London, Metropolis of the Slave Trade

James A. Rawley

216 pages

Published: October 2003

tables

ISBN: 9780826214836

Shades of Blue and Gray

Format:

Hardcover

Price: $54.00

BUY

About This Book: "The recognition that ordinary people could and did trade in slaves, as well as the fact that ordinary people became slaves, is, indeed, the beginning of comprehending the enormity of the forced migration of eleven million people and the attendant deaths of many more."
In London, Metropolis of the Slave Trade, James A. Rawley collects some of his best works from the past three decades. Also included in this volume are three new pieces: an essay on a South Carolina slave trader, Henry Laurens; an analysis of the slave trade at the beginning of the eighteenth century; and a portrait of John Newton, a slave trader who became a priest in the Church of England and composer of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” as well as an outspoken opponent of the trade.
In these essays Rawley brings together new information on individuals involved in and opposed to the slave trade and shows how scholars have long underestimated the extent of London’s participation in the trade.

Rawley draws on material from the year 1700 to the American Civil War as he explores the role of London in the trade. He covers its activity as a port of departure for ships bound for Africa; its continuing large volume after the trade extended to Bristol and Liverpool; and the controversy between London’s parliamentary representatives, who defended the trade, and the abolitionist movement that was quartered there.

Sweeping in scope and thorough in its analysis, this collection of essays from a seasoned scholar will be welcomed by historians concerned with slavery and the slave trade, as well as by students just beginning their exploration of this subject.
Authors and Editors: James A. Rawley is Carl Adolph Happold Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is the author of The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History and other books.
Praise For This Book: "An important contribution to our understanding of the Atlantic slave trade and succeeds in establishing London and its merchant community as central to it."—South Carolina Historical Magazine

"This most useful collection helps to confirm Rawley's standing in the field."—Journal of Modern History

"While London's role as a center of abolitionism is well known, the fact that it was perhaps even more important than Liverpool as a center of the defense of the slave trade has remained largely hidden. As with all of the best historical writing, James Rawley's essays show that the reality of eras other than our own is much more complicated and interesting than most of the better- known conceptions of that reality, and more important, that there are no easy interpretations possible once one moves beyond recognition of the moral enormity of Europeans carrying so many unwilling Africans to the Americas."–David Eltis