Slavery's Long Goodbye

"This marvellous account of British and American entanglements in slavery ranges far beyond the standard spatial and temporal parameters. Evans expertly weaves together personal, family and political connections across the Atlantic and deep into Africa and the Americas, tracing the changing contours of the British Empire as it adapted to a post-‘emancipation’ world. Required reading for students of British, imperial and world history."Alan Lester, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Sussex and Adjunct Professor of History, La Trobe University

"Chris Evans's 'Slavery's Long Goodbye' is a monumental achievement that definitively shatters the illusion of a swift and clean British break from transatlantic slavery. By meticulously detailing the Grenfell family's sprawling enterprises—most notably the horrifying industrial exploitation of enslaved Africans and Chinese indentured labourers at the El Cobre copper mines in Cuba—Evans reveals how British capital continued to ruthlessly extract wealth from bonded labour long after 1834. This is an indispensable, deeply researched history that redefines our understanding of capitalism, nationalism, and coercion in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world." Dr Jesús Sanjurjo, FRHistS, Lecturer and Chancellor's Fellow in Atlantic World Historyz, University of Strathclyde

"Britain’s nineteenth-century exit from African slavery was of world-historical significance, but it was never as tidy or complete as its celebrants have insisted. As Chris Evans shows in this insightful book, slavery’s end witnessed substantial ambivalence, if not backsliding, on the part of British politicians, investors, clergymen, and the public alike. Distilling the ironies of abolition through the lives of three members of the Grenfell family, Evans takes us on a globe-trotting adventure from Cornwall to Cuba, from Oxford to Mozambique, and from London to Kentucky. Evans embeds biography in the broadest trajectories of cultural, political, and economic change, patiently providing readers with context and comparison. Clear-eyed but not polemical, Slavery’s Long Goodbye is the work of a talented historian who insists that we jettison mythology and recognize that the past in its full complexity." Seth Rockman, George L. Littlefield Professor of American History, Brown University, and author of Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery

“Through this globe-spanning history of the Grenfell family, Chris Evans brilliantly reveals the complex realities of Britain’s drawn-out campaign to abolish slavery and slave trading. Abolition did not, Evans shows, halt Britain’s entanglement with slavery, as families like the Grenfells sought new opportunities to profit from unfree labour inside and outside the British Empire. This is an important new book that will revolutionize our understanding of Britain’s difficult relationship with slavery in the nineteenth century.” Dr. Nicholas Radburn, Lancaster University