Robin Blackburn on the History of Slavery and Capitalism in the Americas
Robin Blackburn in conversation with Kevin Ochieng Okoth about his new work, The Reckoning: From the Second Slavery to Abolition, 1776-1888.
How was slavery defeated in the Americas? In this interview Robin Blackburn discusses the key ideas and arguments in his new work, The Reckoning: From the Second Slavery to Abolition, 1776-1888. He is interviewed by Kevin Ochieng Okoth—a writer and researcher based in London, part of the Salvage Editorial Collective, and author of Red Africa: Reclaiming Revolutionary Black Politics.
The Reckoning traces the “Second Slavery” that surged in the US South, Cuba and Brazil after the Age of Revolution (1776–1848) destroyed the main slave regimes of the Caribbean. By 1860, more than 6 million captives of African descent toiled to produce the cotton, sugar and coffee craved by global consumers. Robin Blackburn highlights the role of abolitionism in driving Confederate slaveholders into the apparent escape-hatch of secession, and how racial oppression was later reconfigured by “Black Codes” and Jim Crow.
Robin Blackburn is the author of many works of history on slavery, including The Making of New World Slavery, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and The American Crucible. You can find all his work here.
The Reckoning: From the Second Slavery to Abolition, 1776-1888 is out now.
See also—Red Africa: Reclaiming Revolutionary Black Politics by Kevin Ochieng Okoth.
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