Subject to Others (Routledge Revivals): British Women Writers and Colonial Slavery, 1670-1834

Moira Ferguson

Aug. 2014 · Routledge

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First published in 1992, Subject to Others considers the intersection between late seventeenth- to early nineteenth-century British female writers and the colonial debate surrounding slavery and abolition. Beginning with an overview that sets the discussion in context, Moira Ferguson then chronicles writings by Anglo-Saxon women and one African-Caribbean ex-slave woman, from between 1670 and 1834, on the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of slaves. Through studying the writings of around thirty women in total, Ferguson concludes that white British women, as a result of their class position, religious affiliation and evolving conceptions of sexual difference, constructed a colonial discourse about Africans in general and slaves in particular. Crucially, the feminist propensity to align with anti-slavery activism helped to secure the political self-liberation of white British women.

A fascinating and detailed text, this volume will be of particular interest to undergraduate students researching colonial British female writers, early feminist discourse, and the anti-slavery debate.