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Abolition was not an overnight success. Rather, it was a protracted process shaped by the actions of black and white abolitionists as well as of enslaved peoples. Often times, enslaved peoples would work both for their masters and as abolitionists, doing so to pursue personal and community freedom. Abolition was also not a movement with a singular process. Some activists embraced gradual emancipation, some demanded immediate equality. Others advocated for peaceful activism while white and black militants wanted to fight for black liberty (Egerton et al, 462). The end of slavery did not end the Atlantic, but it did shift the connections between Europe, Africa, and the Americas from an economy based on free labor to imperial dynamics and global processes.
Chapter 14 reminded me of the image “La Figure des Moulins a Sucre”. “La Figure…” encapsulates the social and economic justifications of slavery that would later translate into centuries of Native and African oppression and exploitation. Through the images of willing African sugar labor and smiling masters, “La Figure…” represents the economic and social driving forces of the Atlantic: consumer success through enslaved labor. Chapter 14 discusses how ridding the Atlantic of slavery is a process still incomplete. To unravel the cycle of racism and prejudice woven into the economic backbone of the Atlantic is to acknowledge the institutionalized systems of inequality and exploitation that founded Atlantic success.
In a previous post, Enrique Angulo states that “nearly every reading we have read this semester has had something to do with the economic exploitation of others or the development of the global marketplace, [and] while this is probably and accurate way to look at Atlantic History it is also incredibly depressing.” I completely agree with Angulo’s comment and and would like to point out that the history of the Atlantic is largely intertwined with the social and political history of the United States. The success of the West would not be possible without the forced labor of people of color. White civilization is built upon the skeletons of enslaved and marginalized communities, and the history of the Atlantic proves that the vast spaces of Europe and North America profited largely due to the exploitation of Native and African peoples.