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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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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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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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