​In the last post, I introduced the 4-volume novel Nobility Run Mad, or, Raymond and His Three Wives (1802) as an example of the way Bristol merchants were portrayed in the novels of Austen’s era. I got as far as the middle of volume 3, when our noble hero Lord Raymond finally meets our heroine Theodosia. 
    Although the title promises the reader a story about nobility behaving badly, Lord Raymond's dissolute dad was just part of the backstory. In this book, we get more emphasis on portrayals of uncouth, small-minded people from the merchant class of Bristol, namely, miserly old Mr. Filmore, his grandson Samuel, and their friends the Middletons who have Theodosia in their clutches. That’s great for my purposes. I am exploring the hypothesis that in the novels of the long 18th century, the objection to Bristol merchants—such as Mrs. Elton’s father in Emma—is not that they were involved in the slave trade, it’s that they were not genteel. In the novels I've been exploring, Bristol merchants and their families are used as comic characters, as foils to the heroine, because of their vulgarity and presumptuous attitudes.
    To return to the novel: It seems our (anonymous) author found her comical and villainous characters to be intrinsically more interesting than her hero and heroine. Lord Raymond, says sententious things like: “It would very ill become me, Mr. Milner, to arraign my father’s conduct…” (Even though his dad was a complete waste of space who gambled away large fortunes before dying young in France and leaving huge debts behind him.) We have a sentimental storyline with Lord Raymond and Theodosia, but the more energetic storyline involves the Filmores. Young Samuel elopes with Lady Arabella, a scheming noblewoman. He assures Lady Arabella that Lord Raymond is dying, which means Samuel will succeed to the title. Samuel wants to get his hands on her fortune. Lady Arabella wants to get married to Samuel before he finds out she doesn’t have a fortune...

   Yes, Emma is being a snob, but Mrs. Elton lives down to her expectations: she is comically inappropriate in social situations, pushy and obnoxious.
    This is no less than what a reader of the time would expect, because Mrs. Elton's father was a Bristol merchant. I'll explain presently.
   First, what does Austen's little dash between “Bristol” and “merchant” signify? You can almost hear the the dismissive snicker. is Austen hinting that Mrs. Elton's father was a slave-trader?  (cont'd)​

    Chawton House, the center for early women's writing and former home of Jane Austen's wealthy brother, has made a number of obscure novels available for study on their website. You would think that scholars would fall on a novel entitled ​Yamboo, or, the North American Slave, like a duck on a June bug. But no, they are too busy poring over Mansfield Park. Too bad there are no actual enslaved persons in Mansfield Park and slavery is never discussed, let alone condemned.
   How about looking at an 1812 novel which actually has an enslaved person as the titular character? Yamboo's anti-slavery message is far more explicit than Mansfield Park and serves as yet another refutation of the notion that authors, particularly women authors, couldn't talk about slavery back then. 
     Leaving aside the literary merits of the book and focusing on its message, we can say this in favour of Yamboo:

• The novel strongly asserts the titular character’s humanity.
• It confronts the issues of racial as well as class prejudice.
• Yamboo is portrayed as having agency; that is, he acts and is not merely acted upon...