Religion, anti-slavery, and identity: Irish Presbyterians, the United States, and transatlantic evangelicalism, c. 1820-1914

Scholars have devoted much attention to the causes and consequences of Presbyterian emigration from Ulster to the thirteen colonies before 1776. This article moves beyond the eighteenth century to examine the continued religious links between Presbyterians in Ireland and the United States in the nineteenth century. It begins with an examination of the influence of evangelicalism on both sides of the Atlantic and how this promoted unity in denominational identity, missionary activity to convert Catholics, and revivalist religion during the first half of the century. Though Irish Presbyterians had great affection for their American co-religionists, they were not uncritical, and significant tensions did develop over slavery. The article then examines the religious character of Scotch-Irish or Ulster-Scots identity in the late nineteenth century, which was articulated in response to the alleged demoralising influence of large-scale Irish immigration during and after the Famine of the 1840s, the so-called Romanisation of Catholicism, and the threat of Home Rule in Ireland. The importance of identity politics should not obscure religious developments, and the article ends with a consideration of the origins and character of fundamentalism, perhaps one of the most important cultural connections between Protestants in Northern Ireland and the United States in the twentieth century.

Eliza Hamilton Dunlop's 'the aboriginal mother': romanticism, anti slavery and imperial feminism in the nineteenth century

This paper positions the work of colonial poet Eliza Hamilton Dunlop amongst international Romantic poetry of the period, and argues that Dunlop’s poetry reflects a transposition of Romantic women’s poetry to Australia. Dunlop’s poetry, such as ‘The Aboriginal Mother’, demonstrates the relationship of Romantic women’s poetry to early feminism and Social Reform. As with the work of Felicia Hemans, Dunlop was interested in the role of women, and the ‘domestic’ as they related to broader national and political concerns. Dunlop seems to have been consciously applying the tropes, such as that of the mother, of anti slavery poetry found within American, British, and international poetic traditions to the Australian aboriginal context. Themes of indigenous motherhood, and also of Sati or widow burning in India, and human rights had been favored by early women’s rights campaigners in Britain from the 1820s, focusing on abolition of slavery through the identification of white women with the Negro mother. Dunlop’s comparative sympathy for the situation of aboriginals in Australia has been given critical attention as the aspect which makes her work valuable. However, in this essay I hope to outline how Dunlop’s poetry fits in to the international context of the engagement of Romantic women poets with Western Imperialist models and colonial Others.

A comparison of the aims of the anti-slavery society /

Mode of access: Internet.

The anti-slavery crusade; a chronicle of the gathering storm,

"Abraham Lincoln edition."

The Annual report . . . of the American and foreign anti-slavery . . . with the addresses and resolutions.

Title varies slightly.

Proceedings of the Anti-slavery convention held at Rochester N.Y., Dec. 15 and 16, 1857.

Held under the auspices of the Black River, Oneida, Genesee, East Genesee and Wyoming (all in New York state) conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

The ... annual report of the Aberdeen Anti-Slavery Society for promoting the mitigation and ultimate abolition of Negro slavery.

"With an account of the proceedings of the meeting, etc."

The British and foreign anti-slavery reporter.

Description based on: Vol. 3, no. 1 (Jan. 12, 1842) = [Whole no.] 54; title from caption.

Annual report of the Philadelphia Female Anti-slavery Society.

Mode of access: Internet.

The battle of principles; a study of the heroism and eloquence of the anti-slavery conflict,

"Originally published in 1912."

Anti-slavery songs; a selection from the best anti-slavery authors ...

Mode of access: Internet.

The third annual report of the British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade throughout the world : presented to the general meeting held in Exeter Hall, on Friday, May 13th, 1842 : the most honourable the Marquis of Clanricarde in the chair : with an appendix, list of contributions, &c. &c. &c.

Mode of access: Internet.

Leeds anti-slavery series.

Mode of access: Internet.