Duet with John Bull: The Black Abolitionist Mission to the British Isles During the American Civil War

Studies of what C. Peter Ripley called the 'Black abolitionist mission to the British Isles' have flourished in the twenty-first century. The depth of empirical detail available now provides an opportune moment to take stock and push the interpretive framework forwards. Rather than a singular mission, it is more accurate to speak of missions in the plural and this article proposes four distinct phases of Black activism between 1830 and 1865. The advantages of this approach are demonstrated in a detailed examination of the fourth and final phase. During the American Civil War (1861-65), Black activists faced new challenges and confronted different problems. The most successful, such as Jefferson Davis's former coachman, William Andrew Jackson, adapted their approach to address the politics of the war.