Sojourners, Sultans, and Slaves: America and the Indian Ocean in the Age of Abolition and Empire

In the 19th century, global capitalism and empire connected the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds through international networks that competed over the meanings of slavery and freedom. Gunja SenGupta and Awam Amkpa's book explores transnational human rights campaigns and how the discourses of poverty, kinship, and care were used to defend servitude in different parts of the world. It also highlights the intercontinental cast of empire builders, slavers, reformers, cotton queens, courtesans, and fugitive slaves and concubines who populated the pages, revealing the comparative workings of subaltern agency.

Format: Hardback
Length: 378 pages
Publication date: 21 February 2023
Publisher: University of California Press

In the 19th century, the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds were intricately woven into international networks through the competing systems of capitalism and empire. These global systems played a pivotal role in shaping the meanings of slavery and freedom. To explore the Atlantic reverberations of these endeavors, scholars have delved into multinational archives, shedding light on the multifaceted aspects of US mercantile projects, free labor experiments, and slaveholding in western Indian Ocean societies. Gunja SenGupta and Awam Amkpa, in their insightful work, have profiled transnational human rights campaigns that shed light on the ways in which the discourses of poverty, kinship, and care were employed to defend servitude in various parts of the world. They demonstrate how these discourses, while sharing certain similarities with liberal contractual notions of freedom, also exhibited fragile boundaries.

The pages of this book are populated by a diverse cast of empire builders, émigrés, slavers, reformers, cotton queens, courtesans, and fugitive slaves and concubines. Through their meticulous research, Gunja SenGupta and Awam Amkpa bring to life the intricate interplay between the personal, domestic, and international politics of slavery in the East during the age of empire. By extending the transnational framework of US slavery and abolition histories beyond the Atlantic, they offer vivid stories and provoke thoughtful reflections on the comparative workings of subaltern agency.

This book is a valuable contribution to the field of history, providing a fresh perspective on the complex and interconnected world of slavery in the 19th century. It sheds light on the ways in which global systems, cultural exchanges, and individual agency intersected to shape the history of a region that was deeply impacted by the forces of empire.

Weight: 658g
Dimension: 236 x 160 x 32 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520389137