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This part of the History list within the Cambridge Library Collection focuses on the practices of slave-trading and slave-holding during the colonial period and their eventual abolition: it is sometimes forgotten that the efforts of the British emancipation movement were not finally successful until 1833, 26 years after the trade in slaves was outlawed. The series contains eye-witness accounts of the conditions endured by slaves on board ship across the Atlantic and on the plantations of the Caribbean and the Americas, including testimonies by former slaves, both male and female. It includes publications arguing for and against abolition by social reformers such as Clarkson and Wilberforce, and by plantation owners and commodity merchants. In addition, there are reports of naval expeditions targeting slave traders and of the judicial proceedings against individuals accused of human trafficking. Further context is provided by books on the geography, history, society, laws and economics of these regions from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

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82 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Slavery and Abolition

Page 4 of 5

The Jamaica Planter’s Guide
  • Or, a System for Planting and Managing a Sugar Estate or Other Plantations in that Island, and Throughout the British West Indies in General
  • Thomas Roughley
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    16 December 2010
    First published in:
    1823
  • Thomas Roughley published this Guide in 1823, based on his own experience. The book is an important source on Britain's richest colony, where the sugar trade had reached its peak production around 1810. At a time when the abolition of slavery was a major issue, Jamaican planters were particularly concerned, as so much of their activity was based on slave labour. The book deals with all aspects of running a sugar plantation profitably, the chapter on the work force being particularly interesting. He outlines each role necessary for the effective estate, and criticises the 'slanders' of philanthropists regarding the mistreatment of slaves, referring to the strict laws for their protection: since the importation of new slaves had been banned since 1807, it was all the more necessary for owners to look after their workforce's health and welfare. Roughley shows that well-run plantations were highly complex agricultural and economic units.

Notes on the West Indies
  • Written during the Expedition under the Command of the Late General Sir Ralph Abercromby
  • Volume 3
  • George Pinckard
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    09 December 2010
    First published in:
    1806
  • George Pinckard (1768–1835) was an army surgeon who arrived in the West Indies in 1796. His letters to a friend were published as Notes on the West Indies in 1806; a second edition came out in 1816. In Volume 3 he continues his description of Dutch Guiana, which had been captured by the British. He gives detailed descriptions of illness among the troops, comparing the Dutch and British medical practices. As several of the medical staff had died, Pinckard was kept extremely busy, while continuing to make observations on all he saw. Surviving an attack of yellow fever, he describes his own symptoms at length. In Guiana he witnessed exceptional cruelty towards slaves, concerning which he gives graphic details, and also the unequal treatment of mulattos. He ends the book with the arrival of his long-delayed orders to proceed to St Domingo (Haiti).

Civil and Criminal Justice in the West Indies
  • Fortunatus Dwarris
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    09 December 2010
    First published in:
    1827
  • Sir Fortunatus Dwarris (1786–1860) was an English barrister, civil servant and abolitionist. After graduating from University College, Oxford, in 1808 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1811. In 1823 Dwarris was appointed a commissioner for an Imperial Commission of Inquiry on the state of legal and slave codes of the self-governing colonies of the British West Indies. This detailed volume, first published in 1827, contains three reports summarising the Commission's findings and recommendations. Focusing on the islands of Barbados, Tobago, Dominica, and Antigua, this volume provides a detailed analysis of the various criminal and civil laws peculiar to each island, together with a description of the various courts and processes in each. The commissioners perceptively discuss and illustrate the institutionalised racism of these laws, providing valuable information for the study of slavery and emancipation and the legal history of the British West Indies.

An Historical Survey of the French Colony in the Island of St. Domingo
  • Bryan Edwards
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    09 December 2010
    First published in:
    1797
  • Bryan Edwards (1743–1800) was a wealthy West Indian planter, politician and historian. He vigorously opposed the abolition of the slave trade, since the sugar industry relied heavily on it. An Historical Survey of the French Colony in the Island of St. Domingo was published in 1797. St Domingo (now Haiti) had been one of the most prosperous West Indian economies, producing more sugar and coffee than all the British West Indies combined. The harsh treatment of the slaves under the French code noir led to a widespread revolt in 1791, in part inspired by the French Revolution. An alliance between white planters and the British to take over the island was unsuccessful. Edwards feared that the revolt would spread to other islands, destroying their trade. The rebellion in St Domingo was of major significance, as it led to the colony becoming the first independent black-ruled republic in 1804.

The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament
  • Volume 1
  • Thomas Clarkson
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    16 September 2010
    First published in:
    1808
  • Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) was a leading campaigner against slavery and the African slave trade. After graduating from St. John's College, Cambridge in 1783, Clarkson with Granville Sharp (1735–1813) founded the Committee for the Abolition of the African Slave Trade in 1787, which increased popular support for abolition and was the main campaigner behind the abolition of the slave trade. These volumes, first published in 1808, contain a unique contemporary account of the abolition movement from one of its major leaders. Clarkson describes in great detail the Quaker background to the abolitionist movement and the parliamentary debates leading to the Slave Trade Act of 1807. The contemporary arguments both in support and in opposition to abolition and the researches and actions of the abolition movement's members are described, creating an important historical record of the movement. Volume 1 contains the early history of the abolition movement until July 1788.

The History of Jamaica
  • Or, General Survey of the Antient and Modern State of that Island, with Reflections on its Situation, Settlements, Inhabitants, Climate, Products, Commerce, Laws, and Government
  • Volume 2
  • Edward Long
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1774
  • Edward Long's three-volume work marks a major turning point in the historiography of Jamaica, as the first attempt at a comprehensive description of the colony, its history, government, people, economy and geography. The son of a prominent Jamaican plantation owner, Long (1734–1813) spent twelve years running his father's property, an experience which permeates his vision of the island's past, present and future. Throughout his book, Long defends slavery as 'inevitably necessary' in Jamaica, suggesting the institution to be implicit in the 'possession of British freedom'. Volume 2 presents a survey of the counties of Jamaica, information on religion, education and health, descriptions and racial classifications of the population, a history of the slave rebellions and details of the legal code governing slavery. This important 1774 book provides fascinating insights into eighteenth-century colonial Jamaica and the ideology of its commercial and administrative elite.

Twenty-Nine Years in the West Indies and Central Africa
  • A Review of Missionary Work and Adventure, 1829–1858
  • Hope Masterton Waddell
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    16 September 2010
    First published in:
    1863
  • This vivid account of the missionary work of the Rev. Hope Masterton Waddell in the West Indies and Central Africa was first published in 1863. During his sixteen years in Jamaica he witnessed the slave revolt and the aftermath of the abolition of slavery. The mission helped former slaves adapt to freedom in new communities. In 1846 he left Jamaica for Calabar in West Africa (now part of Nigeria), and his narrative is one of the best European accounts of pre-colonial Africa. The mission was concerned with ending local practices such as polygamy, human sacrifice and witchcraft, and Waddell formed a close relationship with King Eyo. The book gives considerable detail about the history and culture of the area, as well as on the work of the mission. His work in Calabar is still commemorated there in the Hope Waddell Training Institute, Duke Town.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
  • An American Slave
  • Frederick Douglass
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1845
  • Frederick Douglass (c.1818–1895) was born into slavery but escaped in 1838, quickly becoming involved in the abolitionist movement. Following publication in 1845 of this autobiography he risked recognition and recapture by his owner, and so fled the United States. This reissue is of the Dublin edition of 1845, with a preface by Douglass explaining his reasons for his journey to Britain. Opening with a touching explanation of how he doesn't know his birthday, Douglass describes his early life and the growing awareness of the injustices he suffered. The beatings he witnessed and received himself are described in painful detail. Later, Douglass highlights the hypocrisy of the 'slaveholding religion of this land', condemning it as 'the grossest of libels'. The eloquence of the writing, with an immediacy and honesty found shocking at the time, make this an invaluable first-hand record of one of humanity's most shameful acts.

Antigua and the Antiguans
  • A Full Account of the Colony and its Inhabitants
  • Volume 2
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    17 February 2011
    First published in:
    1844
  • Antigua was named by Columbus in 1493, and permanently colonised by the British in 1632. The next two hundred years were full of upheaval that shaped the Caribbean island's identity: bloody battles, agricultural progress, British immigration and the establishment and then the abolition of the slave trade. The British-born author adopted Antigua as her home, and her love for the island is evident in both volumes. Legends, stories and particular island features of interest are introduced through the author's experiences and anecdotes, giving a full picture of Antigua at the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, when the island's population and landscape changed rapidly and irrevocably. Volume 2 focusses on the island's natural history and the customs, character and changing position in society of the Caribs and the imported black slave population. An overview of the changes during the period of the slave trade in the Caribbean.

Antigua and the Antiguans
  • A Full Account of the Colony and its Inhabitants
  • Volume 1
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    17 February 2011
    First published in:
    1844
  • Antigua was named by Columbus in 1493, and permanently colonised by the British in 1632. The next two hundred years were full of upheaval that shaped the Caribbean island's identity: bloody battles, agricultural progress, British immigration and the establishment and then the abolition of the slave trade. The British-born author adopted Antigua as her home, and her love for the island is evident in both volumes. Legends, stories and particular island features of interest are introduced through the author's experiences and anecdotes, giving a full picture of Antigua at the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, when the island's population and landscape changed rapidly and irrevocably. Volume 1 includes a comprehensive exploration of the struggles faced by the British during colonisation, and the contribution of several aristocratic families to the advancement of the island's legal, administrative and agricultural systems. Personal recollections give life to a complex history.

The African Slave Trade
  • Thomas Fowell Buxton
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    27 January 2011
    First published in:
    1839
  • Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845) was a committed social reformer throughout his life and became involved with the abolition of slavery during his time as an MP, taking over the leadership of the abolition movement in the British House of Commons after William Wilberforce retired in 1825. Following the abolition of slavery in Britain and its colonies in 1833, and his loss of his Parliamentary seat in 1837, Buxton concerned himself with the slave trade along the African coast still perpetrated by Africans, Arabs and the Portuguese. The results of his research and conclusions were originally published in 1839, and demonstrate the extent to which slave trading still existed, and its human cost in mortality and misery, despite attempts at policing by the British navy. Buxton explores the theory that the key to complete abolition is a change in market economics to eliminate the need for African slave labour.

Letters from the Havana, During the Year 1820
  • Containing an Account of the Present State of the Island of Cuba, and Observations on the Slave Trade
  • Robert Francis Jameson
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    23 December 2010
    First published in:
    1821
  • Robert Francis Jameson was the British Commissioner of Arbitration stationed in Cuba between 1819 and 1823. This volume, first published in 1821, contains his observations of Cuba, recorded during his year-long stay in Havana in 1820. Jameson provides a comprehensive description of Cuban society and a detailed account of the city of Havana, illustrating the stark differences between the classes in Havana society. At this time, Cuba was the world's leading producer of sugar cane, and totally dependent on slave labour and the slave trade. Jameson discusses the impact of slavery on the Cuban economy and the advantages and disadvantages of emancipation. He also discusses Cuba's constitutional history and contemporary economy, exploring the effects of Ferdinand VII's opening of Havana to foreign trade. Written in the form of letters to an anonymous recipient, this volume provides a valuable and fascinating picture of contemporary Cuban society.

The History of Contract Labor in the Hawaiian Islands
  • Katharine Coman
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    30 September 2010
    First published in:
    1903
  • Katharine Coman (1857–1915) was an American historian and economist who served as professor and later dean at Wellesley College. Her works include A History of England (1899), Economic Beginnings of the Far West (1912), and this 1903 monograph. Written following a trip to the islands, the short piece focuses upon the use of imported contract labour in the form of indentured servants. Used primarily in the sugar industry, the system was, in Coman's view, one of which the results 'advance[d] the interests of the labourers quite as much as those of the planters'. The United States' distaste with such arrangements ended this status quo upon annexation, even though the wage system subsequently imposed offered fewer opportunities than before. Covering the decades during which Hawaii underwent massive changes at the hands of Western powers, Coman's work helps illuminate the multiple layers of colonial paternalism in the age of imperialism.

Brief Notices of Hayti
  • With its Condition, Resources, and Prospects
  • John Candler
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    09 December 2010
    First published in:
    1842
  • John Candler (1787–1869), a Quaker Abolitionist, visited the West Indies between 1839 and 1841, to study the situation of ex-slaves since they had obtained their freedom. He spent three months in Haiti, and appears to have been generally impressed by what he found. The former slaves had become smallholders, growing crops on small plots of land, though they were not interested in producing more than they needed for their basic livelihood. The export of coffee, cotton and tobacco had declined since the end of slavery, and the sugar trade had ended. Whites were barred from owning land, or from marrying Haitians, and were restricted in trading activities, reducing available investment capital. The compensation demanded by France to the former plantation owners was also crippling the economic development of the island. Candler's book gives much valuable detail about an important former colony at a time of transition.

The History of the Maroons
  • From their Origin to the Establishment of their Chief Tribe at Sierra Leone
  • Volume 1
  • Robert Charles Dallas
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    09 December 2010
    First published in:
    1803
  • Born in Jamaica, Robert Charles Dallas (1754–1824) was prolific author in a variety of genres, dedicating all of his work to 'the defence of society and reason against Jacobinism and confusion', having been forced to leave his residence in France by the Revolution. Despite 'an ardent tendency in my heart to disapprove the slave-trade', The History of the Maroons, published in 1803, offered a qualified acceptance of the institution of slavery in a fallen world, and addressed criticisms of planters' behaviour and the government's conduct against the rebellious Jamaican Maroons - runaway slaves who formed their own communities in the West Indies. They settled the mountainous inland areas of Jamaica and resisted assimilation by the British; two Maroon Wars were fought in the eighteenth century. They were deported by the British to Canada and then to Sierra Leone, but many returned to Jamaica, where they remain.

West India Colonies
  • James MacQueen
  • Published online:
    05 July 2011
    Print publication:
    23 September 2010
    First published in:
    1824
  • James MacQueen (1778–1870) was one of the most outspoken critics of the British anti-slavery campaign in the 1820s and 1830s. A former manager of a sugar plantation in the Caribbean, he was editor of the Glasgow Courier, a paper that favoured West Indian merchant interests and opposed rights for slaves. First published in 1824, this book is a direct attack on contemporary anti-slavery campaigners, such as William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, whom MacQueen holds responsible for 'the dreadful misrepresentations scattered abroad' about West India colonies and the planters. MacQueen, who insists on calling himself an enemy of slavery 'in the abstract', argues that abolition in the colonies would lead to insurrections, bringing chaos and barbarism to these territories. This, in turn, would lead to the loss of the British colonies. This volume remains an essential document in the context of post-colonial studies.

Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Baronet
  • With Selections from his Correspondence
  • Thomas Fowell Buxton
  • Edited by Charles Buxton
  • Published online:
    05 July 2011
    Print publication:
    23 September 2010
    First published in:
    1848
  • Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845) was a noted social reformer and one of the leading members of the campaign to abolish slavery. Buxton had family connections to the Quakers and became an associate of Elizabeth Fry in campaigning for prison reform. He was elected an MP in 1818 and from 1825 he became the leader of the abolitionist movement in Parliament following William Wilberforce's retirement from politics. This biography, compiled by his son Charles Buxton and first published in 1848, provides an intimate and detailed account of Buxton's character and involvement with social reform and the abolition movement, culminating in the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act. The inclusion of Buxton's letters to family, friends and colleagues provides valuable insights into his character and his thoughts on the progress of the abolition movement and other political events connected to the campaign for abolition.

Emancipation in the West Indies
  • A Six Months’ Tour in Antigua, Barbados, and Jamaica, in the Year 1837
  • James A. Thome, J. Horace Kimball
  • Published online:
    05 July 2011
    Print publication:
    23 September 2010
    First published in:
    1839
  • Published in 1838 by the American Anti-Slavery Society, who had commissioned their investigative tour, Thome and Kimball's Emancipation in the West Indies immediately became an influential abolitionist text. Many anti-abolitionists in America were prophesying major upheaval should slavery be outlawed. Slavery had been officially abolished in the British West Indies in 1827, and the object of the tour was to assess the results there. The islands visited had followed different models ranging from total abolition to a gradual change through apprenticeship until 1838, and the results had proved those who feared abolition wrong. There had been no insurrection or increase in crime, participation in education and religion among former slaves had generally increased, and only the former slave-owners were unhappy about the economic consequences for their estates. The book contains documentary evidence from residents and officials of the islands, describing the effects of emancipation.

The History of Jamaica
  • Or, General Survey of the Antient and Modern State of that Island, with Reflections on its Situation, Settlements, Inhabitants, Climate, Products, Commerce, Laws, and Government
  • Volume 1
  • Edward Long
  • Published online:
    13 June 2011
    Print publication:
    31 October 2010
    First published in:
    1774
  • Edward Long's three-volume work marks a major turning point in the historiography of Jamaica, as the first attempt at a comprehensive description of the colony, its history, government, people, economy and geography. The son of a prominent Jamaican plantation owner, Long (1734–1813) spent twelve years running his father's property, an experience which permeates his vision of the island's past, present and future. Throughout his book, Long defends slavery as 'inevitably necessary' in Jamaica, suggesting the institution to be implicit in the 'possession of British freedom'. Volume 1 gives an overview of British colonial government in Jamaica, a history of the island's initial colonisation by Spain, and an account of the economy, including population and export figures and details of prices paid for slaves during the eighteenth century. This important 1774 book provides fascinating insights into eighteenth-century colonial Jamaica and the ideology of its commercial and administrative elite.

The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament
  • Volume 2
  • Thomas Clarkson
  • Published online:
    21 April 2011
    Print publication:
    16 September 2010
    First published in:
    1808
  • Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) was a leading campaigner against slavery and the African slave trade. After graduating from St. John's College, Cambridge in 1783, Clarkson with Granville Sharp (1735–1813) founded the Committee for the Abolition of the African Slave Trade in 1787, which increased popular support for abolition and was the main campaigner behind the abolition of the slave trade. These volumes, first published in 1808, contain a unique contemporary account of the abolition movement from one of its major leaders. Clarkson describes in great detail the Quaker background to the abolitionist movement and the parliamentary debates leading to the Slave Trade Act of 1807. The contemporary arguments both in support and in opposition to abolition and the researches and actions of the abolition movement's members are described, creating an important historical record of the movement. Volume 2 describes the campaign from June 1788 until March 1808.

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