This chapter explores the transformation of British responses to slavery during the 1830s through the writing of Frances Trollope. In this decade, Britons declared the abolition of colonial slavery as proof of their superior morals and impeccable manners. Trollope’s travel narrative Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832) and anti-slavery novel Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw (1838) participated in the reconstruction of racism as a peculiarly American form of bad manners. Although Black women are virtually absent from Domestic Manners, Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw is notable for its range of Black female characters and its frank exploration of the sexual exploitation to which enslaved women were subjected. Trollope’s belated acknowledgement of the gendered effects of enslavement reflects the sensational impact of the publication of The History of Mary Prince (1831). Trollope reveals a historic kinship and complicity between Great Britain and the United States as slaveholding nations. The reception of Prince’s History among British abolitionists who did not want to acknowledge this complicity demonstrated how well-intentioned good manners could function as a form of racism.

Vagrants abound in the writings of British travellers who visited antebellum America. This chapter focuses on the representation of three of these vagrant figures. First, the pauper immigrant, a figure whose mobility was vigorously contested by British and American commentators. For the British these immigrants belong to the deserving poor – their rootlessness was temporary and incidental; for the Americans they were often perceived as undeserving vagrants and a potential financial burden. Second, the American Indian, a figure who was frequently compared to the English Gypsy, and whose nomadism was often repositioned as vagrancy and a sign of their impending extinction. And third, the American vagabond, a vagrant and anarchic figure who was represented as a lawless reprobate living on the frontiers. These three figures were interpreted using a range of representational strategies that were current in Britain, and together they demonstrate the flexibility of vagrant discourses – their ability to circulate globally as well as locally. Among other writers, this chapter examines the works of Frances Trollope, Harriet Martineau and Charles Dickens.