Moses Roper: the fugitive from slavery cast aside by British abolitionists |
Moses Roper: the fugitive from slavery cast aside by British abolitionists
The Guardian
2022-02-16
Mark Brown, North of England correspondent
Historians argue Roper’s story could have helped end US slavery earlier but supporters turned on him
In his day, the 19th-century fugitive from slavery Moses Roper was a well-known public figure who toured Britain and Ireland telling gripped and shocked audiences about his horrific experiences in Florida.
Today he is largely overlooked but, two Newcastle University academics argue, the important story of this fascinating man represents a “lost opportunity” for the British abolition movement to have helped end slavery in the US earlier.
Bruce Baker, a reader in American history, said it was surprising how little attention had been paid to Roper, given he was a pioneer. “Historians haven’t really paid a lot of attention to Roper, even though he was the first fugitive slave to lecture in the cause of abolition in Britain and Ireland.”
Baker and his colleague Fionnghuala Sweeney, a reader in American and Black Atlantic Literatures, have now published a paper in an academic journal and are working on a full biography of Roper. They aim to rescue him from obscurity, painting a picture of a radical, driven man ruined by the British abolition movement that turned against him.
Roper fled enslavement in Florida in 1834 and, fearing for his safety, made his way to Britain, where he was supported by churchmen and abolitionists. They helped fund his education and in 1837 he published the first edition of his Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper from American Slavery…
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Tags: Bruce Baker, Bruce E. Baker, Fionnghuala Sweeney, Florida, Georgia, Ireland, Mark Brown, South Carolina, The Guardian