Transatlantic Trade and the Coastal Area of Pre-Liberia

Transatlantic trade affected the coastal area of West Africa that became Liberia in 1822. The impact of that trade has confused historians of the region, particularly the social and economic effects the trade had on the Vai, Kru, Glebo, and other ethnic groups. Before the arrival of Europeans in the fifteenth century, coastal pre-Liberia had been affected by internal and external social dynamics. The Mande, Mel, and Kwa were the first linguistic groups to reside in the region. The earliest home of the Mande has been traced to the area north of the Niger River, but there is disagreement as to the origins of the Mel and Kwa. All three linguistic groups contributed to population growth. Indeed, such Mel-speaking ethnic groups as the Kissi and Gola, and such Kwa-speakers as the Dei, Bassa, Kran, Kru, and Glebo came to pre-Liberia in about 988 A.D. The Mande-speaking groups, including the Mende, Bandi, Loma, and Vai, settled long after the other two linguistic groups had moved there. The Vai, isolated from other Mande-speakers for over two thousand years, reached the coastal area in the sixteenth century.¹     

Transatlantic working-class institutions

This paper investigates the migration of English and Irish textile workers from Lancashire, England to Fall River, Massachusetts. Historians have traditionally focused on migration and immigrants in terms of the image of the deracinated peasants. This paper looks at the influence of the industrial experience in Europe before migration on the culture and institutions of industrial migrants and the impact of that experience and those institutions on the American industrial city. These migrants brought with them institutions and a consciousness which were forged in Europe and which directly affected the American setting. By looking at the interactions between Fall River and Lancashire and the functioning of the formal and informal institutions of the working class of Fall River the paper will analyse the transatlantic nature of the working-class experience.     

Transatlantic financiers and the Civil War

This essay examines the sympathies and actions of transatlantic financiers in Britain during the Civil War. Motivated largely by their financial and ideological connection to the Northern states, major Anglo‐American banks sympathized with the Union and campaigned to keep Britain out of the conflict. Unable to procure the support of Britain's leading banking houses, the Confederacy turned to lesser capitalists and speculators for financial assistance. By highlighting Britain's economic links to the Northern states and pointing to the potential dangers of meddling in the conflict, financiers in the City of London provided statesmen in the Westminster Parliament with a powerful justification for the policy of neutrality.     

The Supreme Court and the Interstate Slave Trade: A Study in Evasion, Anarchy, and Extremism

Opponents of slavery often argued that the federal government possessed the constitutional authority to outlaw the interstate slave trade. At its founding in 1833, the American Anti‐Slavery Society declared that Congress “has a right, and is solemnly bound, to suppress the domestic slave trade between the several States.” The idea had been endorsed earlier, during the Missouri controversy of 1819–1820, by both John Jay and Daniel Webster. Later on, in the 1840s and 1850s, it was supported by such prominent politicians as John Quincy Adams, Salmon P. Chase, and Charles Sumner. Defenders of slavery were, of course, horrified by the suggestion that the South's peculiar institution might be attacked in this way, and they vehemently denied that the Constitution permitted any such action. The prolonged debate over the issue focused on two key provisions of the Constitution. One was the Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3), which says that Congress has the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” The other was the 1808 Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 1), which says that the “Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight.” Abolitionists held that the Constitution sanctioned congressional interference in the domestic slave trade both generally, by virtue of the Commerce Clause, and specifically, by virtue of the 1808 Clause. They argued that since slaves were routinely bought and sold, they obviously were articles of commerce, and therefore Congress had unlimited authority over interstate slave trafficking. Furthermore, they said, the words “migration or importation” in the 1808 Clause meant that as of January 1, 1808 Congress had acquired the right not only to ban the importation of slaves, but also to prohibit their migration from one state to another. Defenders of slavery replied that Congress could not interfere in property rights and that the power to regulate commerce did not include the power to destroy it. They also said that the word “migration” in the 1808 Clause referred, not to the domestic movement of slaves, but to the entry into the United States of white immigrants from abroad. ¹     

Transatlantic intelligence and security cooperation

Despite recent advances in transatlantic intelligence and security cooperation, significant problems remain. The bombings in Madrid in March 2004 have demonstrated how terrorists and criminals can continue to exploit the limits of hesitant or partial exchange to dangerous effect. Intelligence and security cooperation remain problematic because of the fundamental tension between an increasingly networked world, which is ideal terrain for the new religious terrorism, and highly compartmentalized national intelligence gathering. If cooperation is to improve, we require a better mutual understanding about the relationship between privacy and security to help us decide what sort of intelligence should be shared. This is a higher priority than building elaborate new structures. While most practical problems of intelligence exchange are ultimately resolvable, the challenge of agreeing what the intelligence means in broad terms is even more problematic. The last section of this article argues that shared NATO intelligence estimates would be difficult to achieve and of doubtful value.     

Historical Archaeology and the Slave Ship

This introduction explores the relationship between maritime archaeology and the historical archaeology of the African Diaspora, and discusses the structure and content of this special issue of IJHA, which marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade in 2007.