Some Principal Aspects of British Efforts to Crush The African Slave Trade, 1807-1929

1950 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 505-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Hazen Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
International Law ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Prime Mover ◽  
African Slave ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
Involuntary Servitude

One function of the British Foreign Office has been to promote the universal abolition of slavery, the slave trade, and analogous forms of involuntary servitude. It has been said that “International co-operation for the suppression of the African slave trade was one of the most significant developments of the nineteenth century.” If this is so, it should not be a superfluous task to consider the legal aspects of the principal methods which the prime mover, Great Britain, employed to achieve this effect. The literature of international law contains excellent material on certain features of the problem, but little material on the most productive and decisive phases of the policy. The object of this article is to show what those phases were, without dealing with their political side any more than seems absolutely necessary for clarity.

Drake's Fake: A Curiosity Concerning a Spurious Visit to Asante in 1839

1984 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 223-236
Author(s):  
T. C. McCaskie
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Present Note ◽  
West African ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
African Slave ◽  
Slave Traders ◽  
Intellectual Interest ◽  
Unusual Occurrence

A wholly fraudulent source is an unusual occurrence in historical research. What is much more common and of much more intellectual interest is the discovery of a source that skilfully combines spurious invention with some regard for accuracy and convincing detail. This second kind of source is of course very familiar to historians of Africa, and the present note deals with a document of this type that, among other things, purports to offer a brief first-hand account of life in Kumase in 1839. I am chiefly concerned hare with the accuracy or inaccuracy of this piece of reportage; and--unusually for precolonial Africa--the document presently under review can be directly compared with a number of other precisely contemporary written accounts of life in Kumase.In his pioneering work published over thirty years ago on the suppression of the illicit nineteenth-century slave trade from Africa, Christopher Lloyd remarked on the paucity of first-hand accounts authored by slave traders. He also offered a number of judicious observations respecting the veracity or reliability of such accounts of this type as did exist. In his treatment of the workings of the illegal West African slave trade, Lloyd relied very heavily on one of the annotated editions of the memoirs of Théodore Canot (alias Théophile Conneau). Canot or Conneau is justly famous, and in the intervening years since the appearance of Lloyd's book this important source has become something of an exegetical industry among historians of West Africa.

The Career of Sir Eyre Crowe: A Reassessment

1972 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 193-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Cosgrove
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
First World War ◽  
Evil Spirit ◽  
Prime Mover ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Policy ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
First World

Among the myths of the origins of World War I is that of the ability of obscure bureaucrats to influence the foreign policy of their country through intrigue and deceit. The foremost example in the volumious literature involved the unlimited capacity for evil attributed to Friedrich von Holstein of the German Foreign Office. One of his contemporaries left the. following portrait: “His life was devoted to poisoning human and international relationships. Holstein's diplomacy by intrigue, his vicious disloyalties, and the way he placed his own revengeful purposes before his country's good contributed largely towards the outbreak of the First World War.” Labeled the Grey Eminence of the Wilhelmstrasse in the aftermath of defeat, Holstein became the scapegoat for the disasters of German diplomacy in 1914.Other bureaucrats of the pre-war era whose careers followed a similar pattern have received like treatment. On the British side, it was asserted, there operated a civil servant whose anti-German animus steered Britain into conflict with Germany. Allegedly possessing a fatal fascination for Sir Edward Grey, Sir Eyre Crowe was credited by historians with enormous surreptitious influence. The hostility toward Germany manifested by Great Britain in the decade prior to 1914, the argument runs, reflected Crowe's personal hatred and suspicion of German power. “The vast influence exercised by Sir Eyre Crowe upon British policy between 1908 and 1914,” wrote the distinguished Austrian historian A. F. Pribram in 1951, “only became generally known outside the Foreign Office, and especially abroad, in recent years.” Apologists for Germany cited Crowe as the prime mover of British policy, and one German historian termed him the ‘böse Geist’ [evil spirit] of the British Foreign Office.

Humanitäre Intervention und internationale Gerichtsbarkeit – Verflechtung militärischer und juristischer Implementierungsmaßnahmen zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts

2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Klose
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Unique Combination ◽  
International Jurisdiction ◽  
Transatlantic Slave Trade ◽  
In The Beginning

Abstract The origins of the phenomena of international jurisdiction and humanitarian intervention can already be found in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The article combines both topics and shows that these two concepts are directly related to one another. Beginning with the international ban of the slave trade in 1815 the analysis focuses on the corresponding implementation machinery created under the leadership of Great Britain. This machinery consisted of a hitherto unique combination of military and juridical measures which were directly dependent on each other. The main argument of the article is that the geneses of the concept of international jurisdiction and humanitarian intervention are significantly entangled with each other and both of their origins lie in the fight against the transatlantic slave trade in the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Great Britain and Russia on the Way to Restoring Diplomatic Relations (1720–1731)

2021 ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Tatyana Labutina
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Trade Volume ◽  
Historical Science ◽  
Significant Damage ◽  
Military Conflicts ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
The Russian Empire

The article deals with the process of restoring diplomatic relations between Great Britain and Russia in the first third of the 18th century. England was the first country with which Russia established diplomatic relations 465 years ago. During this time, the countries have passed a difficult and thorny path of interaction. Often there were open military conflicts between them, and sometimes it simply came to the severance of diplomatic relations. One of these events occurred in the reign of Peter I on 14 December in 1720 year. Although diplomatic relations were interrupted, trade between the states continued to develop. The trade volume was reduced due to political tensions, which caused significant damage to the economy of England. In this regard, the British began to take active steps to establish diplomatic relations. The analysis of the correspondence between two British diplomats, T. Ward and C. Rondeau, and the Secretary of State of Great Britain, first undertaken in historical science, the author concludes that it was England that initiated the restoration of diplomatic relations, primarily to strengthen the position of the English merchants in Russia. The analysis of the ambassadors' dispatches gives valuable insights as to the strategy and tactics of the British Foreign Office in relation to Russia during the reign of Anna Ioannovna, as well as the motives that guided the diplomats involved in the preparatory process of establishing relations between the countries. The correspondence of the diplomats provides an opportunity to get acquainted with both their official and “secret” intelligence activities, which allows the author identify the true intentions of British diplomacy: to comprehensively study a potential rival which the British imagined Russia to be. It is also of great interest to learn more about how their mission went, what impressions they got from their visit to our country, what assessments they made about the top officials in the administration of the Russian Empire, as well as about the Russian people in general.

scholarly journals Theorizing a More-than-Human Diplomacy: Assembling the British Foreign Office, 1839-1874

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Dittmer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
The World ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
New States ◽  
British Foreign Office

This article emphasizes the more-than-human nature of foreign policy formation and diplomatic practice, as found in an examination of nineteenth-century Parliament Select Committee testimony regarding the intersection of everyday bureaucratic practice and the material context of the British Foreign Office. These records indicate both how the changing world of diplomacy at this time (including new states and communication technologies) materially impacted the Foreign Office, as well as the affective atmosphere experienced by its employees, through an excess of paper. Debates over how the new Foreign Office ought to be built reveal concerns about the circulation of paper, bodies, light and air in a drive for efficiency. These historical materialities speak to our understanding of contemporary changes occurring within the world of diplomacy, including the rise of digital technologies and the new skills needed among diplomats, as well as inform our understanding of the exercise of power within assemblages.

Great Britain, France, and the Ethiopian Tripartite Treaty of 1906

1981 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 364-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward C. Keefer
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Good Faith ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Unfinished Business ◽  
General Satisfaction ◽  
The Third ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Object Lesson ◽  
British Foreign Office

In assessing the events which brought Great Britain and France from the edge of war at Fashoda in 1898 to the alliance of 1914, scholars have paid little attention to the settlement of Anglo-French differences in the independent African empire of Ethiopia. The resolution of Ethiopian problems in 1906 was nonetheless important in forging close Anglo-French relations, especially when viewed within the context of the better-known Entente Cordiale of 1904. By excluding Anglo-French conflicting Ethiopian interests from the already difficult entente negotiations, British and French statesmen removed a potential stumbling block to that important and seminal agreement. In a more positive vein, the subsequent signing of a separate Tripartite Treaty on Ethiopia—the Italians were the third signatory—actively reinforced the Entente Cordiale itself. To the French the Ethiopian agreement was a confirmation of British good faith in implementing the spirit of the entente beyond areas specified in the more important accord of 1904. To the British it was an object lesson that certain imperial interests in Ethiopia should not jeopardize generally improving relations with France. To both countries the Tripartite Treaty of 1906 tidied unfinished business of the entente and eliminated to each nation's general satisfaction a nagging local conflict.French Foreign Minister Theophile Delcassé had wanted to include Ethiopia in the entente agreement. During the course of the negotiations he suggested to his English counterpart Lord Lansdowne a “comprehensive settlement” of colonial-imperial differences. While individuals in the British Foreign Office considered adding Ethiopia to the larger rapprochement over Egypt and Morocco, the British cabinet decided to postpone Ethiopian matters until after conclusion of the Entente Cordiale. In good part this decision reflected respect for the complexity of strategic, financial, and personal rivalries of the two great imperial powers in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

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