This book investigates the legacies of British slavery beyond Britain, focusing upon the colonisation of Australia and New Zealand, and explores why this history has been overlooked.
After August 1833, when the British Parliament abolished slavery in the British Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape, the former slave-owners were paid compensation for the loss of their 'property'. New research has begun to show that many beneficiaries had ties to other parts of the British Empire, including the settler colonies of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Through a range of case studies, contributors to this collection trace the movement of people, goods, capital, and practices from the Caribbean to the new Australasian settler colonies. Chapters consider a range of places, people and themes to reveal the varied ways that slavery continued to shape imperial relationships, economic networks, and racial labour regimes after 1833.
Edited by:
Zoë Laidlaw,
Jane Lydon (Wesfarmers Chair in Australian History)
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 19mm
Weight: 626g
ISBN: 9781526184818
ISBN 10: 1526184818
Series: Studies in Imperialism
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 31 March 2026
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Foreword: The silence of slavery – Yarning about freedom in my family Carol Dowling Introduction: Australian and New Zealand legacies of slavery Zoë Laidlaw and Jane Lydon 1 Profession and patrimony: Australian colonial governors and British slavery, 1788–1901 Zoë Laidlaw 2 Slavery, manumission and abolition in the life of Lachlan Macquarie Annemarie McLaren 3 Slavery and the foundation of the Swan River colony: The Stirling, Mangles and Prinsep families Aoife Nugent 4 Measuring Noah’s ark: Western Australian legacies of British slavery Jane Lydon and Xavier Reader 5 Landed families, intergenerational wealth and the creation of a ‘pastoral interest’ in Western Australia, 1830–50 Jeremy Martens 6 Slavery and South Australia’s colonisation: Resituating George Fife Angas Nikita Vanderbyl 7 Transatlantic slavery, trans-Tasman mobility and Indigenous history in New Zealand Angela McCarthy and Angela Wanhalla 8 Blackness and slavery in the aftermath of abolition: The case of South Sea Islanders in Australia Emma Christopher 9 The ‘common practice of kidnapping and slavery’: Recovering the hidden history of pearling in Northern Australia Malcolm Allbrook 10 Legacies of British slave ownership: Imperial reach and the reconfiguration of labour regimes Keith McClelland 11 Legacies of a colonial past: Slaves, convicts, free workers and the Australian commons Hamish Maxwell-Stewart -- .
Zoe Laidlaw is Professor of History at the University of Melbourne. Jane Lydon is Professor of History at the University of Western Australia.
