Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism
Revisiting the origins of the British antislavery movement of the late eighteenth century, Christopher Leslie Brown challenges prevailing scholarly arguments that locate the roots of abolitionism in economic determinism or bourgeois humanitarianism. Brown instead connects the shift from sentiment to action to changing views of empire and nation in Britain at the time, particularly the anxieties and dislocations spurred by the American Revolution.\ The debate over the political rights of the...
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Revisiting the origins of the British antislavery movement of the late eighteenth century, Christopher Leslie Brown challenges prevailing scholarly arguments that locate the roots of abolitionism in economic determinism or bourgeois humanitarianism. Brown instead connects the shift from sentiment to action to changing views of empire and nation in Britain at the time, particularly the anxieties and dislocations spurred by the American Revolution.The debate over the political rights of the North American colonies pushed slavery to the fore, Brown argues, giving antislavery organizing the moral legitimacy in Britain it had never had before. The first emancipation schemes were dependent on efforts to strengthen the role of the imperial state in an era of weakening overseas authority. By looking at the initial public contest over slavery, Brown connects disparate strands of the British Atlantic world and brings into focus shifting developments in British identity, attitudes toward Africa, definitions of imperial mission, the rise of Anglican evangelicalism, and Quaker activism.Demonstrating how challenges to the slave system could serve as a mark of virtue rather than evidence of eccentricity, Brown shows that the abolitionist movement derived its power from a profound yearning for moral worth in the aftermath of defeat and American independence. Thus abolitionism proved to be a cause for the abolitionists themselves as much as for enslaved Africans.
Ch. 1Antislavery without abolitionism33Ch. 2The politics of slavery in the years of crisis105Ch. 3Granville Sharp and the obligations of empire155Ch. 4British concepts of emancipation in the age of the American revolution209Ch. 5Africa, Africans, and the idea of abolition259Ch. 6British evangelicals and Caribbean slavery after the American war333Ch. 7The society of friends and the antislavery identity391Epilogue : moral capital451
\ From the Publisher"An impressive array of primary sources. . . . Capturing the complexity of abolitionism's development . . . A significant study that sheds new light."\ — The Journal of Religion\ "This is a carefully crafted study that will be widely appreciated by historians of slavery, imperial history, the American Revolution and eighteenth-century British domestic politics."\ — Patterns of Prejudice\ "A comprehensive and encyclopedic analysis of early British abolitionism that will be standard reading for all interested in the subject."\ — Journal of the Early Republic\ This outstanding and timely study will have a broad impact. Essential.\ iChoice\ "Effectively reframe[s] our traditional portraits of antislavery as well as humanitarian reform more generally at the turn of the eighteenth century."\ — William and Mary Quarterly\ \ \
