Anti-Slavery Activism, Collective Honor and the Imperial ‘Scramble’ for Africa.

In this paper I move beyond the familiar story of early political campaigns by social movements within Britain and the United States, to consider the troubled relationship between anti-slavery and colonial expansion. The main focal point here is Africa in the late nineteenth century, where European conquest brought millions of slaves under colonial jurisdiction. This crucial period is notably absent from many conventional narratives, which heavily concentrate upon Transatlantic slavery. On the one hand, we have the legal abolition of slavery, which is routinely acclaimed as a great moral victory. On the other, we have European colonialism, which can be plausibly described as a vast criminal enterprise, involving death, dominion and exploitation on a massive scale. What should we make of the close historical relationship between subjects that provoke such diametrically opposed reactions? In taking up these themes, I argue that official support for anti-slavery in the late nineteenth century generally had more to do with communal honour than common humanity, with the main point at issue being what (anti-)slavery was held to signify, or otherwise symbolize, about the distinctive virtues (or vices) of particular communities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]