Why read Freedom's Debtors?

Book cover of Freedom's Debtors: British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolution

Book description

A history of the abolition of the British slave trade in Sierra Leone and how the British used its success to justify colonialism in Africa

British anti-slavery, widely seen as a great sacrifice of economic and political capital on the altar of humanitarianism, was in fact profitable, militarily useful, and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Freedom's Debtors as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Mara Kardas-Nelson

Author

I was particularly fascinated with this book because I lived in Sierra Leone for several years, and part of the book I wrote takes place there. But I think that anyone who is interested in the history of colonialism, West Africa, and/or modern capitalism and the ongoing effects of that history will find it interesting.

Sierra Leone is unique in that it was conceived of as a place for freed slaves; the British have long championed this as an example of one of their “good” colonial projects. Scanlan details how this “humanitarianism” entailed reformulating a population, particularly people’s ideas about…

From Mara's list on understand our unequal world.