This was originally a post I did in soc.history.what-if some years ago in answer to a what-if where the British Caribbean possessions had joined the US in the Revolutionary War. The original post asked whether the Caribbean state would join the Confederacy in 1861. My point was that Jamaica, etc. being part of the Union would drastically change the US slavery controversy well before 1861. But this post could also be the answer to many other possible what-ifs, like what would it take to get the South to accept gradual emancipation. The point is that, dim as the hopes for that ever were, the experience of British emancipation helped made it less likely than ever, and indeed helped bring about the ACW because of white Southerners' fears that what Parliament had done, a Northern-dominated Congress could also do. (My apologies for any links that no longer work.)
***
> THE CIVIL WAR ENGULFS THE ISLANDS
>
> 18th September, 1861
>
> On this day Union President Abraham Lincoln received an urgent request
> for reinforcements from Alexander Hamilton III the Governor of the
> Sugar State.
>
> Six months of slave revolts had paralyzed the economic activity across
> the Caribbean basin and precipitated a plantation owner's backlash.
> The larger islands were threatening to secede from the Union and
> appeal to the British Government for Royal Naval support to protect
> their new-found sovereignty. Some were even threatening to join the
> Confederacy...
>
> Article continues at
> http://www.todayinah.co.uk/index.php?story=39709-P
One thing that has been rather neglected in this thread is that if the British West Indies had somehow become a US state, the sectional conflict in the US might be affected well before 1860.
Why were so many southerners--with South Carolinians taking the lead--so worried about the abolitionist movement in the North even when it had negligible support? Why were they so concerned that even the slightest anti-slavery steps by Congress would ultimately lead, despite all disclaimers of any such intent, to the federal government's forcing emancipation on the South? Why were they so anxious about keeping their power in Congress when other regions of the country--e.g., New England-- could accept a decline in power without threatening secession (except perhaps during the War of 1812, and even then it should be noted that the Hartford Convention never explicitly threatened secession)? Why did they view even compensated and "gradual" emancipation (with perhaps a period of "apprenticeship") as so utterly unacceptable?
Part of the answer lies in southerners' knowledge of what had happened with British abolitionism, how against seemingly insuperable odds it brought about emancipation in the West Indies, and what the economic consequences were for the West Indian planters. What Parliament could do, a northern-majority Congress could someday do.
A few examples of this concern:
(1) Even before Wilberforce had achieved his final victory, Robert J. Turnbull of South Carolina in his influential late-1820's pro-nullification series *The Crisis* asked "whether, like the weak, the dependent, and the unfortunate colonists of the West Indies, we are to drag on a miserable state of political existence, constantly vibrating between our hopes and our fears, as to what a Congress may do towards us."
Objecting to Congress even *discussing* support for the American Colonization Society--even though the Society had many slaveholding members, and was actually denounced by some abolitionists as a pro-slavery scheme to rid America of free blacks--Turnbull wrote:
"When MR. WILBERFORCE first brought forward his bill for the abolition of the slave trade, he was even *more cautious* than the Colonization Society. He took especial care not to profess that the abolition of the slave trade was but the *first* step towards...the emancipation of the negroes of the West Indies...yet we have seen that he no sooner succeeded in the ostensible object, than he was observed to come out of his concealment, and to commence an indirect attack on the whole system of slavery."
http://books.google.com/books?id=ouxUF1x9XbYC&pg=PA96
(2) Arthur P. Hayne of South Carolina in the early 1830's explained why southerners were so concerned about northern abolitionists, even though the latter were unpopular in the North and sometimes the targets of mob violence: "..for the first 25 years, Mr Wilberforce was repeatedly mobbed in the Streets of London for his fanatical doctrines." Yet "in less than 25 years" he and his men had "guided" the English people to embrace this "their darling abstraction: that as liberty...was sweet--so slavery must be 'a bitter draught.'"
See also the Charleston Mercury in 1833: If a northern majority ruled, the southern states would be "as virtually colonies as the British West Indies--as much at the mercy of knavish and fanatical speculators, and with no greater security for their liberty and property."
http://books.google.com/books?id=OCjgnjFpwfEC&pg=PA132
(3) Fast forward to Senator Alfred Iverson of Georgia, January 6, 1859 explaining why he thought disunion was inevitable (unless the South was willing to give up slavery):
"Sir, he knows but little of the workings of human nature who supposes that the spirit of anti-slavery fanaticism which now pervades the Northern heart will stop short of its favorite and final end and aim--the universal emancipation of slavery in the United States by the operation and action of the Federal Government. When Mr. Wilberforce began the agitation of his scheme of emancipation in the British West India Islands there was not a corporal's guard in both Houses of the British Parliament who sympathized with him or approved the movement; and yet, in less than a quarter of a century, all England became abolitionized, and perpetrated, by a decree in Parliament, one of the most arbitrary and outrageous violations of private rights which was ever inflicted by despotic power upon peaceful and loyal subjects. And so it will be in this country. The same spirit which brought about emancipation in the British islands will produce it here whenever the power is obtained to pass and to enforce its decrees.. ."
http://books.google.com/books?id=L4Z1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA181
As for the consequences of emancipation for the planters, I will quote the 1957 Encyclopedia Britannica's article "Jamaica". After noting that the end of the slave trade in 1807 and the drop in sugar prices after the Napoleonic wars had already caused problems for the planters (who tended to be improvident and in debt to their London factors) it adds:
"Emancipation struck a further blow at the planters' prosperity and security. All slaves were emancipated by an act of the imperial parliament in 1833. They became free in fact, after a period of so-called apprenticeship, in 1838. Many of the more enterprising among them left the plantations and took to the hills, where their descendants live as small-holding peasants today. The planters received compensation at the rate of £ 19 per slave, but most of the compensation went into the hands of their creditors. They were left financially exhausted and with a scarcity of labour..."
Southerners were very well aware of what had happened in the West Indies: "Investigation of economic conditions in the West Indies during the 1840s and 1850s, for example, revealed a withdrawal of labor and sharp declines in the production of sugar following emancipation. This unfortunate news was seized upon by southern propagandists" as proof that emancipation in the US would be economically disastrous. British abolitionists acknowledged that sugar production had declined to just two-thirds of the pre-1833 level, though they blamed not emancipation but the inability of the planters to cope with free labor markets. (American abolitionists flatly denied that there had been any decline in productivity at all.) Robert W. Fogel, *Without Consent or Contract*, p. 407.
http://books.google.com/books?id=F-KIAOQxKigC&pg=PA407
No doubt white southerners would have reasons to oppose anti-slavery measures--even moderate ones--without the British West Indies experience. But I think it clear that this experience helped to harden their attitudes Also, apart from this, one should note that with one extra slave state, the problem of maintaining parity of free and slave states in the Senate would be different from what it was in OTL; the admission of California in 1850 (assuming it is not butterflied away) would not give the North a majority in this ATL. So the South might be a little less anxious about the consequences of a new free state.
Finally, as I have noted in the past, the victories for immediate secessionists in the elections in several Deep South states in early 1861 were narrow, and so even if the West Indies analogy did not sway many votes, it could have changed the results in some states. (Again, this is on the questionable assumption that previously the sectional conflict would have developed exactly as it did in OTL.)
Of course the success of British abolitionists also had effects on the North as well as the South; it provided a huge impetus for the American abolitionist movement in the 1830's: "Garrison and others were heartened by the apparent inability of West Indian slaveholders to stem a righteous moral tide." http://books.google.com/books?id=F-KIAOQxKigC&pg=PA267 As Fogel put it, there was plenty of fuel, supplied by the Second Great Awakening in New England and the Yankee diaspora; and the kindling was done by American religious leaders (many of whom had been active in the temperance and sabbatarian movements before they became anti-slavery activists)--but it was still England that provided the spark. That particular spark would be missing in this ATL.
(Incidentally, there is a book which I have not yet had a chance to read entitled *The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War* by Edward Bartlett Rugemer [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008] which judging from a review I have seen, makes many of these points. I hope to read it soon...) [Unfortunately, as of 2018 I still haven't done so...--DT]
***
> THE CIVIL WAR ENGULFS THE ISLANDS
>
> 18th September, 1861
>
> On this day Union President Abraham Lincoln received an urgent request
> for reinforcements from Alexander Hamilton III the Governor of the
> Sugar State.
>
> Six months of slave revolts had paralyzed the economic activity across
> the Caribbean basin and precipitated a plantation owner's backlash.
> The larger islands were threatening to secede from the Union and
> appeal to the British Government for Royal Naval support to protect
> their new-found sovereignty. Some were even threatening to join the
> Confederacy...
>
> Article continues at
> http://www.todayinah.co.uk/index.php?story=39709-P
One thing that has been rather neglected in this thread is that if the British West Indies had somehow become a US state, the sectional conflict in the US might be affected well before 1860.
Why were so many southerners--with South Carolinians taking the lead--so worried about the abolitionist movement in the North even when it had negligible support? Why were they so concerned that even the slightest anti-slavery steps by Congress would ultimately lead, despite all disclaimers of any such intent, to the federal government's forcing emancipation on the South? Why were they so anxious about keeping their power in Congress when other regions of the country--e.g., New England-- could accept a decline in power without threatening secession (except perhaps during the War of 1812, and even then it should be noted that the Hartford Convention never explicitly threatened secession)? Why did they view even compensated and "gradual" emancipation (with perhaps a period of "apprenticeship") as so utterly unacceptable?
Part of the answer lies in southerners' knowledge of what had happened with British abolitionism, how against seemingly insuperable odds it brought about emancipation in the West Indies, and what the economic consequences were for the West Indian planters. What Parliament could do, a northern-majority Congress could someday do.
A few examples of this concern:
(1) Even before Wilberforce had achieved his final victory, Robert J. Turnbull of South Carolina in his influential late-1820's pro-nullification series *The Crisis* asked "whether, like the weak, the dependent, and the unfortunate colonists of the West Indies, we are to drag on a miserable state of political existence, constantly vibrating between our hopes and our fears, as to what a Congress may do towards us."
Objecting to Congress even *discussing* support for the American Colonization Society--even though the Society had many slaveholding members, and was actually denounced by some abolitionists as a pro-slavery scheme to rid America of free blacks--Turnbull wrote:
"When MR. WILBERFORCE first brought forward his bill for the abolition of the slave trade, he was even *more cautious* than the Colonization Society. He took especial care not to profess that the abolition of the slave trade was but the *first* step towards...the emancipation of the negroes of the West Indies...yet we have seen that he no sooner succeeded in the ostensible object, than he was observed to come out of his concealment, and to commence an indirect attack on the whole system of slavery."
http://books.google.com/books?id=ouxUF1x9XbYC&pg=PA96
(2) Arthur P. Hayne of South Carolina in the early 1830's explained why southerners were so concerned about northern abolitionists, even though the latter were unpopular in the North and sometimes the targets of mob violence: "..for the first 25 years, Mr Wilberforce was repeatedly mobbed in the Streets of London for his fanatical doctrines." Yet "in less than 25 years" he and his men had "guided" the English people to embrace this "their darling abstraction: that as liberty...was sweet--so slavery must be 'a bitter draught.'"
See also the Charleston Mercury in 1833: If a northern majority ruled, the southern states would be "as virtually colonies as the British West Indies--as much at the mercy of knavish and fanatical speculators, and with no greater security for their liberty and property."
http://books.google.com/books?id=OCjgnjFpwfEC&pg=PA132
(3) Fast forward to Senator Alfred Iverson of Georgia, January 6, 1859 explaining why he thought disunion was inevitable (unless the South was willing to give up slavery):
"Sir, he knows but little of the workings of human nature who supposes that the spirit of anti-slavery fanaticism which now pervades the Northern heart will stop short of its favorite and final end and aim--the universal emancipation of slavery in the United States by the operation and action of the Federal Government. When Mr. Wilberforce began the agitation of his scheme of emancipation in the British West India Islands there was not a corporal's guard in both Houses of the British Parliament who sympathized with him or approved the movement; and yet, in less than a quarter of a century, all England became abolitionized, and perpetrated, by a decree in Parliament, one of the most arbitrary and outrageous violations of private rights which was ever inflicted by despotic power upon peaceful and loyal subjects. And so it will be in this country. The same spirit which brought about emancipation in the British islands will produce it here whenever the power is obtained to pass and to enforce its decrees.. ."
http://books.google.com/books?id=L4Z1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA181
As for the consequences of emancipation for the planters, I will quote the 1957 Encyclopedia Britannica's article "Jamaica". After noting that the end of the slave trade in 1807 and the drop in sugar prices after the Napoleonic wars had already caused problems for the planters (who tended to be improvident and in debt to their London factors) it adds:
"Emancipation struck a further blow at the planters' prosperity and security. All slaves were emancipated by an act of the imperial parliament in 1833. They became free in fact, after a period of so-called apprenticeship, in 1838. Many of the more enterprising among them left the plantations and took to the hills, where their descendants live as small-holding peasants today. The planters received compensation at the rate of £ 19 per slave, but most of the compensation went into the hands of their creditors. They were left financially exhausted and with a scarcity of labour..."
Southerners were very well aware of what had happened in the West Indies: "Investigation of economic conditions in the West Indies during the 1840s and 1850s, for example, revealed a withdrawal of labor and sharp declines in the production of sugar following emancipation. This unfortunate news was seized upon by southern propagandists" as proof that emancipation in the US would be economically disastrous. British abolitionists acknowledged that sugar production had declined to just two-thirds of the pre-1833 level, though they blamed not emancipation but the inability of the planters to cope with free labor markets. (American abolitionists flatly denied that there had been any decline in productivity at all.) Robert W. Fogel, *Without Consent or Contract*, p. 407.
http://books.google.com/books?id=F-KIAOQxKigC&pg=PA407
No doubt white southerners would have reasons to oppose anti-slavery measures--even moderate ones--without the British West Indies experience. But I think it clear that this experience helped to harden their attitudes Also, apart from this, one should note that with one extra slave state, the problem of maintaining parity of free and slave states in the Senate would be different from what it was in OTL; the admission of California in 1850 (assuming it is not butterflied away) would not give the North a majority in this ATL. So the South might be a little less anxious about the consequences of a new free state.
Finally, as I have noted in the past, the victories for immediate secessionists in the elections in several Deep South states in early 1861 were narrow, and so even if the West Indies analogy did not sway many votes, it could have changed the results in some states. (Again, this is on the questionable assumption that previously the sectional conflict would have developed exactly as it did in OTL.)
Of course the success of British abolitionists also had effects on the North as well as the South; it provided a huge impetus for the American abolitionist movement in the 1830's: "Garrison and others were heartened by the apparent inability of West Indian slaveholders to stem a righteous moral tide." http://books.google.com/books?id=F-KIAOQxKigC&pg=PA267 As Fogel put it, there was plenty of fuel, supplied by the Second Great Awakening in New England and the Yankee diaspora; and the kindling was done by American religious leaders (many of whom had been active in the temperance and sabbatarian movements before they became anti-slavery activists)--but it was still England that provided the spark. That particular spark would be missing in this ATL.
(Incidentally, there is a book which I have not yet had a chance to read entitled *The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War* by Edward Bartlett Rugemer [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008] which judging from a review I have seen, makes many of these points. I hope to read it soon...) [Unfortunately, as of 2018 I still haven't done so...--DT]