Reviewed Work:
Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012),pp.303. $22.09
Historians have argued that British antislavery collapsed following the termination of African apprenticeship in 1838. Scholars have argued that British abolitionism buckled in the face of new imperialistic ambitions, racism, and public indifference. They point towards the declining number of abolitionist societies, new imperial projects, and the reappearance of indentured servitude as indications of antislavery’s decline. Richard Huzzey challenges this historiographical assumption in his new work Freedom Burning (2012). Although the number of organized abolitionist societies waned during the Victorian period, Huzzey argues that “antislavery sentiment” did not follow suit.
Before breaking down Huzzey’s argument, we must first understand two important terms used throughout this work. The first term is “antislavery pluralism.” In the Victorian Era, “A national abolitionist society was no longer the principal vehicle for anti-slavery ideas” (7) and ultimately led to the diversification of anti-slavery sentiment. The second term is “ideology,” and more specifically an antislavery ideology—one that “refers to the family of ideas regarding the wrongfulness of slavery” (8). Huzzey’s metaphor of an “antislavery solar system” was particularly helpful in understanding this concept. At the center of this solar system sits the core belief (the sun) that chattel bondage was wrong. Orbiting this core belief are different and often competing bodies of ideas and practices (planets). During this period, various groups of anti-slavery supporters approached the “question of slavery” from different perspectives, which led to disagreements over issues such as racial equality, women’s rights, universal suffrage, imperialistic ventures, economics, and compensation for slaveholders.
Huzzey’s main goal is to address the question: what did it mean to be an antislavery nation—meaning the nationalization of antislavery sentiment—during a period “where slavery still openly existed” throughout the world (7)? What he finds is that the discord and tensions created from these varying antislavery views have “hidden its ubiquity and significance” (20). In the first two chapters, Huzzey sets out to prove that antislavery was ubiquitous throughout England by illuminating how antislavery sentiment spread through cultural productions (plays and music), literature (the wide British readership of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin), and the machinery of government (the Slave Trade Department).
Chapter Three, in my opinion, is the most important section of this work because it lays the foundation for his entire monograph. Huzzey introduces us to the “Anti-Slavery state,” which is literally the British state transformed into a determined enemy of slavery. This transformation started in the 1820s with the formation of the Slave Trade Department and continued through the turn of the century. In several ways, this was the first attempt by Britain to define what it meant to be an antislavery nation. Huzzey highlights a somewhat discernable shape of British antislavery mentality, which was linked to “trade, Christianity, and civilization ending the slave trade” (64). Despite this underlying unity, however, he clarifies that the Anti-Slavery state “was not a homogeneous organism; there was plenty of disagreement between officials” over different approaches to ending the slave trade in various countries (he uses the examples of the United States, Brazil, and the Ottoman Empire, 65).
After examining how British antislavery was expressed in foreign affairs, Huzzey moves into investigating how this sentiment disseminated in the domestic sphere of England. In two chapters, Huzzey spends significant time examining how antislavery sentiment was used to fight both economic slaveries (free trade versus protectionism) and political slaveries (universal suffrage, women’ rights, democracy). Ironically, these various constituencies all claimed to be the rightful heirs to British antislavery, which they believed gave them political and cultural currency for their causes.
In the final two chapters, Huzzey explores an interesting and often contested topic of Victorian antislavery and British imperial ventures. He argues that imperialism was actually linked to antislavery sentiment. “Anti-slavery ideologies,” Huzzey writes, “were one of the principal ways that commercial, strategic, spiritual, and moral objectives could be combined. Anti-slavery helped create commercial interests; anti-slavery translated commercial interests into national interests; anti-slavery was a principal public expression of imperial enthusiasm” (176). Although Huzzey presents strong evidence to support his claim, this section left me with a larger question: If antislavery sentiment was used in so many different ways, does it lose value and become a meaningless idea. I believe Huzzey would say no and argue that antislavery was more than an ideology; it was a belief system that Britons used to achieve various goals. If true, I am then curious about how British people negotiated or prioritized their needs based on their understanding of Victorian antislavery. What did it mean when someone like Joseph Sturge used one version of antislavery to support his pacifist approach to ending the slave trade, and later used a different version of antislavery to threaten conservative MPs with African rebellion, if they remained under the apprenticeship system (see pages 65 and 66 for this paradox)? Huzzey, unfortunately, does not explore this issue.
Richard Huzzey’s Freedom Burning has changed our understanding of Victorian antislavery. He proves that “the transformation of Britain into an anti-slavery nation…was a messy, bloody, and confused process,” which created disagreements, discord, and divergence amongst the Britons (203). Unlike previous historians, however, he did not accept the idea that antislavery was losing authority in the Victorian period, but showed that antislavery sentiment continued to thrive in the Empire, just in many different forms.