Ian Birrell

Abolishing slavery was no cause for smugness

With slave populations forced to pay crippling fees for freedom, emancipation prolonged, and often worsened, the injustice, Kris Manjapra argues

Howe Browne, the governor of Jamaica, who oversaw ‘the Apprenticeship’ of the island’s black population shortly after the Abolition Act. [Alamy] 
issue 18 June 2022

  • Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation

    Kris Manjapra

    Allen Lane, pp. 256, £20

When the 13 colonies of the United States declared independence in 1776, the first country to recognise the new nation was France. Other leading European powers, such as Britain and Spain, acknowledged its arrival at the Treaty of Paris, two years after a decisive victory by American forces. Yet when Haiti asserted independence in 1804, it was ostracised by Britain, France, Spain and the US.

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