Freedom in White and Black

A Lost Story of the Illegal Slave Trade and Its Global Legacy
Erscheinungsjahr 2020
ISBN: 978-0-299-31624-2
Verlag: University of Wisconsin Press

Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 150 mm x 226 mm, Gewicht: 839 g

By 1808, both Britain and the United States had passed laws outlawing the transatlantic slave trade. Yet the trade covertly carried on. In the summer of 1813, in what is now Liberia, a compound of slave pens was bursting with sick and anguished captives, guarded by other African slaves. As a British patrol swooped down on the illicit barracoon, the slavers burned the premises to the ground, hoping to destroy evidence.

This story can be told because of an exceptional trove of court documents that provides unparalleled insight into one small link in the great, horrific chain of slavery. Emma Christopher follows a trail of evidence across four continents to examine the lives of this barracoon's owners, their workers, and their tragic human merchandise. She reveals how an American, Charles Mason, escaped justice, while British subjects Robert Bostock and John McQueen were arrested. In court five African men - Tamba, Tom Ball, Yarra, Noah, and Sessay - courageously testified against their former owners/captors. They, and 233 other liberated men, women, and children, were relocated to Freetown, Sierra Leone. There they endured harsh lives of "freedom", while the punishment of Bostock and McQueen was fleeting.

From the fragmented facts of these lives, Christopher sheds fascinating light on the early development of the nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Australia (where Bostock and McQueen were banished) and the role of former slaves in combatting the illegal trade.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Christopher, Emma

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Soziale Gruppen & Klassen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Afrikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Geschichte der Sklaverei
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- List of Characters
- Prologue
- Introduction
- Part 1: Journeys to the Slave Factory
- 1 Son of a Liverpool Slave Dealer
- 2 A Kissi Child Caught in the Slave Trade
- 3 The Banana Islands to Gallinas
- 4 Making Deals with Siaka, Selling to the DeWolfs
- 5 A Cargo of Slaves for Havana
- Part 2: Burned to the Ground
- 6 A New Slave Factory at the St. Paul River
- 7 In the Barracoon
- 8 The Slave Ship FÉnix and Setting the Factory Alight
- 9 Leaving, Never to Return
- Part 3: Different Types of Liberty
- 10 Arriving in Freetown
- 11 The Court Case
- 12 Becoming Soldiers, Cabin Boys, and Wives
- 13 Leaving Africa
- 14 A Village of Their Own
- 15 A Murder, and an Appeal to the Prince Regent
- 16 Experiments in Civilization and Liberty
- 17 Prisoners in New South Wales
- 18 Christianity at Hogbrook
- 19 The End of Their Punishment
- 20 A Model Village
- 21 The Appeal
- 22 Helping to Found Liberia
- 23 Van Diemen's Land
- 24 Liberty in Black and White
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Emma Christopher is a Scientia Fellow at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Her books include Slave Ship Sailors and Their Captive Cargoes, 1730–1808; A Merciless Place: The Fate of Britain's Convicts after the American Revolution, winner of the Kay Daniels Prize of the Australian Historical Association; and Many Middle Passages: Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World.