Slavery and Antislavery in Spain's Atlantic Empire

Josep M. Fradera, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Josep M. Fradera, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Josep M. Fradera, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara†

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781785330261, 9780857459336
• eBook ISBN: 9780857459343
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

African slavery was pervasive in Spain's Atlantic empire yet remained in the margins of the imperial economy until the end of the eighteenth century when the plantation revolution in the Caribbean colonies put the slave traffic and the plantation at the center of colonial exploitation and conflict. The international group of scholars brought together in this volume explain Spain's role as a colonial pioneer in the Atlantic world and its latecomer status as a slave-trading, plantation-based empire. These contributors map the broad contours and transformations of slave-trafficking, the plantation, and antislavery in the Hispanic Atlantic while also delving into specific topics that include: the institutional and economic foundations of colonial slavery; the law and religion; the influences of the Haitian Revolution and British abolitionism; antislavery and proslavery movements in Spain; race and citizenship; and the business of the illegal slave trade.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. Colonial Pioneer and Plantation Latecomer
• Chapter 1. The Slave Trade in the Spanish Empire (1501–1808): The Shift from Periphery to Center
• Chapter 2. Portuguese Missionaries and Early Modern Antislavery and Proslavery Thought
• Chapter 3. The Economic Role of Slavery in a Non-Slave Society: The River Plate, 1750–1860
• Chapter 4. Slaves and the Creation of Legal Rights in Cuba: Coartación and Papel
• Chapter 5. Cuban Slavery and Atlantic Antislavery
• Chapter 6. Wilberforce Spanished: Joseph Blanco White and Spanish Antislavery, 1808–1814
• Chapter 7. Spanish Merchants and the Slave Trade: From Legality to Illegality, 1814–1870
• Chapter 8. La Amistad: Ramón Ferrer in Cuba and the Transatlantic Dimensions of Slaving and Contraband Trade
• Chapter 9. Antislavery before Abolitionism: Networks and Motives in Early Liberal Barcelona, 1833–1844
• Chapter 10. Moments in a Postponed Abolition
• Chapter 11. From Empires of Slavery to Empires of Antislavery
• Selected Bibliography
• Notes on Contributors
• Index