BOOKMONGER
BEACONS OF LIBERTY
Book tells stories of unsung
Black freedom seekers
Despite being a Seattle-based author
and scholar, Elena K. Abbott’s work
focuses on the 19th century geopolitics
of the Atlantic realm, and in particular
the transnational iterations of antislavery
activism.
This week’s book
‘Beacons of Liberty’ by Elena K. Abbott
Cambridge University Press – 304 pp –
paperback $29.99
Abbott’s recent book, “Beacons of Lib-
erty,” shines a light on previously unsung
Black freedom seekers and their white
abolitionist allies. It also investigates sev-
eral diff erent examples of societies that
rid themselves of the institution of slavery
early in the 1800s. This instructive study
drives home the sad truth that the United
States was decades behind many other
nations in outlawing human bondage.
Abbott begins with the story of Paul
Cuff e, born in Massachusetts in the 1700s
to a Wampanoag mother and a West Afri-
can father who once had been enslaved.
But Cuff e was born free and remained
free throughout his life. He went to sea,
and eventually became a widely traveled
and wealthy ship captain.
Cuff e was intrigued with the concept of
Sierra Leone, which since 1787 had been
colonized by freed Black slaves coming
fi rst from England, and later from Nova
Scotia and Jamaica.
After outlawing its own transatlantic
slave trade in 1807, Britain made Sierra
Leone a crown colony in order to repatri-
ate liberated slaves and to quash further
slave-exporting.
Cuff e was interested not only in estab-
lishing trade relations with the colony,
but also in encouraging Black emigration
from the United States to Sierra Leone.
While he never saw widespread adop-
tion of his vision, Cuff e’s activities did
spark a longstanding conversation in the
anti-slavery movement around whether
14 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
Library of Congress
This silhouette is the only surviving verifi ed
image of abolitionist and businessman
Paul Cuff e.
the best solution for Black people in the
U.S. would be to leave and seek “free
soil” elsewhere.
Abbott traces many of the diff er-
ent organizations and movements that
sprang up in the fi rst half of the 19th
century to grapple with the dissonance
of slavery in America. The motives and
goals of these players varied widely.
Some Black proponents advocated
for manumission (granting freedom to
slaves) and the right to live as equals in
American society. Other Black activ-
ists felt that white people would never
accept Blacks on an equal footing, so
they advocated for founding their own
free-soil havens or moving to established
free-soil territories like Haiti, Canada,
Liberia or Mexico.
White abolitionists also had a range
of views. Some wanted Blacks to have
the freedom to live side by side with
whites and enjoy equal privileges with
them.
Others — for example, many in the
American Colonization Society — had
been disquieted by the rebellion that
fi nally won freedom for Blacks in Haiti.
Consequently, many of the organiza-
tion’s members wanted to proactively
purge America of Black people by ship-
ping them off to colonies in Africa and
elsewhere.
“Beacons of Liberty” points out that
while the U.S. shamefully clung to slav-
ery for two or three generations lon-
ger than its neighbors, the examples that
arose from the network of free-soil move-
ments all around the Atlantic still pro-
vided inspiration and juice for antislavery
activists’ ongoing struggle in Amer-
ica. This book places our once-junior
nation in a complex international context.
It is revelatory.
The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd
McMichael, who writes this weekly col-
umn focusing on the books, authors and
publishers of the Pacifi c Northwest. Con-
tact her at barbaralmcm@gmail.com.