ABSTRACT
Abolitionist writings of the mid-nineteenth century made much of the ironies evident in the contrast between Britain and the United States. Britain, a monarchy, had abolished slavery in its colonies in 1833, while in the United States, a republic, the “peculiar institution” continued to thrive in the South. But even in the North the free black population faced the kinds of systematic discrimination and prejudice that were virtually unheard of in Europe. This is evident especially in the accounts of African American travelers who crossed the Atlantic in the 1840s and ‘50s.
