Title: Humboldt, Slavery and Revolution: Global Anti-Colonial, Abolitionist and Anti-Racist Perspectives

Abstract: This essay deals with Humboldt's notes in his diaries about Venezuela and Cuba regarding slave owners and slave traders. Both groups, along with colonial officials and scientists, were among the most important contacts and hosts for Humboldt on his trip to the Americas (1799—1804). Humboldt traveled through Spanish America around 10 years before the great independence revolution of the colonies against Spain from 1810 to 1830. The empirical knowledge that Humboldt gained through the contacts with his hosts on their slave trade and slavery plantations shaped his judgment of the thinking and the beginnings of the military revolution under the leadership of Simón Bolívar as well as his own development as an abolitionist, anti-colonialist and non-racist.

Keywords: Humboldt's diaries, Simón Bolívar, “Empire of Slavery,” revolution of independence, second slavery, slave trade

Author: Michael Zeuske, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn, Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

  Humboldt Slavery and Revolution.pdf