Slavery's Long Goodbye: Capitalism, Nationalism, and Christianity in the Age of British Emancipation

In the 1830s, the British abolished slavery across 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 challenges that comforting narrative. 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 tensions are traced through the intertwined lives of three cousins. One was an industrialist who pro ted from enslaved copper miners in Cuba. Another, a Royal Naval chaplain, turned against Britain’s anti-slavery mission in southern Africa. The third, a restless adventurer, fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy during the American Civil War. Together, their stories reveal a Britain far less certain – and far less virtuous – than abolitionist legend suggests.