Thanks. You’re clearly much more informed on this topic than I. I agree with you to some extent and our views are converging. I agree that Clarkson was in many ways a propagandist. And I did take a lot of his claims at face value when I should have been more skeptical.
However I think your comment implies that this undermines his specific claims more than it actually does.
The story about the Zong Rupprecht analyzed in her article is particularly interesting, because Clarkson himself claims it was pivotal for mobilizing.
I don’t think this is true. At the very least, in the book I read he only makes very modest claims about its impact. The Zong incident is not a substantial part of the book at all. I don’t dispute that it was used more by later authors.
Clarkson himself changed the story later on in other publications, where “he rewrites it to fit his purpose and the moment.”
This is true, but again somewhat less undermining than you imply. The basic facts about the atrocity itself are never inflated. It’s the surrounding context and implications that he adjusts for his purpose. But I do agree this is one of the best example of Clarkson’s inaccuracy.
She analyzes him as a propagandist: “Given the moral, political and aesthetic issues at stake, one of the significant rhetorical strategies deployed by propagandists, as many critics have noted, was to write endlessly about how it was, in fact, impossible to represent the Middle Passage at all.
Saying that the middle passage was unspeakably horrific is entirely reasonable. It’s not like he never goes into the details; throughout the book, he often documents the particular horrors on the middle passage and the sources of his information.
he takes his readers on a fictionalised ‘ethnographic tour’ to the coast of Africa.
Similarly, this seems entirely fine to me. He’s very clear where he is writing from his imagination, and his narrative is grounded in solid evidence.
J. R. Oldfield has corrected a bunch of Clarkson’s exaggerations and self-serving misrepresentations, namely his claim the Wedgwood cameos made cameos a general fashion in Britain or his claim to have organized a committe in Exeter, when actually someone else did that.[4]
I can’t access the whole of your source but this paragraph itself seems like a substantial exaggeration to me. I don’t think Oldfield is offering a whole litany of Clarkson’s mistakes and exaggerations, only a very small set of critiques. And Clarkson was involved in the Exeter committee, the question is just about founding of the committee.
Moreover the whole thesis of Oldfield’s article is that “the Committee’s activities [...] were central to the success of the early abolitionist movement”, which tends to supports the heroic-Clarkson narrative.
Your other examples, such as “the role of Peckard and black abolitionism in Cambridge” are much more the type of the historiographical interpretation that I conceded are beyond my own knowledge to definitively prove, although I think the timing suggests that Clarkson caused the biggest upswing of momentum of all of the people who joined the cause and some historians like Oldfield clearly have a similar view.
What is the reason for this confidence? The more heroic side-tales are not part of the parliament records afaik, Clarkson himself has written his account twenty years after the events, he is in most cases the only known source for them happening and he burned almost all of his personal documents.
Like all others, the early modern period is chock full of people (even respectable and highly scrutinized figures) making all sorts of false and sometimes outrageous claims.
What’s the source for him burning his papers? I still kinda think that he probably is representing himself fairly accurately. The claims that can be checked usually check out pretty well. Even under great scrutiny there are very few clear, glaring errors to point to.
>>> However I think your comment implies that this undermines his specific claims more than it actually does. <<<
I assure you this is not the case. I don’t intend to convey an amount of underminding. I rather intend to convey the existence of conflicting evidence and scholarly opinions.
>>> I can’t access the whole of your source but this paragraph itself seems like a substantial exaggeration to me. I don’t think Oldfield is offering a whole litany of Clarkson’s mistakes and exaggerations, only a very small set of critiques. [...] Moreover the whole thesis of Oldfield’s article is that “the Committee’s activities [...] were central to the success of the early abolitionist movement”, which tends to supports the heroic-Clarkson narrative. <<<
That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make. I haven’t only cited historians that are detractors of Clarkson. Oldfield is (as you say) quite sympathetic to Clarkson, but he still does his due diligence.
>>> What’s the source for him burning his papers? <<<
He himself. He merrily informs his executor about it in a letter.[1] He did it too safe his executor the trouble to read through it all. His biographer Wilson complains about only some letters and religious essays remaining.[2]
>>> I still kinda think that he probably is representing himself fairly accurately. The claims that can be checked usually check out pretty well. Even under great scrutiny there are very few clear, glaring errors to point to. <<<
I think that’s a defensible judgment. But we don’t know. Some people only lie about stuff that can’t be easily checked.
Thanks. You’re clearly much more informed on this topic than I. I agree with you to some extent and our views are converging. I agree that Clarkson was in many ways a propagandist. And I did take a lot of his claims at face value when I should have been more skeptical.
However I think your comment implies that this undermines his specific claims more than it actually does.
I don’t think this is true. At the very least, in the book I read he only makes very modest claims about its impact. The Zong incident is not a substantial part of the book at all. I don’t dispute that it was used more by later authors.
This is true, but again somewhat less undermining than you imply. The basic facts about the atrocity itself are never inflated. It’s the surrounding context and implications that he adjusts for his purpose. But I do agree this is one of the best example of Clarkson’s inaccuracy.
Saying that the middle passage was unspeakably horrific is entirely reasonable. It’s not like he never goes into the details; throughout the book, he often documents the particular horrors on the middle passage and the sources of his information.
Similarly, this seems entirely fine to me. He’s very clear where he is writing from his imagination, and his narrative is grounded in solid evidence.
I can’t access the whole of your source but this paragraph itself seems like a substantial exaggeration to me. I don’t think Oldfield is offering a whole litany of Clarkson’s mistakes and exaggerations, only a very small set of critiques. And Clarkson was involved in the Exeter committee, the question is just about founding of the committee.
Moreover the whole thesis of Oldfield’s article is that “the Committee’s activities [...] were central to the success of the early abolitionist movement”, which tends to supports the heroic-Clarkson narrative.
Your other examples, such as “the role of Peckard and black abolitionism in Cambridge” are much more the type of the historiographical interpretation that I conceded are beyond my own knowledge to definitively prove, although I think the timing suggests that Clarkson caused the biggest upswing of momentum of all of the people who joined the cause and some historians like Oldfield clearly have a similar view.
What’s the source for him burning his papers? I still kinda think that he probably is representing himself fairly accurately. The claims that can be checked usually check out pretty well. Even under great scrutiny there are very few clear, glaring errors to point to.
>>> However I think your comment implies that this undermines his specific claims more than it actually does. <<<
I assure you this is not the case. I don’t intend to convey an amount of underminding. I rather intend to convey the existence of conflicting evidence and scholarly opinions.
>>> I can’t access the whole of your source but this paragraph itself seems like a substantial exaggeration to me. I don’t think Oldfield is offering a whole litany of Clarkson’s mistakes and exaggerations, only a very small set of critiques. [...] Moreover the whole thesis of Oldfield’s article is that “the Committee’s activities [...] were central to the success of the early abolitionist movement”, which tends to supports the heroic-Clarkson narrative. <<<
That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make. I haven’t only cited historians that are detractors of Clarkson. Oldfield is (as you say) quite sympathetic to Clarkson, but he still does his due diligence.
>>> What’s the source for him burning his papers? <<<
He himself. He merrily informs his executor about it in a letter.[1] He did it too safe his executor the trouble to read through it all. His biographer Wilson complains about only some letters and religious essays remaining.[2]
>>> I still kinda think that he probably is representing himself fairly accurately. The claims that can be checked usually check out pretty well. Even under great scrutiny there are very few clear, glaring errors to point to. <<<
I think that’s a defensible judgment. But we don’t know. Some people only lie about stuff that can’t be easily checked.
T. Clarkson to A. Haldane, n.d. [1845], Thomas Clarkson Papers, St John’s College Library, Cambridge University
Ellen Gibson Wilson (1989), Thomas Clarkson: A Biography, p. 4