"This fascinating study uses the tools and sources of diplomatic history
to examine a sweep of national and international history far beyond the
confines of diplomacy.For Horne, the slave trade, rather than slavery,
was an explosive political issue much later in the 19th century that is
normally understood. Highly recommended." -Choice "A well-researched,
skillfully-written, and carefully-argued diplomatic history examining
connections between the United States, Brazil, Africa, and Europe as
they relate to the transatlantic slave trade. Horne sheds considerable
light upon the ideas, ruminations, and practices of U.S. nationals in
their interactions with and encounters of Brazil over the question of
slavery, especially from the mid-nineteenth century on, and makes a
valuable and important contribution to our knowledge and understanding
of (American) hemispheric relations and trajectories, both eventual and
potential." -Michael A. Gomez, editor of Diasporic Africa: A Reader An
important study that starts with the proposition that what happens
abroad affects developments in the United States. For the first time we
are made aware of the extensive contacts between pro-slavery forces in
the United States in the years after the abolition of the slave trade
and the promoters of slavery in and the slave trade to Brazil and
elsewhere. -Richard J. M. Blackett author of Divided Hearts: Britain and
the American Civil War During its heyday in the nineteenth century, the
African slave trade was fueled by the close relationship of the United
States and Brazil. The Deepest South tells the disturbing story of how
U.S. nationals - before and after Emancipation -- continued to actively
participate in this odious commerce by creating diplomatic, social, and
political ties with Brazil, which today has the largest population of
African origin outside of Africa itself. Proslavery Americans began to
accelerate their presence in Brazil in the 1830s, creating alliances
there - sometimes friendly, often contentious - with Portuguese,
Spanish, British, and other foreign slave traders to buy, sell, and
transport African slaves, particularly from the eastern shores of that
beleaguered continent. Spokesmen of the Slave South drew up ambitious
plans to seize the Amazon and develop this region by deporting the
enslaved African-Americans there to toil. When the South seceded from
the Union, it received significant support from Brazil, which correctly
assumed that a Confederate defeat would be a mortal blow to slavery
south of the border. After the Civil War, many Confederates, with slaves
in tow, sought refuge as well as the survival of their peculiar
institution in Brazil. Based on extensive research from archives on five
continents, Gerald Horne breaks startling new ground in the history of
slavery, uncovering its global dimensions and the degrees to which its
defenders went to maintain it. Gerald Horne is Moores Professor of
History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. His
is author of several books, including Race Woman, Race War!, Black and
Brown, Red Seas, and The Color of Fascism, all available from NYU Press.
