Black Atlantic Abolitionist Agency in Latin American and British Literary Legacies: A Comparative Study of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’ Sab and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point

Abolitionism emerged during the Enlightenment as a transformative movement that, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, sought to end slavery and the transatlantic slave trade by exposing their moral and economic contradictions through activism, literature, and reform. This study analyzes two Afro-Atlantic abolitionist texts—Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s Sab and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point—to explore how they articulate intersecting oppressions of race, gender, and colonialism. Drawing on Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic theory, which conceptualizes the Atlantic as a space of cultural exchange and political solidarity shaped by shared histories of diaspora, the research employs thematic analysis to examine key motifs such as resistance and empowerment, intellectual and political leadership, transatlantic connections, intersectionality, revolution and emancipation, and narrative voice and representation. Both works foreground the agency and interior life of enslaved subjects while differing in narrative form and political expression. Sab, a Romantic novel, centers moral introspection and feminist abolitionism within Cuban colonial society, whereas Browning’s Victorian dramatic monologue embodies defiance and direct political protest against American slavery. Common to both is a deep critique of racial and gender oppression and a shared commitment to human dignity and transatlantic solidarity. Nonetheless, their genre, tone, and strategy diverge: Avellaneda’s introspective, philosophical resistance contrasts with Browning’s radical call to collective action, just as Sab’s reflective male narrator diverges from Browning’s visceral female voice. Together, these texts illuminate Afro-Atlantic abolitionist literature as a dynamic project envisioning freedom, justice, and collective emancipation across temporal and geographic boundaries.

کلیدواژه ها:

Abolitionism ، Gertrudis G&oacute ، mez de Avellaneda ، Elizabeth Barrett Browning ، Sab ، The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point ، Black Atlantic Theory