Jubilee's Experiment

The British West Indies and American Abolitionism

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Dexter J. Gabriel's Jubilee's Experiment is a thorough examination of how the emancipated British Caribbean colonies entered into the debates over abolition and African American citizenship in the US from the 1830s through the 1860s. It analyzes this public discourse, created by black and white abolitionists, and African Americans more generally in antebellum America, as both propaganda and rhetoric. Simultaneously, Gabriel interweaves the lived experiences of former slaves in the West Indies – their daily acts of resistance and struggles for greater freedoms – to further augment but complicate this debate. An important and timely intervention, Jubilee's Experiment argues that the measured success of former slaves in the West Indies became a crucial focal point in the struggle against slavery in antebellum North America.

• Highlights how American abolitionism was not just a domestic movement, but one with broader roots and ties to the Anglo-Atlantic
• Reveals how former slaves in the West Indies influenced social and political discourse from within and beyond the colonial sphere
• Provides a new understanding of slavery and abolition from a transnational perspective