Amelioration and Empire

Amelioration and Empire PDF Author: Christa Dierksheide
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813936225
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Christa Dierksheide argues that "enlightened" slaveowners in the British Caribbean and the American South, neither backward reactionaries nor freedom-loving hypocrites, thought of themselves as modern, cosmopolitan men with a powerful alternative vision of progress in the Atlantic world. Instead of radical revolution and liberty, they believed that amelioration—defined by them as gradual progress through the mitigation of social or political evils such as slavery—was the best means of driving the development and expansion of New World societies. Interrogating amelioration as an intellectual concept among slaveowners, Dierksheide uses a transnational approach that focuses on provincial planters rather than metropolitan abolitionists, shedding new light on the practice of slavery in the Anglophone Atlantic world. She argues that amelioration—of slavery and provincial society more generally—was a dominant concept shared by enlightened planters who sought to "improve" slavery toward its abolition, as well as by those who sought to ameliorate the institution in order to expand the system. By illuminating the common ground shared between supposedly anti- and pro-slavery provincials, she provides a powerful alternative to the usual story of liberal progress in the plantation Americas. Amelioration, she demonstrates, went well beyond the master-slave relationship, underpinning Anglo-American imperial expansion throughout the Atlantic world.

Amelioration and Empire

Amelioration and Empire PDF Author: Christa Dierksheide
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813936225
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Christa Dierksheide argues that "enlightened" slaveowners in the British Caribbean and the American South, neither backward reactionaries nor freedom-loving hypocrites, thought of themselves as modern, cosmopolitan men with a powerful alternative vision of progress in the Atlantic world. Instead of radical revolution and liberty, they believed that amelioration—defined by them as gradual progress through the mitigation of social or political evils such as slavery—was the best means of driving the development and expansion of New World societies. Interrogating amelioration as an intellectual concept among slaveowners, Dierksheide uses a transnational approach that focuses on provincial planters rather than metropolitan abolitionists, shedding new light on the practice of slavery in the Anglophone Atlantic world. She argues that amelioration—of slavery and provincial society more generally—was a dominant concept shared by enlightened planters who sought to "improve" slavery toward its abolition, as well as by those who sought to ameliorate the institution in order to expand the system. By illuminating the common ground shared between supposedly anti- and pro-slavery provincials, she provides a powerful alternative to the usual story of liberal progress in the plantation Americas. Amelioration, she demonstrates, went well beyond the master-slave relationship, underpinning Anglo-American imperial expansion throughout the Atlantic world.

The Amelioration of the Slaves in the British Empire, 1790-1833

The Amelioration of the Slaves in the British Empire, 1790-1833 PDF Author: Robert E. Luster
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
The last stages of slavery in the British Empire revolved around the Amelioration Policy, a program aimed at improving the quality of life for the individual slave and transforming the institution into a more benign social entity. Rather than preserving the institution of slavery, the Amelioration Policy accelerated its decline. The implication of the legal and economic aspects of the policy led to demographic changes in Mauritius and was a major motivating factor in the Great Trek of 1834. From this study, historians will be able to learn about the problems of translating eighteenth-century humanitarian concepts into practical policy. This book illustrates a long neglected aspect of European imperial activity: the diffusion of Western culture among Third World peoples. The Amelioration Policy established the methods by which Westernization took place in the European colonial empires.

Humanitarianism, empire and transnationalism, 1760-1995

Humanitarianism, empire and transnationalism, 1760-1995 PDF Author: Joy Damousi
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526159546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This is the first book to examine the shifting relationship between humanitarianism and the expansion, consolidation and postcolonial transformation of the Anglophone world across three centuries, from the antislavery campaign of the late eighteenth century to the role of NGOs balancing humanitarianism and human rights in the late twentieth century. Contributors explore the trade-offs between humane concern and the altered context of colonial and postcolonial realpolitik. They also showcase an array of methodologies and sources with which to explore the relationship between humanitarianism and colonialism. These range from the biography of material objects to interviews as well as more conventional archival enquiry. They also include work with and for Indigenous people whose family histories have been defined in large part by ‘humanitarian’ interventions.

Slave Empire

Slave Empire PDF Author: Padraic X. Scanlan
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472142322
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
'Engrossing and powerful . . . rich and thought-provoking' Fara Dabhoiwala, Guardian 'Path-breaking . . . a major rewriting of history' Mihir Bose, Irish Times 'Slave Empire is lucid, elegant and forensic. It deals with appalling horrors in cool and convincing prose.' The Economist The British empire, in sentimental myth, was more free, more just and more fair than its rivals. But this claim that the British empire was 'free' and that, for all its flaws, it promised liberty to all its subjects was never true. The British empire was built on slavery. Slave Empire puts enslaved people at the centre the British empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In intimate, human detail, Padraic Scanlon shows how British imperial power and industrial capitalism were inextricable from plantation slavery. With vivid original research and careful synthesis of innovative historical scholarship, Slave Empire shows that British freedom and British slavery were made together.

Politics and the Histories of International Law

Politics and the Histories of International Law PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004461809
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 513

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Book Description
This book brings together 18 contributions by authors from different legal systems and backgrounds. They address the political implications of the writing of the history of legal issues ranging from slavery over the use of force and extraterritorial jurisdiction to Eurocentrism.

Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean

Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean PDF Author: Randy M. Browne
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812294270
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
A groundbreaking study of slavery and power in the British Caribbean that foregrounds the struggle for survival Atlantic slave societies were notorious deathtraps. In Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean, Randy M. Browne looks past the familiar numbers of life and death and into a human drama in which enslaved Africans and their descendants struggled to survive against their enslavers, their environment, and sometimes one another. Grounded in the nineteenth-century British colony of Berbice, one of the Atlantic world's best-documented slave societies and the last frontier of slavery in the British Caribbean, Browne argues that the central problem for most enslaved people was not how to resist or escape slavery but simply how to stay alive. Guided by the voices of hundreds of enslaved people preserved in an extraordinary set of legal records, Browne reveals a world of Caribbean slavery that is both brutal and breathtakingly intimate. Field laborers invoked abolitionist-inspired legal reforms to protest brutal floggings, spiritual healers conducted secretive nighttime rituals, anxious drivers weighed the competing pressures of managers and the condition of their fellow slaves in the fields, and women fought back against abusive masters and husbands. Browne shows that at the core of enslaved people's complicated relationships with their enslavers and one another was the struggle to live in a world of death. Provocative and unflinching, Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean reorients the study of Atlantic slavery by revealing how differently enslaved people's social relationships, cultural practices, and political strategies appear when seen in the light of their unrelenting struggle to survive.

Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275–425

Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275–425 PDF Author: Kyle Harper
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139504061
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 627

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Book Description
Capitalizing on the rich historical record of late antiquity, and employing sophisticated methodologies from social and economic history, this book reinterprets the end of Roman slavery. Kyle Harper challenges traditional interpretations of a transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, arguing instead that a deep divide runs through 'late antiquity', separating the Roman slave system from its early medieval successors. In the process, he covers the economic, social and institutional dimensions of ancient slavery and presents the most comprehensive analytical treatment of a pre-modern slave system now available. By scouring the late antique record, he has uncovered a wealth of new material, providing fresh insights into the ancient slave system, including slavery's role in agriculture and textile production, its relation to sexual exploitation, and the dynamics of social honor. By demonstrating the vitality of slavery into the later Roman empire, the author shows that Christianity triumphed amidst a genuine slave society.

Indigenous Rights and Colonial Subjecthood

Indigenous Rights and Colonial Subjecthood PDF Author: Amanda Nettelbeck
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108471757
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
An exploration of how policies protecting indigenous people's rights were entwined with reforming them as governable subjects, including through punishment under the law.

The Global Bourgeoisie

The Global Bourgeoisie PDF Author: Christof Dejung
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691177341
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
This essay collection presents a global history of the middle class and its rise around the world during the age of empire. It compares middle-class formation in various regions, highlighting differences and similarities, and assesses the extent to which bourgeois growth was tied to the increasing exchange of ideas and goods and was a result of international connections and entanglements. Grouped by theme, the book shows how bourgeois values can shape the liberal world order.

Edmund Burke and the British Empire in the West Indies

Edmund Burke and the British Empire in the West Indies PDF Author: P. J. Marshall
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192578138
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Edmund Burke was both a political thinker of the utmost importance and an active participant in the day-to-day business of politics. It is the latter role that is the concern of this book, showing Burke engaging with issues concerning the West Indies, which featured so largely in British concerns in the later eighteenth century. Initially, Burke saw the islands as a means by which his close connections might make their fortunes, later he was concerned with them as a great asset to be managed in the national interest, and, finally, he became a participant in debates about the slave trade. This volume adds a new dimension to assessments of Burke's views on empire, hitherto largely confined to Ireland, India, and America, and explores the complexities of his response to slavery. The system outraged his abundantly attested concern for the suffering caused by abuses of British power overseas, but one which he also recognised to be fundamental for sustaining the wealth generated by the West Indies, which he deemed essential to Britain's national power. He therefore sought compromises in the gradual reform of the system rather than immediate abolition of the trade or emancipation of the slaves.