At 3:35 PM -0400 11/23/00, Ricardo Duchesne wrote:
>We all know that Europeans created their own version, but the
>point remains that Europeans enslaved a people who were not yet
>conscious of their freedom.
It is not "Europeans" but _capitalism_ that created the idea of
bourgeois freedom (= double-edged freedom of wage labor). And it is
_capitalism & slavery_ that created the idea of "Europe" &
"Europeans." Try to avoid anachronism for once.
>But the Europeans then understood
>it was wrong and, by 1838, had abolished slavery in all British
>colonies.
When production based on chattel slavery & mercantilism ceased to be
more profitable than production based upon free labor & Laissez Faire
for British capitalism, as Eric Williams argues:
"The capitalists had first encouraged West Indian slavery and then
helped to destroy it. When British capitalism depended on the West
Indies, they ignored slavery or defended it. When British capitalism
found the West Indian monopoly a nuisance, they destroyed West Indian
slavery as the first step in the destruction of West Indian monopoly"
(Williams, _Capitalism and Slavery_, Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina
P, 1994 [originally published in 1944], p. 169).
Capitalism came to outgrow chattel slavery & mercantilism which had
helped it develop in its infancy. The development of forces of
production broke the fetters of now antiquated relations of
production.
>Already in 1807 England and the US had already
>prohibited the international slave trade.
Which helped them triumph further in economic & imperial competition
with other Europeans (mainly the Spaniards & the Portuguese):
***** From 1830 to 1850 both Great Britain and the United States,
by joint convention, kept on the coast of Africa at least eighty guns
afloat for the suppression of the slave trade. Most of the vessels
so employed were small corvettes, brigs, or schooners; steam at that
time was just being introduced into the navies of the
world....Repeatedly we had chased suspicious craft only to be
out-sailed. At this time the traffic in slaves was very brisk; the
demand in the Brazils, in Cuba, and in other Spanish West Indies was
urgent, and the profit of the business so great that two or three
successful ventures would enrich any one. The slavers were generally
small, handy craft; fast, of course; usually schooner-rigged, and
carrying flying topsails and forecourse. Many were built in England
or elsewhere purposely for the business, without, of course, the
knowledge of the builders, ostensibly as yachts or traders. The
Spaniards and Portuguese were the principal offenders, with
occasionally an English-speaking renegade. The slave depots, or
barracoons, were generally located some miles up a river. Here the
slaver was secure from capture and could embark his live cargo at his
leisure. Keeping a sharp lookout on the coast, the dealers were able
to follow the movements of the cruisers, and by means of smoke, or in
other ways, signal when the coast was clear for the coming down the
river and sailing of the loaded craft. Before taking in the cargoes
they were always fortified with all the necessary papers and
documents to show they were engaged in legitimate commerce, so it was
only when caught in flagrante delicto that we could hold them.
(For the rest of the story see Wood, J. Taylor. "The Capture of a
Slaver." Atlantic Monthly 86 (1900): 451-463. Electronic Text Center,
University of Virginia Library )
<http://www.innercity.org/holt/chron_1790_1829.html> *****
If you want to give a little moral credit to some Europeans, why not
praise Canadians, the French Jacobins, & the Latin-American Jacobin
insurgents in the wars of independence?
***** As a result of the legal opinion of the colony's (Upper
Canada) Chief Justice in 1818 no one seen as a slave in another
jurisdiction could be returned there simply because he/she had sought
freedom in Upper Canada. Whatever their status in the U.S. or
elsewhere, in Upper Canada they were free long before the abolition
of slavery throughout the British empire in 1833 See also 1791 under
Upper Canada. (Posting on [EMAIL PROTECTED] by Dr. Jeffrey L.
McNairn, Department of History, York University, Toronto, Ontario)
<http://www.innercity.org/holt/chron_1790_1829.html> *****
***** The Haitian Revolution
FRANKLIN W. KNIGHT
...The leftward drift of the revolution and the implacable zeal of
its colonial administrators, especially the Jacobin commissioner
Léger Félicité Sonthonax, to eradicate all traces of
counterrevolution and royalism -- which he identified with the whites
-- in Saint Domingue facilitated the ultimate victory of the blacks
over the whites.[45] Sonthonax's role, however, does not detract
from the brilliant military leadership and political astuteness
provided by Toussaint Louverture....
...[45] Robert L. Stein, Léger Félicité Sonthonax: The Lost Sentinel
of the Republic (Rutherford, N.J., 1985)....
<http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/105.1/ah000103.html#FOOT45>
*****
***** 1810-26
During the struggle of Spain's American colonies for independence
from 1810 to 1826, both the insurgents and the loyalists promised to
emancipate all slaves who took part in military campaigns. Mexico,
the Central American states, and Chile abolished slavery once they
were independent. In 1821 the Venezuelan Congress approved a law
reaffirming the abolition of the slave trade, liberating all slaves
who had fought with the victorious armies, and establishing a system
that immediately manumitted all children of slaves, while gradually
freeing their parents. The last Venezuelan slaves were freed in
1854. In Argentina the process began in 1813 and ended with the
ratification of the 1853 constitution by the city of Buenos Aires in
1861. ("Blacks in Latin America," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia.)
<http://www.innercity.org/holt/chron_1790_1829.html> *****
Yoshie
