‘Where Liberty is Not, There is My Country’: Nineteenth-Century American Abolitionist Writings on India and its Legacies

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines nineteenth century American abolitionist writings on India. My sources include abolitionist newspapers, primarily focusing on William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper the Liberator, but also incorporating other abolitionist newspapers. These include the Friend of Man and publications of individual abolitionists like Lydia Maria Child’s The History of the Condition of Women, in Various Ages and Nations. By looking at their writings on Christian missionary activities in India, Indian women, and British rule in India, this article argues that although many abolitionists Orientalized India, they at the same time found many parallels between Indian society and the US. Although they did not develop a full criticism towards colonialism in the antebellum period, their criticism towards Empire matured by the early twentieth century. My scholarly intervention centres on acknowledging the hitherto unknown role of abolitionist writings on India in the intellectual history of American abolitionism and US-India transnational history. By not fully engaging with India, the scholarship on US-India relations and abolitionism misses a critical dimension of the abolitionist movement’s intimate relationship with related causes of feminism, anti-clericalism, and anti-imperialism. Most importantly, this article demonstrates that abolitionist writings on India far exceeded Orientalism as the only frame of understanding.