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“HOW CAN I LIBERATE THE SLAVES?” THE NEGLECTED TRADITION OF DEVELOPMENTAL ABOLITIONISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2023

Abel B. S. Gaiya Open the ORCID record for Abel B. S. Gaiya [Opens in a new window]
Abel B. S. Gaiya*
Affiliation:
Abel B. S. Gaiya: Clean Technology Hub, Abuja, Nigeria.
*
E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The abolition of slavery in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a long process. In terms of the economic views of abolitionists, there has been an excessive focus on the economic ideas of liberal abolitionists and their approach to “Civilization, Christianity, and Commerce.” However, there was a “developmental abolitionism” that has received little attention. Afro-American Martin R. Delany and Liberian James S. Payne were writers who approached abolitionism through this developmentalism. They favored more interventionist measures aimed at building the material power and national autonomy of Black nations to undercut the power of slave-using African chiefs, to provide indigenous Africans with employment, and to undermine the profitability of slave-based cotton production in the Americas. They also implicitly and indirectly approached labor scarcity with solutions ranging from promoting labor-saving technology to cultivating national prosperity that would improve emigration to Africa or increase birth rates.

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Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , December 2023 , pp. 539 - 558
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the History of Economics Society

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Footnotes

I thank two anonymous referees and the editors of the Journal of the History of Economic Thought. All errors are mine.

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