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

"Black Ghost of Empire is an excellent book that deals with 500 years of Atlantic slavery and the unfinished and brutal business of the so-called emancipation. In the public discourse and the historical record of, let’s say, Britain, we pride ourselves on the fact that we were the first nations to abolish slavery. Kris Manjapra looks at this narrative of the liberal British Empire and the benevolence of its administrators and leaders, who imposed abolition in their colonies first, and then policed the oceans to stop slavery, especially from Africa to the Caribbean and South America, etc. Manjapra looks at historical evidence in many locations to show that this myth of emancipation has prolonged slavery. It has replaced the old slavery with a new kind of slavery, although it wasn’t called slavery after abolition. He invokes a powerful symbol, that of the void, mainly that after slavery was abolished, there was nothing to worry about; it was all fine. He also assesses the significance of the reparations—the millions of pounds that went from the British taxpayer to the slave owners in Britain and the colonies. I was shocked to learn that the financial bond that the British government had put in place at the time was fully paid only in 2015! The author combines his academic knowledge with activism, and this is another significant dimension of this book. He is calling, in a subtle way, for reparations to the nations who had suffered as a result of slavery—not only slavery in its classical form, but also slavery in other, later forms. He explains why the abolitionist movement started in Britain. Is it because people were good, and they had a moment of awakening? Or are there any other reasons behind this drive to abolish slavery? He looks at the flourishing of new ideas of capitalism related to mining in different parts of the world, for example, in Australia, towards the end of the 19th century, and in South Africa, whereby the plantations of the Caribbean became second in importance to the gold and diamond mining that was promised in other territories. In order to move labour, which was slave labour, from the plantations to other parts of the world, slavery was abolished and replaced by indentured labour. New towns were created in Africa, for example, in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Freetown, in that part of the world, was founded for slaves who were caught by the British abolitionist ships in order to be freed. In fact, freed slaves were shipped to Freetown and put in camps where they were forced to do slavery-type work. He looks at these networks and connections dating back to the 18th century that created yet another form of slavery. The author looks at the Black diaspora of the time. We are not here in front of a passive victim or victimhood on the part of the Black population that was transported and settled in places such as North America, the Caribbean, and South America. He looks at their networks, and the conferences they organised. Freed slaves in the United States held conferences in London to bring the Black diaspora together and deal with the aftermath of abolition. I think this book is extremely relevant to understanding Black activism, abolitionists’ ideology, and what replaced it. The conclusion of the book invites us to rethink this idea of a benevolent British intervention to abolish slavery at a time when, probably, people thought that it was goodwill and moral imperative that drove the abolitionist movement in Britain."