African-British Writings in the Eighteenth Century: The Politics of Race and ReasonThe eighteenth century was a time of great cultural change in Britain. It was a period marked by expeditions to the New World, Africa, and the Orient, and these voyages were reflected in the travel literature of the era. It was also a period in which seventeenth-century empiricism and the scientific method became dominant, and in which society became increasingly secular. Fundamental to the eighteenth-century worldview was the notion of the Great Chain of Being, in which all creatures and their Creator stood in a hierarchical relationship with one another. The years from 1660 to 1833 witnessed both Britain's participation in slavery and the appropriation of the Great Chain of Being by social anthropologists and political leaders. With the rise of the slave trade, blacks were brought to Britain against their will, where they were enslaved. At the same time, intellectuals of the period tried to place these slaves within the hierarchical frame provided by the Great Chain of Being. |
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... slavery involved Indians . In a chapter entitled " Battle for the Coast , " Basil Davidson ( The African Slave Trade : Precolonial History , 1450-1850 [ Boston : Little , Brown , 1961 ] ) chron- icles the commercial shipping companies ...
... slaves on English soil had been documented in the sixteenth century but before England officially took over the slave trade from Portugal in the seventeenth century . See Edward Fiddes , " Lord Mansfield and the Somersett Case , " Law ...
... slave narratives , including those of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs ( Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl , 1861 ) make caustic remarks about the concept that indicate its unfor- tunate durability , though they do not all ...
Contents
Enlightenment Humanism | 1 |
Perspectives on a Theological Chain | 31 |
Conclusion | 149 |
Copyright | |
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African-British Writings in the Eighteenth Century: The Politics of Race and ... Helena Woodard No preview available - 1999 |