I have long wondered about this question, and critics have analyzed it from every angle. There are no clear answers, but here’s what we do know:
- Austen wrote one black character, Miss Lambe, in the unfinished Sanditon. Miss Lambe is an heiress of mixed race from the West Indies.
- Austen read and admired the works of Thomas Clarkson and William Cowper, both abolitionists.
- In particular, Austen praised Clarkson’s History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade, a two volume account that details the brutality of the African slave trade and England’s abolitionist movement. Austen wrote, “I am as much in love with the author [Clarkson] as ever,” referring to The History.
- Three of Austen’s brothers were engaged in the abolitionist movement. Captain Charles Austen wrote of the terrible conditions endured by enslaved people aboard a ship. Henry Austen served as a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840. Frank Austen was part of the petition to the House of Commons that ended the slave trade in the West Indies.
Always Austen author Collins Hemingway has an informative post on the above points that offers more details.
Austen’s reading choices and her brothers’ views suggest she may have been sympathetic to the abolitionist movement. But what do her books say on the subject? Very little…however, two of her novels, Emma and Mansfield Park, mention the slave trade. In this post, I’d like to dive into those references.
This site is ending, so I moved this post. Click here to read the rest…and to find out about that “dead silence” in Mansfield Park.
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