Book contents
- Jubilee’s Experiment
- Slaveries since Emancipation
- Jubilee’s Experiment
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Anxieties of Emancipation
- 2 Fears of British Emancipation in America
- 3 The Benefits of Free Labor
- 4 The Problems of Apprenticeship
- 5 The Experiment and Its Challenges
- 6 Reform and the Experiment
- 7 African Americans and British Emancipation
- 8 A West Indian Jubilee in America
- Epilogue
- Index
7 - African Americans and British Emancipation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2023
- Jubilee’s Experiment
- Slaveries since Emancipation
- Jubilee’s Experiment
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Anxieties of Emancipation
- 2 Fears of British Emancipation in America
- 3 The Benefits of Free Labor
- 4 The Problems of Apprenticeship
- 5 The Experiment and Its Challenges
- 6 Reform and the Experiment
- 7 African Americans and British Emancipation
- 8 A West Indian Jubilee in America
- Epilogue
- Index
Summary
This chapter examines free African Americans’ perceptions of the emancipated British West Indies. As I argue, beyond many of the concerns of their white abolitionist allies, free African Americans considered the experiment’s implications for their own future prospects of liberty, racial equality, and citizenship rights in the United States. In their autonomous newspapers, speeches, and print publications, they touted the success of the emancipated British West Indies as evidence against notions of black inferiority and as a model for participatory citizenship. But this narrative was complicated by a short-lived but provocative West Indian Emigration Scheme of the late 1830s, stimulating heated debates in the black press that reveal the limits of transnational identity.
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- Jubilee's ExperimentThe British West Indies and American Abolitionism, pp. 238 - 281Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023