Ivanhoe and Abolition

Ivanhoe and Abolition

Since the early 1950s, the metal collars on Ivanhoe’s serfs have been occupying literary historians. I argue that Gurth and Wamba’s collars owe as much to Abolitionist rhetoric as they do to antiquarianism. Comparing slavery with the repudiated institution of serfdom was a staple of Abolitionist discourse, and Abolitionists like Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson frequently confronted audiences with the physical restraints—including collars—used on enslaved Africans. When Ivanhoe was published in 1819, the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed—but slavery in the British West Indies was entirely legal. Simon J. White makes a persuasive identification of Ivanhoe’s Prince John with Britain’s Prince Regent. As I trace Abolitionist discourse through Ivanhoe, I examine the scenes of feasting on imported delicacies with Prince John in light of the Abolitionist boycott of West Indian sugar, rum, and produce, comparing Ivanhoe’s with other Regency feasts. My paper then focuses on the figure of Ulrica, an elderly female serf frequently referred to as a “Saxon witch”; her story suggests both the history of sexual violence directed particularly at female slaves and the role of Obeah in slave uprisings as she sings heathen Saxon songs while burning her captor’s castle down.