Scotland’s response to slavery and British colonialism was marked by the same degree of ambiguity and complexity as emerged in almost every aspect of its post-Union relationship with England. There is no denying that between the middle of the eighteenth century and the opening of the nineteenth, Scotland’s national wealth grew substantially as a direct result of the increasing trading links with what had been the English colonies. The fact that the economies of the West Indies and the tobacco-producing colonies in America were slavery-based proved no deterrent. Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, on the other hand, were among those in the later eighteenth century raising the issue of slavery, contributing in a major way to the rise of the movement in England campaigning for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade. Enlightenment and Romantic Scottish literature records this equivocal reaction to British colonialism. In particular the stage becomes a favourite place for dramatizing the power relations, social conflicts and moral prejudices generated by the colonial enterprise. Archibald Maclaren’s The Negro Slaves (1799), a ballad opera set in the West Indies, focuses on the relationship between the educated Christian slave Quako and his owner, the English Captain Racoon, to show how power relations are often based on preconceived notions in matters of morality and race. It is not by chance that the pivotal character is McSympathy, a Scottish raisonneur, a friend to all and virtuous outsider who acts as a mediator between opposite positions. This unbiased individual, speaking in a kind of Scots dialect, is the spokesman for the anti-imperialistic values that popular Scottish theatre – in this case the ballad opera – endorsed during the time of the slavery debate. The brutal and ignorant slave-holder, Captain Racoon, embodies the general anti-abolitionist idea of the time that slaves had to be denied any form of education which might bring them to a realisation of their inhuman condition. Quako and McSympathy are his antagonists, especially the latter—perhaps a stage version of Francis Hutcheson, and a spokesman for the author himself-- who intends to show how the philosophy of the moral sense should be applied to all of humanity. It is significant that, within ten years of the publication of The Negro Slaves, the British slave trade was abolished.

Debating Colonialism and Black Slavery on the Scottish Stage: Archibald Maclaren’s The Negro Slaves (1799) / Angeletti, Gioia. - STAMPA. - (2010), pp. 59-85.

Debating Colonialism and Black Slavery on the Scottish Stage: Archibald Maclaren’s The Negro Slaves (1799)

ANGELETTI, Gioia
2010-01-01

Abstract

Scotland’s response to slavery and British colonialism was marked by the same degree of ambiguity and complexity as emerged in almost every aspect of its post-Union relationship with England. There is no denying that between the middle of the eighteenth century and the opening of the nineteenth, Scotland’s national wealth grew substantially as a direct result of the increasing trading links with what had been the English colonies. The fact that the economies of the West Indies and the tobacco-producing colonies in America were slavery-based proved no deterrent. Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, on the other hand, were among those in the later eighteenth century raising the issue of slavery, contributing in a major way to the rise of the movement in England campaigning for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade. Enlightenment and Romantic Scottish literature records this equivocal reaction to British colonialism. In particular the stage becomes a favourite place for dramatizing the power relations, social conflicts and moral prejudices generated by the colonial enterprise. Archibald Maclaren’s The Negro Slaves (1799), a ballad opera set in the West Indies, focuses on the relationship between the educated Christian slave Quako and his owner, the English Captain Racoon, to show how power relations are often based on preconceived notions in matters of morality and race. It is not by chance that the pivotal character is McSympathy, a Scottish raisonneur, a friend to all and virtuous outsider who acts as a mediator between opposite positions. This unbiased individual, speaking in a kind of Scots dialect, is the spokesman for the anti-imperialistic values that popular Scottish theatre – in this case the ballad opera – endorsed during the time of the slavery debate. The brutal and ignorant slave-holder, Captain Racoon, embodies the general anti-abolitionist idea of the time that slaves had to be denied any form of education which might bring them to a realisation of their inhuman condition. Quako and McSympathy are his antagonists, especially the latter—perhaps a stage version of Francis Hutcheson, and a spokesman for the author himself-- who intends to show how the philosophy of the moral sense should be applied to all of humanity. It is significant that, within ten years of the publication of The Negro Slaves, the British slave trade was abolished.
2010
9788878473195
Debating Colonialism and Black Slavery on the Scottish Stage: Archibald Maclaren’s The Negro Slaves (1799) / Angeletti, Gioia. - STAMPA. - (2010), pp. 59-85.
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11381/2305195
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact