Abolitionists invoked images of White slavery in Barbary to oppose Black slavery in America.

Evidence

Tellingly, the image of Christian slavery was used by abolitionists in opposing Black slavery in the United States. Kidd, American Christians and Islam, 36; Stovall, White Freedom, 51. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 1408 (#expands, via linked claim)

There were failed efforts of abolitionists to use White slavery in the Barbary states to call for the end of Black slavery in America. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 1409 (#complicates, via linked claim)

It was precisely because white colonists so well understood the degradations of actual slavery that the metaphor of slavery held so much power to consolidate their disparate interests: no matter a colonist’s politics, background, or class, by being white, he could never fall as low as the Black people who were held in bondage. As the scholar Patricia Bradley puts it in Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution, “Once transposed into metaphor, slavery could serve to unite white colonists of whatever region under a banner of white exclusivity.” The decision to deploy slavery as a metaphor for white grievances had devastating consequences for those who were actually enslaved: it helped ensure that abolition would not become a revolutionary cause, Bradley argues. Instead, the true institution of slavery would endure for nearly a century after the Revolution. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 93 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Barbary captivity tales denounced white slavery while US chattel slavery rose. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 215; The Park51 fight revived the white-captivity narrative of the Barbary era — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 658; Barbary captivity narratives denounced white slavery while ignoring American slavery (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Abolitionists invoked Christian slavery in Barbary to oppose Black slavery #expands (0.92) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 1408
• Barbary analogies failed to sway abolition of American Black slavery #complicates (0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 1409
• Using slavery as a metaphor for white grievances blunted abolition as a revolutionary cause #complicates (0.78) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 93