Abolitionism and the Persistence of Slavery in Italian States, 1750–1850

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxv

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2. Introduction: Historiographical Perspectives

   • Giulia Bonazza

   Pages 1-43

3. The Reverberations of the Abolitionist Debate in the Italian States

   • Giulia Bonazza

   Pages 45-101

4. Forms of Slavery in the Italian States

   • Giulia Bonazza

   Pages 103-165

5. The Memory of Slavery

   • Giulia Bonazza

   Pages 167-210

6. Conclusion: Abolitionism and the Continuity of Slavery

   • Giulia Bonazza

   Pages 211-218

7. Back Matter

   Pages 219-227

   PDF

This volume offers a pioneering study of slavery in the Italian states. Documenting previously unstudied cases of slavery in six Italian cities—Naples, Caserta, Rome, Palermo, Livorno and Genoa—Giulia Bonazza investigates why slavery survived into the middle of the nineteenth century, even as the abolitionist debate raged internationally and most states had abolished it. She contextualizes these cases of residual slavery from 1750–1850, focusing on two juridical and political watersheds: after the Napoleonic period, when the Italian states (with the exception of the Papal States) adopted constitutions outlawing slavery; and after the Congress of Vienna, when diplomatic relations between the Italian states, France and Great Britain intensified and slavery was condemned in terms that covered only the Atlantic slave trade. By excavating the lives of men and women who remained in slavery after abolition, this book sheds new light on the broader Mediterranean and transatlantic dimensions ofslavery in the Italian states.

• Abolitionism in Italy
• Atlantic History
• Juridical abolitionism
• Napoleonic period
• colonial slavery
• post-Napoleonic period
• history of the slave trade in Italy
• Italian intellectual history
• congress of Vienna
• Slavery and the Italian states
• transnational abolitionism
• Mediterranean slave trade
• slavery studies
• memory of slavery

“Giulia Bonazza’s book on abolitionism in pre-unification Italy is, from many points of view, an innovative Study. … Bonazza’s study continues, from the point of view of the chronological period analyzed … . Her book offers …  a broader and more general reflection on that “grey area” between the Napoleonic campaign in Italy and national unification … .” (Valeria Deplano, H-Net Reviews, h-net.org, March, 2023)

• German Historical Institute, Rome, Italy

  Giulia Bonazza

Giulia Bonazza is a fellow at the German Historical Institute in Rome, Italy, and former Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute.

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