Slavery's Long Goodbye

In the 1830s, the British abolished slavery in their Atlantic empire. Their reasons were varied. Some had rallied behind abolitionism because they believed hostility to slavery was intrinsic to their Christian faith. Others thought that slavery was out-of-sync with a modern, industrialising economy. What united them was the belief that Britain was uniquely equipped, indeed destined, to end slavery. Abolitionism, it seemed, was baked into the national character.

This book takes issue with that notion. Britons were never uniformly or persistently anti-slavery. Certainly, not all Victorian Christians were enthused by anti-slavery. Indeed, some of the most influential theological trends of the day, like Tractarianism, were indifferent to emancipation, if not actively hostile. Nor was Britain’s brand of industrial capitalism the antidote to enslavement. On the contrary, British capitalism sustained slavery in the many parts of the Atlantic world in the so-called Age of Emancipation.

These issues are explored through the lives of three cousins whose lives intersected with Atlantic slavery. One was an industrialist who exploited enslaved copper miners in Cuba. Another was a Royal Naval chaplain who turned against Britain’s anti-slavery mission in southern Africa. The third was a ne’er-do-well who chose to fight on behalf of the pro-slavery Confederacy in the American Civil War.