AHC: 'Slave Power' Britain in an ARW loss TL

[Rush Tarquin]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to outline a mini-TL where Britain is and remains a reactionary power on the issue of slavery until as close to the end of the 19th century as possible (rather than becoming the kind of country which pressured Brazil to abolish slavery as in OTL). A caveat is that Britain must lose the ARW (or its analogue), so no using keeping the OTL American South to bolster domestic support for slavery in Britain.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

I've quoted this before, but I think it still holds:

Like its American counterpart, the British [abolitionist] movement had emerged in the years immediately following the American Revolution. The timing was again significant. The Revolution galvanized political debate in Britain, at the same time giving slavery (disfranchisement) an immediate significance by linking it to the political condition of thousand of native-born Britons. But the Revolution also had a more far-reaching effect.

Defeat in the American war brought with it a searching and sometimes painful reevaluation of Britain’s standing as a once victorious Protestant nation. One result of the loss of the American colonies was a move to tighten the reins of empire elsewhere, notably in Canada, Ireland, and the British Caribbean. Another, however, was a rise in enthusiasm for political and religious reform, for virtually anything, in fact, that might prevent a similar humiliation in the future.

The loss of the American colonies forced Britons to think about themselves and about their failings. Naturally enough, slavery and the slave trade also came under the microscope, leading some Britons to contemplate alternative visions of empire, including, significantly, an empire without slavery. If the debate was rarely framed in these precise terms, we should not underestimate the impact of the American Revolution and imperial crisis on British political thought.

Seen in this light, the abolition of the slave trade was inextricably linked with the character, virtue, and destiny of the British nation, at least until the rising tide of revolutionary violence in France shifted the terms of debate yet again. The American Revolution also had a vital impact on British abolitionism because it effectively divided British America, at the same time halving the number of slaves in the British Empire. Abolitionists were well aware of the importance of these events. "As long as America was ours," wrote abolitionist Thomas Clarkson in 1788, "there was no chance that a minister would have attended to the groans of the sons and daughters of Africa, however he might feel for their distress."

War — or, more precisely, defeat — created a climate in which abolitionism could take root...

The revolutionaries’ commitment to freedom and equality necessarily led to growing unease over the legitimacy of slavery, as did the valor of the African Americans who enlisted in the Patriot cause. As physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence Benjamin Rush put it, "It would be useless for us to denounce the servitude to which the Parliament of Great Britain wishes to reduce us, while we continue to keep our fellow creatures in slavery just because their color is different."

Significantly, the Revolution witnessed the emergence of the first broad-based abolitionist organizations, in the shape of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (organized in 1775, reorganized in 1784) and the New York Manumission Society (1784). Soon, other groups appeared in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island and, for a short time, in Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky. Moreover, in 1794 an American Convention of Abolition Societies was formed in an unsuccessful effort to give the early abolitionist movement national scope.

The progress of abolition in America was initially swift. By 1788 no fewer than six states had legislated for the immediate abolition of the slave trade and two more, South Carolina and Delaware, had suspended it temporarily. Others, like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, had also gone further and made some provision for the gradual or immediate abolition of slavery itself...

 

[Rush Tarquin]

And that's it? No one can think of any ideas to work around that?

 

[Hotpoint]

And that's it? No one can think of any ideas to work around that?

Well the Somerset Case pre-dated the American War of Independence (and was arguably one of the triggers) so the abolitionists were already up and running in the early 1770's.

You could have a PoD that does away with Lord Chief Justice Mansfield perhaps, which might help steer your timeline in the direction you want, but then would the Southern Colonies be as certain to side with the Northern ones?

 

[RPW@Cy]

I've quoted this before, but I think it still holds:

I know you have, and no it doesn't. The idea that the ARW was a trigger for British abolitionism is revisionist history pure and simple - as has been out numerous times, British abolitionism both preceded and was arguably a trigger for the ARW. American embarrassment that the ARW was at least in part a war fought in defence of slavery notwithstanding.

As for the original challenge, I'm not sure of any POD immediately prior to the ARW that would bring it about. Perhaps a parliamentary loss in the English Civil War leading to a de facto aristocratic dictatorship under the Stuarts may do it.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

The other thing is that the sugar islands of the Caribbean were incredibly wealthy - and several of the slave-owning plantation owners also bought rotten boroughs in Parliament.

If abolitionism can overcome a massive, wealthy lobby group like that, it can overcome the desires of a few more (rather less wealthy, and colonial rather than English English) plantation owners.

It MIGHT be delayed a year or two. But I doubt any more than that.

 

[Morty Vicar]

I know you have, and no it doesn't. The idea that the ARW was a trigger for British abolitionism is revisionist history pure and simple - as has been out numerous times, British abolitionism both preceded and was arguably a trigger for the ARW. American embarrassment that the ARW was at least in part a war fought in defence of slavery notwithstanding.

Agreed, in fact many slaves fought for the British for just that reason, they are known as the Black Loyalists. The British navy were already actively hunting down slaving ships by this time. Another facet of this is that the Americans wanted to expand into Indian territory, which the British didn't agree to, they fought over this issue again in 1812.

As for the original challenge, I'm not sure of any POD immediately prior to the ARW that would bring it about. Perhaps a parliamentary loss in the English Civil War leading to a de facto aristocratic dictatorship under the Stuarts may do it.

That would be an interesting turn of events. I think if there was less of a British Empire abroad, they might bring more slaves into Britain as farm laborers, and maybe to bolster the industrial revolution as well. Having a huge number of black slaves in the UK might make people more unwilling to free them, as they will compete for jobs, and whatever other reasons anti-abolitionists had. If the US settlers are not directly profiting from slavery, they might be more open-minded to abolition, if only because of the numbers needed to mount a revolutionary war. You would be left with a USA founded on racial and religious tolerance, and a UK still profiteering from slavery, probably right up until suffrage movements took off.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

I know you have, and no it doesn't. The idea that the ARW was a trigger for British abolitionism is revisionist history pure and simple...

I'm almost tempted to say this doesn't deserve a serious answer since it seems to pretend that "revisionism" is somehow alien to the formation of common historical narratives (it isn't), but is a practice to be avoided at all costs by "respectable" historians. Revisionism simply is the reinterpretation of orthodox view, nothing more nothing less -- and it is essentially to the discipline and study of history. Now, with that out of the way...

The idea that the ARW was a key factor in the successful organizing of British Abolitionism is actually not that controversial when one looks at the debate in full -- in Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism, Christopher Leslie Brown identifies (correctly, I think) two major schools of thought as to why the British Empire came to ban the Slave Trade in 1807, one about moral progress pushed by abolitionists, the other about the economics of Empire. The latter has its roots in the descendants of British Caribbean slaves re-examing the trade's end in the 20th Century; Eric Williams' Capitalism and Slavery (1944) in particular makes the case that it was economics that doomed the slave trade, and that abolitionists only "campaigned against the slave trade and slavery when it became economically convenient to do so" (Brown's paraphrasing). And the key event to this shift in the underlying economic reality, Williams said, was the loss of the North American colonies.

The other, older narrative has its origins in the first history of the movement, written in 1808 by none other than one of its most prominent leaders, Thomas Clarkson; focusing on the moral character of the British abolitionists and the British nation, it essentially made the case that the "moral arc of the universe [or at least Britain] bends toward justice", a sentiment that would be expressed by future abolitionists (and eventually Dr Martin Luther King). However, even Clarkson admitted that the success of the American Revolution played a vital role in the organizing in his movement, saying twenty years before he wrote his history, "As long as America was ours, there was no chance that a minister would have attended to the groans of the sons and daughters of Africa, however he might feel for their distress".

Brown seeks to look at other psychological motives for the abolitionists and their supporters, connecting the movement and its success to changing views on empire and nation, themselves brought on by (all together now) the success of the American Revolution. But whichever narrative we go with, the role of the America's Independence cannot be denied -- if we go with moral progress, then Britain's loss was necessary for her to seek redemption; if we go with economics, then the imperial economy must first take the hit of said loss; if we go with a change of political consciousness, then we need the previous one to be in crisis.

The fact remains that before anti-slavery sentiment in Britain organized itself into a movement in 1787, it was only that -- sentiment -- and posed no serious threat whatsoever to the vast slave interests in the Empire. To the idea that abolitionism was a trigger for the ARW, well -- the preceding sentence alone would destroy any pretense of taking it seriously, to say nothing of the fact that the Revolution began in Massachusetts (where slavery was far from essential to the economy), or that the Declaration originally laid the slave trade at the feet of the British Crown, or really the lack of any evidence whatsoever (save the odd letter of James Madison, written in the midst of the war, to some tory leaning plantation owners).

Anyways, with that out of my system, I suppose I'll comment on the OP: I'm just going to say that having the Americans lose the Revolution anytime before the start of the Southern Theater (so, say Saratoga flipped) is going to be a big help. Conservatively, I can see the Atlantic Slave Trade continuing as usual for another quarter of a century; if you want ideas on making that last longer... well sorry, don't have anything right now.

The British navy were already actively hunting down slaving ships by this time.

Citation needed.

 

[Morty Vicar]

I'm almost tempted to say this doesn't deserve a serious answer since it seems to pretend that "revisionism" is somehow alien to the formation of common historical narratives (it isn't), but is a practice to be avoided at all costs by "respectable" historians. Revisionism simply is the reinterpretation of orthodox view, nothing more nothing less -- and it is essentially to the discipline and study of history. Now, with that out of the way...

Revisionism is distorting the facts of history to fit into a narrative, usually one defined by some national or political motivation. History first and foremost relies on facts, and then on some interpretation of those facts. From an American perspective the ARW is almost always regarded as a caricature evil British Empire bent on oppressing the poor but honest American citizens, who valiantly rise up against the odds in a fight for their very freedom. From a British perspective it's a group of greedy colonials who don't want to pay their taxes having a tantrum and throwing their toys out of the pram, or more accurately the tea out of the ship. They then proceed to butcher their way into native American lands, dispossessing and suppressing any natives who get in their way, and any errant slaves who run away. Both of these views are inaccurate, because they are told from one side of history. To remain objective you have to look at the facts, and the records of the time.

The idea that the ARW was a key factor in the successful organizing of British Abolitionism is actually not that controversial when one looks at the debate in full -- in Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism, Christopher Leslie Brown identifies (correctly, I think) two major schools of thought as to why the British Empire came to ban the Slave Trade in 1807, one about moral progress pushed by abolitionists, the other about the economics of Empire. The latter has its roots in the descendants of British Caribbean slaves re-examing the trade's end in the 20th Century; Eric Williams' Capitalism and Slavery (1944) in particular makes the case that it was economics that doomed the slave trade, and that abolitionists only "campaigned against the slave trade and slavery when it became economically convenient to do so" (Brown's paraphrasing). And the key event to this shift in the underlying economic reality, Williams said, was the loss of the North American colonies.

With all due respect I think that you overemphasize the importance of the Colonies at the time in the perspective of the British Empire. To the British they were merely one of a number of colonies, whose day-to-day politics didn't cause much of a ripple, even during or after the ARW. The Abolitionists arose from a growing understanding of the reality of slavery, and it's firsthand effects. It was one thing to support slavery from the comfort of ones drawing room in civilised society, it was another to be faced with one of a number of slaves and ex-slaves who led the way in the abolitionist movement by talking about their firsthand experiences.

The other, older narrative has its origins in the first history of the movement, written in 1808 by none other than one of its most prominent leaders, Thomas Clarkson; focusing on the moral character of the British abolitionists and the British nation, it essentially made the case that the "moral arc of the universe [or at least Britain] bends toward justice", a sentiment that would be expressed by future abolitionists (and eventually Dr Martin Luther King). However, even Clarkson admitted that the success of the American Revolution played a vital role in the organizing in his movement, saying twenty years before he wrote his history, "As long as America was ours, there was no chance that a minister would have attended to the groans of the sons and daughters of Africa, however he might feel for their distress".

I think the ARW might have highlighted the day to day realities of slavery in Britain, as I said for the most part people in Britain were usually blissfully unaware of the activities in the colonies, except maybe in some propagandised fictions. But the reality is the Colonies just weren't that important in the minds of the British, they had far more at stake in India, Canada, Australia, among others. I think it is a common mistake to view the USA in terms of its current political status as a nuclear superpower, at the time it was a small colony of mainly farmers.

Brown seeks to look at other psychological motives for the abolitionists and their supporters, connecting the movement and its success to changing views on empire and nation, themselves brought on by (all together now) the success of the American Revolution. But whichever narrative we go with, the role of the America's Independence cannot be denied -- if we go with moral progress, then Britain's loss was necessary for her to seek redemption; if we go with economics, then the imperial economy must first take the hit of said loss; if we go with a change of political consciousness, then we need the previous one to be in crisis.

The fact remains that before anti-slavery sentiment in Britain organized itself into a movement in 1787, it was only that -- sentiment -- and posed no serious threat whatsoever to the vast slave interests in the Empire. To the idea that abolitionism was a trigger for the ARW, well -- the preceding sentence alone would destroy any pretense of taking it seriously, to say nothing of the fact that the Revolution began in Massachusetts (where slavery was far from essential to the economy), or that the Declaration originally laid the slave trade at the feet of the British Crown, or really the lack of any evidence whatsoever (save the odd letter of James Madison, written in the midst of the war, to some tory leaning plantation owners).

I don't subscribe to the idea that slavery was a motivating factor in the ARW, nor to the idea that the ARW was a motivating factor in British Abolitionism. These things were concurrent, but correlation does not equal causation. I don't think RPW suggested such either, merely that this framework is applied retrospectively out of the guilt that subsequent generations of slavery have left on the American psyche. However some facts to bear in mind here, the Republicans are the ones who are opposed to slavery at this time, and they also happen to be pro-British during the ARW. Again that's just an interesting factoid of the time, not a reason to characterise the entire ARW as being motivated by just one factor.

Citation needed.

I confused my sentence there, I meant to say they were hunting down slave ships by 1812.

 

[Hotpoint]

The fact remains that before anti-slavery sentiment in Britain organized itself into a movement in 1787, it was only that -- sentiment -- and posed no serious threat whatsoever to the vast slave interests in the Empire. To the idea that abolitionism was a trigger for the ARW, well -- the preceding sentence alone would destroy any pretense of taking it seriously.

You might want to read: Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution by Simon Schama before being so dismissive of the idea.

For that matter Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution by Alfred Blumrosen might be worth a look too.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Revisionism is distorting the facts of history to fit into a narrative, usually one defined by some national or political motivation. History first and foremost relies on facts, and then on some interpretation of those facts. From an American perspective the ARW is almost always regarded as a caricature evil British Empire bent on oppressing the poor but honest American citizens, who valiantly rise up against the odds in a fight for their very freedom. From a British perspective it's a group of greedy colonials who don't want to pay their taxes having a tantrum and throwing their toys out of the pram, or more accurately the tea out of the ship. They then proceed to butcher their way into native American lands, dispossessing and suppressing any natives who get in their way, and any errant slaves who run away. Both of these views are inaccurate, because they are told from one side of history. To remain objective you have to look at the facts, and the records of the time.

I use Wikipedia's definition of Historical Revisionism; beyond that, I'm not sure how much we disagree. The problem I see with the above is that it assumes there is such a thing as "objective"; history simply contains too many facts, too many perspectives, and more often than not the pieces don't quite all fit together. Thinking that it is possible to synthesize all knowledge on a historical event or period into a coherent single objective version is a fool's errand. Rather, the best historians can hope for is to be aware of the inherent bias in any evidence or narrative, and to construct a narrative that doesn't willfully ignore the inevitable counterpoints.

With all due respect I think that you overemphasize the importance of the Colonies at the time in the perspective of the British Empire. To the British they were merely one of a number of colonies, whose day-to-day politics didn't cause much of a ripple, even during or after the ARW....

I think the ARW might have highlighted the day to day realities of slavery in Britain, as I said for the most part people in Britain were usually blissfully unaware of the activities in the colonies, except maybe in some propagandised fictions. But the reality is the Colonies just weren't that important in the minds of the British, they had far more at stake in India, Canada, Australia, among others. I think it is a common mistake to view the USA in terms of its current political status as a nuclear superpower, at the time it was a small colony of mainly farmers.

At the time, the colonies were the most populous British possession. Britain had only just started making serious headway in India, and Canada had only recently been won from France, while Australia didn't begin colonization until years after American Independence. Twenty years before the start of the revolution, the British Empire was pretty much North American (including the Caribbean). It's no accident that historians consider the loss of the colonies to be the dividing line between the First and Second British Empires. I'd marshall evidence that this was a huge deal in England, but I'd want to be clear if you're disputing that first.

However some facts to bear in mind here, the Republicans are the ones who are opposed to slavery at this time...

The sentiments of Republicans (and Confederates for that matter) toward Great Britain during the ACW were complicated. Since we don't want to get too off topic, let's leave it at that.

I confused my sentence there, I meant to say they were hunting down slave ships by 1812.

Ah, much clearer; yes, that much is true.

You might want to read: Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution by Simon Schama before being so dismissive of the idea.

Read about the book on Amazon -- FWIG, it's about slaves who escaped bondage during the Revolution to fight for the British in exchange for their freedom (and some land?), and after the failure of their cause, were evacuated to Nova Scotia, where they faced hard times, and saw their fate entwined with the abolitionist movement in Britain. That about right?

If so, it actually supports my point -- it's another example of a straight line that can be drawn from the American Revolution to the Abolitionism becoming a serious force in Britain.

For that matter Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution by Alfred Blumrosen might be worth a look too.

Does the book offer anything more than the "Sommerset scared Southern plantation owners" argument, where our discussion is concerned? Because as often as I've seen that idea brought up, I've seen very little in the way of evidence (as opposed to speculation), and from what I've read about the book, it offers very little as well. This is particularly important when the argument is that plantation owners were concerned a case that explicitly only applied to the British home island, and wasn't even fully settled* by 1775, was somehow an imminent threat to their property and livelihood.

*Oh yeah, Mansfield had not even declared slavery illegal in Britain as such; he "merely" said that English Common Law offered no support to slave owners looking to retrieve their "property" (which technically it still was) within the mother country. It even explicitly opened the door to such protection, in the even that Parliament passed "positive law" to the effect; years after the decision, the courts were still revisiting the case as slave owners still sought to "reclaim their property" in London.

 

[Hotpoint]

Read about the book on Amazon -- FWIG, it's about slaves who escaped bondage during the Revolution to fight for the British in exchange for their freedom (and some land?), and after the failure of their cause, were evacuated to Nova Scotia, where they faced hard times, and saw their fate entwined with the abolitionist movement in Britain. That about right?

That's the latter part of the book, the beginning deals with Granville Sharp and abolitionist pressure before the American War of Independence and covers the role that a fear of British abolitionism had in bringing the Southern Colonies into joint cause with the North as regards breaking off from British rule.

"Theirs was a revolution, first and foremost, mobilized to protect slavery" as Schama notes of the Southern Colonies.

Does the book offer anything more than the "Sommerset scared Southern plantation owners" argument, where our discussion is concerned? Because as often as I've seen that idea brought up, I've seen very little in the way of evidence (as opposed to speculation), and from what I've read about the book, it offers very little as well.

I'm sorry if this sounds a little harsh but might the reason you haven't actually seen much evidence be because you haven't actually ever read any books on the subject? I mean Rough Crossings is hardly obscure.

Just look at it this way. Within a year of the Somerset ruling there were already people trying to apply it as a precedent in the Colonial Courts in order to free slaves in the 13 Colonies. Isn't that likely to have concerned an awful lot of plantation owners especially given the existence of Repugnancy Clauses that bound Colonial Legislatures not to pass laws which might be seen as incompatible with English Law?

After all the Southern States seceded from the Union in the 1860's based on a fear the United States was heading towards abolitionism even though it hadn't happened yet. Is it therefore really too much of a stretch to see them break off from the British a couple of generations earlier for much the same reason?

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

The fact remains that before anti-slavery sentiment in Britain organized itself into a movement in 1787, it was only that -- sentiment -- and posed no serious threat whatsoever to the vast slave interests in the Empire.

I've been thinking if Lord Dunmore's Regiment and similar recruitment of slaves to the British cause, requires me to amend this, and I'm tending toward the negative -- British policies like this made slave owners, if anything, more wary of bringing the Revolutionary War to their doorstep (as South Carolina was), while those who were directly threatened were in rebellion already. This would be different if the British adopted Dunmore's policies with even a modicum of commitment, but they did not. (In the case of Dunmore's regiment, Howe more or less dismissed "all Negores, Mulattoes, and other improper persons" to put his troops "on a more proper footing".) As such, "the British are going to steal our slaves" never really metastasized into a leading fear in the Southern colonies, much less the chief one. (The Continental forces were similarly cautious; Washington axed a similar proposal put forward by Hamilton and Laurens for the express fear of alienating same slave owners.)

That's the latter part of the book, the beginning deals with Granville Sharp and abolitionist pressure before the American War of Independence and covers the role that a fear of British abolitionism had in bringing the Southern Colonies into joint cause with the North as regards breaking off from British rule.

"Theirs was a revolution, first and foremost, mobilized to protect slavery" as Schama notes of the Southern Colonies.

Ah, ok; then it sounds worth checking out at some point.

I'm sorry if this sounds a little harsh but might the reason you haven't actually seen much evidence be because you haven't actually ever read any books on the subject? I mean Rough Crossings is hardly obscure.

To be fair, I'm more or less familiar with what I thought was the chief subject matter of the book (the role of escaped slaves in British loyalist forces during the ARW), and have been since I read Zinn years back.

Just look at it this way. Within a year of the Somerset ruling there were already people trying to apply it as a precedent in the Colonial Courts in order to free slaves in the 13 Colonies. Isn't that likely to have concerned an awful lot of plantation owners especially given the existence of Repugnancy Clauses that bound Colonial Legislatures not to pass laws which might be seen as incompatible with English Law?

After all the Southern States seceded from the Union in the 1860's based on a fear the United States was heading towards abolitionism even though it hadn't happened yet. Is it therefore really too much of a stretch to see them break off from the British a couple of generations earlier for much the same reason?

But there's actual evidence for that -- Southern paranoia about Free Soil, Abolitionism, and what have you, doesn't need any speculation because it is so well documented. Indeed, for anyone reading their documents, the CSA makes no bones that theirs was to be a nation built on slavery. I may not have gotten around to reading Schama, but I have read my share of material on the American Revolution, and I've seen nothing on this. Is there a plethora of documentary evidence showing Southern panic over British emancipation pre-1775 that has been buried by every other historian but him? If so, then I regret not seeking out his work sooner; but if his contention that the cause of Revolution in the South was "first and foremost, mobilized to protect slavery" is based on a series of "they must have thought" and other speculations, then I don't think my delay is such a loss.

 

[Morty Vicar]

But with all due respect, you're saying there's no evidence that British abolitionism caused the ARW, and yet you seem to have the exact same lack of evidence, and the exact same 'they must have thought' basis for your claim that British abolitionism was caused by the ARW. You are using the timeline as a basis for your argument, but the timeline clearly shows there was a movement that started prior to the ARW, gained momentum gradually, and just happened to peak over two decades after the ARW, meanwhile the USA continued slavery for about 6 decades thereafter.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

But with all due respect, you're saying there's no evidence that British abolitionism caused the ARW, and yet you seem to have the exact same lack of evidence, and the exact same 'they must have thought' basis for your claim that British abolitionism was caused by the ARW.

Well I did offer the admission of Thomas Clark; but otherwise, it would be a point, except my argument was "the main theories as the abolitionism's success all connect the timing of the success to the failure in America" (for which I did offer sources); I can offer more when I'm back at home.

 

[The Uchronian]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to outline a mini-TL where Britain is and remains a reactionary power on the issue of slavery until as close to the end of the 19th century as possible (rather than becoming the kind of country which pressured Brazil to abolish slavery as in OTL). A caveat is that Britain must lose the ARW (or its analogue), so no using keeping the OTL American South to bolster domestic support for slavery in Britain.

They may be some room to work with this, I think. At the very beginning of my Stars & Stripes timeline, Parliament was unable to come to a majority in signing the Slave Trade Act into law, which delayed it for some time(not for that much longer, though). But I'd think a more substantial POD would be to have Somerset go a different way as in Mumby's Centuries of Shadow TL. With that, even assuming a successful ARW, it's possible that the slave trade, could last until perhaps the 1840s, and slavery until the 1860s in the Empire as a whole.

As for the issue of slavery and its role in the war, I've done a fair bit of research on the subject, and to be honest, I will have to side with J.F.P. here in this debate: whatever confirmable evidence we do have does suggest, overall, that many of the Founders desired to eventually eliminate slavery, and that British abolitionism, though already present, did not actually begin to truly take off until after the Revolutionary War had ended, and that during the Revolution itself, Britain had no desire to end slavery in the short term, nor were there widespread fears of forced abolition even in the South, outside of perhaps a small minority.

 

[Morty Vicar]

Well I did offer the admission of Thomas Clark; but otherwise, it would be a point, except my argument was "the main theories as the abolitionism's success all connect the timing of the success to the failure in America" (for which I did offer sources); I can offer more when I'm back at home.

Thomas Clarkson was an abolitionist agitator, he may have other reasons for making that claim. But then after the ARW slavery continued in British Canada, and in the Carribean and elsewhere. The 13 colonies (unfortunately) weren't the last word in British slavery, that didn't come until after 1800. Again I think American history suffers from an overemphasis of the importance of the US, when from a global perspective, or even from a UK perspective, the USA isn't the only consideration, or even the most important one.

As for the issue of slavery and its role in the war, I've done a fair bit of research on the subject, and to be honest, I will have to side with J.F.P. here in this debate: whatever confirmable evidence we do have does suggest, overall, that many of the Founders desired to eventually eliminate slavery, and that British abolitionism, though already present, did not actually begin to truly take off until after the Revolutionary War had ended, and that during the Revolution itself, Britain had no desire to end slavery in the short term, nor were there widespread fears of forced abolition even in the South, outside of perhaps a small minority.

And yet US slavery would continue for over a century after the American revolutionary war. Perhaps the founding fathers did have that ultimate ambition, but if they were serious about it they'd have had their own rebellion on their hands, as of course happened eventually in the American Civil War. Britain meanwhile outlawed slavery some two decades after the ARW, if it was a direct consequence I think it would have happened sooner. If you read history from a UK perspective, the abolitionist movement was one which grew fairly consistently, and to which the ARW was not a huge factor, anymore than any other slave colony of the British Empire at the time. Of course there was some growing revulsion against slavery in the colonies, and these ideas may have been bounced around to some extent, particularly the religious view of slavery as immoral and unchristian. Meanwhile of course the anti-abolitionists used their own religious justifications.

Britain had no desire to end slavery in the short term

On this point I disagree also, James Edward Oglethorpe banned slavery in the colony of Georgia, making him deeply unpopular with the settlers in both Georgia and the neighboring Carolinas, whose runaway slaves found refuge in Georgia. Although this ban was lifted after Oglethorpe left, no doubt the settlers kept a close eye on the abolitionists in Parliament thereafter.

 

[TFSmith121]

Um, what?

And yet US slavery would continue for over a century after the American civil war.

Huh? Slavery continued in the United States until 1965?

Please explain....

Best,

 

[Gannt the chartist]

He reads the New York Times, or possibly a typo

 

[TFSmith121]

Okay, I read the Times, and even I laughed at that...

He reads the New York Times, or possibly a typo

Okay, I read the Times, and even I laughed at that...

I think you mean the The Final Call...

Best,