A collection of essays dealing with the history and impact of the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the Indian Ocean region. The contributors show that, in applying definitions of slavery derived from the American model, European agents in the region failed to detect other forms of slavery and as a result, the abolitionist impulse was only partly successful. Includes essays on the Cape Colony, Mauritius, Madagascar, Somalia, and Iran. Index, notes, tables, 225pp, UK. FRANK CASS. 0714655031

A commemoration of the first abolition of slavery, proclaimed by Leger Felicite Sonthonax in Santo Domingo in 1793. Also portrays the complex developments leading to the decree of 1848, permanently abolishing slavery in the French domains. BNS, 470pp, UK. BERGHAHN BOOKS, 1571812652

The African Institution was a pivotal abolitionist and antislavery group in Britain during the early nineteenth century, and its members included royalty, prominent lawyers, Members of Parliament, and noted reformers such as William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and Zachary Macaulay. Focusing on the spread of Western civilization to Africa, the abolition of the foreign slave trade, and improving the lives of slaves in British colonies, the group's influence extended far into Britain's diplomatic relations in addition to the government's domestic affairs. The African Institution carried the torch for antislavery reform for twenty years and paved the way for later humanitarian efforts in Great Britain. This book is the only monograph on the African Institution, and thus the only specific book length analysis of its successes and failures. BNS, 264pp, USA. EDWIN MELLEN PRESS.

With the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and the Emancipation Act of 1833, Britain washed its hands of slavery. Not so, according to Marika Sherwood, who sets the record straight in this provocative new book. In fact, Sherwood demonstrates that Britain continued to contribute to and profit from the slave trade well after 1807, even into the twentieth century. Drawing on government documents and contemporary reports as well as published sources, she describes how slavery remained very much a part of British investment, commerce and empire, especially in funding and supplying goods for the trade in slaves and in the use of slave-grown produce. Index, bib, b/w illus, 246pp, UK. I B TAURIS.

An collection of essays on slavery in Senegal, French West Africa, Guinea, India, Thailand, Indonesia and in the Ottoman Empire. BNS, Index, maps, tables, notes, bib, 252pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS, 0299137546

Now in paperback. Prize-winning author of 'King Leopold's Ghost', Hochschild brings us the humble beginnings of the abolitionist movement in Britain, contextualizing with contemporary accounts of the slave trade and political machinations of the period. This vivid history of the abolition of slavery describes growing concern for slaves from tentative initial actions by a handful of activists to the development of a fully fledged mass movement in Britain. Includes a brief appendix discussion on the much contested birthplace of the former slave and writer Olaudah Equiano. Index, bib, source notes, app, b/w illus & photographs, 467pp, UK. MACMILLAN DISTRIBUTION.

The use of forced labour in British colonies led to a revived anti slavery campaign in Edwardian Britain. The author links the work of these abolitionists to the twentieth century development of a political and philosophical language of human rights. Case studies examine the Congo Reform Campaign, Chinese slavery in South Africa, and the Cadbury Brothers and slavery in Portuguese West Africa. Index, bib, notes, apps, maps, b/w illus, xii, 223pp, USA. ROUTLEDGE.

A study bringing together the most important strands of current thinking on the relationship between slavery and categories of writing, oratory and the visual culture in the 'long' eighteenth century. The book begins by examining writing about slavery and race by philosophers and by authors such as Aphra Behn. It also considers self representation in the worked of Ignatius Sancho, Olaudah Equiano, James Williams and Mary Prince. BNS, 256pp, UK. PALGRAVE/MACMILLAN, 1403946470

New in paperback. Explores the personalities and the issues behind the movement to abolish first the slave trade and later the condition of slavery. When the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed in 1787, the trade was at its height, with slave-grown goods flowing around the world and personal wealth accumulating for those who were involved in the trade. Within twenty years the abolitionists had achieved their aim. It is a dramatic story, with opposition from expected and unexpected quarters and internal squabbling and falling-out. MP William Wilberforce brought in a Private Member's Bill for the abolition for the abolition of the slave trade every year for eighteen years, but it was the movement on the ground that turned public opinion. Index, bib, notes, b/w illus, 256pp, UK. SUTTON PUBLISHING.

In 1833 John Herschel sailed from London to Cape Town to undertake an astronomical exploration of the southern heavens and a terrestrial exploration of the area around Cape Town. The author describes the important political and scientific significance of this voyage to the imperial ambitions of Britain and links scientific practice to broader aspects of imperial culture and politics in the nineteenth century. Index, bib, app, notes, b/w illus, xxix, 229pp, UK. ASHGATE PUBLISHERS, 0754635589

Contemporary correspondence and accounts that portray the king as a blood-thirsty slaver. 227pp, UK. STATIONARY OFFICE.

An Apprenticed Labourer in Jamaica. This book brings back into print, for the first time since the 1830s, a text that was central to the transatlantic campaign to fully abolish slavery in Britain's colonies. James Williams, an eighteen-year-old 'apprentice' (former slave) came to Britain in 1837 at the instigation of the abolitionist Joseph Sturge. The Narrative he produced there, one of very few autobiographical texts by Caribbean slaves or former slaves, became one of the most powerful abolitionist tools for effecting the immediate end to the system of apprenticeship that had replaced slavery. Illus., figs, bib, index. lxiii, 141pp. USA. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Now in paperback. Set against the backdrop of the American Revolution and its aftermath, this is the epic of the struggle for freedom by tens of thousands of slaves who believed that their future as free men and women was bound up with staying British, not becoming American. Follows the odyssey of the escaped blacks into the fires of the war, the terror of potential recapture at the war's end, and into inhospitable Nova Scotia where thousands who had served the Crown were betrayed in their promises to receive land. Index, bib, notes, col & b/w illus, 500pp, UK. BBC.

This book tries to speak simply and clearly, through fragments of historical memory, of the trade in Africans across the Middle Passage. The authors' objective is to find and show small truths from the historical archives. They - two descendants of survivors- urge further thought upon a past that will make for a better future. Chapter One rehearses the structure and conduct of the trade in African people (presented in more details in a companion volume Trading Souls) and details the resistance of Africans to capture, sale and transportation. Chapters Two to Four trace the abolition movement that involved black and white, enslaved and free, male and female, Christian and non-Christian activists. Chapter Five rehearses the legacies of the 1807 Act; and the two appendices reproduce the final abolition documents. Bib, B/w illus, 138pp, JAMAICA. IAN RANDLE PUBLISHERS.

A comparative study of the gradual transformation, reform and attempted abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century in two zones of European African interaction: French Senegal and the British Gold Coast. The author shows how alliances between colonial officials, company agents and slave owning elites effectively slowed and undermined serious attempts to reform slave holdings and though slavery was outlawed in both territories, emancipation occurred only in isolated cases. Getz also discusses how slaves themselves forged a role in determining the terms of their own liberation. Index, bib, notes, map, xix, 257pp, USA. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS.

Arranged geographically, these 1,600 annotated bibliographical entries describe printed source material on the post emancipation history of former slave owning societies and the effects of urbanization and immigration during this transitional period. 432pp, USA. PITTSBURGH U P.