CATHERINE MOLINEUX. Faces of Perfect Ebony: Encountering Atlantic Slavery in Imperial Britain.

Abstract

In Faces of Perfect Ebony, Catherine Molineux explores the imagery and discussions surrounding Africans and slavery in early modern Britain. Although at times she pushes her examination into the early part of the nineteenth century, when abolitionists dominated the public discourse, her primary contribution is to our understanding of pre-abolitionist representations. Central to her argument is that abolitionists wrongly rewrote British history through their assertions that the British had ignored slavery until the 1770s and that British soil was free. Rather, she argues, “Britons [prior to the abolitionist movement] were not blind to slavery; they were actively involved in imagining it into a system that confined preconceptions about their own role within the Atlantic world” (p. 257). It is this world that Molineux uncovers. In pursuit of her goal, Molineux considers a wide range of literary and visual evidence, including performed plays, shop signs, and portraiture. The result is a visually impressive book that includes over eighty illustrations—many of which have not been previously published and some of which are presented in full color. While the title of the book claims a British engagement, the book focuses almost exclusively on what Molineux labels “metropolitan Britons,” who essentially were the London commercial, social, and political elites and the upper echelons of the middling ranks. She justifies the London focus on the grounds that “it was the production center for print and visual materials in the Isles” (p. 7). Following a short introduction Molineux offers a series of thematic chapters that detail the presence of Africans, and representations of them, in Britain. The chapters sometimes focus on a particular argument, such as chapter three's assertion that the inalterable color of their skin made Africans difficult targets for cultural assimilation, or on a genre of sources, such as chapter five's examination of images of Africans in tobacco-shop advertisements. The result is a book that recovers a rich and diverse aspect of British culture that has largely been overshadowed by the much more assertive and prolific abolitionist discourse of the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Clearly, as Molineux demonstrates, Africans and images of them abounded in London, where they played roles ranging from a mistress's fashion statement to critics of contemporary English society.