'The Blacks Are Also Human': Africans and African Caribbeans and the Abolition of the Danish Slave Trade: 1732-1804

Abstract

In March 1792, the small Kingdom of Denmark-Norway became the first European power to formally announce the abolition of its slave trade. This thesis examines the part played by by African and African Caribbean people in this decision. The discussion focuses on key turning points in the history of Danish slavery including the St. John rebellion, the arrival of the Moravian Church, the Crown takeover of the West India Company and the slave trade commission. Through various modes of adaption and resistance African Caribbeans shaped these events and took advantage of them in new and creative ways. Within limits, they were able to challenge their position, create new communities, earn positions of leadership, blur racial lines, make claims, maintain links to their African cultural heritage and even become literate. These actions did not operate in a vacuum but helped to awaken a broadening consciousness. They helped force decision makers in the Danish West Indies and Copenhagen to rethink how slavery was operating. Ultimately, this awakening culminated in the final decision to ban the trade under the Danish flag. The existing histories of abolition have focused on various economic, moral and trans-imperial reasons for the abolition of the trade. These approaches are all important in explaining the decision. None, however, sufficiently address the role of African and African Caribbeans in the event. As such, they have remained not only passive but silent within the history of what was a pivotal moment in the history of abolitionism and slavery. In this dissertation, Africans are moved out of the shadows of Danish abolition history. They were, within strict limits, co-authors of their destiny, who were able to directly shape the institution of slavery in the Danish West Indies playing an important, albeit subtle, role in the final decision to abolish the Danish Slave trade.