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British Antislavery, 1833-1870by Howard Temperley

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Page 1: British Antislavery, 1833-1870by Howard Temperley

North Carolina Office of Archives and History

British Antislavery, 1833-1870 by Howard TemperleyReview by: James L. GodfreyThe North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 50, No. 2 (April, 1973), pp. 222-223Published by: North Carolina Office of Archives and HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23528973 .

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Page 2: British Antislavery, 1833-1870by Howard Temperley

222 Book Reviews

a fleeting reference to him is made on one page of the text. Surely in a book on

the Jacksonian age Polk merits equal billing with Martin Van Buren. Secondly, Remini gives Jackson himself the credit for the accomplishments of the 1830s;

but when he laments the Indian removal policy or the lack of interest in behalf

of blacks, the author attributes such failings to the Jacksonians, not to Jackson. He thus places the guilt upon collective shoulders and the praise upon the dy namic president—Andrew Jackson.

These caveats aside, Remini presents an impressive book filled with excellent

primary materials and a thoughtful essay. Professors and students alike will

benefit from it.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Paul H. Bergeron

British Antislavery, 1833-1870. By Howard Temperley. (Columbia: University of

South Carolina Press, 1972. Preface, introduction, epilogue, appendixes, notes,

bibliography, index. Pp. xvii, 298. $12.95.)

There has been no dearth of writings on slavery, but Temperley has chosen

for himself an area that is sparsely occupied by scholarly works. British by birth

and through most of his education, he has selected the British antislavery move

ment from 1833 to 1870 as the subject of concern—that is from the Emanci

pation of the Slaves Act to the point when English humanitarians were turn

ing their attentions more and more to slavery within Africa itself. Of this

period he has made a vivid story that contributes much to the bibliography on

slavery and should be of special interest to American readers who, through their

concern with the domestic issues of slavery, all too seldom get a chance to see

that institution in its broader scope. The backbone of the study is found very largely in the English antislavery

societies, which were numerous. Using these as the core, the author constructs

the work around a structure of topics and periods. The device introduces order in

to complexity and yields a narrative that carries the reader along at a good pace.

Style never hurts but in this instance proves a blessing since the author's skill in

the felicitous use of words eases the reader's journey immeasurably. All in all, the book is both scholarly and enjoyable—a union of virtues too seldom achieved.

Temperley begins with a discussion of the British reaction to the emancipa tion of the slaves in all territory under the British crown in 1833. In a sense the book starts with the most dramatic episode of the period and then slides off to the preoccupation of antislavery zealots with the existence of slavery in

other areas, of which the most important were the United States, Brazil, and Cuba. One might expect the book to suffer from this lessening of moral tension but many of those who opposed slavery could maintain their fervor at fever

pitch so long as the heinous practice of slavery continued anywhere. Through

THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

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Page 3: British Antislavery, 1833-1870by Howard Temperley

Book Reviews 223

their societies—the most important and enduring was the British and Foreign

Anti-Slavery Society—they tried to organize British opinion against slavery in

foreign places and did their best to influence the British government to put

pressure on other governments to bring the practice to an end.

The author draws his information from the minutes and reports of the societies

as well as the rich store of published works. The research was diligent, the

organization skillful, and the result excellent.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

James L. Godfrey

The Booker T. Washington Papers. Edited by Louis R. Harlan and others. Volume I :

The Autobiographical Writings; Volume II: 1860-89. (Urbana: University of

Illinois Press, 1972. Volume I, introduction, illustrations, index. Pp. xl, 469. $15.00; Volume II, chronology, illustrations, introduction, notes, bibliography, index.

$15.00.)

Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856-1901. By Louis R.

Harlan. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. Preface, illustrations, notes, index. Pp. xi, 379. $10.95.)

The publication of The Booker T. Washington Papers makes available for

the first time the complete documentary records of one of the central figures of black history. The Papers also open up a wealth of social history and black

culture. Volume I contains the autobiographical writings of the president of

Tuskegee Institute. The autobiography, Up from Slavery, is by far the most

important of the autobiographical documents. It presents an image of the

author as he wished to be seen by the world, as a black version of the American

Horatio Alger success story. To a great extent it was written as a public docu

ment to promote Tuskegee Institute and encourage philanthropy "in furthering the good cause" by moving the philanthropists to endow the school. Thus it

gives a deeper insight to the purpose and objectives of Tuskegee at the turn of

the century than of Washington himself. It presents a nineteenth century

message of the Puritan work ethic and the importance of clean living and

honesty. It provided for many blacks a success model with which they could

identify, and its appeal to the universal qualities of human nature made it popu

lar with whites.

The self-image as presented in Up from Slavery reveals only the public

man—the black leader selected by white America. Washington's autobiography

does not even hint at the fact that his philosophy of industrial education was

bitterly contested by the black intellectual community as tending to keep the

Negro in menial positions and to perpetuate the caste system.

Volume II contains Washington's private papers which give a fuller and

VOLUME L. NUMBER t, APRIL, 197S

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