Jubilee''s Experiment - The British West Indies and American Abolitionism

Dexter J. Gabriel's Jubilee's Experiment is a thorough examination of how the emancipated British Caribbean colonies entered into the debates over abolition and African American citizenship in the US from the 1830s through the 1860s. It analyzes this public discourse, created by black and white abolitionists, and African Americans more generally in antebellum America, as both propaganda and rhetoric. Simultaneously, Gabriel interweaves the lived experiences of former slaves in the West Indies - their daily acts of resistance and struggles for greater freedoms - to further augment but complicate this debate. An important and timely intervention, Jubilee's Experiment argues that the measured success of former slaves in the West Indies became a crucial focal point in the struggle against slavery in antebellum North America.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. The anxieties of emancipation; 2. Fears of British emancipation in America; 3. The benefits of free labor; 4. The problems of apprenticeship; 5. The experiment and its challenges; 6. Reform and the experiment; 7. African Americans and British emancipation; 8. A West Indian Jubilee in America; Epilogue.

About the author

Dexter J. Gabriel is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Conneticut, Storrs. His research interests include the history of slavery, resistance, emancipation, and transnational freedom movements in the Black Atlantic, as well as interdisciplinary approaches to slavery within popular film, culture, and media.

Product details

• Authors: Dexter J. Gabriel, Dexter J. (University of Connecticut Gabriel
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 31.10.2025
• EAN: 9781108969840
• ISBN: 978-1-108-96984-0
• No. of pages: 364
• Series: Slaveries since Emancipation
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; European History, HISTORY / General, Caribbean islands, General & world history, c 1500 onwards to present day, Colonialism and imperialism, History of the Americas, Relating to African American / Black American people, Relating to people of the African diasporas / heritage, Slavery, enslaved persons and abolition of slavery