ABSTRACT
The critical concept of difference has been a productive driving force of the theory of race and slavery in the past twenty years. The difference (from class) approach has yielded studies of slavery that have intelligently expanded our understanding of both the politics of representation and the practices of slavery. At the same time, however, we have lost the contemporary texture that made an abstract concept of slavery familiar to Britons because it intersected with their own experiences and beliefs as servants, laborers, or masters. 1 Many of us in English departments have let languish the joined imaginative and material histories of British workers—black, white, brown, and all shades in between—as we have pursued separate interests in issues regarding class and slavery. Given the tendency of the difference paradigm to downplay or even ignore the imbrication of class and slavery, it is worthwhile revisiting the depiction of domestic servants as well as agricultural and industrial laborers in light of slaves to understand the intertwined cultural histories of those populations.
