The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery: 1776-1848
Robin Blackburn’s history captures the complexity of a revolutionary age in a compelling narrative. In some cases colonial rule fell while slavery flourished, as happened in the South of the United States and in Brazil; elsewhere slavery ended but colonial rule remained, as in the British West Indies and French Windwards. But in French St. Domingue, the future Haiti, and in Spanish South and Central America both colonialism and slavery were defeated. This story of slave liberation and American independence highlights the pivotal role of the "first emancipation" in the French Antilles in the 1790s, the parallel actions of slave resistance and metropolitan abolitionism, and the contradictory implications of slaveholder patriotism.
The dramatic events of this epoch are examined from an unexpected vantage point, showing how the torch of anti-slavery passed from the medieval communes to dissident Quakers, from African maroons to radical pirates, from Granville Sharp and Ottabah Cuguano to Toussaint L’Ouverture, from the black Jacobins to the Liberators of South America, and from the African Baptists in Jamaica to the Revolutionaries of 1848 in Europe and the Caribbean.
Paperback, 560 pages
ISBN: 9781844674756
April 2011
$29.95 / £19.99 / $37.50CAN
Other Editions
Hardback, 560 pages
ISBN: 9781844674763
May 2011
$95.00 / £60.00
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Part of the Verso World History series
Reviews
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“A challenge to those who fondly suppose that slavery declined as ideas of Western ‘enlightenment’ spread … Blackburn deserves praise for undermining complacency about the past—and the present.”
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“Blackburn’s highly intelligent and well-written book is a substantial contribution. In this story the central event is the French Revolution.”
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“An incisive synthesis of developments in North America, the Caribbean and Latin America. Blackburn’s book is bold and original.”
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“One of the finest studies of slavery and abolition to appear in many years.”
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“The first historian since Eric Williams to present a comprehensive interpretation. But Blackburn, profiting from and admirably synthesizing the vast scholarship produced since Capitalism and Slavery (1944), is far less rigid and doctrinaire, much more attuned to the workings of politics. Unlike Williams, he includes slavery throughout the Western hemisphere.”
Blog
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Win the entire World History series plus Altai and Žižek tote bags!
To celebrate new additions to Verso's handsome World History series we are giving away all twelve titles plus run up prizes of Altai, Wu Ming's sequel to their debut novel Q.
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Django Unchained and Lincoln: A reading list on race, plus your chance to win 3 titles
Out in the UK this month, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained and Steven Speilberg's Lincoln has energized interest in a period of American history defined by race. Rather than make our own critiques or slap downs, we present these books to fill the gaps left by Hollywood.
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"We are black..."—Verso books for Black History Month
We are black, it is true, but tell us, gentlemen, you who are so judicious, what is the law that says that the black man must belong to and be the property of the white man? ... Yes, gentleman, we are free like you, and it is only by your avarice and our ignorance that anyone is still held in slavery up to this day, and we can neither see nor find the right that you pretend to have over us ... We are your equals then, by natural right, and if nature pleases itself to diversify colours within the human race, it is not a crime to be born black nor an advantage to be white.
This excerpt is from a letter written in July 1792 by the leaders of the revolution of Haitian slaves. The letter has been republished in the collection of writings of the black leader Toussaint L'Overture, The Haitian Revolution, which includes also the correspondence between him and Napoleon Bonaparte. In the late eighteenth century, Toussaint L'Overture and his supporters established the first black republic in the world.
In the United Kingdom, October is Black History Month. The celebration was originally introduced in 1926 on the initiative of Carter G. Woodson, the editor of the Journal of Negro History. In 2007, no fewer than 6,000 events were held in the UK as part of its programme. Here are some key Verso titles past and present that are relevant to the study and celebration of African and Caribbean history.
