H measurements, we infer that Early Eocene paleoclimates in the western Canadian subarctic were 12-17°C warmer and four times wetter than present. Canadian kimberlites offer Lagerstätte-quality preservation of wood from a region with limited alternate sources of paleobotanical information. © 2012 Wolfe et al.

Jubilee and the Limits of African American Freedom after Emancipation

Scholarship generated in the post-civil rights US underpins a growing consensus that any honest confrontation with the American past requires an acknowledgment both of the nation’s foundations in racially-based slave labour and of the critical role that the enslaved played in ending that system. But scholars equally need to examine why the end of slavery did not deliver freedom, but instead – after a short-lived ‘jubilee’ during which freedpeople savoured their ‘brief moment in the sun’ – opened up a period of extreme repression and violence. This article traces the political trajectory of one prominent ex-slave and Republican party organiser, Elias Hill, to assess the constraints in which black grassroots activists operated. Though mainly concerned with the dashed hopes of African Americans, their experience of a steep reversal is in many ways the shared and profoundly significant legacy of ex-slaves across the former plantation societies of the Atlantic world.

W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Agency and the Slaves' Civil War

This article reviews the historical literature on slave self-activity during the US Civil War, taking account of recent developments in historiography. Attempting to move beyond the debate between those who argue for 'slave self-emancipation' and others who emphasize the role of high politics, this article suggests that while slaves played a central role in re-directing the war into an assault on slavery, there were severe constraints on their activity as well. Northern military advances played a critical role in opening up the Confederate South to slave self-assertion.

Du Bois's Prolific "Error" and the Break with Color-Blind Orthodoxy

Contribution to a roundtable on the 70th anniversary of the publication of W. E. B. DuBois's classic study of US slave emancipation, Black Reconstruction, 1860-1880, including original research on the context in which the book was launched and reflections on its impact on the recent historiography of the American Civil War and its aftermath.