 Monday 19 May, 10:45 - 18:00, King’s Manor, K/122 - Huntingdon Room This is free to attend, but please register here by 11 May as places are limited.  Program:
10:45 Sandrine Bergès, University of York and Bilkent University. Welcome and introducing the project 11:00 Sam Rickless, UC San Diego, on behalf of Esraa Wasel (UCSD) and himself. Does Mary Astell Think that Marriage is a Form of Slavery? Abstract: In Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Mary Astell issues a famous challenge: “If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves?” This comment has occasioned a debate over whether Astell thinks that marriage is a form of slavery. Some (e.g., Joan Kinnaird and Patricia Springborg) argue that Astell’s comment is rhetorical or ironic, a subversive stratagem designed to expose to ridicule the tenets of contractarian liberalism. Others (e.g., Jacqueline Broad) argue that Astell adopts Locke’s account of slavery as the state of subjection to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown arbitrary will of another, and that in this sense wives are indeed the slaves of their husbands, and wrongfully so. In contradistinction to both of these interpretations, we argue that, according to Astell, there are two kinds of slavery, bodily and mental; that a wife is, by divine institution and hence permissibly, the bodily slave of her husband; and that, although mental slavery would indeed be wrongful, it is, by the very nature of the case, impossible for a wife to be her husband’s mental slave. Chair: Sandrine Bergès 12:15 lunch 13:30 Bianca Monteleone, University of Rome La Sapienza Loving In/As a Condition of Unfreedom: Mary Wollstonecraft on Women’s Affective Slavery In describing and criticising the condition of women, Mary Wollstonecraft makes extensive use of the language of slavery: women appear enslaved to their bodies, their impulses, their husbands, social customs, and reputations—rendered slaves by the education and institutions that confine them to domestic life. Interpretations differ regarding the origins and significance of Wollstonecraft’s use of this terminology: some, such as Moira Ferguson, argue that it was shaped by abolitionist discourse and the slave uprisings in the colonies, while others - including Lena Halldenius and Carol Howard - emphasise instead the influence of republican and Protestant theological traditions, in which slavery is conceived either as subjection to arbitrary power or as moral corruption and complicity in one’s own oppression. This paper adopts the latter approach, arguing that Wollstonecraft uses the term “slavery” to denote a condition of subjugation in which individuals come to embrace their own chains and to reproduce the circumstances of their oppression. Such a condition is common to all institutionalised forms of domination and finds one of its primary means of reproduction in the affective sphere—particularly in love. Central to this reading is the claim that, in Wollstonecraft’s thought, female character and subjectivity are shaped by forms of love deformed by unjust relations of power. By placing her work in dialogue with contemporary feminist theories of intersectional domination, the paper argues that it is precisely in her analysis of moral slavery that Wollstonecraft articulates the most radical features of her psychology of oppression. Chair: Sarah Hutton 14:45 break 15:00 Alan Coffee, King’s College London Harriet Jacobs, Sexual Violence and Feminist Republicanism In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs challenges two longstanding and widespread misnomers about republican theory. The first is that we should be reluctant to read historical women into this tradition because it has been written exclusively by men and from a masculine perspective. The second is the influential belief that only those who are willing to defend their own, and the collective, freedom even in the face of death are deserving of citizenship. In so doing, I argue, Jacobs lays the foundations for a distinctively feminist republicanism. To demonstrate this, I contrast her framing of the republican paradigm in her narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl with Frederick Douglass’s well-known account of his fight with the overseer, Covey. Whereas Douglass’s story highlights a lone individual staring down and overcoming an imminent and unjust threat to his life, marking his psychological transition from wretched slave to worthy freeman, Jacobs presents a much more nuanced account of the relationships both amongst slaves and between enslaved and free people. Freedom for Jacobs always entails support from and concern for others, particularly her own children. A second distinctive aspect of her account is the ever-present threat of sexual violence uppermost in the minds of female slaves. Chair: James Clarke 16:15 break 16:30 Roundtable led by Sarah Hutton (University of York), Mary Fairclough (University of York), Sandrine Bergès (University of York and Bilkent University): Reflecting on the ways authors used slavery in 17th to 19th century. Each participant will briefly present their thoughts on the topics raised in the talks and then the discussion will be open to the room. This workshop is organized by the department of philosophy at the University of York and funded by a British Academy Global Professorship Program 2023, Award (GP23\100202).
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On 28 January 2025, I went down to London from York to renew my British Library card (after the November 2023 cyber attack, all cards became invalid). I wanted to look up a manuscript that would help establish the connections I was looking for between the French and English abolitionist societies of the late eighteenth century. I had found a footnote in Vincent Carretta’s book on Olaudah Equiano, suggesting that the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (SEAST) had advised a French correspondent to attempt to create a similar society in France, (Chapter 11, loc 4767, footnote 46). So, hopeful, I took a train down to London, renewed my card, and went up to the Manuscripts room to order what I wanted. I did not in fact know what it was I wanted – all I had was a manuscript number and a date. The helpful reference desk librarian informed me that this was a ‘volume 1’ and that it would be ready in just over an hour. So down I went to meet my friend and celebrity blogger Eric for lunch in the Members’s café. Then I went back down to the cloakroom, as I had not sufficiently filled my British Library transparent bag for the day, and up again to the second floor, to pick up my manuscript. Here is what I found:
The first image is the cover of minutes book, a weather-beaten leather cover, with a gold embossed title 'Fair minute book'. The second image reads (in Clarkson's handwriting): ‘This book records the proceeding so the Committee from its formation on the 22 of May 1787 to Feby 26. 1788.’ The third, in beautiful rounded and large handwriting that is typical of the entire manuscript describes the purpose and composition of the new Committee for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade: May 22 1787 Aside from Clarkson, Granville Sharp and Philip Sansom, who were Anglicans, the members were all quakers. They met, after business hours, at the book and printshop of James Phillips, at number 2 George Yard. Phillips is also the printer who published Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative, two years later. Thomas Clarkson, while one of the founding members, was not often present at the meetings. When he gave the book to a friend for safekeeping in the 80s, he made a note of the pages he himself had written.
Most of the Society’s activity seems to be reading letters, deciding how to respond to them, deciding what to print and in what quantity, who to send books to, receiving money from donors and sending money to Clarkson so he and Falconbridge can gather evidence.
Although the minutes make the meetings sound rather sedate – and as they were attended mostly by quakers, they would have been sober and serious occasions – the correspondence they engaged in was of seditious potential, as they not only gathered support from England for their work, but encouraged other countries to do work towards the abolition of the trade. There are correspondents in Philadelphia (a Quaker foothold) about the funding of such societies, and about efforts at educating previously enslaved people.
There are also two separate correspondents in France. The first is Brissot (together with Etienne Claviere, Swiss banker, and later French revolutionary) who founded the Societe des Amis des Noirs, in February 1788. The second is the Marquis de Lafayette, who wished to encourage SEAST and assure them that similar efforts were being made in France, so that France and England would, together, set an example by abolishing the slave trade, that other countries in Europe would then have to follow. Watch this space for more! Following my last post, I've been doing more research into abolitionism in York, especially that centred on Castlegate, the street where the Tuke family lived, and where Equiano stayed. And I found that another abolitionist author visited the Tukes.  John Wollman, a Quaker from Philadelphia wrote a two-part essay entitled Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negros published in 1754, 1762. This was an abolitionist text which contained some insightful responses to outright racist, or lukewarm defenses of abolitionism common at the time. He argued that at least some of the enslaved were quite capable of taking charge of their own lives, but that even if they were not, this could not be grounds for their enslavement. This was a radical argument which Condorcet, for instance, would have benefitted from reading when he argued in 1781, that abolition could only happen (excruciatingly) slowly because the enslaved were not fit to live independent lives. Woolman was, as well as a sound thinker, a principled person, and this somewhat interfered with his desire to travel and spread the word of abolitionism. He did not travel by horse, as he thought that horse riding, or using horses to draw carriages was a form of cruelty against animals, which he did not accept. And his egalitarian principles meant he rejected any comfort that came from privilege. When he travelled to England in 1772, he decided to travel in steerage, not in a cabin, in order to experience an approximation of what kidnapped Africans had when transported across the ocean. His adherence to Quaker principles of equality also meant he did not wish to travel in better conditions than others simply because he could afford it. He travelled first to London, where he shared his enthusiasm for abolition with the London Friends. Then he went North, reaching York on foot. He was met by 17-year-old Henry Tuke, to be taken as a guest to the Tuke’s house on Castlegate – the same house where Equiano stayed twenty years later. But, perhaps because he was already sick, Woolman could not bear the noises and smells of the city so Esther Tuke arranged for him to stay instead just outside the York city walls, in the home of Thomas and Sarah Priestman, in Marygate. Offered the best room in the house, Wollman turned it down and picked for himself the smallest one. Three weeks later, he died in that room, of smallpox, nursed by Esther and her daughter Sarah. Despite his very short stay there, Wollman seems to have been a catalyst for the Tuke’s interest in abolitionism. Ann Tuke, Esther’s daughter, who was only 5 at the time of Woolman’s visit, traveled to America in 1791 to witness firsthand the evils of slavery.  Almary Garth, the home of the Priestmans, where Woolman died. Some References:
https://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/62/john-woolman https://yorkcivictrust.co.uk/heritage/civic-trust-plaques/john-woolman/ Julia Jorati, Slavery and Race. Philosophical Debates in the Eighteenth Century OUP, 2024. The Tukes of York, Presented by William K. and E. Margaret Sessions. 1971. Sessions Book Trust. The Ebor Press, York, England. In 1791, the celebrity abolitionist author known as Gustavus Vassa and Olaudah Equiano, having supervised the printing of the third edition of his 1789 Interesting Narrative, set off on a book tour in England, Ireland and Scotland. He spent the spring of 1791 in Yorkshire, staying first in Huddersfield, then Leeds, and finally York. He stayed with friends of friends, subscribers to his book, and members of the abolitionist networks. In York, Equiano stayed with Quaker William Tuke in a house on Castlegate. We know as much because Equiano advertised the fact in the Yorkshire Chronicle, on 24 April. As a self-published author, who had chosen to retain his copyright, Equiano did much of his own selling, so needed people to find him.  Screenshot from Vincent Carretta's Penguin Edition of The Interesting Narrative, p.570. Although he does not give the house number, it is likely that the inhabitants of York would have known where Tuke’s house was, or found it easily. Tuke was a grocer who sold tea, coffee and chocolate, and Castlegate is a very small street. The building still stands, and currently houses a dental clinic.  No1 Castlegate, York. Previously house of William Tuke, Tea Merchant and Philanthropist.
Welcome to my new blog!
Before I add any content, I wanted to pay tribute to the beautiful location for my research. As well as having access to everything the University of York has to offer, including the amazing King's Manor library, the city of York has plenty of useful and beautiful resources. This week I'll be mostly working in the Explore Library and Archives, a lovely big building located in the Museum Gardens, home to Medieval buildings and a ruined abbey. I will be looking up local history relevant to my project - lots of abolitionists spent time in York - and spending my breaks (weather allowing) sketching old stones and pretty trees in the garden. So watch this space for posts on Olaudah Equiano and on the Fairfax family of York in the coming weeks. |
Recovering Marginalised Voices of the Abolitionist Debates.Between September 2024, and August 2028, I will be British Academy Global Professor at the University of York. My project is to study the abolionist debates of France and Britain in the 18th century, and in particular, to uncover marginalised voices from that debate. Here I blog about what I find out in the process. Archives
April 2025
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