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The Ending of the Slave Trade and the Evolution of European Scientific Racism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Seymour Drescher
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Extract

How might a discussion of the ending of the Atlantic slave trade in relation to the development of European racism illuminate the question of who gained and who lost? The question can be approached at three levels. The first concerns the degree to which the racial attitudes of Europeans were affected by the process of termination. The second would be how the people of Europe and of Afro-America were affected by the termination itself. The third and broadest aspect would be the long-term effects of that complex process. It seems to me that the answers become more speculative as the scope of potential impact broadens, as the discussion moves from a concern with attitudes and ideology to social conditions, as the geographical scope broadens, and as the temporal dimension to be considered expands to encompass the twentieth century. The first level, the relation of the processes of abolition to racism, is the primary focus of this paper; a few brief remarks on the second and third issues are reserved for the conclusion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , Fall 1990 , pp. 415 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1990 

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