Sumario: | Weaving an African worldview into the conventional historiography of British abolitionism, the author presents new insights into one of the most intriguing and momentous episodes of Atlantic history. In this book, the author argues that the 1760 rebellion in Jamaica, Tacky's War - the largest and most destructive rebellion of enslaved peoples in the Americas prior to the Haitian Revolution - provided the rationale for abolition and reform of the colonial system. The author shows that following Tacky's War, British colonies in the West Indies sought political preservation under state-regulated amelioration of slavery. He further contends that abolitionists' successes - from partial to general prohibition of the slave trade - hinged more on the economic benefits of creolizing slave labor and the costs of preserving the colonies from destructive emancipation rebellions than on a conviction of justice and humanity for Africans. In the end, the author maintains, slaves' commitment to revolutionary emancipation kept colonial focus on reforming the slave system. This study carefully dissects the evidence and reinterprets previously held beliefs, offering historians the most compelling arguments for African agency in abolitionism.
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