Thomas Fowell Buxton, M.P. (1786 1845) was a philanthropist who had many connections with the Quaker movement through the family of his wife, who was the sister of Henry Gurney and Elizabeth Fry. He was a passionate opponent of slavery, and campaigned to end it at a time when most British people believed that enough had been done by the abolition of British slave trading in 1807. The Remedy, first published in 1840, called on the government to do more to assist African development, so that African chiefs' participation in the trade would be reduced. Many African rulers believed that slavery...

Bryan Edwards (1743 1800) was a wealthy West Indian planter, politician and historian. He vigorously opposed the abolition of the slave trade, since the sugar industry relied heavily on it. An Historical Survey of the French Colony in the Island of St. Domingo was published in 1797. St Domingo (now Haiti) had been one of the most prosperous West Indian economies, producing more sugar and coffee than all the British West Indies combined. The harsh treatment of the slaves under the French code noir led to a widespread revolt in 1791, in part inspired by the French Revolution. An alliance...

This 1823 work is an important source for the study of the slave economy and agriculture in the West Indies.

William Gifford Palgrave (1826 1888) was a renowned traveller and Arabic scholar. After graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1846 he received a lieutenant's commission in the 8th Bombay Regiment of native infantry, but he converted to Roman Catholicism, and settled in Syria as a missionary in 1855, during which time he travelled across Arabia. After renouncing Catholicism in 1865, he began a career with the British foreign service, working in several positions in the Far East. This volume, first published in 1876, contains Palgrave's account of his visit to Dutch Guiana, now the...

The husband of Maria, Lady Nugent (1771 1834) was Governor of Jamaica from 1801 to 1806. Her diaries were not written for publication, and therefore offer a valuable and frank record of people and situations she met with in Jamaica. They were published privately after her death, and are here reproduced from the 1907 edition. The Jamaica diary covers a period of uncertainty in the West Indies due to the Napoleonic Wars. While generally avoiding politics, she comments on colonial society and planter life. Her initial view of slaves altered as rumours of uprisings made her fear for her young...

Born in Jamaica, Robert Charles Dallas (1754 1824) was prolific author in a variety of genres, dedicating all of his work to 'the defence of society and reason against Jacobinism and confusion', having been forced to leave his residence in France by the Revolution. Despite 'an ardent tendency in my heart to disapprove the slave-trade', The History of the Maroons, published in 1803, offered a qualified acceptance of the institution of slavery in a fallen world, and addressed criticisms of planters' behaviour and the government's conduct against the rebellious Jamaican Maroons - runaway slaves...

Born in Jamaica, Robert Charles Dallas (1754 1824) was prolific author in a variety of genres, dedicating all of his work to 'the defence of society and reason against Jacobinism and confusion', having been forced to leave his residence in France by the Revolution. Despite 'an ardent tendency in my heart to disapprove the slave-trade', The History of the Maroons, published in 1803, offered a qualified acceptance of the institution of slavery in a fallen world, and addressed criticisms of planters' behaviour and the government's conduct against the rebellious Jamaican Maroons - runaway slaves...

Sir Fortunatus Dwarris (1786 1860) was an English barrister, civil servant and abolitionist. After graduating from University College, Oxford, in 1808 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1811. In 1823 Dwarris was appointed a commissioner for an Imperial Commission of Inquiry on the state of legal and slave codes of the self-governing colonies of the British West Indies. This detailed volume, first published in 1827, contains three reports summarising the Commission's findings and recommendations. Focusing on the islands of Barbados, Tobago, Dominica, and Antigua, this volume...

John Elliot Cairnes (1823 1875) was one of the leading economists of his day, holding professorships at Trinity College Dublin, University College, Galway, and University College, London. He gained an international reputation with The Slave Power, first published in 1862, and enlarged and reissued the following year. His analysis of the economic and social system of the Confederate states in America did much to influence British support for the Union in the United States' Civil War. He argued that the course of history was influenced most of all by economic causes. Although he had begun his...

Matthew 'Monk' Lewis (1775 1818) is best known as a writer of plays and 'Gothic' novels such as The Monk (from which he acquired his nickname). On the death of his father in 1812, he inherited a large fortune, including estates in Jamaica. He spent four months there in 1815, during which time much of this Journal of a West India Proprietor was written. He became interested in the condition of the slaves on his estates, and on returning to England made contact with William Wilberforce and other abolitionists. The improvements he made on his own estates were unpopular with other landholders,...