After Slavery
Emancipation and Its Discontents

A collection of essays in which every contributor focuses upon some aspect of slave emancipation with the aim of assessing to what extent the outcome met with expectation. The hopes and disappointments that characterized the transition from slavery to freedom are depicted.

The abolition of slavery is arguably the greatest humanitarian achievement of all time. It ended an institution that had existed throughout history and taken many different forms. It was all the more remarkable for the speed with which it occurred. In the case of Western chattel slavery it was accomplished in little more than a century - which is to say between the launching of the first British anti-slavery campaign in 1788 and the ending of Brazilian slavery in 1888. In Asia and Africa, where Western ideas of liberty were viewed with suspicion and slavery was deeply rooted in the culture, emancipation took longer and in some places is still not fully complete. But, wherever it happened, the transition from slavery to freedom met with strong resistance, not only from former owners but also from other groups that saw their interests threatened. This book describes the difficulties ex-slaves faced as they sought to build new lives for themselves as free men and women.

Emancipation in Haiti: from plantation labour to peasant proprietorship, Carolyn Fick
abolitionist expectations: Britain, Seymour Drescher
African-American aspirations and the settlement of Liberia, Howard Temperley
from chattel to citizen: the transition from slavery to freedom in Richmond, Virginia, Michael Naragon
fifty years of freedom: the memory of emancipation at the Civil War Semicentennial, 1911-15, David Blight
riots and resistance in the Caribbean at the moment of freedom, Gad Heuman
"A spirit of independance" or lack of education for the market? Freedmen and Asian indentured
labourers in the post-emancipation Caribbean, 1834-1917, Pieter Emmer
the delegalization of slavery in British India, Howard Temperley
the end of slavery and the end of empire: slave emancipation in Cuba and Puerto Rico, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara
unfinished business: slavery in Saharan Africa, David Seddon
slavery to freedom in sub-Saharan Africa: expectations and reality, Suzanne Miers
the Aborigines protection society, 1837-1909, Charles Swaisland
comparative approaches to the ending of slavery, Stanley Engerman