After Slavery: Emancipation and its Discontents

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.

David W. Blight teaches in the Departments of History and Black Studies at Amherst College, Massachusetts Seymour Drescher teaches history at the University of Pittsburgh Pieter Emmer is Professor of the History of the Expansion of Europe in the Department of History, Leiden University Stanley L. Engerman is John H. Munro Professor of Economics and Professor of History at the University of Rochester, New York Carolyn Fick teaches Caribbean and Latin American history at Concordia University in Montreal. Gad Heuman is Professor of History and Director of the Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick. Suzanne Miers is Emerita Professor of African Studies at Ohio University. Michael Naragon teaches American history at Winchester Thurston School in Pittsburgh Christopher Schmidt-Nowara teaches history at the Manhattan Campus of Fordham University in New York David Seddon is Professor of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia Charles Swaisland has taught at the Universities of Birmingham and Mauritius Howard Temperley is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of East Anglia