Eighty-Eight Years: The Long Death of Slavery in the United States, 1777–1865

The U.S. took “far longer” to abolish slavery than did any other New World society, asserts Bowdoin College historian Rael as he examines this process through a temporally long and spatially broad framework in this meticulously researched study. The 88 years of the title signal the beginning and end points of the American struggle against slavery, from 1777, when “Vermont wrote slavery out of its constitution,” to 1865, when Congress ratified the 13th Amendment, abolishing the practice in perpetuity. Rael emphasizes the extent to which the American experience was unique and what it shared with other slaveholding societies of the Americas. While some elements of this story, particularly the rise of popular abolitionism in the 1830s, are likely to be familiar, Rael illuminates the revolutionary and early national context from which these events arose, showing how the new nation struggled to “preserve the privileges of racial caste... in a land where all men were alleged to have been created equal.” By examining forms of pro- and anti-slavery activism from multiple perspectives, and by focusing attention on the slaves as well as those who advocated on their behalf, Rael adds detail and nuance to a story with which readers might have believed themselves already well acquainted. Illus. [em](Aug.) [/em]