Chained to History: Slavery and U.S. Foreign Relations to 1865 by Steven J. Brady

Abstract

Reviewed by: Chained to History: Slavery and U.S. Foreign Relations to 1865 by Steven J. Brady Ann L. Tucker Chained to History: Slavery and U.S. Foreign Relations to 1865. By Steven J. Brady. (Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press, 2022. Pp. viii, 232. $39.95, ISBN 978-1-5017-6105-8.) Slavery constituted one of the most critical issues in U.S. domestic politics from the founding through emancipation. In Chained to History: Slavery and U.S. Foreign Relations to 1865, Steven J. Brady follows in the footsteps of historians such as Matthew Karp by positioning slavery as a critical issue shaping U.S. foreign policy as well. Using the records and words of leading American statesmen, Brady argues that slavery influenced American foreign policy goals, actions, successes, and failures from the American Revolution through the Civil War, continually complicating and challenging efforts to advance U.S. interests at home and abroad. Chained to Slavery traces the influence of slavery on American foreign policy through a series of critical events in U.S. history. Brady reveals the key role slavery played in these well-known incidents and highlights the influence of foreign policy considerations on well-known American actions related to slavery. Slavery complicated efforts to resolve ongoing conflict with Britain during the early republic and shaped American reactions to the Haitian Revolution. International disagreements over slavery limited efforts to police the Atlantic slave trade and helped thwart American attempts to promote Black colonization in Africa. Slavery drove American expansionism, despite the risks of harming U.S. relations with European powers, and hindered the [End Page 360] Abraham Lincoln administration’s diplomatic efforts during the Civil War. Throughout these events, slavery and international relations were inextricably intertwined, shaping American actions and historical outcomes. As Brady reveals, a major reason why slavery was so woven into every element of U.S. diplomacy was that leaders frequently equated the promotion and protection of slavery with national interests and even national security. Yet despite this prioritization of slavery, American statesmen continually struggled to define domestic and international legal precedents and obligations regarding the institution, and therefore the obligations of domestic and international parties toward each other. This dynamic shaped decades-long debates with Britain over compensation for the owners of self-emancipated enslaved people and over the British enforcement of the prohibition of the Atlantic slave trade. Further complicating matters, the connection between slavery and foreign policy was not always straightforward, and other concerns often intervened. For example, a desire to promote commerce led the United States to continue trade with Haiti, a nation founded in part by a slave revolt, and the ideas of American unilateralism continually clashed with the defense of slavery’s tendency to draw its proponents into the larger international world. In this analysis, Brady shows how influential American leaders, and their foreign counterparts, were repeatedly snared, thwarted, and redirected by the issue of slavery as they debated and negotiated America’s place in the world. One theme that emerges throughout the book was the particular challenge that the United States’ generally proslavery foreign policy posed to its relationship with abolitionist Great Britain. This tension began with long-lasting conflict over compensation for the owners of enslaved persons who had self-emancipated across British lines during the American Revolution, and it continued with American refusals to acquiesce to British visions for an alliance against the Atlantic slave trade. Throughout the nineteenth century the United States and Great Britain repeatedly found themselves at odds over the issue of slavery. This dynamic was intensified even by seemingly unrelated events, such as the U.S. annexation of Texas (which Britain opposed because it advanced slavery), as well as ongoing fears about British abolitionist influence in Spanish Cuba, and the expansion of British power generally. Brady’s emphasis on the role slavery played in shaping the United States’ relationship with Britain is one of the strengths of the work. The relationship between slavery and foreign relations that Brady depicts was multidirectional, with varied results for American leaders and their goals. Nonetheless, with clear use of evidence and strong organization, Brady compellingly demonstrates that slavery and international relations were inextricably...