In the decades prior to the Civil War, several abolitionist initiatives in Canada West led to the founding of independent black agricultural communities. These initiatives generally functioned by...Show moreIn the decades prior to the Civil War, several abolitionist initiatives in Canada West led to the founding of independent black agricultural communities. These initiatives generally functioned by setting up a financial fund to buy plots of land from the Canadian government, reselling those to black settlers, many of them fugitives from slavery. This thesis looks at how the three fugitive communities active during the 1850s — the Dawn Settlement, the Elgin Settlement, and the Refugee Home Society’s Settlement — were of importance to the American abolitionist movement, looking at their function in American abolitionist literature. How were the Canadian fugitive communities portrayed in American abolitionist literature and in what ways did they contribute to the goals of the American abolitionist movement in the 1850s? It concludes that fugitives were key to the contribution these communities made to the abolitionist movement, nuancing former depictions of the communities as initiatives mostly informed by American middle class ideals of self-improvement, and shows the importance of taking a transnational perspective in approaching the communities.Show less
In political debates and academic literature, the French and Haitian Revolutions have often been presented as separate or even conflicting historical events. The emerging global historiography of...Show moreIn political debates and academic literature, the French and Haitian Revolutions have often been presented as separate or even conflicting historical events. The emerging global historiography of the Age of Revolution increasingly brings to light the many links that connect these revolutions and render their dichotomization illegitimate. This thesis simultaneously draws on and contributes to this historiographical development by experimenting the methodological approach of Atlantic intellectual history from below. Focusing on the perspectives of the French sans-culottes and the insurgent slaves of Saint Domingue (colonial Haiti), it explores how these revolutionary groups’ exposure to a transatlantic flux of ideas and developments impacted their views on the slavery system between 1789 and 1794. The thesis reconstructs these views through a myriad of primary sources reflective of public opinion, such as French revolutionary newspapers and eyewitness accounts of the insurgent slave armies’ internal debates. In line with Homi Bhabha’s theoretical proposition that concepts have no ‘primordial fixity’ and can therefore be ‘translated and read anew’ in different ideological environments, it finds that the introduction of news and ideas from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean generated abolitionist popular mentalités among both the sans-culottes and the insurgent slaves. While the former came to conceive of themselves as slaves rebelling against their aristocratic masters and thus developed a view of Saint-Domingue’s slaves as natural allies, the latter fused French revolutionary rights-based discourse with originally West-African political culture to produce a syncretic political vision which rendered abolition imaginable and, therefore, attainable. The convergence of these distinct, yet ultimately commensurable, popular mentalités facilitated the general emancipation of Saint-Domingue’s enslaved population by the French colonial authorities in August 1793, followed by the formal abolition of slavery by the French National Convention in February 1794. The interwoven abolitionist history of the sans-culottes and the insurgent slaves presented by the thesis brings to the fore the commonalities, rather than the conflicts that characterized the connected French and Haitian Revolutions: it offers a mode of telling that might be hopeful and helpful in our own times.Show less
This Thesis offers a close look at abolitionist white women and the activism they practiced despite the limitations they faced because of their gender. It also studies the prejudices and outright...Show moreThis Thesis offers a close look at abolitionist white women and the activism they practiced despite the limitations they faced because of their gender. It also studies the prejudices and outright racism within the texts these women wrote, which was often informed by their own limitations. It offers an insight on both the complications of intersectionality, and of its necessity when abolitionist texts written by women are judged.Show less
The American slavery debate, raging from the early nineteenth century up until the Civil War, almost destroyed the Union through its increasing political, economical and social anxiety. Southerners...Show moreThe American slavery debate, raging from the early nineteenth century up until the Civil War, almost destroyed the Union through its increasing political, economical and social anxiety. Southerners argued against any federal interference of their institution of slavery and abolitionists, especially those who were more radical, vehemently opposed any continuation of the institution. In this tumult, several writers took up the pen to argue against or specifically in favor of slavery, which they did in sentimental novels intended to sway their readers. I argue that each of the authors of the works discussed in this thesis reframe the African American plight in order to portray what the authors feel is the idealized version of African Americans, regardless of whether it had any bearing on reality. In this way, white superiority remained intact. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, while advocating for the abolition of slavery, treats her enslaved characters as childlike and simplistic. Eastman’s Aunt Phillis’s Cabin portrays her enslaved characters as utterly devotional to the white families they work for, going even as far as to argue for removing their own autonomy so to better serve their masters. And Page’s In Ole Virginia, written during the post-Reconstruction period, portrays free African Americans as witnesses to the better times experienced while in servitude.Show less
