Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/3361
Date of Award
6-2026
Degree Name
MA in History
Department/Program
History
College
College of Liberal Arts
Advisor
Matthew Hopper
Advisor Department
History
Advisor College
College of Liberal Arts
Abstract
This thesis examines the relationship between British antislavery, imperial law, and labor management in the western Indian Ocean during the first half of the nineteenth century. Centered on the 1821 capture and condemnation of the slave schooner Industry by HMS Menai, the study employs a microhistorical methodology to reconstruct the legal and administrative processes that governed the lives of Africans seized from slave ships after their liberation. Drawing upon Vice-Admiralty Court records, Colonial Office correspondence, naval logbooks, and administrative registers from The National Archives (UK) and the Mauritius Archives, the thesis follows the transition of captive Africans from maritime interception to judicial adjudication, bureaucratic registration, and colonial labor allocation.
The study argues that British antislavery in the Indian Ocean did not simply suppress the slave trade or secure freedom for those it liberated. Instead, it created a system of imperial governance that transformed enslaved Africans into legally regulated colonial subjects through maritime jurisdiction, Vice-Admiralty adjudication, and state-directed labor redistribution. Africans condemned as “liberated Africans” were assigned to apprenticeship schemes, military service, engineering labor, domestic work, and other forms of colonial employment that often limited mobility and autonomy while serving the labor needs of the British Empire.
By shifting analytical attention from naval suppression and diplomatic treaties to the lived aftermath of liberation, this thesis challenges narratives that portray abolition as a straightforward humanitarian achievement. Situating the experiences of liberated Africans within broader scholarship on humanitarian intervention, imperial law, and labor coercion, it demonstrates that abolition frequently reorganized rather than eliminated systems of unfreedom. In doing so, the study contributes to the growing historiography of the Indian Ocean world by revealing how British antislavery generated a legally managed African diaspora shaped by maritime enforcement, colonial labor demand, and imperial authority.
Baker-Koob Endowment Required Final Report
Included in
African History Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Diplomatic History Commons, European History Commons, Legal Commons