The Shadow of Colonial Slavery at Peterloo

Abstract

This article examines how colonial slavery featured in radical discourse in Britain during the Peterloo years, c.1816-1820. In the period leading up to the massacre at St. Peter’s Field, ‘slavery’ featured in radical print culture frequently, but its meanings were imprecise and almost infinitely malleable. When the issue of colonial slavery was directly addressed, radicals espoused a range of complex positions, attacking both slave-holders and abolitionists alike. At the rally itself, colonial slavery provided an important but unspoken point of reference for reformers to articulate their grievances with complex, gendered meanings. In the aftermath of the massacre, both colonial slavery and racial thought helped to shape responses from both radicals and conservatives alike. This article argues that colonial slavery remained a ‘shadow discourse’ of the radical movement during the Peterloo years: often unacknowledged, continuously transforming, but adhering to the changing contours of the substantial demands of the movement.

Keywords

• nineteenth century
• race
• empire
• Britain
• radicalism
• Peterloo