Slavery and Silence: Latin America and the U.S. Slave Debate

In the years before the Civil War, it became difficult for average Americans to have frank discussions about the institution of slavery. To do so was to explore or deny its its inhumanity. To celebrate it required explaining away the nation's proclaimed belief in equality and its public promise of rights for all, while to condemn it was to insult people who might be related by ties of blood, friendship, or business, and perhaps even to threaten the very economy and political stability of the nation. For this reason, Paul D. Naish argues, Americans displaced their most provocative criticisms and darkest fears about the institution onto Latin America. In novels, diaries, correspondence, and scientific writings, he contends, the heat and bluster of the political arena was muted, and discussions of slavery staged in these venues often turned their attention south of the Rio Grande. At once familiar and foreign, Cuba, Brazil, Haiti, and the independent republics of Spanish America provided rhetorical landscapes about which everyday citizens could speak, through both outright comparisons or implicit metaphors, what might otherwise be unsayable when talking about slavery at home. Americans of many persuasions found unity in their disparagement of Latin America, creating a superficial feeling of nationalism as the country careened toward war."—Adapted from the dust jacket.