Political Slavery and Oriental Despotism from Haiti to Bengal

Abstract

This chapter builds on the critique of the Atlantic world paradigm initiated in the previous chapters. It begins in Haiti, where revolutionary leaders like Jean-Jacques Dessalines opposed not only chattel slavery but also “political slavery,” or subjection to the absolute rule of a foreign conqueror — namely, colonialism. From classical antiquity through the Age of Revolutions, political slavery was associated with Asia and Oriental despotism. This helps explain why eighteenth-century writers ubiquitously associated slavery with India even while they denied that actual chattel slavery was practiced there. The chapter traces the circuit of political slavery and Oriental despotism's global travels, around the world and in the “world” of metropolitan print.