We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
As the end of the eighteenth century approached, Britain experienced many changes in power and prestige: the American colonies had broken away; the philosophy of expansionism and imperial domination was being attacked from within and without, and the primacy of the British fleet and trade organizations was fast becoming a thing of the past. All of these factors, and others, forced a mood of re-evaluation upon the British government and people. Throughout the empire and its colonies the discussion of the merits and morality of the slave trade, for example, reached previously unheard of proportions, as the newly-rediscovered sciences of free-trade economics, moral philosophy, and cultivation technology turned towards the examination of slavery. Nowhere was this more active and adamant than in the Scottish university cities, which had become the centers of intellectual and scientific thought and practice. Thus it is no surprise to find this thematic focus upon the newly strengthened and emboldened Scottish stage. One manifestation was Archibald MacLaren's The Negro Slaves, a play in which can be found the seeds and fruits of the Scottish Enlightenment as it relates to the British abolitionist movement, the economic shift in overseas trade, and the overall milieu of colonial perception.
1 Sandiford, Keith A., Measuring the Moment: Strategies of Protest in Eighteenth-Century Afro-English Writing (Canbury, NJ: Associated UP, 1988), 18Google Scholar.
2 Ibid., 23.
3 Walvin, James, England, Slaves and Freedom, 1776–1838 (Jackson, MS: UP of Mississippi, 1986), 114–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Hont, Istvan and Ignatieff, Michael ed., Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983), 71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Walvin, 78.
6 Sandiford, 45–6.
7 Ibid., 47, 51.
8 Tobin, Terence, Plays by Scots 1660–1800 (Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1974), 44Google Scholar.
9 Ibid., 21–46.
10 Ibid., 63–4.
11 Ibid., 64.
12 Hook, Andrew, 1660–1800, Vol. 2 of The History of Scottish Literature, 4 vols. (Aberdeen: Aberdeen UP, 1987), 203Google Scholar.
13 Tobin, 66–7.
14 Dibdin, James C., The Annals of the Edinburgh Stage with an Account of the Rise and Progress of Dramatic Writing in Scotland (Edinburgh: Richard Cameron, 1888), 232–240Google Scholar.
15 Fiske, Roger, English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986), 111–112Google Scholar.
16 MacLaren, Archibald, The Negro Slaves, Three Centuries of the Drama: English 1751–1800. (NY: Readex Microprint, 1953), 1–4Google Scholar.
17 Ibid., 5–6.
18 Ibid., 6–7.
19 Ibid., 11.
20 Ibid., 9.
21 Ibid., 11–12.
22 Ibid., 14–15.
23 Ibid., 15–16.
24 Ibid., 20–21.
25 Ibid., 23.
26 Ibid., 23.
27 Ibid., 6.
28 Ibid., 31.
29 Ibid., 9.
30 Ibid., 10.
31 Ibid.
32 Fryer, Peter, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (London and Sydney: Pluto, 1984) 2Google Scholar.
33 Ibid., 2–4.
34 Ibid., 27–31.
35 Sandiford, 21.
36 Fryer, 76.
37 Shyllon, Folarin, Black People in Britain 1555–1833 (London: Oxford UP, 1977), 26Google Scholar.
38 Conolly, L. W., The Censorship of English Drama 1737–1824 (San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1974), 95Google Scholar
39 Shyllon, 204.
