ABSTRACT

This article provides a comparative and transatlantic analysis of the forcible recruitment of Africans for the British West India Regiments. From the 1790s to the 1860s, West India Regiment officers plundered slave vessels for young African men whom they could conscript for military service. This process began with the purchase of thousands of enslaved Africans upon arrival in the British Caribbean and continued well beyond British slave-trade abolition as officers drew thousands more recruits from slave ships intercepted by the Royal Navy. Tracking through wartime and peacetime and through monumental imperial anti-slavery actions, this article demonstrates the curious cohesion in pre- and post-abolition recruitment for the West India Regiments. It posits that coerced African enlistment represented a troubling counterweight to the spirit of British anti-slavery, as regimental officers maintained their grasp on thousands of victims of the transatlantic slave trade throughout the so-called Age of Abolition.

摘要

本文提供了对英属西印度军团强行招募非洲人的比较和跨大西洋分析。从1790年代到1860年代，西印度军团军官掠夺了非洲青年男子的奴隶船，他们可以应征入伍服役。这一过程始于在抵达不列颠加勒比海地区后购买了数千名被奴役的非洲人，并远远超过了英国废除奴隶贸易的局面，因为军官从被皇家海军拦截的奴隶船上吸引了数千名新兵。这篇文章追踪了战时与和平时期以及帝国主义的反奴隶制行动，证明了西印度军团废除前后的好奇凝聚力。