The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War (Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World) First Edition Edition

by Edward Bartlett Rugemer (Author)

4 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0807133385

ISBN-10: 0807133388

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While many historians look to internal conflict alone to explain the onset of the American Civil War, in The Problem of Emancipation, Edward Bartlett Rugemer places the origins of the war in a transatlantic context. Addressing a huge gap in the historiography of the antebellum United States, he explores the impact of Britain's abolition of slavery in 1834 on the coming of the war and reveals the strong influence of Britain's old Atlantic empire on the United States' politics. He demonstrates how American slaveholders and abolitionists alike borrowed from the antislavery movement developing on the transatlantic stage to fashion contradictory portrayals of abolition that became central to the arguments for and against American slavery.

In this ground-breaking study, Rugemer examines how southern and northern American newspapers covered three slave rebellions that preceded British abolition--and how American public opinion shifted radically as a result. For example, American slaveholders learned from the Haitian Revolution and a series of West Indian slave rebellions that abolitionist agitation led to insurrection. When American slaves began reacting to antislavery rhetoric, slaveholders feared the Caribbean pattern of agitation and revolt had spread to the United States. In 1822 after the fierce debates over Missouri, several Charleston slaves conspired to seize their city, and in 1831 Nat Turner led a bloody revolt shortly after William Lloyd Garrison published his radical abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator. Turning fear into action, American slaveholders seized and burned the publications that abolitionists sent southward in the mail, and in the North, the partisans of slavery mobbed abolitionist meetings and silenced the discussion of slavery in Congress.

Abolitionists, by contrast, took inspiration from the developments abroad. Leaders such as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Lydia Maria Child, and William Ellery Channing used the West Indian emancipation to help advance their position, and members of John Tyler's presidential administration pushed for the annexation of Texas. Believing that the British achieved emancipation by mobilizing the British people with a robust public relations campaign, many African Americans, often joined by white allies, staged annual celebrations of the First of August, the day the Parliament enacted abolition. The celebrations grew and spread throughout the North, facilitating the emergence of an antislavery constituency that bolstered the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

Richly researched and skillfully argued, The Problem of Emancipation explores a long-neglected aspect of American slavery and the history of the Atlantic World and bridges a gap in our understanding of the American Civil War.

The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War (Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A most persuasive work that repositions the American debates over emancipation where they clearly belong, in a broader Anglo-Atlantic context." --Reviews in History

"Most discussions about the roots of the American Civil War seldom stray beyond the nation's borders, but Rugemer makes a persuasive case for why that should change." --Charleston (SC) Post and Courier --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Edward Bartlett Rugemer is an assistant professor of history and African American studies at Yale University.

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Product Details

Series: Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World
Hardcover: 342 pages
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press; First Edition edition (October 31, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0807133388
ISBN-13: 978-0807133385
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,795,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2137 in Books > History > Americas > United States > Civil War > Abolition
- #4088 in Books > History > Americas > Caribbean & West Indies
- #12017 in Books > History > Americas > United States > African Americans > Discrimination & Racism

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Top Customer Reviews

Compare with Rothman's Beyond Freedom's Reach

By RDD on December 20, 2016

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Both Edward Bartlett Rugemer, in The Problem of Emancipation, and Adam Rothman, in Beyond Freedom’s Reach, reframe the history of the American Civil War as a conflict that was part of the larger debate over emancipation in the Caribbean world. Rugemer argues that British abolition changed the social landscape of the British West Indies while giving power to American abolitionists’ work in a way that threatened southern slaveholders. Rothman’s narrative, set during the twilight of slavery in Union-occupied Louisiana, shows how slaveholders looked to Cuba in a desperate attempt to maintain their human property. Both engage with the historiography of the Atlantic world, with Rugemer linking the American experience of slavery to that of the broader Atlantic in which ideas were not circumscribed by national borders. Rothman, on the other hand, portrays Louisiana as a city connected to the world through the Caribbean and follows the lead of Rebecca Scott’s Freedom Papers or Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worm in using microhistory to explore larger themes. To both Rothman and Rugemer, the American Civil War extended beyond the borders of the United States.
Rugemer argues that a full understanding of the American Civil War demands an understanding of British abolition and its effect on the American South. Rugemer lays out his approach in his introduction, writing, “An Atlantic approach to the antebellum United States demands the recognition of two contemporary realities. First, the boundaries of the United States were permeable…Second, American society had much in common with the societies of the Atlantic world, especially their divisive struggles over slavery and its abolition.Read more ›

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Loved the Book

By Jason J. Mckee on June 17, 2011

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

The book has a very different perspective to the causes of the American Civil War. Instead of the traditional causes, Rugemer looks into the effects of the abolition of slavery abroad, particularly in the British Caribbean. He does a great job of bringing this new idea to light, and it was an entertaining book to read.

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Excellent international perspective

By Neil Asher Silberman on April 4, 2013

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

This is more than comparative history; it shows how the West Indies, the American South, British and American abolitionism and slave resistance and adaptation in Caribbean and North America are not only comparable, but deeply intertwined with enormous causative implications. Essential for understanding the emotional worlds of slaveholding and abolitionism.

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a useful perspective

By Andrew Patrick on July 4, 2013

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

Rugemer offers an interesting and compelling transnational interpretation of events and themes too often presented as occurring in an American vacuum. Highly recommended.

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