ABSTRACT
Over the course of the nineteenth century, anti-slavery (abolition) seemed to be universally triumphant. Slavery was brought to an end across the Americas and was challenged around the world by zealous British abolitionists. The most important anti-slavery organization was British, founded initially in 1787 and given new form in 1839 when it took the name the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. The British anti-slavery campaigns were critical not merely within the British Empire but globally, by pressing the anti-slavery cause on all and sundry – whether they liked it or not. In fact, anti-slavery became a key element in a cultural imperialism that characterized British foreign (and military) policy for large stretches of the nineteenth century. The British took great pride in their anti-slavery credentials and achievements and felt confident enough to lecture all other nations and peoples on the need to accord to the high abolitionist standards set by the British themselves. In the same period, however, the British were much less forthcoming about their own slaving past.
