Freedom's Horizon - (America in the Nineteenth Century) by Isadora Moura Mota (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This book is a transnational history of black abolitionism in Brazil. In the last country to abolish slavery in the Western Hemisphere, enslaved and free Africans and their descendants crafted their visions of liberation by thinking comparatively about the uneven spread of abolition across the Atlantic world. Between the 1840s and 1860s, they acted on the idea that the end of slavery anywhere placed freedom on the horizon in Brazil. Thus, they pursued alliances with British diplomats, rose in arms at the sight of both Union and Confederate warships off Brazil's Atlantic coast, sought free soil at foreign consulates, on ships, and in maroon settlements (called quilombos), and organized uprisings for immediate abolition after learning of international emancipation struggles in the newspapers. This book shows that through flight, marronage, rebellion, and literacy practices, enslaved and freedpeoples developed a geopolitical imagination in dialogue with the British campaign against the slave trade (banned in Brazil in 1850), French antislavery, the Haitian Revolution, the U.S. Civil War, and the Triple Alliance War in South America. This book shows that abolitionism was more than just the cause of North Atlantic reformers, Latin American modernizing elites, or middle class advocates. It was a grassroots movement originating in the social and conceptual worlds of the enslaved and connected to a hemispheric black radical tradition"--Publisher's description.

Book Synopsis

A social and transnational history of black abolitionism in Brazil

Freedom's Horizon is a transnational history of black abolitionism in Brazil. In the last country to abolish slavery in the Western Hemisphere, enslaved and free Africans and their descendants crafted their visions of liberation by thinking comparatively about the uneven spread of abolition across the Atlantic world. Between the 1840s and 1860s, they acted on the idea that the end of slavery anywhere placed freedom on the horizon in Brazil. Thus, they pursued alliances with British diplomats; rose in arms at the sight of both Union and Confederate warships off Brazil's Atlantic coast; sought free soil at foreign consulates, on ships, and in maroon settlements (called quilombos); and organized uprisings for immediate abolition after learning of international emancipation struggles in the newspapers.

Isadora Moura Mota shows that through flight, marronage, rebellion, and literacy practices, enslaved and freed peoples in Brazil developed a geopolitical imagination in dialogue with the British campaign against the slave trade (banned in Brazil in 1850), French antislavery, the Haitian Revolution, the US Civil War, and the Triple Alliance War (1865-1870) in South America. Traditionally, historical research has focused on the 1870s and 1880s, when abolition emerged as Brazil's first national mass political movement, ultimately leading to the outlawing of slavery in 1888. By turning attention to earlier decades and to the role of literacy in the associational lives of afro-Brazilians, Freedom's Horizon reveals that abolitionism was more than just the cause of North Atlantic reformers, Latin American modernizing elites, or middle-class advocates. It was a grassroots movement that originated in the social and conceptual worlds of the enslaved and connected to a hemispheric black radical tradition.

Review Quotes

"Freedom's Horizon demonstrates that no balanced view of slavery and emancipation in the Atlantic can be reached without probing the political views and actions of the slaves themselves, and how they influenced the process of slavery's demise internationally. Its publication will be a major contribution to the history of slavery in the Americas, Atlantic history, the history of the slave trade, and the history of the American Civil War in its international repercussions."-- "Sidney Chalhoub, Harvard University"

"Freedom's Horizon expands our understanding of global abolitionism, locating Brazil--and its enslaved insurgents--as a central node in international movements for Black freedom. This outstanding book is a must-read not just for historians of Brazil but also for scholars of US and Atlantic slavery."-- "Caitlin Fitz, Northwestern University"

"Freedom's Horizon captures the transnational dynamics shaping Atlantic slavery and abolition, putting Brazil, Britain, and the United States in simultaneous focus. Mota's fascinating narrative weaves together rich archival material to show readers how involved in and relevant to the process of abolition enslaved and free people of African descent were in nineteenth-century Brazil. This is an important book that will contribute to historiographies on the abolition of slavery in Brazil; hemispheric and Atlantic antislavery diplomacy; the African diaspora; Black political literacy and consciousness; slavery and the public sphere."-- "Marcela Echeverri, Yale University"

About the Author

Isadora Moura Mota is Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University.