THE QUESTION OF ATLANTIC SLAVERY AND GERMAN READINESS FOR FREEDOM IN A. G. F. REBMANN'S HANS KIEKINDIEWELTS REISEN IN ALLE VIER WELTTHEILE

In his satirical novel, 'Hans Kiekindiewelts Reisen in alle vier Welttheile' (1794), A. G. F. Rebmann turns to the question of slavery in the Atlantic world to test his eponymous character's commitment to freedom, which had been born in revolutionary Europe. Placing Hans in St. Domingo during the Haitian Revolution, Rebmann not only provides one of the most nuanced explorations of that uprising by a German writer, but launches a stinging critique of European colonialism. This novel, by one of the most prominent liberal writers in 1790s Germany, demonstrates a global perspective among progressive Germans during the Age of Revolution. Rebmann insists that a seemingly foreign question - the rights of Black slaves - is of central importance to the foundational ideas that are at stake for Germans too. There was an appreciation in Germany that a limited focus on domestic concerns and politics as the revolution raged in France could not do full justice to the ideals which many German liberals professed. Even without colonies and slaves of their own, Rebmann argued, Germans must take seriously the question of slavery.