Abolitionist Research Articles

The Second Installment of Arthur Lee's "Suppressed" Antislavery Essay, the Public Sphere, and the Digital Archive

Abstract: This article transcribes and places in context the previously unidentified second portion of Arthur Lee's 1767 antislavery classic, "Address on the Abolition of Slavery and Retrieval of Specie in Virginia" (referred to by previous scholars as "Address on Slavery"). The second portion confirms that Lee's address, published under the pseudonym "Philanthropos," was part of a Virginia effort to end the slave trade, and it also demonstrates that Lee operated as part of a distinct, racist, Virginian antislavery tradition. The Quaker antislavery activist Anthony Benezet, who republished the first part of Lee's essay, belonged to a more humanitarian antislavery tradition; he probably read but kept silent about the essay's second portion, largely accounting for why historians have not known about it. Three additional newspaper essays inspired by Lee's, along with the previously unstudied Pennsylvania Chronicle subscription book for 1767, illuminate print culture in the 1760s and suggest that, so far as it concerned slavery, a coherent printed public sphere did not then exist. Finally, this article argues that the use of digital search tools, which revealed these previously unknown sources, creates an epistemologically distinct view of the past because searching and browsing are fundamentally different ways of acquiring information.

Tocqueville on the Abolition of Slavery in the French Caribbean: The Preemptive Dispossession and Proletarianization of Black Workers

Abstract: This paper brings together Alexis de Tocqueville's writings on enslavement and emancipation in the United States and the French Empire to trace how his project to abolish slavery in the French Caribbean relied on the use of coercive state power to temporarily truncate the property rights of Black workers and steal part of their wages. Highlighting how Tocqueville proposed forcing ex-slaves into conditions of landlessness and partial wagelessness, I conceptualize these processes respectively as preemptive dispossession and preemptive proletarianization. Attention to Tocqueville's emancipation prescriptions underscores the transnational scope and entanglements of political economy and processes of racialization in his political theory of empire and slavery.

Protection of Children's Rights: A Review of Child Marriage Policies in Indonesia, Malaysia, and India

Introduction: Child marriage is a phenomenon that continues and develops, the low knowledge and understanding of the community towards the perception of marriage. Child marriage should not be allowed anywhere in the world as it is a practice that violates general human rights and discriminates against women. Purposes of the Research: In this research, the author will compare the prevention of child marriage in Indonesia, Malaysia, and India.Methods of Research: This research uses a normative juridical approach method. Researchers will study and examine the factors that cause child marriage and its legal protection to prevent child protection in Indonesia, Malaysia, and India. This research uses descriptive analytical research specifications by determining the laws and regulations relating to legal theories that are the object of research.Results of the Research: Indonesia increased the minimum marriage age for both sexes from 18 to 19 with the enactment of Law No. 16 of 2019. Malaysia, meanwhile, sets a maximum marriage age of eighteen. Initiatives to reduce the legal age of marriage, especially for women, have been made in both nations for socio-political and socio-cultural reasons. Alongside these initiatives, India has also ratified several conventions designed to end child marriage. These include the 1976 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the 1976 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), as well as the 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery.

Vulnerability and Dependence in Slavery and Post-Slavery Societies: A Historicisation of the Enslaved Children (Pon Pekpen) from the Bamum Kingdom (West Cameroon)

This article is a reflection on the history of enslaved children (Pon pekpen) in African slavery and post-slavery societies, such as the Bamum Kingdom. This traditional monarchy of the Grassfields of Cameroon, founded in 1394 by Nchare Yen, was one of the largest providers of captives transported to the Atlantic coast and used locally to meet the needs of traditional slavery. In this kingdom, slaves and their descendants, as well as enslaved peoples, represented nearly 80% of the total population. The trade of captives and servile practices left indelible traces, particularly where enslaved children were concerned. So, what did enslaved children represent in African slavery and post-slavery societies, such as the Bamum Kingdom? The aim of this study is to show that the enslaved children were the most vulnerable and dependent members of slavery and post-slavery systems. This study is based on oral, archival iconographic, written and electronic sources, using theories of social dominance and subaltern studies. It clearly shows that the vulnerability and dependence of enslaved children (Pon pekpen) made them special, weak and hopeful links in the slavery system and the persistence of slavery practices. They were mainly victims of traditional slavery and of the trans-Saharan and transatlantic slave trades. Despite the formal abolition of the slave trade and slavery between the 19th and 20th centuries, enslaved children and the descendants of enslaved people continue to be victims of a kind of subalternisation because they are usually considered second-class citizens.

Building An Abolition Movement for International Criminal Law?

Abstract International criminal law is a carceral system, which responds to mass atrocities by holding some individuals criminally responsible for these events and then, generally, imprisoning those individuals. I ask what alternative responses might be envisaged, and if we can build a carceral abolitionist movement for international criminal law. Such a movement would refuse imprisonment and policing as the main responses to mass atrocity, and instead would seek to understand the social causes and conditions that cause such mass atrocity, and also how (and why) criminal law has become the preeminent ‘legitimate hand of justice’. In this article, I attempt to bring into conversation two particular intellectual movements: the collective scholarship and praxis of domestic carceral abolition movements; and those critical scholars of international criminal law who have already set out some of the limits and possibilities of the field. I set out the structural conditions of international criminal law, particularly its ideological grounding in neoliberalism and its relationships to race, global capital and colonialism and imperialism, which result in a legal system that criminalizes some and exonerates others. I then particularly examine some tools that already exist for building an abolition movement for international criminal law. These include the defence of duress, transformative reparations and the role of defence lawyers. These tools are admittedly part of the carceral system, and therefore cannot be the key to an abolition movement for international criminal law. However, they may assist us in the short or medium term as we imagine and work towards a better world without the need for a carceral system of international criminal law that relies on police and prisons.

Entre Requebrados, Batuques e Liberdades : música, festa e mulher negra no imediato pós-Abolição em Belém-PA (1888-1889)

The second half of the XIX century was the stage for significant transformations in several areas of the social realm in Brazil, especially the changes in social structures and relationships - highlighting the abolition of slavery in 1888. Considering that newspapers occupied places of influence, as a linker of opinions, here we develop a study based on journalistic sources, investigating the public presence of the black and mestiço population in the immediate post-abolition (1888-1889), in the city of Belém-PA, looking for traces that demonstrate the movement of the popular and ascertaining the views of journalists and literati, paying special attention to a social analysis of the perceptions of journalists and writers over black women in musical and festive manifestations. In this context, the black population already marked their presence against attempts of invisibilization and oppression, guiding their existence and resistance, daily, not only through an organized movement - as were the white abolitionist associations - but, using their bodies, beliefs and traditions. Such individuals employed various uses of music and festivities, using it not only as a means of entertainment, but as an expressive, political, and strategic instrument.

A Hymn for the Citizens of Color. Parody-Song, the French Revolution, and the Abolition of Slavery

With the abolition of slavery in France and its colonies in 1794, ensuing from the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue 1793, free people of color and enslaved Africans reached their goal in the struggle for emancipation. Throughout the early French Republic, people gathered to celebrate this milestone of revolutionaries’ ideals: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. People of color took part in the festivities as well. One woman of color, Marie-Thérèse Lucidor Corbin, created a hymn for the people of color, to honor the struggle for emancipation, and to celebrate the abolition of slavery. This hymne des citoyens de couleurs was sung during the festivities to the melody of the well-known song “La Marseillaise”, which today is France´s national anthem, making the hymn a musical parody of the original song. In this article, I combine findings from musicology and sound history with sources and research results from the Age of Revolutions as well as the History of free people of color and women of color in particular, while examining the practice of creating parody-songs during the French Revolution. I argue that Corbin´s parody of the Marseillaise is a way to link people of color's struggle with the ideals of the French Revolution and their fight for the human rights that the French Revolution in principle guaranteed them.

Совершенствование нормативно-правовой базы в период реформирования административно-судебной системы на Северном Кавказе (1840–1860 гг.)

The article endeavors to analyze the development and enhancement of the regulatory framework during the reform of the administrative-judicial system in the North Caucasus (1840–1860), based on a study of published materials and sources. The relevance of the topic lies in the modern geopolitical situation of Russia and the incorporation of new territories and entities into its composition, which necessitates the development of a new regulatory framework. That is why the analysis of the historical transformations associated with the reform of the administrative and judicial systems in the North Caucasus is of lasting importance. The scientific novelty of the article lies in demonstrating how the adoption of various normative-legal acts facilitated the resolution of challenges related to the establishment of new land relations in the region, the abolition of slavery, the organization of courts, judicial proceedings, and others. In conclusion, the period from 1840 to 1860 marked a crucial juncture in the evolution of the regulatory framework in the North Caucasus. Through a meticulous analysis of historical reforms, this article underscores the enduring significance of past legislative endeavors in shaping modern legal landscapes and offers a nuanced understanding of the interplay between law, society, and governance in the region.

True Women as Sacred Friends

Drawing from African American author and anti-slavery advocate Harriet Jacobs, this essay demonstrates that even well-intentioned white abolitionists can inadvertently reinforce racist systems. Jacobs sought help from white abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe to share her emancipation story, but received a response that exposed her past to Jacobs’s employer without consent. In her novelized memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs demonstrates the importance of Black voices and leaders in the abolitionist movement, showcasing feminist scholar Chandra Mohanty's concept of a “coalition” of women using their diverse positions to combat social inequities. By examining Jacobs's portrayal of the white women who aided her, I argue that Jacobs employs the rhetoric of true womanhood and sentimental novels to depict models of true allyship marked by consent-based sympathy. This essay delves into the nuances between sympathy and empathy in the context of nineteenth-century literature, referencing Gay Gibson Cima's assertion that these terms cannot be collapsed. By connecting Jacobs's use of sentimentality to Cima's differentiation between Black expressions of sympathy and empathy, this essay reveals how Jacobs strategically fosters empathetic connections between white and enslaved women, promoting a coalition of consent-based allyship in nineteenth-century abolitionist discourse.

Girmit, intimacy and sexual violence: indentured women on colonial sugar plantations, c. 1834–1917

ABSTRACT This essay investigates the sexual violence against Indian indentured women during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on colonial plantations around the world through the lens of intimacy and labour. Beginning in the 1830s, Indian men, women, and children were brought to various overseas plantations by colonial planters under the indenture system, which was designed to fill the labour shortage that resulted from the 1833 abolition of slavery in the British Empire. This essay uses the petitions, depositions and letters of indentured women---available in colonial archives in both their native Indian languages and in English translation---to argue that the violence against women was not only perpetuated by plantation authorities but equally by Indian male indentured workers. The paper identifies two forms of violence on the plantations: colonial violence related to racial hierarchy and control over the subjugated subject and patriarchal violence related to Indian social control and domination. Each type of violence was related to intimacy, i.e. closeness of people on plantations. While colonial violence was enacted through power relations, the Indian male violence was enacted through imposition of the patriarchal norms.

Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century, written by José Lingna Nafafé

Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century, written by José Lingna Nafafé

The creative–destructive force of hurricanes: evidence from technological adoption in colonial Jamaican sugar estates

AbstractWhile in the early part of the nineteenth-century Jamaica was one of the world’s leading sugar producers, the abolition of slavery, the flooding of sugar markets with cheap European beet sugar, and the equalization and finally elimination of sugar import duties across the British empire led to a need for more efficient ways to produce sugar. However, it has been widely noted that Jamaica sugar estates were late in adopting more efficient production techniques, arguably due to inadequate financing. This paper investigates what role the destructive forces of hurricanes may have played in inducing Jamaica to finally modernize its sugar production. To this end, we combine a geo-referenced exhaustive data set of Jamaican sugar estates with a measure of localized hurricane damage constructed from historical hurricane tracks over the period 1882 to 1930. Our econometric analysis shows that hurricane strikes increased the probability that a surviving estate upgraded its sugar processing technology, particularly when the price of sugar was high and the price of the other main exporting crop (bananas) was low. Additionally, while a government hurricane loan programme working through local loan banks did help plantations to adopt new machinery, this depended on the damage not being too large.

“The fires of liberty”: American abolitionist perspectives on the Haitian revolution, 1791–1806

ABSTRACT This article explores how American abolitionists reacted to the Haitian Revolution between the start of the Revolution in 1791 till the passage of Congressional legislation banning trade with Haiti in 1806. Abolitionists' reactions to the Revolution illustrate some of the unifying and dividing ideas deeply imbedded within the abolition movement. The Haitian Revolution did not create the divisions between abolitionists, but rather brought to the forefront divides that had already existed from the formation of the movement. Importantly, this article illustrates how dichotomic framings of American abolitionism as either radical or conservative are insufficient to explain the diversity of thought within the movement, as reflected in abolitionists' reactions to Haiti.

Joshua McCarter Simpson's Songs and Mid-Nineteenth Century Antislavery Activism

AbstractThe Ohio-based Black songwriter, Joshua Simpson, published two books of antislavery songs in the mid-nineteenth century, Original Anti-Slavery Songs in 1852 and Emancipation Car in 1854. Unlike most other known songsters, which were compilations of poetry from several authors, Simpson authored original lyrics for borrowed melodies, and he did so with extraordinary care, engaging the original song to enhance his activist messages. Employing the rhetorical practice of signification, his linkage of new lyrics with preexisting songs sometimes builds upon meaning from the original text, reusing it to add weight to the moral and political arguments against slavery. He also extends nature imagery and lyrics about the comforts of home and family in traditional ballads and contemporary sentimental songs to his new lyrics, but more often his signifying practice is ironic. He inverts the original song's sentimentality in deliberately discomforting ways that could persuade Americans to assist self-emancipating people and work toward wholescale abolition of slavery. Simpson's most radical songs talk back irreverently to the originals, especially minstrel tunes containing degrading caricatures and proslavery propaganda as well as patriotic anthems proclaiming hypocritical platitudes. Simpson did not simply write new songs; he transformed some of the most popular and beloved songs of his era, harnessing their renown to sharpen his activist messages.

Sabbath Observance: Social Analysis in the Context of Community Welfare

Discusses the importance of Sabbath observance in both social and spiritual contexts. Sabbath, the day of rest ordained by the Law of God, provides time for humans to rest, worship, and connect with others. The practice of Sabbath observance not only holds spiritual implications but also economic and social ones. Sabbath observance restricts economic activities, thus aiding in reducing social disparities temporarily. Furthermore, Sabbath strengthens brotherhood and unity within communities. The concepts of the Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee also bring forth positive social implications, including debt release and emancipation of slaves, providing opportunities for the less fortunate. Hence, Sabbath observance has a positive impact on societal well-being

Walker’s Appeal... is the main manifesto of radical African-American abolitionism

This work is about one of the key episodes of African-American history and the history of American abolitionism associated with the publication in September 1829 in Boston of Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World. The appearance of this “revolutionary appeal” undoubtedly marked a new milestone in the development of the anti-slavery movement and the actual emergence of such a trend as radical African-American abolitionism. The reaction to the release of this document by the authorities of the Southern States can be called unprecedented in its scale and consequences. It found expression in the adoption of a number of repressive laws, which, in turn, marked the beginning of a period of prolonged reaction in the American South, which would end only after the end of the Civil War of 1861–1865. The significance of this event is difficult to overestimate. After almost two centuries, the figure of David Walker and his Appeal still arouse increased interest from Western researchers and not only. However, no serious works on this topic have been published in Russian historiography up to the present moment. This study aims to identify and examine the causes and circumstances of the writing of the Walker’s Appeal…, to analyze the main provisions of this document and the consequences caused by its dissemination. In addition, the author pays special attention to the review of the historiography of this issue. The source base is newspaper publications, letters and bills of the period under review, as well as the text of the Appeal. The methodological basis of the research consists of causal, historical-descriptive, historical-genetic, historical-typological, retrospective, and comparative-historical methods. The materialistic dialectic plays the main role, showing the development of the abolitionist movement in dynamics and the influence of related factors. The author concludes that Walker’s Appeal… became an expression of the most important trend in the development of American abolitionism at the end of the first third of the nineteenth century. The appearance of this document clearly demonstrated the radicalization of the African-American community itself and its willingness to join the struggle for the abolition of slavery and its rights.

The Wolf, the island and the sea: truancy and escaping slavery in Curacao (1837–1863)

ABSTRACT Between 1837–1863, the government on the Dutch colony of Curacao registered the escape attempts from all enslaved persons on the island. By combining the structured information of the ‘register of runaway slaves’ with other sources, it becomes clear that running away during slavery was a multi-faceted phenomenon. The 1,613 registered escape attempts included not only escapees, trying to flee the island, but also a majority of truants who fled temporarily but stayed on the island. Escapees were mostly young men, who normally worked in groups and had to prepare their attempts well, in order to have a chance to escape the island. An analysis of the profiles of truants show that they were a wide range of persons, from pregnant women to elderly people, fleeing alone or in groups. All these people not only needed an opportunity to flee, but also a place to go to. Together, they created a ‘maroon landscape’, a mental map of opportunities available to enslaved people. Their mental landscape did include locations, people and circumstances on Curacao, but also the sea surrounding it. Moreover, seasonal effects like harvest time and changes abroad altered the ‘maroon landscape’ continuously and lead to an adjustment of behavior, which is most obvious after the abolition of slavery in nearby Venezuela in 1854.

Rebuilding life after slavery. Manumission, emancipation, and family networks in European empires, 1750–1900

Wherever and whenever systems of slavery existed, enslaved people struggled to attain freedom. Spanning various imperial contexts from 1750 to 1920, this special issue convenes a team of scholars to investigate the aftermath of emancipation. What did freedom from slavery entail in deeply unequal colonial societies? This issue explores diverse experiences, from maroon communities in the Caribbean wilderness to the forced resettlement of freed slaves in European colonies in Africa, and the legal emancipation of slaves in segregated colonial port cities in Asia. Enslaved people encountered ‘freedom’ with its attendant threats and opportunities in myriad ways. Building on the rich historiographical tradition of slavery studies, this special issue aims to broaden the scope of historical research from the slave trade and the lives of enslaved individuals to their post-emancipation existence. However, even recent literature often treats freedom after abolition and manumission as distinct phenomena, representing different legal paths to freedom—one associated with the early modern period and the other with the nineteenth century. This special issue re-evaluates this presupposition by foregrounding the post-emancipation life events of formerly enslaved individuals. It questions whether and how these different transitions from slave status to freedom can and should be structurally compared in slavery studies. By tapping into previously unexplored sources, re-examining older datasets with fresh perspectives, and employing record linkage to uncover forgotten slave histories, the authors seek to assess the living conditions of formerly enslaved people and their direct descendants after emancipation. In doing so, we aim to explore how past experiences of enslavement influenced future life choices and opportunities, thereby questioning the so-called afterlives of slavery.

Behn’s White Innocence: Language Politics in the Dutch-Surinamese Translations of Oroonoko (1688)

Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (1688) has elicited myriad contradictory readings based on its central ideologies about race and slavery. The ambivalence within the novel has made it a popular text to adapt or translate to produce a certain politics. This essay examines two twentieth-century Dutch-Surinamese translations of the novel: H.D. Benjamins’s of 1919 and Albert Helman’s of 1983. I contextualize both translations within each author’s language politics and imperial projects, reading their work through the lens of Gloria Wekker’s notion of “white innocence.” I argue that Benjamins and Helman rely on Behn’s ethnographic authority and her white sentimentalized womanhood to produce an imperialist politics that perpetuates the long-standing myth of the Netherlands as a gentle and benevolent nation. By moving beyond the notorious politicization of Oroonoko during the nineteenth-century abolition movement, this essay sheds new light on how the novel’s ambivalent politics has been manipulated to political ends throughout history.

A Kingdom of Possibility

A Kingdom of Possibility