Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Chattel Slavery and Wage Slavery: The Anglo-American Context, 1830-1860

Chattel Slavery and Wage Slavery: The Anglo-American Context, 1830-1860

Cunliffe, Marcus

Paperback

Series: Mercer University Lamar Memorial Lectures, Book 22

Labor19th Century United States HistoryBritish History

ISBN10: 0820332410
ISBN13: 9780820332413
Publisher: Univ Of Georgia Pr
Published: May 1 2008
Pages: 152
Weight: 0.44
Height: 0.35 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

This book begins with a provocative paradox: George Fitzhugh of Virginia, one of the most eloquent defenders of Southern chattel slavery, appealed to a New York abolitionist for support. How can this be? The abolitionist in question, Charles Edwards Lester, had confessed that he would sooner subject his child to Southern slavery, than have him to be a free laborer of England. Lester was in fact referring to the white or wage slavery of the mother country.

In a three part study, Cunliffe explores the context of chattel and wage slavery in Britain and the United States. He first outlines the evolution of the concept of wage slavery in Europe and the United States, demonstrating how this concept bore upon opinions about chattel slavery in America.

In his second section, Cunliffe discusses the precariousness of Anglo-American relationships during the period of 1830 to 1860. In their resentment of British rebukes aimed at the persistence of slavery in a democracy, Americans retaliated by claiming that British wage slavery was worse than American plantation slavery.

Cunliffe concludes by charting the career of Lester, the seemingly atypical New York abolitionist. Lester displayed a conviction that Britain was a corrupt and brutal society, most of whose leading citizens detested America. Cunliffe maintains that Lester's opinions were shared by many of his countrymen during the antebellum decades; in this sense he may have been more truly representative of American attitudes than either Southerners like Fitzhugh or Northerner abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison.

Also in

Labor

View All