Free at Last? Reflections on Freedom and the Abolition of the British Transatlantic Slave Trade

The global commemorative events of 2007 that marked the bicentennial anniversary of the parliamentary abolition of the African slave trade provided opportunity for widespread discussion between politicians, community groups, museums and heritage organisations, the clergy, and scholars, as to the meanings of colonial and post-colonial freedom. As was evident from the tensions emerging from those debates, the subject of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery remains highly charged, as does the extent to which its legacy of racism, predicated on theoretical assumptions of European cultural, social, political and economic superiority, continues to maintain and reproduce complex systems of inequalities between peoples and societies. Free at Last? is an edited collection of interdisciplinary perspectives that critically reflects on the struggles of enslaved peoples and anti-slavery activists to effect the abolition of the British slave trade, as well as the post-abolition global legacies of those diverse struggles for equality. The chapters bring together multiple narratives and discourses about the British abolition to reflect critically and comparatively on: the boundaries between slavery and freedom; the contestations and championing of freedom; and the legacies of slavery and abolition in the contemporary context.