A key pro-slavery polemic

Alexander Barclay (c.1780–after 1833).

A practical view of the present state of slavery in the West Indies; or, an examination of Mr Stephen’s Slavery of the British West India Colonies: containing more particularly an account of the actual condition of the negroes of Jamaica: with observations on the decrease of slaves since abolition of the slave trade, and on the probable effects of legislative emancipation: also strictures on the Edinburgh Review, and on the pamphlets of Mr Cooper and Mr Bicknell.

London, 1828.

8°. XXXI + 490pp.

Original blind stamped and gold-tooled cloth.

               Expanded edition of Barclay’s Practical View, a pro-slavery treatise defending the plantation system in Jamaica against abolitionist critiques. This 1828 third edition is considerably expanded with an appendix containing documents on the disallowed Jamaica Act of 1826, the resolutions of the Wesleyan missionaries, the riot at St. Ann’s Bay, and extracts from the Haitian Code Rural, all situating his arguments within the most urgent colonial debates of the day. Drawing on over twenty years’ experience as an overseer in Jamaica, Barclay professes not to justify slavery itself but to “correct misrepresentations” made by James Stephen and other abolitionists. He provides detailed accounts of plantation management, legal protections, punishment, property rights, and religious instruction, while repeatedly warning of the “fatal consequences of premature emancipation.” Contrasting what he presents as the prosperity of Jamaica with the decline of post-revolutionary Haiti, Barclay insists that freedom must come only gradually, after sufficient “progress towards refinement,” and argues that British planters had been caricatured and unjustly maligned in metropolitan debates. The work remains a key pro-slavery polemic, illustrating how colonial interests sought to influence public opinion in the years immediately preceding abolition.

Condition: Corners slightly worn. Date in pencil at foot of title. Stamp of Charles Brodeur in top margin of p. XV. Minor foxing. Otherwise in good condition.

Reference: Sabin 3352.