ENGLISH 3EC3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Sentimentality, Middle Passage, On Being
27 Oct 2017
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England joined the slave trade in the mid 17th century, somewhat after the. By 18th century, most of english society implicated in slave trade (consuming slave- produced goods like sugar, tobacco, coffee, cotton, cocoa, rum, etc. ) Ships travelled from england to north africa captured or bought slaves (who were often prisoners of war) in exchange for things like cloth, iron, coins, firearms: Religious (they are not christian, slaves to sin; old testament precedents) Colonization of (cid:498)new world(cid:499) fundamentally dependant on slave trade, particularly. Cultural ((cid:498)civilizing(cid:499) project freeing them from despotism and primitive. Political (cid:523)(cid:498)liberty(cid:499) entailed salutary restraint(cid:524) in west indies and southern us. Justifications for the practice, which even early on is subject to criticism, were: Religious discourse (slavery is un- christian, an attitude championed by. Sentimentality (leveraging the growing authority of (cid:498)feeling(cid:499), empathy, National pride (cid:523)england imagined as bastion of (cid:498)liberty(cid:499)(cid:524) civilization) Pseudo- scientific (later in the 18th c. ) compassion) the french revolution)
