Oct 14
12:00PM – 1:15PM
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2026-10-14T12:00:00
2026-10-14T13:15:00
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GLC@Lunch: “An American Slave Breeder in London: American Slavery, British Abolition, and Enslaved Reproduction”
Wednesday, October 14, 2026, 12:00pm—1:15pm | Hybrid
In person at Yale University, Rosenkranz Hall, Room 241, 115 Prospect Street, New Haven
Online via zoom
Note: In-person seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Bring your lunch and join us for a discussion of scholarly works-in-progress!
Emily Lampert (GLC Associate Research Scholar, Fall 2026; Assistant Professor of History, University of Houston-Downtown)
“An American Slave Breeder in London: American Slavery, British Abolition, and Enslaved Reproduction”
In August 1838, at a rally celebrating the end of the apprenticeship system in the British Caribbean, the famous—or infamous, depending on your leaning—MP and antislavery activist Daniel O’Connell informed the crowd that while this was a great accomplishment, there was still significant work to do. Turning his attention to the continued existence of slavery in the United States, O’Connell publicly accused Andrew Stevenson, a Virginian and the US ambassador in London, of being not only a slaveowner but a slave-breeder as well, “one of those beings who reared up slaves for the purpose of traffic.” What followed was a months-long, international public scandal that unfolded in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. The O’Connell-Stevenson affair has been largely glossed over in histories of transatlantic abolition. I argue, however, that O’Connell’s baiting remarks at the 1838 rally, and the scandalous possibility of an American slave-breeder in London, marked the climax of a much longer narrative concerning enslaved reproduction, British abolition, and Virginia.
Online/On Campus — 115 Prospect Street, Room 241
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