Continental Origins of Insular Proslavery

George Dawson Flinter in Curaçao, Venezuela, Britain, and Puerto Rico, 1810s-1830s

Abstract

This article traces the career and migrations of George Dawson Flinter,
a naturalized Spanish subject of Irish origin, who became a prominent
apologist for slavery and Spanish colonial rule in the Caribbean in the
1820s and 1830s. It argues that Flinter’s experiences in the revolutionary
Americas, especially in Venezuela, shaped his attitudes toward slavery,
freedom, race, and social order, which he promoted on behalf of the
Spanish regime as a propagandist in Britain and in Puerto Rico. Flinter’s
writings, loyalties, and migrations throw new light on the sources of
proslavery thought, not only in the Spanish Caribbean, but also in the
broader Atlantic world during the consolidation of the second slavery.