The British Abolitionists and Their Influence With a Survey of Their Writings Compiled and Edited by Chuck Stetson Essentials in Education, Inc. Copyright © 2009, Essentials in Education, Inc. th
122 W. 14 Street, PMB 332 Front Royal, VA 22630 The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Table of Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 2 Section 1: Britain and the Slave Trade in the Late Eighteenth Century .......................................... 3 Notes from a Lecture by Dr. Donald Drew ................................................................................. 3 The English Slave Trade and Its Abolition.................................................................................. 7 Section 2: The British Abolitionists and Their Writings ................................................................ 9 Granville Sharp (1735–1813) .................................................................................................... 10 John Wesley (1703–1791) ......................................................................................................... 13 John Newton (1725–1807) ........................................................................................................ 16 Bishop Beilby Porteus (1731–1809).......................................................................................... 18 James Ramsay (1733–1789) ...................................................................................................... 19 Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) ................................................................................................. 21 Quobna Ottobah Cugoano (c. 1757–?) ...................................................................................... 26 Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) .................................................................................................. 28 The Clapham Sect...................................................................................................................... 30 William Wilberforce (1759–1833) ............................................................................................ 31 John Venn (1759–1813) ............................................................................................................ 37 William Cowper (1731–1800) ................................................................................................... 38 Hannah More (1745–1833) ....................................................................................................... 40 Dorothy Ripley (1767-1832) ..................................................................................................... 42 James Stephens (1758–1832) .................................................................................................... 43 Zachary Macaulay (1768–1838) ................................................................................................ 45 Elizabeth Heyrick (1769–1831)................................................................................................. 46 Mary Prince (1788–1833).......................................................................................................... 47 Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845) .................................................................................. 48 Section Three: The British Abolitionists’ Influence on America .................................................. 49 Anthony Benezet (1713–1784) .................................................................................................. 50 John Jay (1745–1829)................................................................................................................ 52 James Monroe (1758–1831) ...................................................................................................... 54 Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) ................................................................................................. 55 William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) ....................................................................................... 56 Benjamin F. Hughes .................................................................................................................. 57 Abraham Lincoln (1808–1865) ................................................................................................. 59 Harriet Beecher Stowe ............................................................................................................... 60 The Slave-Ship Icon, by Cheryl Finley ..................................................................................... 62 Teaching Strategies for The British Abolitionists and Their Influence .......................................... 65 Contributors ................................................................................................................................... 66 1
Introduction In March of 1807, Thomas Jefferson signed a bill abolishing the U.S. slave trade. In the same
month, King George III gave his royal assent to a similar bill that became an act in Britain. The slave
trade of the time was abolished. This 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in England and
the United States presents an extraordinary opportunity to highlight the many British abolitionists, both
white and black, who were part of the campaign that was described by historian G.M. Trevelyan as “a
turning event in the history of the world.”
As I started researching the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, I found that there is virtually
no coverage of this subject in U.S. history textbooks. William Wilberforce, who is acknowledged as the
leader of this effort in Britain, barely gets one line in American public high school textbooks.
Yet, the British abolitionists, and particularly William Wilberforce, were hugely influential.
When Wilberforce died in 1833, the Free Blacks in America wore black armbands as a sign of mourning
for thirty days. Benjamin Hughes was chosen to deliver a major eulogy in New York City, excerpts of
which are included in this booklet. The first historically black university—founded in 1856 in
Wilberforce, Ohio, near Dayton, the first station of the Underground Railroad north of the Ohio River—
was named after William Wilberforce, a dead British parliamentarian.
While virtually unknown in the modern United States, Wilberforce was acknowledged by
Abraham Lincoln in 1858 as a person that “every school boy” knew. The emancipation leader Frederick
Douglass saluted the energy of Wilberforce “that finally thawed the British heart into sympathy for the
slave, and moved the strong arm of government in mercy to put an end to this bondage.” He continued:
“Let no American, especially no colored American, withhold generous recognition of this stupendous
achievement—a triumph of right over wrong, of good over evil, and a victory for the whole human race.”
Wilberforce certainly did not do this alone. There were people before him: Grenville Sharp, John
Wesley, Bishop Porteus, and Thomas Clarkson were all writing before Wilberforce. Many more people
were writing around the same time as Wilberforce: Equiano, Cuguano, Hannah Moore, and William
Cowper. And still more took up the cause as abolition picked up momentum: Zachary Macaulay,
Elizabeth Heyrick, and Mary Prince.
Abolition was a complex undertaking that had huge challenges to overcome. Some people
worked very closely with Wilberforce and Clarkson while others worked quite independently, such as
Equiano, Cuguano, Heyrick, and Prince. Yet, their impact was substantial, as documented in the last
section with statements by William Lloyd Garrison, Benjamin Hughes, Frederick Douglass, Abraham
Lincoln, and Harriett Beecher Stowe.
The goal of this work is to provide for high school teachers, students, and other interested readers
the ability – through excerpts from primary texts – to piece together a key moment in time. This booklet
was designed to be a companion piece to Slavery in the Founding Era, published by the Gilder-Lehrman
Institute.
Chuck Stetson
Chairman, Essentials In Education
2
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Section 1: Britain and the Slave Trade in the Late Eighteenth Century The story about the slave trade in Britain in the closing decades of the Eighteenth Century is set
in the context of a world gone slightly mad. The long reign of George III and the American Revolution
had taken a toll. But perhaps the most important issues were the nation’s slide into decadence and
amorality and the weakened position of the established church.
Notes from a Lecture by Dr. Donald Drew by Vishal Mangalwadi
On Britain:
In 1738 Bishop Berkeley1 claimed that religion and morality in Britain had collapsed “to a degree
that was never before known in any Christian country.” That statement could be endorsed from widely
different literary sources such as Fielding, Defoe, Swift, Bolingbroke, Pope, Steele, Addison, Walpole,
and Johnson.2 Historians of divergent views also agree with Berkeley: Lecky, Stephen, Ranke, Macaulay,
Green, Robertson, Trevelyan, Halevy and Temperley.3 The fact of a phenomenal religious and moral
degeneracy of this time is beyond dispute.
Until the advent of the Sunday school movement toward the end of the century,4 little or no
provision was made for the free education of the poor, except the Church system of Charity Schools.
These schools were frequently a farce, teachers being half-illiterate. Millions of British people at this time
had never set foot in any kind of school, but those leaving school were usually apprenticed, often sold to
masters and frequently viciously treated.
As for lawlessness, thieves, robbers, highwaymen, and footpads abounded; as Horace Walpole
claimed in 1751, “One is forced to travel, even at noon, as if one were going to battle.”
Savagery showed itself in the plundering of shipwrecked vessels, lured by false signals on to
rocks, and in the indifference shown to the drowning sailors.
On the Slave Trade:
From about 1510 until 1868 when Cuba abolished the slave trade, approximately 10 million
African slaves reached the New World slave markets, meaning that at least 15 million and probably more
began the journey from the African interior. Philip Curtin calculated that of the 10 million who survived
the trip, about 400,000 went to British North America, 3.6 million went to Brazil, 1.6 million went to
Spanish colonies, and the remaining 3.8 million were imported by British, French, Dutch, and Danish
colonies in the West Indies.
By the late eighteenth century, Britain had over half of the ships engaged in the slave trade.
1
Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753), best known as a proponent of the philosophical system known as subjective idealism.
British men of letters Henry Fielding, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Henry St. John Bolingbroke, Alexander Pope, Richard Steele, Thomas
Addison, Horace Walpole, and Samuel Johnson.
3
Historians George Berkeley, W.E.H. Lecky, Sir James Stephen, Leopold von Ranke, Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, John Richard Green,
William Robertson, G.M. Trevelyan, Elie Halévy, and Harold Temperley.
4
The British educationist Robert Raikes (1735-1811) was the founder of the Sunday School movement.
2
3
Gin Lane: The Symptoms of Decay
William Hogarth (1697-1764), Gin Lane. 1750
By 1727, England was consumed with Gin Fever, drinking roughly five million gallons of it a year. “Quite
a feat,” notes Denise Winterman of BBC News, “for a population of only six million.”
The origin of Gin Fever dates to 1643, when the English Parliament began taxing ale — the predominant
drink among citizens. These taxes had gotten so exorbitant by 1690 that people began to dry out, unable to afford
their drink of choice. Meanwhile, Parliament was encouraging farmers to grow grain in their fields. Not wanting to
guzzle away their money on the ever-increasing ale tariffs, the English found a cheaper way to wet their tongues:
turn all that grain into gin. As a result, it seemed all of England was drunk all of the time. Crimes increased and the
amount of people able to make it to their jobs decreased. In 1751, William Hogarth dramatically illustrated the
height of Gin Fever in his engraving “Gin Lane.”
In “Gin Lane,” Hogarth’s finely silver-engraved England street scene is filled with people committing
atrocities under the influence of gin. Our eyes are drawn first to a limp woman sitting on stairs in the foreground of
the illustration. She is so relaxed, in fact, that she has let her baby slip from her arms, headfirst, over a rickety
railing, and into the street below. Nobody else in the busy street scene seems to care, or even notice, as they are all
busy with their own drunken behavior. Just behind the falling baby, a dog and a small, gaunt-faced man gnaw on a
bone together. They sit in front of a pawnshop where people hawk pots, as well as a handheld wood saw. These gin
drunkards are occasionally sociable — if only to pour gin down the throat of a friend who is too drunk to do it
himself. A woman even pours gin into her child’s mouth from a glass similar to a modern martini glass. Further
back in the illustration, a blurry figure can be seen hanging lifelessly from a ceiling beam in the top floor of a
ramshackle building. Just beyond that, a structure topples over, brick by brick. An entire coffin hangs from another
building: It is a sign for the undertaker—the only person faring well in this depiction of Gin Fever.
4
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Britain in the Eighteenth Century:
There were a number of reasons for the lamentable state of affairs in England. Three stand out as
particularly relevant.
First, Charles Stuart, the son of Charles I, came to the throne in 1660 as Charles II, following the
death of Cromwell and later that of his son Richard. After this, punitive and vicious anti-Puritan
legislation reached the Statute Book beginning in 1661 and included the Corporation Act, The Act of
Uniformity, The Conventicle Act, The Five Mile Act, etc. These stabbed at the heart of Puritan
legislation, religion, education, and culture. Nearly one-fifth of all British clergy – those who opposed the
Act of Uniformity – were expelled from the Church of England. The overall result was the decline of
biblical thinking and conduct amongst most clergy. In next to no time, the dead hand of worldliness had
settled upon the Church.
Second, William of Orange, the successor to James II and the brother of Charles II, James II,
instituted an Oath of Allegiance for the clergy. This led to the expulsion of over 400 Anglican clergy who
refused the Oath. This weakened the church.
The third reason for the weakness of the Church of England was the suppression of Convocation,
whereby Anglican bishops and clergy were forbidden officially to meet together to deliberate on
ecclesiastical matters. This state of affairs persisted until the middle of the nineteenth century, with the
result that, with little correction, encouragement, or accountability, many clergy behaved autonomously.
These three reasons tragically helped to weaken the eighteenth-century Church and people. They
were the direct contributors to the spiritual and moral stagnation which Bishop Berkeley deplored. There
is one more factor that must not be overlooked, namely the influence towards the end of the seventeenth
century and through the eighteenth century of the Enlightenment—of Deism or natural religion.
The national Church, publicly muzzled, with its prophetic and priestly wings clipped, was in no
position to refute Deists5 and skeptics. Religion was partly squeezed into a formalized straitjacket. The
inevitable progression took place: from Deism to rationalism to skepticism to cynicism. With Christian
truth undermined, Christian morality could find, save in all but a few places, no foothold.
The strangulation of Puritanism and the suffocation by Deism had tragic consequences that
expressed themselves during the first half of the eighteenth century:
First, by and large, the clergy of the Church of England were corrupted and that corruption then
spread from top to bottom. A succession of archbishops and bishops lived luxuriously, neglected their
duties, and unashamedly solicited bishoprics and deaneries for themselves and their families. Parish
clergy followed suit. Queen Anne partly, and the first two Georges wholly, filled their courts with
courtiers who flaunted levity and practiced vice.
Secondly, a corrupt, even dead Church darkened most aspects of English life. By the Treaty of
Utrecht in 1713, England had wrung from France and Spain the asient, the contract to supply the Spanish
colonies with slaves. The financial greed which it bred and fed, the brutalizing of masters’ and slaves’
lives, and the indignity of labor that it engendered laid a curse on the economic and political life of the
century. Moreover, the Industrial Revolution was gradually spreading and these attitudes and actions
influenced many owners of mines, factories, and mills in the treatment of their workers. The barbarities
5
Deism, a worldview held by many prominent Americans and Britons in the 18th century, is the belief, based solely on reason, in a God who
created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no
supernatural revelation.
5
practiced in industry were bad enough, but those carried out on slave ships and then in plantations were
far worse.
Thirdly, other evils flourished. In politics, nepotism, place seeking, and bribery were the order of
the day especially at election times. In Britain, the laws were devised largely to keep the poor in their
place and under control. Thus, to steal a sheep, to snare a rabbit, to break a young tree, to pick a pocket
for more than one shilling, to grab goods from someone’s hand and run away with them, were hanging
offences. Executions at Tyburn at London were known as Hanging Shows. They occurred regularly and
drew huge crowds. As for poor conditions in jails, the transportation to Australia of both sexes and of
children, the flogging of women, the pillory, and branding on the hand – such horrors continued unabated.
Fourth, the strangulation of Puritanism and the suffocation of Deism had further inhuman
consequences in the treatment and mortality of children. Their death rate tells its own tale, but only for
London are authentic statistics available. For example, from 1730-1750, three out of every four children
born to all classes died before their fifth birthday. Jonas Hanway6 (1712–1786), the friend of parish and
pauper children, produced scores of statistics and pamphlets revealing his investigations into the treatment
and death-rate of the parish infant poor – death occurring time after time because of infanticide and the
practice of exposing newly born babies to perish in the streets, as well as the placing of unhappy
foundlings with heartless nurses who let them starve or turned them into the streets to beg or steal.
Fifth, the eighteenth century in England is known as the “Gin Age.” Children were badly treated
as a result of drinking deep, fiery, poisonous gin, which outrivaled beer as the national beverage.
Hogarth’s pictures, far from being caricatures, are realistic glimpses of the country’s plight. Lecky
defined the national gin-drinker’s drunkenness as the “master-curse of English life between 1720–1750.”
Sixth, another desperate measure for survival encouraged by alcohol was the perverted concept of
sport, which, like alcohol, brought attendant evils in its train, such as further coarsening of the
personality, cruelty, and gambling. The baiting of bulls, bears, badgers and dogs, with fireworks attached
to them, was typical of the third and fourth decades of this century, most of such tortures taking place in
public house grounds, in a village green, or in village church grounds or cathedral closes. These animals
were often baited to death to provide greater excitement. Other forms of “sport” were cock fighting – this
was universal – with metal spurs. Many eighteenth-century clergymen bred fighting cocks and had church
bells rung to honor a local winner.
Seventh, as a concomitant of these brutalizing activities but extending into other areas also,
gambling was, for all classes, a national obsession, bringing appalling ruin to thousands. In London and
other big cities, immorality itself became a sport, from court masquerades to fornication in daylight on the
village green, or selling one’s wife by auction at a cattle market. Much literature was also openly obscene.
A judge asked, “How (else) comes it to pass that no sooner is a playhouse opened in any part of the
kingdom, than it at once becomes surrounded by a halo of brothels?”
6
The 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica reports that Hanway (1712-1786), a writer of celebrated travel narratives, devoted himself from
1750 on to philanthropy and good citizenship. In 1756 he founded The Marine Society, to keep up the supply of British seamen. In 1758 he
became a governor of the Foundling Hospital. In 1761 he procured a better system of parochial birth registration in London; and in 1762 he was
appointed a commissioner for victualling the navy; this office he held till October 1783. He died, unmarried, on the 5th of September 1786 and
was buried in the crypt at St. Mary’s Church, Hanwell. His last philanthropic efforts were focused on securing more humane treatment of
chimney sweeps.
6
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence The English Slave Trade and Its Abolition by Rodney Stark
Slavery and slave trading were well established in Africa long before the arrival of Europeans.7
While European involvement in the African slave trade can be traced to 1441 when a small Portuguese
ship carrying twelve black slaves landed in Lisbon, Portugal, consensus in Europe soon developed that
slavery was sinful and illegal. Pope Paul III, on June 2, 1537, said “Indians and all other peoples…should
not be deprived of their liberty or of their possessions and are not to be reduced to slavery, and whatever
happens to the contrary is to be considered null and void.”8 This notion was reasserted by Germain
Fromageau, professor at the Sorbonne, who noted that “one can neither, in surety of conscience buy or
sell Negroes, because in such commerce there is injustice.” 9
The British did not baptize or seek conversion of slaves to Christianity. 10 Moreover, the British
had no tradition of slave codes to restrain master-slave relations. No slave code existed and Parliament
declined to formulate one. Instead, in 1661, the plantation owners in Barbados adopted an “Act for the
Better Ordering of Slaves,” sometimes called the Code of Barbados or Act of Barbados, which was soon
copied in other British colonies—in Jamaica in 1664, South Carolina in 1696, and Antigua in 1702.11 The
Code was as brutal as any formulated by the Romans.12 It characterized black slaves as “heathenish,
brutish and an uncertain, dangerous kind of people.”13 Masters had the right to “apply unlimited force to
compel labor” without penalty, even if it resulted in maiming or death.14 Thus, while the Code imposed a
fine for “wantonly” killing a slave, this did not apply when slaves were punished for “cause,” no matter
how insignificant the offense. Slaves were specifically denied jury trials. Slaves were not allowed to
marry. Masters were prohibited from setting slaves free, except by a special act of the legislature.
Punishment of slaves was severe. A visitor to Jamaica during the late 1680s cataloged a whole series of
extreme punishments, including impaling slaves on stakes up their anus and then slowly burning them
alive.15 Most of the treatment of British slaves was far harsher than the norm in Catholic colonies.
Abolition in Great Britain
It was from their American cousins that British Quakers gained enthusiasm for abolition, and
they, too, provided the initial religious backbone of the anti-slavery movement. However, these British
forces achieved their goal far sooner than did abolition forces in America. There were two main reasons.
First, because nearly all the British slave-owners lived in distant colonies, their political influence was
limited. Second, the British government was far more centralized and less representative than government
in America. Thus, party elites could enact laws with considerable impunity in comparison with the United
States, where many actions required local, not national, legislation, and where even Congress was an
unruly body, often unable to reach any consensus.
7
Outside of voluntary indentured service to forgive debts, slavery was a way of life in ancient societies of the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the
Romans. Slaves were mostly those that had been captured in wars. Slavery began to decline in the later days of the Roman Empire. It is difficult
to say just when slavery died out in Christian Europe, although it did continue in pagan areas. However, it is clear that serfs in the Middle Ages
were not slaves or chattels. They had rights and a substantial degree of discretion.
8
Pope Paul III’s magnificent bull against New World slavery as well as similar bulls by other popes has somehow been “lost” from the historical
record until recently. Frank Tennebaum noted “The slave trade had been condemned by Pius II on October 7, 1462, by Paul III on May 29, 1537,
by Urban VIII on April 2, 1639, by Benedict XIV on December 20, 1741, and finally by Gregory XVI on December 3, 1839.
9
In Elkins (1959) 1976: 69
10
Dunn 1972
11
Ibid
12
Beckles 1989; Dunn 1973; Goveia 1969; Sheridan 1974; Watson 1989
13
Dunn 1972:239
14
Fogel 1989:36
15
Craton 1998; Dunn 1972
7
In 1783, at the request of the Quakers of Philadelphia, the London Meeting for Sufferings was
established by British Quakers. Thus, as in America, the Quakers provided a solid organizational basis for
British opposition to slavery: volunteers, meeting places, and money. These efforts were greatly amplified
in 1787 with the formation of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in which other Protestant
nonconformists joined with the Quakers. The aged John Wesley (1703-1791), founder of Methodism,
undertook a preaching campaign against slavery, echoing many of the ideas he had so forcefully
expressed in his 1774 abolitionist tract Thoughts on Slavery. Wesley’s actions added the substantial
resources of the Methodist chapels to the rapidly growing coalition for abolition. It was also at this time
that the British abolition movement gained its two important recruits.
William Wilberforce (1759-1833) belonged to the Church of England, the only denomination that
had full civil rights, including the exclusive right to serve in the House of Commons. Upon embracing
abolition, Wilberforce assumed responsibility for guiding anti-slavery efforts in the House of Commons
where he enjoyed a close relationship with Prime Minster William Pitt the Younger.
While it took 20 years to accomplish, a bill abolishing the slave trade throughout the British
colonies was approved in 1807 by overwhelming majorities in both the House of Lords and the House of
Commons. Not content with being out of the slave trade themselves, the British used diplomacy and even
bribery to cause other nations to sign treaties prohibiting the transportation of slaves from Africa to the
New World. More than that, the British formed and financed a special naval squadron to patrol the
African coast and enforce these treaties. During the next fifty years, the British navy seized sixteen
hundred slave ships, many of them with cargoes of slaves. But even those without slaves on board were
taken if they were equipped to transport slaves. Altogether, the British liberated more than 150,000 slaves
from ships at sea. 16
However, ending the slave trade did not abolish slavery in the British colonies. It merely
prevented more slaves from being brought in. Hence, a new British society was formed to pursue
complete abolition: the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the
British Dominions. Once again, Clarkson toured the country renewing and energizing local organizations.
A new petition campaign was organized. As political developments came to a head in 1833, the
abolitionists produced more than 1.5 million signers, about half the adult male population of England.17
These efforts were augmented by the work of the Methodist and Baptist missionaries among the slaves in
the West Indies – the Church of England still held back. Public opinion in Britain continued to be stirred
by reports from the missionaries that “described the threats and harassments they suffered at the hands of
planters and lent authenticity to the growing view, not only among Methodists but throughout the
churches that West Indian planters were a corrupt class.” 18
In response, the planters in the colonies warned that emancipation would cost investors in Britain
catastrophic losses and pointed out that everyone in Britain would pay because the price of sugar would
rise greatly if it had to be produced by free labor. To gain agreement, abolitionists in the House of
Commons accepted provisions in the Emancipation Act to compensate the planters by an enormous sum –
equal to half the British annual budget. The Act thus passed in 1833 as William Wilberforce was dying,
provided that on August 1, 1834 slavery would cease in all British colonies. This was the birth of modernday human rights, which is still working itself out.
16
Eltis 1987
Calculation of Rodney Stark based on population data from Mitchell 1962
18
Fogel 1989:219
17
8
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Section 2: The British Abolitionists and Their Writings In August 1782, acting on behalf of the Quakers in that state, the Philadelphia Meeting for
Sufferings dispatched a letter to its London counterpart, urging it to use its influence to bring about a
cessation of the slave trade. In the summer of 1783, the London Meeting for Sufferings approved a
petition calling on Parliament to declare the slave trade illegal. In an effort to advance this cause, the
London Quakers set up two embryonic antislavery societies whose main task over the next four years was
to promote the antislavery campaign. This they achieved through the distribution within the metropolis
and the provinces of abolitionist material and the circulation of petitions and tracts, including Joseph
Wood’s Thoughts on the Slavery of the Negroes (1786), Anthony Benezet’s A Caution and Warning to
Great Britain and her Colonies (1766) and the London Meeting for Suffering’s own text, The Cause of
Our Fellow Creatures the Oppressed Africans (1784).
Strategically limiting its attentions to the abolition of the slave trade rather than the abolition of
slavery itself, the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, founded in 1787, sought to establish active
auxiliary organizations throughout the country in order to supplement the financial support it received
from the Quakers.
Howard Temperly reflected on the motivations of British abolitionists:
The British anti-slavery movement has continued to intrigue historians, not the least because of
the apparent lack of self-interest on the part of its principal supporters. This is so contrary to
conventional views of political behavior that it has given rise to scholarly controversy. Yet, in
spite of the exercise of much ingenuity, no one has succeeded in showing that those who
campaigned for the end of the slave trade, and then for the freeing of the slaves stood to gain
personally in any tangible way or that these measure were other than economically costly to the
country. In due course Britain’s anti-slavery achievements came to be viewed with pride as
expressing the nation’s commitment to humane and liberal principles. 19
19
Temperly 1998: 14
9
Granville Sharp (1735–1813) Granville Sharp was one of the early abolitionists and a defender of slaves. He argued
successfully that it was illegal to hold people as slaves in England and is responsible for freeing numerous
slaves in England and protecting them from capture.
Sharp’s involvement with abolition began in 1765 as the result of a chance event. He saw a young
African man stumbling in the street. He found out that the man had been badly beaten by his master
David Lisle with the butt of a pistol and left for dead. His name was Jonathan Strong.
Sharp and his brother, who was a medical doctor, took care of Strong and, once he recovered, got
Strong a position as footman in a house nearby. After two years, Strong was recognized by Lisle, who
realized that the slave he had left for dead could still make him a tidy profit. Unknown to Strong, Lisle
sold the young man to a Jamaican planter called James Kerr for £30. Lisle then arranged to kidnap Strong
so that he could be sent to the Caribbean. Strong’s employer made no attempt to stop Lisle from
kidnapping Strong and only appealed for financial compensation for his loss. Strong realized that the only
way to save himself from a life of slavery was to appeal to his previous benefactors. Sharp used his
influence to bring Strong’s case before the Lord Mayor of London, an unusual event, and argued that
Strong had committed no crime and should be set free. The mayor agreed. Kerr immediately tried to sue
Sharp, while Lisle demanded a duel. Sharp ignored both. In the end no one had the stomach (or the cash)
for a legal battle. Strong himself, his health permanently damaged from Lisle’s beating, died at the age of
25, in 1770.
Despite the unsatisfactory outcome, Sharp decided to force a definitive legal ruling on the
question of whether a slave could be compelled to leave the country. Sharp published in 1769 A
Representation of the injustice and dangerous tendency of admitting the least claim of private property in
the persons of men, in England, etc., the first major work of anti-slavery by a British author. The book
developed a considerable volume of legal arguments against slavery. Specifically, it refutes the ruling
made by Yorke and Talbot in 1729 that slaves remain the property of their owners in England as well as
in the colonies. The publication brought Sharp into contact with Anthony Benezet, the Pennsylvania
Quaker who had already published anti-slavery works on both sides of the Atlantic. Together, they would
also correspond with John Wesley to produce the first sustained, if informal, campaign against British
slavery.
Sharp brought a number of legal cases of slaves and former slaves who were kidnapped or
forcibly put aboard ships for the colonies in the New World. The courts, however, resisted making
definitive rulings that would set a precedent. Instead, they judged each case on its own terms, so as to
avoid changing or interpreting the law in a way that would hamper the activities of the slave traders.
Finally, with the case of James Somerset (or Sommersett), Sharp appeared to have the opportunity he
needed to force a final ruling.
Charles Stewart, a customs officer from Boston, Massachusetts, then a British colony in North
America, claimed that James Somerset was his property. Stewart had brought Somerset to England in
1769, but in 1771 Somerset escaped. He was recaptured in November and imprisoned on a ship bound for
Jamaica, also a British colony. At this point, Sharp intervened and the captain of the ship was ordered to
produce Somerset before the court of King’s Bench. The judge, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, ordered a
hearing for the following January. In fact, following an adjournment, it was not until February 1772 that
the case was heard. In the meantime, it had attracted a great deal of attention in the press, and members of
the public were forthcoming with donations to fund lawyers for both sides of the argument.
10
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence When the case was heard, five advocates appeared for Somerset, arguing that, while colonial law
might permit slavery, those laws did not apply in England, nor could such an important law exist in
England unless it had been specifically enacted by Parliament. This had not taken place. In addition,
English contract law did not allow for any person to enslave himself, nor could any contract be binding
without the person’s consent. The arguments thus focused on legal details rather than humanitarian
principles. The other side argued that property was paramount and that it would be dangerous to free all
the black people in England.
Lord Mansfield, having heard both sides of the argument, retired to make his decision. Finally, on
June 22, 1772, he made his ruling: “no master was ever allowed here to take a slave by force to be sold
abroad because he deserted from his service, or for any other reason whatever.” Somerset was discharged,
and his supporters, who included both black and white Londoners, immediately celebrated a great victory.
In fact, the victory was less than complete. Mansfield had not ruled that slavery was illegal in England;
merely that no one had a right “to take a slave by force to be sold abroad.” Slavery still existed in
England. Moreover, little provision was made for enforcing the judgment, and slaves were still forcibly
taken to the plantations in the years to come. One such incident, in 1773, inspired Thomas Day and John
Bicknell to write their poem The Dying Negro. Another incident, recorded by Olaudah Equiano in 1774,
led to the attempts to rescue John Annis.
For the next fifteen years, Sharp continued his campaign against slavery although, despite the
appearance of a few pamphlets by Benezet and Wesley, he often seemed to be laboring alone. He also,
during the 1770s, involved himself in other charitable and legal campaigns including a campaign against
the press-gang. In 1776, he produced four anti-slavery pamphlets. In the mid-1780s, Sharp became a
supporter of the Sierra Leone resettlement project for freed slaves. While Sharp’s role is now seen as
deeply problematic, it was not seen as such at the time.
Sharp became a lifelong campaigner for abolition. In 1787, he was one of the committee of
people, mostly Quakers, who set up the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the African Slave Trade.
Seen by the committee as “the father of the movement”, he was appointed chairman. In this role he
continued as an active campaigner, working closely with Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce and
personally lobbying both William Pitt, the Prime Minister, and Charles James Fox, the leader of the
opposition. He also corresponded with leaders of the French abolition society, Les Amis des Noirs.
Lord Mansfield’s Decision in The Somerset Case
We are so well agreed, that we think there is no occasion of having it argued (as I intimated an
intention at first,) before all the judges, as is usual, for obvious reasons, on a return to a Habeas Corpus.
The only question before us is, whether the cause on the return [the defense of slavery] is sufficient. If it
is, the negro must be remanded [to the master]; if it is not, he must be discharged [freed].
Accordingly, the return states, that the slave departed [fled] and refused to serve; whereupon he
was kept [detained without due process], to be sold abroad.
So high an act of dominion [forcible detention without prior ‘due process of law’] must be
recognized [authorized] by the [positive, written] law of the country where it is used.
The power of a master over his slave has been exceedingly different, in different countries.
The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being [legally] introduced
[established] on [for] any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive [written] law, which preserves
11
its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from
memory.
It [slavery] is so odios [evil], that nothing can be suffered [allowed] to support [permit] it, but
positive [written] law [allowing detention without due process (none existed)].
Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case [for
slavery] is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black [slave James Somersett]
must be discharged [freed from slavery].
Note to Lord Mansfield’s decision:
Somerset was to be followed in America “because the precedent had become part of American
common law.”20 Somerset is the precedent that the U.S. Supreme Court should have followed in the Dred
Scot case but did not.
20
William M. Wiecek, “Somerset’s Case,” Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst, eds. (New York:
Macmillan Reference USA, 2000), Vol. 5, pp 2451-2452.
12
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence John Wesley (1703–1791) John Wesley stepped into the spiritual and moral quagmire that England had become in the early
to mid-eighteenth century. After being ordained in the Church of England with his brother Charles and
having sailed to America and returned, he had a conversion experience on May 24, 1738. At George
Whitefield’s invitation a year later, at the age of 36, Wesley began preaching in open fields to large
numbers of the working class, who were not always reached by the established church. From that time
until his death in 1791, Wesley was tireless.
Wesley’s energy was prodigious. He got up each morning at four and preached his first sermon
most mornings at five. He and his itinerant preachers divided each day into three equal parts: eight hours
for sleeping and eating; eight for meditation, prayer, and study; and eight for preaching, visiting, and
social labors. He organized hundreds of local Methodist societies around the country, opened the first free
medical dispensary for the poor, a rheumatism clinic in London, and wrote a treatise on medicine. He
prepared and preached at least 45,000 sermons. He traveled a quarter of a million miles on horseback in
all weathers, night and day, up and down England on roads that were often dangerous and sometimes
impassable, during which time he composed his commentary on the Bible verse by verse. Wesley wrote
hundreds of letters and kept a daily journal from 1735 to the year before his death in 1791. He also wrote
some 330 books that were published in his lifetime. He composed in English, French, Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew and edited many books for the general education of his preachers and congregations that became
the fifty volumes of his famous “Christian library,” first published in 1759. Every preacher was made a
distributor and seller of books and was expected to have mastered their contents. In his book Rules For A
Helper, Wesley urged his preachers: “Never be unemployed for a moment; believe evil of no one; speak
evil of no one; a preacher of the Gospel is the servant of all; be ashamed of nothing but sin; be punctual;
you will need all the (common) sense you have to have your wits about you.”
Thirteen years before the Abolition Committee was formed, Wesley published his Thoughts on
Slavery, a graphic, vehement, and penetrating treatise denouncing this vicious “horrid trade” as a national
disgrace. He kept up his attack on slavery with other writings until the end of his life, the last letter he
wrote being to Wilberforce.
At his death, Wesley was one of the most venerated persons in England. He was immortalized in
thousands of portraits, his likeness on teapots and crockery and busts in every conceivable medium.
Excerpts from Thoughts Upon Slavery (1774)
2. Slavery imports an obligation of perpetual service, an obligation which only the consent of the
master can dissolve. Neither in some countries can the master himself dissolve it, without the
consent of Judges appointed by the law. It generally gives the master an arbitrary power of any
correction, not affecting life or limb. Sometimes even these are exposed to his will, or protected
only by a fine, or some slight punishment, too inconsiderable to restrain a master of a harsh
temper. It creates an incapacity of acquiring anything, except for the master’s benefit. It allows
the master to alienate the same, in the same manner as his cows and horses. Lastly, it descends in
its full extent from parent to child, even to the last generation.
3. The beginning of this may be dated from the remotest period of which we have an account in
history. It commenced in the barbarous state of society, and in process of time spread into all
nations. It prevailed particularly among the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, and the ancient
Germans; and was transmitted by them to the various kingdoms and states which arose out of the
Roman Empire. But after Christianity prevailed, it gradually fell into decline in almost all parts of
13
Europe. This great change began in Spain, about the end of the eighth century; and was become
general in most other kingdoms of Europe, before the middle of the fourteenth.
4. From this time slavery was nearly extinct till the commencement of the sixteenth century,
when the discovery of America, and of the western and eastern coasts of Africa, gave occasion to
the revival of it…
II. 8. It was of these parts of Guinea that Monsieur Allanson, correspondent of the Royal
Academy of Sciences at Paris, from 1749 to 1753, gives the following account, both as to the
country and people: -- “Which way soever I turned my eyes, I beheld a perfect image of pure
nature: An agreeable solitude, bounded on every side by a charming landscape; the rural situation
of cottages in the midst of trees; the ease and quietness of the Negroes, reclined under the shade
of the spreading foliage, with the simplicity of their dress and manners: The whole revived in my
mind the idea of our first parents, and I seemed to contemplate the world in its primitive state.
They are, generally speaking, very good-natured, sociable, and obliging. I was not a little pleased
with my very first reception; and it fully convinced me, that there ought to be a considerable
abatement made in the accounts we have of the savage character of the Africans.” He adds: “It is
amazing that an illiterate people should reason so pertinently concerning the heavenly bodies.
There is no doubt, but that, with proper instruments, they would become excellent astronomers.”
… Our forefathers! Where shall we find at this day, among the fair-faced natives of Europe, a
nation generally practicing the justice, mercy, and truth, which are found among these poor
Africans? Suppose the preceding accounts are true, (which I see no reason or pretence to doubt
of,) and we may leave England and France, to seek genuine honesty in Benin, Congo, or Angola.
IV. 7. 7. “But the furnishing us with slaves is necessary for the trade, and wealth, and glory of our
nation.” Here are several mistakes. For, First, wealth is not necessary to the glory of any nation;
but wisdom, virtue, justice, mercy, generosity, public spirit, love of our country. These are
necessary to the real glory of a nation; but abundance of wealth is not. Men of understanding
allow that the glory of England was full as high in Queen Elizabeth’s time as it is now; although
our riches and trade were then as much smaller, as our virtue was greater. But, Secondly, it is not
clear that we should have either less money or trade, (only less of that detestable trade of manstealing,) if there was not a Negro in all our islands, or in all English America. It is demonstrable,
white men, inured to it by degrees, can work as well as them; and they would do it, were Negroes
out of the way, and proper encouragement given them. However, Thirdly, I come back to the
same point: Better no trade, than trade procured by villany. It is far better to have no wealth, than
to gain wealth at the expense of virtue. Better is honest poverty, than all the riches bought by the
tears, and sweat, and blood, of our fellow-creatures.
V. 3. May I speak plainly to you? I must. Love constrains me; love to you, as well as to those
you are concerned with. Is there a God? You know there is. Is he a just God? Then there must be
a state of retribution; a state wherein the just God will reward every man according to his works.
Then what reward will he render to you? O think betimes! before you drop into eternity! Think
now, “He shall have judgment without mercy that showed no mercy.”
Last Letter that Wesley wrote was to William Wilberforce
The last letter that John Wesley wrote was to William Wilberforce. The letter concerns his
opposition to slavery and encouragement for Wilberforce to take action for change. Parliament finally
outlawed England’s participation in the slave trade in 1807.
14
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Balam, February 24, 1791
Dear Sir:
Unless the divine power has raised you us to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you
can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal
of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing,
you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be
against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in
the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever
saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.
Reading this morning a tract wrote by a poor African, I was particularly struck by that
circumstance that a man who has a black skin, being wronged or outraged by a white man, can
have no redress; it being a “law” in our colonies that the oath of a black against a white goes for
nothing. What villainy is this?
That he who has guided you from youth up may continue to strengthen you in this and all things,
is the prayer of, dear sir,
Your affectionate servant,
John Wesley
15
John Newton (1725–1807) John Newton captained two Liverpool slave ships while in his twenties and kept detailed logs of
his voyages. “During the time I was engaged in the slave trade,” he later wrote, “I never had the least
scruple as to its lawfulness. . . . It is, indeed, accounted a genteel employment and is usually very
profitable.” But later he became a Christian minister and looked back at his early life with horror. “I once
was lost, but now am found,” he wrote in his renowned hymn Amazing Grace. In addition to powerful
abolitionist preaching, Newton helped change attitudes toward slavery with an influential account of the
Middle Passage, based on his personal experience.
Most accounts of the Atlantic crossing or Middle Passage are written by ships’ officers or traders,
who describe the business of transporting and managing slaves and who often congratulate themselves on
the decent treatment of their own African cargo. But the point of view of the cargo must have been
different. Most slaves had not seen a ship or a white man before, nor did they have any idea where they
were going. They feared the worst; and the voyage often confirmed their fears. The Interesting Narrative
of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (1789) shocked its
readers by showing the Middle Passage through the eyes of someone who had survived it.
Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade
With our ships, the great object is, to be full. When the ship is there, it is thought desirable she
should take as many as possible. The cargo of a vessel of a hundred tons, or little more, is calculated to
purchase from two hundred and twenty to two hundred and fifty slaves. Their lodging-rooms below the
deck, which are three (for the men, the boys, and the women), besides a place for the sick, are sometimes
more than five feet high, and sometimes less; and this height is divided towards the middle, for the slaves
lie in two rows, one above the other, on each side of the ship, close to each other, like books upon a shelf.
I have known them so close that the shelf would not, easily, contain one more. And I have known a white
man sent down, among the men, to lay them in these rows to the greatest advantage, so that as little space
as possible might be lost.
Let it be observed, that the poor creatures, thus cramped for want of room, are likewise in irons,
for the most part both hands and feet, and two together, which makes it difficult for them to turn or move,
to attempt either to rise or to lie down, without hurting themselves, or each other. Nor is the motion of the
ship, especially her heeling, or stoop on one side, when under sail, to be omitted; for this, as they lie
athwart, or cross the ship, adds to the uncomfortableness of their lodging, especially to those who lie on
the leeward or leaning side of the vessel.
The heat and smell of these rooms, when the weather will not admit of the slaves being brought
upon deck, and of having their rooms cleaned every day, would be almost insupportable to a person not
accustomed to them. If the slaves and their rooms can be constantly aired, and they are not detained too
long on board, perhaps there are not many who die; but the contrary is often their lot. They are kept down,
by the weather, to breathe a hot and corrupted air, sometimes for a week: this added to the galling of their
irons, and the despondency which seizes their spirits when thus confined, soon becomes fatal. And every
morning, perhaps, more instances than one are found, of the living and the dead, like the captives of
Mezentius, fastened together.
Epidemical fevers and fluxes, which fill the ship with noisome and noxious effluvia, often break
out, and infect the seamen likewise, and thus the oppressors, and the oppressed, fall by the same stroke. I
believe, nearly one-half of the slaves on board, have, sometimes, died; and that the loss of a third part, in
these circumstances, is not unusual. The ship, in which I was mate, left the coast with two hundred and
eighteen slaves on board; and though we were not much affected by epidemical disorders, I find by my
16
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence journal of that voyage (now before me), that we buried sixty-two on our passage to South Carolina,
exclusive of those which died before we left the coast, of which I have no account.
I believe, upon an average between the more healthy, and the more sickly voyages, and including
all contingencies, one fourth of the whole purchase may be allotted to the article of mortality: that is, if
the English ships purchase sixty thousand slaves annually, upon the whole extent of the coast, the annual
loss of lives cannot be much less than fifteen thousand.
Lyrics of “Amazing Grace”
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed!
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
We have already come;
‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home. (Lead me home!)
The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.
17
Bishop Beilby Porteus (1731–1809) Beilby Porteus, who was the Bishop of London in the early 1780s, was an early leading
abolitionist. In 1883, he made an important speech to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts (SPG) which had inherited several hundred slaves in a bequest of a plantation in Barbados
in 1710 by Christopher Codrington. The estate was then run by managers who worked for the Archbishop
of Canterbury and a committee of bishops.
Barbados relied on a steady new stream of slaves from West Africa as, by 1740, 30 years after the
Church took over, four out of every 10 slaves bought by the plantation died within three years. This
contrasted with some Southern US plantations where the death rate was lower, suggesting a deliberate
“work to death” policy was in operation, as was commonly the case in the West Indies.
Porteus was invited to preach the 1783 Anniversary Sermon of the Society. He used the occasion
to criticize the Church’s role in ignoring the plight of those slaves and to recommend improving the life of
the slaves. It was a well-reasoned plea and much-reprinted as The Civilisation, Improvement and
Conversion of the Negroe Slaves in the British West-India Islands Recommended. Porteus argued that the
Anglican church had a particular duty to convert the slaves on its own plantations and that humane
treatment should be immediately enforced, regardless of whether the slaves were likely to be emancipated
or not. Like others of his time, he fell short of condemning slavery outright. His policy of amelioration
was always linked to his policy for conversion.
Yet, this was one of the first times that a prominent person in England openly challenged the
position of the slavery in the West Indies. Porteus over time joined with Thomas Clarkson and William
Wilberforce in writing and encouraging the abolition of the slave trade.
Porteus was active in the establishment of Sunday Schools in every parish, an early patron of the
Church Missionary Society, and one of the founder members along with William Wilberforce of the
British and Foreign Bible Society, of which he became vice-president.
The Civilization, Improvement and Conversion of the Negro Slaves in the British West-India
Islands Recommended (1783)
If ever then we hope to make any considerable progress in our benevolent purpose of
communicating to our Negroes the benefits and the blessings of religion, we must first give them some of
the benefits and the blessings of society and of civil government. We must, as far as is possible, attach
them and their families inseparably to the soil: must give them a little interest in it; must indulge them
with a few rights and privileges to be anxious for; must secure them by fixed laws from injury and insult;
must inform their minds, correct their morals, accustom them to the restraints of legal marriage, to the
care of a family and the comforts of domestic life; must improve and advance their condition gradually,
as they are able to bear it; and even allow a certain number of the most deserving to work out their
freedom by degrees [...] as a reward of superior merit and industry and of an uncommon progress in the
knowledge and practice of Christianity.
18
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence James Ramsay (1733–1789) James Ramsay was the first person to document on a first-hand basis the horrors of the slave trade
and slavery. Up until this point, it had been extremely hard for abolitionists to get information from the
West Indies since everyone who worked there was connected with the slave industry.
Ramsay had been a surgeon on a navy ship commanded by Sir Charles Middleton when they met
a slave ship where an epidemic was raging. The horrific conditions of the slaves made a deep and lasting
impression on him. Afterwards, when an injury forced him to seek work on shore, Ramsey committed
himself to do everything he could for the slaves.
Ramsay became clergyman at a church on the island of St. Christopher, now named St. Kitt’s,
and welcomed white and blacks into the church. In addition, Ramsey strongly criticized the planters for
their cruel treatment of slaves. The planters in turn resented Ramsay’s interference in what they regarded
as their lawful business and he soon came under attack.
Ramsay, during his time on St. Christopher, observed firsthand how the slave ships had
abandoned “refuse slaves” on the quays of St. Kitt’s to die. He had seen the auctions and was able to
calculate how many slaves had died in the passage from Africa. Ramsay believed that the brutal treatment
of slaves would only improve when it was in their owners’ interest to do. At that time, slaves who died
could be easily replaced. But if the trade were to cease, planters would have to treat slaves better.
Ramsay returned in 1781 to England with a gift from Sir Charles. He told Sir Charles and his
wife about the horrors of slavery and that something had to be done about it. The first step was to write a
book about it, which Ramsay did in Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of the African Slaves in the
British Sugar Colonies and An Inquiry into the Effects of Putting A Stop to the African Slave Trade, and
of Granting Liberty to the Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies.
In 1783, before Ramsay had finished, William Wilberforce consulted with Ramsay on the issue of
slavery. It was here that Wilberforce began to develop his new passion as he determined to dedicate his
life to a worthy purpose.
Up until this time, anti-slavery pamphlets had previously been written mostly by Quakers and
Methodists and were quickly dismissed because Quakers and Methodists were outsiders in England.
Granville Sharp, an Anglican, had written several pamphlets, but he had not been a first-hand observer.
Yet, when James Ramsay’s essay was published, the British public was for the first time confronted with
an anti-slavery work by both a mainstream Anglican and a firsthand observer. Ramsay became the model
in terms of tone and argument that many were to widely copy. Ramsey was widely hated by the defenders
of the trade and attacked with utter indifference to the truth.
An Inquiry into the Effects of Putting A Stop to the African Slave Trade and of Granting
Liberty to the Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies (1784)
We have now upwards of 200 years traded with Africa in human flesh and encouraged in the
negro countries wars, rapine, desolation and murders, that we might be supplied with that commodity.
The avarice with which we crowded the slave ships and the caution that self-preservation made necessary
to guard against their rising during the voyage, have destroyed in almost every instance a considerable
proportion. The seasoning of them in our islands has in general cut off still more; and those that have
survived in too many cases, have been, to say no worse, preserved only for hunger, stripes and oppressive
labor. On the whole, we have considered the trade only as a matter of gain; and as such in any probably
19
future state of our sugar colonies, it cannot be reckoned higher, in every possible view, than the supplying
of the wants and the reaping of the labor of half a million people.
But suppose that by establishing factories and encouraging in civilization on the coast of Africa
and returning some of our West Indian slaves to their original country, we should try to make up for our
past treachery to the natives and guard against the views of the Americans on our sugar colonies by
instructing the inhabitants in the culture of tobacco, indigo, cotton rice &c. to barter with us for our
manufactures and supply us with those articles, our demand for which has been so advantageous to
America and so well enabled her to set up for herself….
To the objection that our quitting the slave trade would throw a profitable branch into the hands
of our rivals, would improve their sugar colonies and advance them in naval importance, we answer that
this commerce can continue in no hands on longer that the negro countries remain in the state of brutish
barbarism; for when they become civilized, it must cease of course. And from our having been the most
forward in this scandalous traffic, it becomes us to be the first to labor in effecting a reformation….
From this account it plainly appears, that the slave trade occasions a degree of barbarous cruelty
and oppression, which humanity, in its lowest state, must have revolted at, if not supported by avarice and
a lust for gain. We go on the coast, and tempt the natives, with what to them are articles of luxury, to
sweep away, for the real or pretended fault of an individual, whole families in exchange, because they
scan supply us with no other articles that we desire to possess. But from the success of the Portuguese
among them, it is clear that the Africans are capable of instruction and improvement and that agriculture
and arts might easily be introduced among them and lay a foundation for trade that far from wounding
humanity in this high degree might raise and improve it and be a blessing and an advantage to all
concerned…
By stopping the importation of slaves into our colonies, you increase the value of those who are
already there; you oblige their masters to use them well and improve their condition. But while ever the
slave trade continues open to supply, the ravages made by oppression and famine, one great inducement is
wanting for treating slaves with humanity. Without meaning to cast any reproach on masters, who like all
other bodies, consist of good, bad and indifferent men, I affirm, that till some check or new turn be give to
the slave trade, it will be found a most difficult business to advance the condition of salves in our
colonies, so as to answer the fond wishes of piety and philanthropy respect them.
August 10, 1784 FINIS.
20
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) Thomas Clarkson was one of the early and key abolitionists in England. While attending
Cambridge University to prepare to enter the clergy and having been ordained a deacon in the Church,
Clarkson competed for an essay prize in Latin on the subject “Is it right to make slaves of others against
their will?” Although he initially knew nothing on the subject, Clarkson’s interest was piqued and he soon
discovered the writing of Anthony Benezet, who became a principal source for Clarkson. He also found
students who had had a personal experience of slavery and the slave trade.
Clarkson, on a trip back from London, could not get the slave trade out of his mind. As he later
wrote: “I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside and held my horse. Here a thought came into
my mind – that, if the contents of the essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities
to their end.”
Clarkson translated his essay from Latin into English and had it published. His essay became
immediately influential and brought him into contact with established abolitionists including Granville
Sharp and James Ramsey. In May 1787, Clarkson was one of the twelve men who formed the Committee
for Abolition of the African Slave Trade.
Clarkson took on the role of fact finder and for the next two years rode his horse around England
going from seaport to seaport, notably Bristol and Liverpool, gathering evidence against the slave trade.
He collected extensive information about the slave trade by interviewing over two thousand seamen and
examining numerous ship holds and naval records. Clarkson recruited William Wilberforce, a leading
politician, to join the cause. Clarkson presented his evidence to Wilberforce, who in turn presented it to
the Privy Council on July 27, 1788, thereby endeavoring to persuade the government to establish other
forms of commerce in Africa. Clarkson wrote several books and pamphlets between 1787 and 1794
opposing the slave trade. In his Essay on Slavery, Clarkson denounced the African trade as “injustice and
inhumane” while his Essay on Impolicy undertook to demonstrate that such a trade was as “impolitic” as
it was inefficient:
I shall shew [sic] first, that it is in the power of the planters, if they please, to do without fresh
supplies from the coast: I shall then shew [sic], that if the importation of slaves is prohibited, no
such want will be found, but on the other hand, that the number of cultivators will increase; and,
lastly, that both the planters, the slaves, and the islands, will be benefited by the change.
In his travels, Clarkson spoke at many meetings, often on Sunday at churches during his tour in
1787–1788. Clarkson also began to mobilize public opinion by building a network of local organizations
and activists on the pre-existing framework of Quaker congregations. He traveled an estimated thirtythree thousand miles on horseback, crisscrossing England again and again between 1787 and 1792.
Clarkson organized major petitions calling on ending the slave trade that were signed by at least sixty
thousand English men. By bringing them to Parliament, Clarkson began the first public lobbying
campaign.
The informal relationship which already existed between British and American abolitionists were
consolidated by the Society’s correspondence with the leading antislavery groups in Philadelphia and
New York, and subsequently with the establishment of Les Amis des Noirs in Paris in 1788.
Clarkson was active on both the abolition of the slave trade around the world, but also on the
emancipation of the slaves in the British colonies. He traveled to Paris in 1818 to press the Czar
Alexander of Russia to suppress the slave trade. In 1823, when the Anti-Slavery Society was formed to
take up for emancipation, Clarkson, along with Wilberforce, joined together as vice presidents, although
21
much of the work was done by the younger members, including Thomas Fowell Buxton. Clarkson wrote
Thoughts on the Necessity for improving the Condition of the Slaves in the British Colonies, with a view
to their ultimate emancipation. Clarkson continued to write anti-slavery pamphlets into the 1840s.
From the Preface of An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species,
Particularly the African Translated from a Latin Dissertation, Which Was Honored With the First
Prize in the University of Cambridge, for the Year 1785, With Additions
The present age has also produced some zealous and able opposers of the colonial slavery. For
about the middle of the present century, John Woolman and Anthony Benezet, two respectable members
of the religious society called Quakers, devoted much of their time to the subject. The former traveled
through most parts of North America on foot, to hold conversations with the members of his own sect, on
the impiety of retaining those in a state of involuntary servitude, who had never given them offense. The
latter kept a free school at Philadelphia, for the education of black people. He took every opportunity of
pleading in their behalf. He published several treatises against slavery, and gave an hearty proof of his
attachment to the cause, by leaving the whole of his fortune in support of that school, to which he had so
generously devoted his time and attention when alive.
Till this time it does not appear, that any bodies of men, had collectively interested themselves in
endeavoring to remedy the evil. But in the year 1754, the religious society, called Quakers, publicly
testified their sentiments upon the subject, declaring, that “to live in ease and plenty by the toil of those,
whom fraud and violence had put into their power, was neither consistent with Christianity nor common
justice.”
Impressed with these sentiments, many of this society immediately liberated their slaves; and
though such a measure appeared to be attended with considerable loss to the benevolent individuals, who
unconditionally presented them with their freedom, yet they adopted it with pleasure: nobly considering,
that to possess a little, in an honorable way, was better than to possess much, through the medium of
injustice. Their example was gradually followed by the rest. A general emancipation of the slaves in the
possession of Quakers, at length took place; and so effectually did they serve the cause which they had
undertaken, that they denied the claim of membership in their religious community, to all such as should
hereafter oppose the suggestions of justice in this particular, either by retaining slaves in their possession,
or by being in any manner concerned in the slave trade: and it is a fact, that through the vast tract of North
America, there is not at this day a single slave in the possession of an acknowledged Quaker…
Animated by the example of the Quakers, the members of other sects began to deliberate about
adopting the same measure. Some of those of the church of England, of the Roman Catholicks, and of the
Presbyterians and Independants, freed their slaves; and there happened but one instance, where the matter
was debated, where it was not immediately put in force. This was in Pennsylvania. It was agitated in the
synod of the Presbyterians there, to oblige their members to liberate their slaves. The question was
negatived by a majority of but one person; and this opposition seemed to arise rather from a dislike to the
attempt of forcing such a measure upon the members of that community, than from any other
consideration. I have the pleasure of being credibly informed, that the manumission of slaves, or the
employment of free men in the plantations, is now daily gaining ground in North America. Should slavery
be abolished there, (and it is an event, which, from these circumstances, we may reasonably expect to be
produced in time) let it be remembered, that the Quakers will have had the merit of its abolition.
Nor have their brethren here been less assiduous in the cause. As there are happily no slaves in
this country, so they have not had the same opportunity of shewing their benevolence by a general
emancipation. They have not however omitted to shew it as far as they have been able. At their religious
meetings they have regularly inquired if any of their members are concerned in the iniquitous African
22
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence trade. They have appointed a committee for obtaining every kind of information on the subject, with a
view to its suppression, and, about three or four years ago, petitioned parliament on the occasion for their
interference and support. I am sorry to add, that their benevolent application was ineffectual, and that the
reformation of an evil, productive of consequences equally impolitick and immoral, and generally
acknowledged to have long disgraced our national character, is yet left to the unsupported efforts of piety
morality and justice, against interest violence and oppression; and these, I blush to acknowledge, too
strongly countenanced by the legislative authority of a country, the basis of whose government is liberty.
Such have been the exertions of the Quakers in the cause of humanity and virtue. They are still
prosecuting, as far as they are able, their benevolent design; and I should stop here and praise them for
thus continuing their humane endeavors, but that I conceive it to be unnecessary. They are acting
consistently with the principles of religion. They will find a reward in their own consciences; and they
will receive more real pleasure from a single reflection on their conduct, than they can possibly
experience from the praises of an host of writers.
History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave
Trade (1808)
This book provides significant detail on the abolition campaign and is an important record of the
movement, even though Clarkson had retired from the movement from 1794 to 1803. The excerpts below
are Clarkson’s view of the effect of the Brooke’s ship plan and the William Cowper poem “A Negro’s
Complaint” (see Cowper, later).
Chapter 2
…the committee (for Abolition of the African Slave Trade), during my absence in France, had
circulated the plate of the slave-ship (Brookes) throughout all England. No one saw it but he was
impressed. It spoke to him in a language, which was at once intelligible and irresistible. It brought forth
the tear of sympathy in behalf of the sufferers, and it fixed their sufferings in his heart. The committee too
had been particularly vigilant during the whole of the year, with respect to the public papers. They had
suffered no statement in behalf of those interested in the continuance of the trade, to go unanswered. Dr.
Dickson, the author of the Letters on Slavery before mentioned, had come forward again with his services
on this occasion, and by his active cooperation with a sub-committee appoint for the purpose the coast
was so well cleared of our opponents, that, though they were seen the next year again, through the
medium of the same papers, they appeared only in sudden incursions, as it were, during which they darted
a few weapons at us; but they never afterward ventured upon the plain to dispute the matter, inch by inch,
or point by point, in an open and manly manner.
But other circumstances occurred to keep up a hatred of the trade among the people in this
interval which, trivial as they were, ought not to be forgotten. The amicable poet Cowper had frequently
made the Slave-trade the subject of his contemplation. He had already severely condemned it in his
valuable poem pieces upon it. Of these the most impressive was that, which he called The Negro’s
Complaint…
This little piece, Cowper presented in manuscript to some of his friends in London; and these,
conceiving it to contain a powerful appeal in behalf of the injured Africans joined in printing it. Having
ordered it on the finest hot-pressed paper, and folded it up in a small and neat form, they gave it the
printed title of “A Subject for Conversation at the Tea-table.”After his, they sent many thousand copies of
it in franks into the country. From one it spread to another, till it traveled almost over the whole island.
Falling at length into the hands of the musician, it was set to music; and it then found its way into the
23
streets, both of the metropolis and of the country, where it was sung as a ballad; and where it gave a plain
account of the subject, with an appropriate feeling, to those who heard it.
Nor was the philanthropy of the late Mr. Wedgwood less instrumental in turning the popular
feeling in our favor. He made his own manufactory contribute to this end. He took the seal of the
committee, as exhibited in the first volume, for his model; and he produced a beautiful cameo, of a less
size, of which the ground was a most delicate white, but the Negro, who was seen imploring compassion
in the middle of it, was in his own native color. Mr. Wedgwood made a liberal donation of these, when
finished, among his friends. I received from him no less than five hundred of them myself. They were
soon, like The Negro’s Complaint, in different parts of the kingdom. Some had them inlaid in gold on the
lid of their snuff-boxes. Of the ladies, several wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted in an
ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length, the taste for wearing them became general; and thus
fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honorable office of
promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom.
Chapter 4
The defeat (in 1796) which we had just sustained, was a matter of great triumph to our opponents.
When they considered the majority in the House of Commons in their favor, they viewed the resolutions
of the committee, which we have detailed, as the last spiteful effort of a vanquished and dying animal,
and they supposed that they had consigned the question to eternal sleep. The committee, however, were
too deeply attached to the cause, vanquished as they were, to desert it; and they knew also too well the
barometer of public feeling, and the occasion of its fluctuations, to despair. In the year 1787 the members
of the House of Commons, as well as the people, were enthusiastic in behalf of the abolition of the trade.
In the year 1788 the fair enthusiasm of the former began to fade. In 1789, it died. In 1789 prejudice
started up as a noxious weed in its place. In 1791 this prejudice arrived at its growth. But to what were
these changes owning? – To delay; during which the mind, having been gradually led to the question as a
commercial, had been gradually taken from it as a moral object. But it was possible to restore the mind to
its proper place. Add to which, that the nation had never deserted the cause during this whole period.
It is much to the honor of the English people, that they should have continued to feel for the
existence of an evil which was so far removed from their sight. But at this moment their feelings began to
be insupportable. Many of them resolved, as soon as Parliament had rejected the bill, to abstain from the
use of West Indian produce. In this state of things a pamphlet, written by William Bell Crafton, of
Tewksbury, and called “A Sketch of the Evidence, with a Recommendation on the Subject to the Serious
Attention of People in general” made its appearance; and another followed it, written by William Fox, of
London “On the Propriety of abstaining from West India Sugar and Rum.” These pamphlets took the
same ground. They inculcated abstinence from these articles as a moral duty; they inculcated it as a
peaceable and constitutional measure; and they laid before the reader a truth, which was sufficiently
obvious, that if each would abstain, the people would have a complete remedy for this enormous evil in
their own power.
While these things were going on, it devolved upon me to arrange all the evidence on the part of
the abolition under proper heads, and to abridge it into one volume. It was intended that a copy of this
should be sent into different towns of the kingdom, that all might know, if possible, the horrors (as far as
the evidence contained them) of this execrable trade; and as it was possible that these copies might lie in
the places where they were sent, without a due attention to their contents, I resolved, with the approbation
of the committee, to take a journey, and for no other purpose than personally to recommend that they
might be read.
24
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence The books, having been printed, were dispatched before me. Of this tour I shall give the reader no
other account than that of the progress of the remedy, which the people were then taking into their own
hands. And first I may observe, that there was no town, through which I passed, in which there was not
some one individual who had left off the use of sugar. In the smallest towns there were from ten to fifty
by estimation, and in the larger from two to five hundred, who had made this sacrifice to virtue. These
were of all ranks and parties. Rich and poor, churchmen and dissenters, had adopted the measure. Even
grocers had left off trading in the article, in some places. In gentlemen’s families, where the master had
set the example, the servants had often voluntarily followed it and even children, who were capable of
understanding the history of the sufferings of the Africans, excluded, with the most virtuous resolutions,
the sweets, to which they had been accustomed, from their lips. By the best computation I was able to
make from notes taken down in my journey, no fewer than three hundred thousand person had abandoned
the use of sugar.
Having traveled over Wales, and two thirds of England, I found it would be impossible to visit
Scotland on the same errand. I had already, by moving upwards and downwards I parallel lines, and by
intersecting these in the same manner, passed over six thousand miles. By the best calculation I could
make, I had yet two thousand to perform. By means of almost incessant journeying night and day, I had
suffered much in my health. My strength was failing daily. I wrote therefore to the committee on this
subject…
25
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano (c. 1757–?) Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, in a preface to the first edition of his Thoughts and Sentiments on the
Evil of Slavery from 1787, below details his early life, including his kidnapping and how he ended up in
London.
In 1786, Cugoano played a key part in the rescue of Henry Demane, a black man who had been
kidnapped in order to be sent to the West Indies. Cugoano and another community leader, William Green,
reported the kidnapping to the white abolitionist Granville Sharp, who obtained a legal writ of habeas
corpus, and rescued Demane at the last minute, just as the ship was weighing anchor. He became one of
the leading spokesmen for London’s black community.
Cugoano sold subscriptions to the book to pay for the printing, as was a common practice in the
day. It is thought that Equiano collaborated with him. In his book, Cugoano destroyed the arguments in
common defenses of slavery: that black slaves in the Caribbean were better off than the European poor;
that slavery had divine sanction; that Africans were, by nature and complexion, peculiarly suited to
slavery. Cugoano points out that the slaves were bought and sold and dealt with as their capricious
owners saw fit, “even torturing and tearing them to pieces, and wearing them out with hard labor, hunger
and oppression.”
Cugoano went further than just denouncing slavery. He was the first writer in English to declare
that enslaved blacks had not only the moral right, but the moral duty to resist. Cugoano used the argument
of the Bible to support his argument.
Cugoano sent copies of his Thoughts and Sentiments to King George III, the Prince of Wales, and
the politician Edmund Burke. Yet, all remained supporters of the slave trade. In a postscript to a shorter
version of his Thoughts, Cugoano announced his intention of opening a school, mainly for “all such of his
complexion as are desirous of being acquainted with the knowledge of the Christian religion and the laws
of civilization.” It is not clear whether he succeeded in opening the school, as nothing is known about him
after 1791.
Cugoano was the first published African critic of the transatlantic slave trade, and the first
African to demand publicly the total abolition of the trade and the freeing of the slaves—a position much
stronger than any of the white abolitionists had taken up to that time.
Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery
The following “N(ota) B(ene)” was pasted into some of the issues of the 1787 edition of
Cugoano’s book:
N.B. Since these Thoughts and Sentiments have been read by some, I find a general Approbation
has been given, and that the things pointed out thereby might be more effectually taken into consideration,
I was requested by some friends to add this information about myself: - When I was kidnapped and
brought away from Africa, I was then about 13 years of age, in the year of the Christian era 1770; and
being about nine or ten months in the slave-gang at Grenada, and about one year at different places in the
West-Indies, with Alexander Campbell, Esq.; who brought me to England in the end of the year 1772, I
was advised by some good people to get myself baptized, that I might not be carried away and sold again,
- I was called Stewart by my master, but in order that I might embrace this ordinance, I was called John
Stewart, and I went several times to Dr. Skinner who instructed me (1) and I was baptized by him, and
registered at St. James’s Church in the year 1773. Some of my fellow-servants, who assisted me in this
got themselves turned away for it; I have only put my African name to the title of the book, - When I was
26
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence brought away from Africa, my father and relations were then chief men in the kingdom of Agimaque and
Assinee; but what they may be now, or whether dead or alive, I know not. I wish to go back as soon as I
can hear any proper security and safe conveyance can be found; and I wait to hear how it fares with the
Black People sent to Sierra Leona. But it is my highest wish and earnest prayer to God, that some
encouragement could be given to send able school masters and intelligent ministers who would be faithful
and able to teach the Christian religion. This would be doing great good to the Africans, and be a kind
restitution for the great injuries that they have suffered. But still I fear no good can be done near any of
the European settlements, while such a horrible and infernal traffic of slavery is carried on by them.
Wherever the foot of man can go, at the forts and garrisons it would seem to be wrote with these words –
O earth! O sea! Cover not thou the blood of the poor negro slaves
Cuguano concludes his book with a focus on justice and equity:
But thus saith the law of God: If a man be found stealing any of his neighbors or he that stealth a
man (let him be who he will) and selleth him or that maketh merchandise of him or if he be found in his
hand, then that thief shall die. However, in all modern slavery among Christians, who ought to know this
law, they have not had any regard to it. Surely if any law among them admits of death as a punishment for
robbing or defrauding other of money or goods, it ought to be double death, if it was possible, when a
man is robbed of himself and sold into captivity and cruel bondage.
The crying sin of tolerating slavery has long need(ed) redress and many pious men who are
raising up as bulwarks of defense against the efforts of error ahs made some laudable exertions towards a
total suppression of that horrible traffic; but, while the hearts of mankind are allured by the goddess of
avarice and infidelity combined together. We need not supposed that there can be much good done, in
proportion to the laudable exertions now made. But, let men remember, that the judgment of God
slumbereth not.
The higher any man is exalted in power and dignity, the more eminent is his danger, though he
may not live to see the evil that may eventually contribute to his country, because of his disobedience to
the law and commandments of God. All men in authority, kings in general, who are exalted to the most
conspicuous offices of superiority, while they take upon themselves to be the administrators of
righteousness and justice to others, they become equally responsible for admitting or suffering other
sunder their authority to do wrong. Wherefore the highest offices of authority among men are not so
desirable as some may be apt to conceive; it was so considered by the virtuous queen Anne, when she was
called to the royal dignity, as she declared to the council of the nation, that it was a heavy weight and
burden brought upon her. For kings are the ministers of God, to do justice and not to bear the sword in
vain, but to revenge wrath upon them that do evil. But if they do not in such a case as this, the cruel
oppressions of thousands and the blood of the murdered Africans who are slain by the sword of cruel
avarice must rest upon their own guilty heads; and therefore they ought to let no companies of insidious
merchants or any guileful insinuations of wicked men, prevail upon them to establish laws of iniquity and
to carry on a trade of oppression and injustice; but they ought to consider such as the worst of foes and
rebels and greater enemies than any that can rise up against their temporal dignity. From all such enemies,
good Lord, deliver the kings! For it is far better to lose a temporal kingdom, than only to endanger the
happiness and enjoyment of an eternal one. Should this small Abstract obtain the approbation of my
Readers, I shall publish the remainder of the Work in a short time.
QUOBNA OTTOBOUH CUGOANO,
A NATIVE of the Gold Coast, AFRICA
27
Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) Olaudah Equiano was a slave who became a bestselling author and abolitionist. Equiano’s The
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano comes as an early form of autobiography and even
earlier form of memoir genre in literature and certainly one of the very first Black memoirs in English. It
tells of Equiano’s journey, traveling from the Old World to the New, from Africa to Europe through the
Americas, from bondage to freedom, and from owned property to property owner. Our knowledge of
Equiano comes mostly from his writings. But even from the time it was written, the question was, is it
wholly truthful in its self-portrayal?
Recently, Vincent Carretta, a senior fellow at Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and
African-American Research, wrote Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man, which
Publishers Weekly reports:
“provides a masterful, lively and scrupulously researched account that questions central parts of
the ex-slave’s narrative, but upholds his view of himself as a self-made man. Carretta points out
‘compelling but not absolutely conclusive’ evidence that Equiano, despite his description of a
childhood in Africa and the Middle Passage, was born in South Carolina. As a slave, he spent
most of his early life at sea, serving various British naval officers. Quick-witted and intelligent,
Equiano gained his superiors’ confidence and eventually his freedom; his nautical knowledge
served him well later, when he traveled as a missionary to Sierra Leone. He lived most of his free
life in England, worked as an abolitionist and served as a missionary. As Carretta so eloquently
observes, Equiano did invent himself as a writer with a singular vantage point on slavery and as a
spokesman for Africa (which he did visit later in life), a continent that few Europeans knew about
in the 18th century. Carretta’s exemplary study offers not only the definitive biography of
Equiano but also a first-rate social history of the late 18th century in America and in England.”
Perhaps because of the perceived inferiority of Africans and of those in slavery, Equiano
fashioned himself as an Englishman, writing in English, publishing in England with a picture of himself
upfront in English attire, and holding onto a Bible open to the book of the Acts of the Apostles.
Equiano reports that he was born in 1745 in Essaka, Nigeria, to a well-respected Igbo family. His
name at birth was Olaude Elwealou, but he gave himself the name Olauday Equiano. He was captured at
the age of eleven along with his sister. They were quickly separated by slavers. Equiano was sold a
number of times, ending up as the slave to an English naval officer who renamed him Gustavus Vassa.
Equiano spent his free time reading books, particularly the Bible. He was baptized at St. Margaret’s
Church in London in 1759 at the age of fourteen.
Although he had become a Christian, he was resold into slavery in 1762. In 1766 at the age of 21,
Equiano purchased his freedom from profits he had made as a small merchant of goods. As a free man, he
finally settled in London where he took an interest in humanitarian efforts. He soon made the
acquaintance of Granville Sharp, the prominent abolitionist and convinced him to petition the courts on
behalf of the murdered slaves of the ship Zong, who had been thrown overboard so that the ship owner
could claim insurance from loss of property.
Equiano published his book The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano in1789 to
considerable acclaim. Like Cugoano, Equiano became a Christian and this influenced both his thinking
and standing as a subject in the British Empire. Equiano argued from a Christian perspective against the
prevailing Enlightenment era thought in Europe on the utter commonness of Blacks.
28
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
The last few pages from his Narrative beginning with his letter to the Queen on behalf of his
African brethren in March 21, 1788 are reproduced below:
To the QUEEN’s Most Excellent Majesty
MADAM
YOUR Majesty’s well known benevolence and humanity embolden me to approach your royal
presence, trusting that the obscurity of my situation will not prevent your Majesty from attending to the
sufferings for which I plead.
Yet I do not solicit your royal pity for my own distress: my sufferings, although numerous, are in
a measure forgotten. I supplicate your Majesty’s compassion for millions of my African countrymen, who
groan under the last of tyranny in the West Indies.
The oppression and cruelty exercised to the unhappy negroes there have at length reached the
British legislature and they are now deliberating on its redress: even several person of property in slaves
in the West Indies have petitioned parliament against its continuance, sensible that it is as impolitic as it is
unjust and what is inhuman must ever be unwise.
Your Majesty’s reign has hitherto been distinguished by private acts of benevolence and bounty;
surely the more extended the misery is, the greater claim it has on your Majesty’s compassion and the
greater must be your Majesty’s pleasure in administering to its relief.
I presume, therefore, gracious Queen to implore your interposition with your royal consort in
favor of the wretched Africans; that, by your Majesty’s benevolent influence, a period may now be put to
their misery; and that they may be raised from the condition of brutes to which they are at present
degraded to the rights and situation of men and be admitted to partake of the blessings of your Majesty’s
happy government; so shall your Majesty enjoy the heart-felt pleasure of procuring happiness to millions
and be rewarded in the grateful prayers of themselves and of their posterity.
And may the all-bountiful Creator shower on your Majesty and the Royal Family every blessing
that this world can afford and every fullness of joy which divine revelation has promised us in the next.
I am your Majesty’s most dutiful and devoted servant to command
GUSTAVUS VASSA,
The oppressed Ethiopian
No. 53 Baldwin’s-Gardens
29
The Clapham Sect In 1919, a tablet was built into the south wall of Holy Church Clapham bearing the following
inscription:
LET US PRAISE GOD
For the memory and example of all the faithful departed who have worshipped in this church, and
especially for the under named Servants of Christ sometimes called “THE CLAPHAM SECT” who in the
latter part of the 18th and early part of the 19th centuries labored so abundantly for the increase of national
righteousness and the conversion of the heathen and rested not until the curse of slavery was swept away
from all parts of the British dominions –
Charles Grant
Zacchary Macaulay
Granville Sharp
John Shore (Lord Teignmouth)
James Stephens
Henry Thornton
John Thornton
Henry Venn
John Venn
William Wilberforce
“O God, we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us, the noble works that
Thou didst in their day and in the old time before them.”
“Never have the members of one congregation so greatly influenced the history of the world. The
effect of their prayers and actions not only profoundly altered the religious and social life of this country,
it was also felt in Africa, in the West Indies, in India and in Australasia.” 21
21
30
Michael Hennell, John Venn and the Clapham Sect, Lutterworth Press, London, 1958, p. 169
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence William Wilberforce (1759–1833) William Wilberforce was a Member of Parliament who is best known for his leadership in the
Abolition of the British Slave Trade in 1807, which Wilberforce learned of just three days before he died.
The emancipation of all slaves in the British Empire followed in 1833.
While Wilberforce’s parliamentary career started off in 1780 at the age of 23 in an unimpressive
fashion, Wilberforce had a conversion experience beginning in 1784 when he began reading Philip
Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul and the Greek New Testament on a European trip
with Isaac Milner, brother of his headmaster at school. At one point in early 1786, Wilberforce withdrew
from public life to seek God’s will. He sought out John Newton for counseling and lived with John
Thornton in Clapham. The transformation experience was completed on Easter 1786.
Wilberforce had taken an interest in the slave trade early in his parliamentary career after a
conversation with James Ramsay shortly before the latter’s 1784 publication of his Essay on the
Treatment of the Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies. In the autumn of 1786, Sir Charles Middleton
urged Wilberforce to take up the subject of the slave trade and the latter promised to give it serious
consideration. In 1787 after the formation of the Society to Abolish Slavery, Wilberforce was introduced
to Thomas Clarkson
While not part of the initial abolition movement, Wilberforce was quickly convinced to join.
Wilberforce’s participation in abolition was significant because of his prominent position in Parliament.
Shortly thereafter on October 28, 1787, Wilberforce wrote one of the greatest personal mission statements
ever written: “God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the Slave Trade and
the Reformation of Manners.”
In 1789, drawing on research and evidence collected by Thomas Clarkson, Wilberforce made his
first major speech on abolition in the House of Commons. Wilberforce described in detail the appalling
conditions of the transportation of slaves from Africa to North America. In 1790, Wilberforce succeeded
in obtaining approval for a Parliamentary select committee to consider the slave trade and examine the
vast quantity of evidence he had collected. In April 1791, Wilberforce introduced the first Parliamentary
Bill to abolish the slave trade which was defeated 163 votes to 88. Wilberforce continued to bring forth a
bill to abolish the slave trade on a yearly basis.
In September 1806, Wilberforce was re-elected in Yorkshire and spent most of the year writing A
Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, an essay in which he summarized the huge amount of evidence
collected by Clarkson over the last two decades. Lord Grenville, who had become Prime Minister in
1806, introduced into the House of Lords an Abolition Bill. Grenville made an impassioned speech
criticizing his fellow members for “not having abolished the trade long ago” and arguing that the trade
was “contrary to the principles of justice, humanity and sound policy.” The House of Lords passed the bill
by a margin of 41 to 20. The House of Commons then had a second reading of the Abolition Bill on
February 23, 1807. The House passed the bill 283 to 16 and the Slave Trade Act received royal assent on
March 25, 1807, with an effective date of May 1, 1807.
Wilberforce continued his work to abolish slavery after 1807 by working toward enforcing the act
through the British Navy. After a bout of ill health in 1820, Wilberforce asked Thomas Fowell Buxton to
take over the leadership of the campaign in the House of Commons.
31
Wilberforce published his Appeal to the Religion, Justice and Humanity of the inhabitants of the
British Empire in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies in 1823, where he claimed total
emancipation was morally and ethically justified and a matter of national duty before God.
On July 26, 1833, Wilberforce heard, with much rejoicing that the Emancipation Bill had finally
passed its third reading in Commons, effectively ensuring passage of the bill, which occurred one month
later. All slaves in the British Empire were set free. The British government paid 20 million pounds to
former owners, one half of the annual British budget at the time.
Excerpt from Wilberforce’s May 12, 1789 Speech in Parliament
When I consider the magnitude of the subject which I am to bring before the House – a subject, in
which the interests, not of this country nor of Europe alone, but of the whole world, and of posterity, are
involved: and when I think, at the same time, on the weakness of the advocate who has undertaken this
great cause- when these reflections press upon my mind, it is impossible not to feel both terrified and
concerned at my own inadequacy to such a task. But when I reflect, however, on the encouragement
which I have had, through the whole course of a long and laborious examination of this question, how
much candor I have experienced, and how conviction has increased within my own mind, in proportion as
I have advanced in my labors; -when I reflect, especially, that however averse any gentleman may now
be, yet we shall all be of one opinion in the end; -when I turn myself to these thoughts, I take courage – I
determine to forget all my other fears, and I march forward with a firmer step in the full assurance that my
cause will bear me out, and that I shall be able to justify, upon the clearest principles, every resolution in
my hand, the avowed end of which is, the total abolition of the slave trade…I mean not to accuse any one,
but to take the shame upon myself, in common, indeed, with the whole parliament of Great Britain, for
having suffered this horrid trade to be carried on under their authority. We are all guilty- we ought all to
plead guilty, and not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame to others; and I therefore deprecate
every kind of reflection against the various descriptions of people who are more immediately involved in
this wretched business…
Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer
plead ignorance…it is brought now so directly before our eyes, that this House must decide, and must
justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their
decision. A society has been established for the abolition of this trade, in which dissenters, Quakers,
churchmen … have all united… Let not parliament be the only body that is insensible to the principles of
national justice. Let us make reparation to Africa…and we shall soon find the rectitude of our conduct
rewarded, but the benefits of a regular and growing commerce. (p. 34 – 36 Saints in Politics)
Excerpt from a 1792 Speech in Parliament
…In the year 1788 in a ship in this trade, 650 persons were on board, out of whom 155 died. In
another, 405 were on board, out of whom were lost 200. In another there were on board 450, out of
whom, 200 died; in another, there were on board 402, out of whom 73 died. When captain Wilson was
asked the causes of this mortality, he replied, that the slaves had a fixed melancholy and dejection; that
they wished to die; that they refused all sustenance, till they were beaten in order to compel them to eat;
and that, when they had been so beaten, they looked in the faces of the whites and said, piteously, “Soon
we shall be no more.” They sometimes threw themselves overboard; but were in general prevented by the
high netting placed on purpose to restrain them; and such a death they called escape. This melancholy and
its attendant disorders mocked all attempts at relief. The wretches on board the ships died sometimes of
insanity, sometimes of starvation; and sometimes they were drowned.
32
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence …He could have wished to drop for ever all recital of facts which tended to prove the cruelty of
those who dealt in this abominable traffic; but there was an instance which he could not omit… The
instance…was the case of a young girl of fifteen, of extreme modesty, who finding herself in a situation
incident to her sex, was extremely anxious to conceal it. The captain of the vessel, instead of encouraging
a laudable a disposition, tied her by the wrist and placed her in a position so as to make her a spectacle to
the whole crew. In this situation he beat her; but not thinking the exhibition he had made sufficiently
conspicuous, he tied her up by the legs and then also beat her. But his cruel ingenuity was not yet
exhausted, for he next tied her up by one leg, after which she lost all sensation, and in the course of three
days she expired. This was an indisputable fact. (Name, name, name! resounded from all parts of the
House.) Captain Kimber was the man…this was not a singular instance, there were proofs, beyond all
dispute, of many others.
Mr. Wilberforce concluded by saying, that, in his exertions for the present cause, he had found
happiness, though not hitherto success…that he…had the bliss of remembering, that he had demanded
justice for millions, who could not ask it for themselves…(p.43 Saints in Politics)
A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Addressed to the Freeholders of Yorkshire
(London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, J. Hatchard, 1807)
To look around, and to not see a single face of friendship or relationship, no eye to cheer, no staff
to lean upon; surely the comfortless close of such a Negro’s comfortless life, though not of equal intensity
of suffering with many of the evils of the former scenes through which he has passed, is yet, from the
deep tinge and uniform melancholy of its colouring, as affecting a state, to the humane mind, as any
whatever in a life abounding in all the varieties of human wretchedness.
Such from first to last is the condition of human existence, to which that abhorred traffic the
Slave Trade annually consigns many thousands of our unoffending fellow creatures. This is a most
astonishing phenomenon, when we consider the general character of the people of this country; when we
call to mind the unparalleled benevolence and liberality which are found among us; when we take into
account, that not a new species of distress can be pointed out, but that almost immediately some meeting
takes place, some society is formed, for preventing it. Is it not utterly astonishing, that Great Britain
should have been the prime agents in carrying on this trade of blood? Posterity will scarcely believe it.
We, the happiest, render the Africans the most miserable of mankind!
It is a humiliating and an awful, but, I fear, it is an undoubted truth; that it is in part, at least,
because we ourselves overflow with comforts, that we are so indifferent to the happiness of this vast
portion of our fellow creatures. It is, in our corrupted nature, too naturally the effect of prosperity to
harden the heart. Yet I firmly believe, that could many of our opponents see with their own eyes but a
slight sample of the miseries the Slave Trade occasions, they would themselves be eager for its
termination. But, alas, Africa and its miseries are out of sight. Business, pleasure, engagements, the
interests and feelings of the hour, leave little time for reflection, and therefore little access to the feelings.
Sympathy here likewise operates against us. For we are readily led to sympathize with a great West India
Proprietor; but not with a miserable negro Slave. Yet, let me ask (in this happy country the case cannot
really happen), what should we think of any man, who, for some even considerable and clear, much more
for any dubious interest, was to make a single family as miserable as the Slave Trade renders thousands of
families each year? If he were to keep them month after month and year after year in continual alarm,
from the apprehension of some nightly attack; if at length the apprehension were to be realized, the attack
to be made, and the wretched beings, flying from the flames, were to be seized and carried off into
slavery; if he were thus to tear a father or mother from their children, or to seize unawares and hurry away
some helpless children from their parents; What would be his remorse, if he had even innocently been the
occasion of rendering a before happy family the scene of lasting sorrow and misery? What should we
33
think of any man, who would not be forward to dry the tears of such a family, and restore them, if
possible, to comfort, or who would not willingly expose himself to danger, in order to prevent their
suffering such a miserable fate. Let every one then remember, that, by giving his vote for the abolition of
the Slave Trade, he will prevent the perpetration of innumerable crimes, like the worst of those here
mentioned, and the suffering of the bitterest of these miseries. How few, if one single man could be
found, who would support the Slave Trade, were it but possible to bring before each individual, of the
whole number of those who may vote for its continuance, his own specific share of the whole mass of
crimes and miseries. The exact amount, either way, will one day be known!...
Thus it is, that, most commonly by the operation of natural causes, and in the way of natural
consequences, Providence governs the world. But if we are not blind to the course of human events, as
well as utterly deaf to the plain instructions of Revelation, we must believe that a continued course of
wickedness, oppression, and cruelty, obstinately maintained in spite of the fullest knowledge and the
loudest warnings, must infallibly bring down upon us the heaviest judgments of the Almighty. We may
ascribe our fall to weak councils, or unskillful generals; to a factious and over-burdened people; to storms
which waste our fleets, to diseases which thin our armies; to mutiny among our soldiers and sailors,
which may even turn against us our own force; to the diminution of our revenues and the excessive
increase of our debt: men may complain on one side of venal ministry, on the other of a factious
opposition; while amid mutual recriminations, that nation is gradually verging to its fate. Providence will
easily provide means for the accomplishments of its own purposes. It cannot be denied, that there are
circumstances in the situation of this Country, which, reasoning from experience, we must call the marks
of a declining empire; but we have, as I firmly believe, the means within ourselves of arresting the
progress of this decline. We have been eminently blessed; we have been long spared; Let us not presume
too far on the forbearance of the Almighty. (p.346-351)
Appeal to the Religion, Justice and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in
Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies.
In this treatise published in 1823, Wilberforce claims that the moral and spiritual condition of the
slaves stemmed directly from their slavery. He claimed that their total emancipation was not only morally
and ethically justified, but also a matter of national duty before God. This was considered to be
Wilberforce’s manifesto against slavery.
An Appeal
To all the inhabitants of the British Empire, who value the favor of God, or are alive to the
interests or honor of their country – to all who have any respect for justice, or any feelings of humanity, I
would solemnly address myself. I call upon them, as they shall hereafter answer in the great day of
account, for the use they shall have made of any power or influence with which Providence may have
entrusted them, to employ their best endeavors, by all lawful and constitutional means, to mitigate, and, as
soon as it may safely be done, to terminate the Negro Slavery of the British Colonies; a system of the
grossest injustice, of the most heathenish irreligion and immorality, of the most unprecedented
degradation and unrelenting cruelty.
At any time, and under any circumstances, form such a heavy load of guilt as this oppression
amounts to, it would be our interest no less than our duty to absolve ourselves. But I will not attempt to
conceal, that the present embarrassments and distress of our country – a distress, indeed, in which the
West Indians themselves have largely participated – powerfully enforce on me the urgency of the
obligation under which we lie, to commence, without delay, the preparatory measure for putting an end to
a national cries of the deepest moral malignity…
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The British Abolitionists and Their Influence But it may naturally and perhaps not unfairly be asked of the abolitionists – You professed to be
well acquainted with the state of things in the West Indies when you moved for the abolition of the Slave
Trade – if you then thought the system to be at all such as you now state it to be, how could you rest
contented with restricting your efforts to the abolition of the traffic in slaves, contrary, as you confess, to
the wishes and even the endeavors of many friends of your great cause, and of some even of its enemies?
It is true, that the evils of the West Indian system has not passed unnoticed and we would gladly
have brought forward a plan for ameliorating the condition of the Negroes, but the effort was beyond our
strength. We found the adversaries of the abolition far too numerous and too powerful for us, and we were
perfectly sure that we should greatly add to their number and vehemence by striking also at the system of
slavery. But farther I will frankly confess, that we greatly deceived ourselves by expecting much more
benefit to the plantation negroes from the abolition of the Slave Trade than has actually resulted from that
measure. We always relied much on its efficiency in preparing the way for a general emancipation of the
slaves: for let it be remembered, that, from the very first, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Lord Grenville, Lord
Lansdowne, Lord Grey, and all the rest of the earliest abolitionists, declared that the extinction of slavery
was our great and ultimate object; and we trusted, that by compelling the planters to depend wholly on
native increase of the supply of their gangs, they would be forced to improve the conditions of their
slaves, to increase their food, to lessen their labor, to introduce task-work, to abolish the driving system,
together with degrading and indecent punishments, to attach the slaves to the soil and, with proper
qualifications, to admit their testimony as witnesses – a necessary step to all protections by law; above all,
to attend to their religious and moral improvement, and to one of the grand peculiarities of Christianity,
the marriage institution. By the salutary operation of these various improvements, the slaves would have
become qualified for the enjoyment of liberty; and preparation would have been made for that happy day,
when the yoke should be taken off for ever, when the blessed transmutation should take place of a
degraded slave population into a free and industrious peasantry.
We were too sanguine in our hopes as to the effects of the abolition in our colonies; we judged
too favorably of human nature; we thought too well of the colonial assemblies; we did not allow weight
enough to the effects of rooted prejudice and inveterate habits – to absenteeship, a vice which, taken in its
whole extent, is perhaps one of the most injurious of the whole system; to the distressed finances of the
planters; and, above all, to the effects of the extreme degradation of the Negro slaves, and to the long and
entire neglect of Christianity among them, with all its attendant blessings…
While, however, we speak and act towards the colonists personally with fair consideration and
becoming candor, let our exertions in the cause of the unfortunate slaves be zealous and unremitting. Let
us act with an energy suited to the importance of the interests for which we contend. Justice, humanity,
and sound policy prescribe our course, and will animate our efforts. Stimulated by a consciousness of
what we owe to the laws of God and the rights and happiness of man, our exertions will be ardent, and
our perseverance invincible. Our ultimate success is sure; and ere long we shall rejoice in the
consciousness of having delivered our country from the greatest of her crimes, and rescued her character
from the deepest stain of dishonor.
One of Wilberforce’s last speeches
Not many months before his death, a meeting was held at Bath, to petition for “the speedy and
entire abolition of slavery”; at which the Bishop of Bath and Wells presided. Mr. Wilberforce, who during
all his long and active life, had never been silent when the question of slavery was introduced, arose to
make a few remarks. After briefly alluding to his age and infirmities, he said:
“I wish once more to raise my feeble voice, to advocate, however faintly, that good cause,
for which I have so often pleaded, and for the success of which my heart will never cease to feel deeply to
35
the latest moment of rational existence. To a Christian, it must be regarded as an axiom, that an
opportunity of doing good is tantamount to a contract to undertake the service; and surely there never was
a greater mass of misery to be eliminated, or a greater amount of good to be conferred, than by the
measure which we are now met together to support. Some, who have opposed our proceedings, mistake in
supposing that we rest the propriety of our intelligence chiefly on the ground of individual acts of cruelty
committed on the bodies of the slaves. That such cruelties do exist, and will exist, wherever man is
possessed of absolute power, is undeniable. No man is fit to be trusted with it; and no man who knows
himself will wish to possess it. But it is the system that we wish to change, we ought not to lose a single
[moment?] in doing away the multiplied wrongs of the slaves, by that actual admission to that liberty to
which the God of nature has entitled them, and which in its consequences would give them domestic
blessings. Let us then proceed with renewed energy in carrying into execution one of the greatest acts of
mercy a people ever had it in their power to perform. Let us all remember that here we have no option.
Our faculties are given, not as a property, but as a trust; and we are bound, at our peril, to avail ourselves
of every opportunity Providence may place within reach, of doing justice and showing mercy—of
lessening the miseries, and augmenting the happiness of the human species. Only let us act with an
earnestness and perseverance worthy of the cause in which we are engaged!. The blessing of Heaven will
recompense us until we shall have wiped away a stain justly to be regarded as the foulest blot that ever
disgraced the annals of a free and enlightened people.”22
22
36
Wilberforce’s speech, as quoted on pages 17-18 of The Oasis, ed. by Lydia Maria Child, (Boston: B.C. Bacon, 1834)
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence John Venn (1759–1813) John Venn became the Rector of Holy Trinity Clapham through John Thornton, a
wealthy banker who was a member of the church. Venn became the spiritual guide to what became later
known as “The Clapham Sect.” Venn acted as the theologian and chaplain to the leaders. For example,
according to Venn’s own diary and that of Henry Thornton, Venn often attended family prayers at the
Thornton’s home, the center of activity of the Clapham Sect, and preached sermons addressed to
Thornton’s family, including domestics and visitors.
Venn is probably best known as the founder of the Society for Missions to Africa and the East on
April 12, 1799 where he became Chairman with Wilberforce as a Vice President and Henry Thornton as
Treasurer. The Society later in 1812 became the Church Missionary Society. John Venn wrote the
prospectus An Account of a Society for Missions to Africa and the East.
Venn also helped launch the Christian Observer in 1802, contributing 36 articles and reviews in
its early years.
An Account of a Society for Missions to Africa and the East (1799)
“They trust that the wrongs which Africa has so long sustained will at length be repaired by the
offerings of spiritual peace and Christian Freedom.”
John Venn, April 1799, Founder Church Mission Society (verify quotation with David
Isherwood)
37
William Cowper (1731–1800) William Cowper (pronounced Cooper) was a prominent eighteenth-century English poet and
hymn writer. He wrote of everyday life and the English countryside.
Cowper’s contribution to the anti-slave movement was influenced by John Newton, with whom
he had collaborated to publish a hymnbook entitled “Olney Hymns” in 1799. Newton asked Cowper to
write ballads that could be set to music and sung in the streets. Newton’s writing on the evils of the slave
trade influenced Cowper. Cowper wrote a number of anti-slavery poems: “From Charity” (1782), “From
the Task” (1784), “The Negro’s Complaint” (1788), “The Morning Dream” (1788), “Sweet Meat Has
Sour Sauce or the Slave Trader in the Dumps” (1788).
“The Negro’s Complaint,” written at the request of William Wilberforce, is the story of a man
trying to figure out why slavery exists and why he must suffer so that another man can profit.
Another poem, “Pity for Poor Africans,” written in 1788, is the story of a man, and more
importantly, a society that knows slavery is wrong, yet doesn’t want to give up any of its benefits: “I pity
them greatly but I must be mum, For how could we do without sugar and rum.” Cowper compares slavery
to a bunch of schoolboys thinking about stealing apples from a peasant farmer. One youngster is unsure,
“but since they will take them, I think I’ll go too, He will lose none by me, though I get a few.”
The Negro’s Complaint
To the tune of ‘Hosier’s Ghost’ or ‘As near Porto Bello lying’.
Written in 1788, Published in The Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1793
FORCED from home and all its pleasures
Afric’s coast I left forlorn,
To increase a stranger’s treasures
O’er the raging billows borne.
Men from England bought and sold me,
Paid my price in paltry gold;
But, though slave they have enrolled me,
Minds are never to be sold.
Still in thought as free as ever,
What are England’s rights, I ask,
Me from my delights to sever,
Me to torture, me to task?
Fleecy locks and black complexion
Cannot forfeit nature’s claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same.
Why did all-creating nature
Make the plant for which we toil?
Sighs must fan it, tears must water,
Sweat of ours must dress the soil.
Think, ye masters iron-hearted,
Lolling at your jovial boards,
Think how many backs have smarted
For the sweets your cane affords.
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The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Is there, as ye sometimes tell us,
Is there One who reigns on high?
Has He bid you buy and sell us,
Speaking from his throne, the sky?
Ask him, if your knotted scourges,
Matches, blood-extorting screws,
Are the means that duty urges
Agents of his will to use?
Hark! He answers!--Wild tornadoes
Strewing yonder sea with wrecks,
Wasting towns, plantations, meadows,
Are the voice with which he speaks.
He, foreseeing what vexations
Afric’s sons should undergo,
Fixed their tyrants’ habitations
Where his whirlwinds answer--”No.”
By our blood in Afric wasted
Ere our necks received the chain;
By the miseries that we tasted,
Crossing in your barks the main;
By our sufferings, since ye brought us
To the man-degrading mart,
All sustained by patience, taught us
Only by a broken heart;
Deem our nation brutes no longer,
Till some reason ye shall find
Worthier of regard and stronger
Than the color of our kind.
Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings
Tarnish all your boasted powers,
Prove that you have human feelings,
Ere you proudly question ours!
39
Hannah More (1745–1833) In the tumultuous times of the late 18th century at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Hannah
More was a well-known writer, a key participant in the abolition of the slave trade, an educator of the
poor, and a person concerned with the development of literacy and the development of education for
women. In her time, More was better known than Mary Wollstonecraft and her books outsold Jane
Austen’s many times over. Her now forgotten play Percy was the most successful tragedy of the day. Her
tracts had a wider circulation than Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man. More set up Sunday Schools to teach
the poor in the only day of the week that they did not work. Accordingly, she was an early and influential
part of the Sunday School movement. She campaigned against the slave trade. She wrote books on
conducts, political pamphlets, and a best-selling novel.
She was an early feminist and anti-feminist, a well-known writer, and one of the most influential
female philanthropists of her day. Active, enterprising, and generous, More was born in obscurity, but
died leaving nearly thirty thousand pounds to charity, an unprecedented sum for a woman writer.
Hannah More was an invaluable role model for women who came later. Her fame did not die with
her and for a generation or so after her death, she figured in biographical series with improving titles such
as “Women of Worth” and “Lives of Eminent and Illustrious Englishwomen.” These biographies
established her as a high achiever who had done much to widen the range of activities open to women.
Her career shows what was possible for a woman in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century who
was neither well born nor wealthy and did not owe her advancement to becoming the mistress of a
prominent man.
In the mid-1790s, More wrote several tracts opposing slavery and the slave trade as well as the
poem “The Sorrows of Yamba” and “The Negro Woman’s Lamentation” which appeared in November
1795. She continued to oppose slavery throughout her life. Yet, at the time of the Abolition Bill of 1807,
she was in poor health and was unable to take an active role.
Slavery
Thy followers only have effac’d the shame
Inscrib’d by SLAVERY on the Christian name
Shall Britain, where the soul of freedom reigns,
Forge chains for others she herself disdains?
Forbid it, Heaven! O let the nations know
The liberty she loves she will bestow;
Not to herself the glorious gift confin’d,
She spreads the blessing wide as humankind;
And, scorning narrow views of time and place,
Bids all be free in earth’s extended space.
What page of human annals can record
A deed so bright as human rights restor’d?
O may that god-like deed, that shining page,
Redeem OUR fame, and consecrate OUR age!
And see, the cherub Mercy from above,
Descending softly, quits the sphere of love!
On feeling hearts she sheds celestial dew,
And breathes her spirit o’er th’ enlighten’d few;
From soul to soul the spreading influence steals,
40
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Till every breast the soft contagion feels.
She bears, exulting, to the burning shore
The loveliest office Angel ever bore;
To vindicate the pow’r in Heaven ador’d,
To still the clank of chains, and sheathe the sword;
To cheer the mourner, and with soothing hands
From bursting hearts unbind th’ Oppressor’s bands;
To raise the lustre of the Christian name,
And clear the foulest blot that dims its fame.
As the mild Spirit hovers o’er the coast,
A fresher hue the wither’d landscapes boast;
Her healing smiles the ruin’d scenes repair,
And blasted Nature wears a joyous air.
She spreads her blest commission from above,
Stamp’d with the sacred characters of love;
She tears the banner stain’d with blood and tears,
And, LIBERTY! thy shining standard rears!
As the bright ensign’s glory she displays,
See pale OPPRESSION faints beneath the blaze!
The giant dies! no more his frown appals,
The chain untouch’d, drops off; the fetter falls.
Astonish’d echo tells the vocal shore,
Opression’s fall’n, and Slavery is no more!
The dusky myriads crowd the sultry plain,
And hail that mercy long invok’d in vain.
Victorious Pow’r! she bursts their two-fold bands,
And FAITH and FREEDOM spring from Mercy’s hands.
Hannah More was a pioneer in religious education for the poor. During the 1790s, she wrote
some 70 cheap tracts to help children learn to read.
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Dorothy Ripley (1767‐1832) Dorothy Ripley was an English missionary who spent 30 years, beginning in 1801 at the age of
thirty-two, pleading the case of the cause of African slaves in America. The daughter of a Methodist
preacher, she acquired a love of religion from him. In 1797, she had a mystical experience where she felt
that God commanded her to leave her home in England and travel to America to help African slaves.
On arriving in America, she soon secured a private interview with President Thomas Jefferson.
She wanted Jefferson’s personal approval as a slave holder for her work on behalf of distressed Africans
in America. She asked Jefferson how many slaves he owned – three hundred at one time, but diminishing,
was the answer. She was surprised by the number and by the fact that Jefferson as an educated man could
buy, sell, and own human flesh. The interview, while polite, was not very comfortable for either of them.
At one point, Ripley recorded that she told Jefferson:
God has made all nations of one blood and that ancient Britons were degraded very much once in
their powers of reason and this people being neglected many centuries, their power of reason was
dimmed from long abuse of the same. I was inclined to think, if the present generation of children
were separated from their parents and educated by virtuous person, who would teach them habits
of industry and economy, they might then prove a blessing to the country. To train them up with
the view that they were not the same race would prove only a curse to the land, especially the
females, whom I felt myself concerned for the most on account of their exposed situations to the
vile passions of men.23
Later, on January 12, 1806, Ripley became the first woman to preach or speak officially before
Congress. According to the Library of Congress, Ripley spoke before a crowded audience that included
President Jefferson and Vice President Aaron Burr. “Sizing up the congregation, Ripley concluded that
‘very few’ had been born again and broke into an urgent camp meeting style exhortation, insisting that
‘Christ’s Body was the Bread of Life and His Blood the drink of the righteous.’”24
Ripley was an example of the Methodists who, after the Quakers, became hugely influential in
the abolition of slavery. According to recent calculations, during the high water mark of petitioning
against slavery in England in 1832–1833, Methodists accounted for 80 percent of the non-Anglican
church signatures, and over 95 percent of Wesleyan Methodists signed petitions.
23
24
42
Paul Wesley Chilcote, Tell Her Own Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women, Nashville, Kingswood Books, 1991, p. 140.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence James Stephens (1758–1832) James Stephens was a lawyer who played a key role in the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. He
introduced many successful ideas to strengthen the legal success of the abolitionists. Stephens’ most
important idea was repositioning the main argument. During most of the 1790s, Wilberforce had urged
his countrymen to get rid of slavery. People aligned the freeing of slaves with the revolution of the people
in France. This frightened some of the English.
Stephens had first-hand experience in the West Indies when he lived in St. Christopher, a British
colony now called St. Kitts. When he saw the horrors of slavery, he turned his legal mind to abolition
with great passion and emotion. He began writing pamphlets and books beginning in 1802 with The
Crisis of the Sugar Colonies.
Stephens opposed the opening up of Trinidad through the use of slave labor when it was given to
Britain in 1797, recommending that English land be granted only for estates that supported the
immigration of free Africans. Trinidad had only a few slaves, but if slaves were brought in to the same
degree as Jamaica, it would require one million new slaves. Stephens alerted Wilberforce to the danger of
allowing the importation of slaves from other islands after Pitt had almost agreed to such arrangement.
Wilberforce used all his influence with Pitt to have this order reversed.
In 1805, France was at war with Britain, Austria, and Russia. France controlled Europe. England
was still dominant on the seas and had established a blockade around France which was occasionally
broken. Yet, Napoleon was set on invading England. The potential for invasion was uppermost in the
British mind. Lord Nelson led the British in the defeat of the French and Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in
October 1805, which eliminated this potential for invasion. Yet, France was still economically strong.
Two months afterwards, Stephens published his book War in Disguise; or the Friends of the Neutral
Flags where he focused on the need to cut off France’s profit from slavery through the re-flagged
“neutral” ships. Stephen’s arguments two years later became the basis of Britain’s Orders in Council and
became a strong economic deterrent in the otherwise profitable slave trade.
Stephens was one of the key architects of the 1807 Slave Trade Abolition Act, providing William
Wilberforce a well-crafted document. Later, Stephens became a Director of the Africa Institution for the
Registration of Slaves, through which he advocated a centralized registry administered by the English
government which would provide accurate data on slave births, deaths, sales, and any free blacks.
Later, Stephens wrote Reasons for Establishing A Registry of Slaves (1815), An Inquiry Into the
Right and Duty of Compelling Spain to Relinquish her Slave Trade in Northern Africa (1816), The
Slavery of the British West Indies (1824) and England Enslaved by Her Own Slave Colonies: An address
to the People and Electors of England (1826)
War in Disguise; or the Friends of the Neutral Flags.
The hope of Peace, which long, though faintly, gleamed from the North, has vanished; the
political atmosphere of Europe is become darker than ever; and the storm menaces a wider range, as well
as a lengthened duration…
For I propose to show, in the encroachments and frauds of the neutral flags, a nursery and a
refuge of the confederated navies; as well as the secret conduits of a large part of those imperial
resources, the pernicious applications which to the restitution of his (Napoleon’s) marine, the Usurper has
43
lately boasted – I propose to show in them his best hopes in a naval war; as well as channels of revenue,
which sustains the ambition of France and prolongs the miseries of Europe.
In the retrospect of the last war, and of the progress we have yet made in the present, one singular
fact immediately arrests the attention.
The finances of France appear scarcely to be impaired, much less exhausted, by her enormous
military establishments, and extensive enterprises, notwithstanding the ruin so long apparently imposed
on her commerce. Poverty, the ordinary sedative of modern ambition, the common peace-maker between
exasperated nations, seems no longer to be the growth of war…
To impoverish our enemies, used, in our former contests with France and Spain, to be a sure
effect of our hostilities; and its extent was always proportionate to its grand instrument, our superiority at
sea. We distressed their trade, we intercepted the produce of their colonies and thus exhausted their
treasuries, by cutting off their chief sources of revenue, as the philosopher proposed to dry up the sea by
draining the rivers that fed it. By the same means, their expenditure was immediately increased and
wasted in the defensive purposes. They were obliged to maintain fleets in distant parts of the world and to
furnish strong convoys for the protection of their intercourse with their colonies, both the outward and
homeward voyages. Again, the frequent capture of these convoys, while it enriched our seamen, and by
the increase of import duties aided our revenue, obliged our enemies, at a fresh expense, to repair their
loss of ships; and when a convoy outward-bound, was the subject of capture, compelled them to either
dispatch a duplicate supplies in the same season at the risk of new disasters or to leave their colonies in
distress and forfeit the benefit of the crops for the year….
The true solution of these seeming difficulties is this – The commercial and colonial interests of
our enemies, are now ruined in appearance only, not in reality. They seem to have retreated from the
ocean and to have abandoned the ports of their colonies; but it is a mere ruse de guerre – They have only
changed their flags, chartered many vessels really neutral and altered a little the former routes of their
trade. Their transmarine sources of revenue, have not been for a moment destroyed by our hostilities and
at present are scarcely impaired.
44
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Zachary Macaulay (1768–1838) Macaulay, at the age of 16, immigrated to Jamaica where he worked as an assistant manager of a
sugar plantation. He was appalled at the horrific treatment of the slaves around him and ultimately
determined to do something about slavery.
After returning to England and having a conversion experience to Christianity, he met William
Wilberforce and Henry Thornton.
Because of his experience in Jamaica, Macaulay was invited to visit Sierra Leone, the west
African colony founded by Granville Sharp to provide a home for emancipated slaves from the U.S. and
Nova Scotia. Macaulay visited the colony in 1792 and was its governor from 1794 to 1799.
Macaulay joined the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and soon became a leading
figure in the parliamentary campaign against the slave trade leading up to the abolition of the trade in
1807. His major contribution was as editor of the magazine The Christian Observer from 1802 to 1816, a
magazine that wrote about the concerns of the Clapham Circle.
In the 1820s, Macaulay focused on securing the total abolition of slavery itself. In 1823, he was
one of the founders of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery, later called the
Anti-Slavery Society and the editor of its publication—the Anti-Slavery Reporter. Macaulay’s efforts
were a key foundation for the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1833.
Excerpt from Zachary Macaulay’s Letter to William Wilberforce on the eve of
emancipation in 183325
May 15, 1833
My dear Friend,
This day ten years ago the abolition of slavery was first made a question in Parliament. Last night
its deathblow was struck. I send you a copy of the debate. ]Lord] Stanley’s allusion to you was quite
overpowering, and electrified the House. My dear friend, let me unite with you in thanks to God for this
mercy.
Ever yours affectionately,
Z. Macaulay
25
Vol. 2 of The Correspondence of William Wilberforce, (London: John Murray, 1840).
45
Elizabeth Heyrick (1769–1831) As a member of the Quakers’ Society of Friends, Elizabeth Heyrick became an activist for social
reform campaigning against bull-baiting, for prison reform, education, and the prevention of cruelty to
animals, among other things. She wrote eighteen political pamphlets on a variety of issues.
Heyrick’s main concern, however, was for the abolition of slavery. She organized a sugar boycott
in Leicester, the town where she was born. At the time, the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual
Abolition of Slavery, which became the Anti-Slavery Society had been formed in 1823 by Thomas
Clarkson, William Wilberforce, and Thomas Fowell Buxton. Women were allowed to be members, but
were virtually excluded from its leadership.
In 1824, Heyrick published her pamphlet Immediate not Gradual Abolition in which she argued
forcefully for the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire. This differed from the official policy of
the Anti-Slavery Society that formally supported gradual abolition. the Anti-Slavery Society sought to
suppress distribution of the pamphlet. Wilberforce objected to an organization headed by women
campaigning and organizing petitions.
On April 8, 1825, Heyrick, Sarah Wedgwood, and two other women formed the Birmingham
Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves that was later changed to the Female Society for
Birmingham. Other women’s groups were soon formed and by 1831, there were seventy-three of these
women’ organizations campaigning against slavery. The women’s groups supported Heyrick’s call for
immediate emancipation of slaves. In 1830, Heyrick, who was the leader of the Leicester ladies’ AntiSlavery Society and treasurer of the Female Society for Birmingham had helped to establish a network of
women’s groups. The Female Society for Birmingham submitted a resolution to the national Conference
of the Anti-Slavery Society calling for the organization to campaign for the immediate end to slavery in
the British Empire. Because she threatened to withdraw funding if the Anti-Slavery Society did not
support an immediate end to slavery, and because the Female Society of Birmingham was one of the
largest local societies and had a great influence on the network of ladies’ associations, her pressure gained
momentum and the Anti-Slavery Society then agreed to drop the words “gradual abolition” from its title
and support immediate action. Heyrick died in 1831 and did not see the passage of the 1833 Abolition of
Slavery Act.
Immediate, Not Gradual Emancipation (1824)
Away then with the puerile cant about gradual emancipation. Let the galling ignominious chains
of slavery be struck off, at once, from these abused and suffering, these patient, magnanimous creatures.
There restoration of the poor Negroes’ liberty must be the beginning of our colonial reform, the
first act of justice, the pledge of our sincerity. It is the only solid foundation on which the reformation of
the slave, and the still more needful reformation of his usurping master, can be built.
46
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Mary Prince (1788–1833) Mary Prince was born into slavery in Bermuda. Both her parents were slaves. Her mother worked
as a house-servant for Charles Myners. When Myners died in 1788, Prince and her mother were sold as
household servants. In 1826, Mary Prince married Daniel Jones, a former slave who had bought his
freedom and worked as a carpenter. For this impudence, she was severely beaten by her then master John
Wood. In 1828, Wood took her as a servant to London. When she was later thrown out of the Wood
household, she took shelter with the Moravian church and a few weeks later found employment with
Tomas Pringle, a leading abolitionist at the Anti-Slavery Society.
Pringle arranged for her to publish in 1831 The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, the
first black account of the life of a black woman to be published in England. The book had an electric
effect on the anti-slavery movement. John Wood, who was scandalized by the book, sued the publishers
for libel, but his case failed. Prince and her publishers were sued by others for libel, but they won their
lawsuit.
The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave
Oh the horrors of slavery! How the thought of it pains my heart! But the truth ought to be told of
it; and what my eyes have seen I think it is my duty to relate, for few people in England know what
slavery is. I have been a slave. I have felt what a slave feels, and I know what a slave knows; and I would
have all the good people in England to know it too, that they break our chains, and set up free…
I am often much vexed and I feel great sorrow when I hear some people in this country say, that
the slaves do not need better usage, and do not want to be free. They believe the foreign people, who
deceive them and say slaves are happy. I say, Not so. How can slaves be happy when they have the halter
round their neck and the whip upon their back? And are disgraced and thought no more of than beasts? –
and are separated from their mothers and husbands, and children and sisters, just as cattle are sold and
separated?
Since I have been here I have often wondered how English people can go out into the West
Indies, they forget God and all feeling of shame. I think, since they can see and do such things. They tie
up slaves like hogs – moor them up like cattle, and they whip them, so as hogs, or cattle, or horses never
were flogged: - and yet they come home and say, and make some good people believe, that slaves don’t
want to get out of slavery.
… The man that says slaves be quite happy in slavery – that they don’t want to be free – that man
is either ignorant or a lying person. I never heard a slave say so. They can’t do without slaves, they say.
What’s the reason they can’t do without slaves as well in England? Let them work ever so hard in
England, they are far better off than slaves. If they get a bad master, they give warning and go hire
another.
They have their liberty. That’s just what we want. We don’t mind hard work, if we had proper
treatment, and proper wages like English servants, and proper time given in the week to keep us from
breaking the Sabbath. But they won’t give it; they will have work- work- work, night and day, sick or
well, till we are quite done up. This is slavery and I tell it to let English people know the truth and I call
loud to the great King of England, till all the poor blacks be given free, and slavery done up for evermore.
47
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845) Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton was elected to Parliament in 1818 and worked for changes in prison
conditions, criminal law, and for the abolition of the institution of slavery.
In 1823, Buxton helped found the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery,
later called the Anti-Slavery Society. He took over the leadership of the emancipation movement in 1825
when Wilberforce retired.
Buxton’s emancipation efforts paid off in 1833 when slavery was officially abolished in the
British Empire. In 1839, Buxton urged the British government to make treaties with African leaders to
abolish the slave trade. An excerpt from The African Slave Trade and Its Remedy (1839), as detailed in
Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies, by Helen Thomas, “Chapter One: The
English Slave Trade and Abolitionism”:
Ms. Thomas writes: “Thomas Fowell Buxton’s The African Slave Trade and Its Remedy (1839)
emphasized the Christian missionaries’ role in establishing the universal abolition of the slave trade. This
narrative of abolition promoted a vision of England’s redemptive role, rather than its culpability and
envisaged a dissolution of the boundaries separating the distinct categories of `legitimate commerce’,
agricultural development and Africa’s conversion within a single, unified imperial schema: `The
merchant, the philanthropist, the patriot, and the Christian, may unite.’26 Buxton’s text effected a strategic
translation of the embryonic prototype of spiritual regeneration into a `mutant’ discourse of national
ideology, the `deliverance’ of a thousand nations under the `divine’ aegis of the British Empire:
The African Slave Trade and Its Remedy (1839)
A nobler achievement now invites us. I believe that Great Britain can, if she will, under the favor
of the Almighty, confer a blessing on the human race. It may be that at her bidding a thousand nations
now steeped in wretchedness, in brutal ignorance, in devouring superstitions . . . [shall] emerge from
their debasement, enjoy a long life of blessings—education, agriculture, commerce, peace, industry and
the wealth that springs from it; and, far above all, shall willingly receive that religion which, while it
confers innumerable temporal blessings, opens the way to an eternal futurity of happiness.27
26
27
48
Thomas Fowell Buxton, The African Slave Trade and Its Remedy, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1839) 195-6.
Ibid., 305-6, 338-9
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Section Three: The British Abolitionists’ Influence on America The British abolitionists and the American abolitionists influenced each other. Wilberforce began
his crusade in Parliament in 1789. British participation in transporting slaves ended in 1807. In 1789,
when the U.S. Constitution became effective, all states except for South Carolina had prohibited the
importation of slaves from abroad. New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania all prohibited slave
imports in 1788. Virginia had ended slave imports in 1778. Even South Carolina had a prohibition
between 1788 and 1802.
The U.S. Constitution barred federal interference in the slave trade during its first 20 years of
operation, except to permit a tariff no greater than $10 per slave (see Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1).
Although no tariff was ever enacted, the federal government banned slave imports into the United States
at the end of the twenty year moratorium when Thomas Jefferson signed the enabling legislation on
March 2, 1807, three weeks before the Royal assent in England, effective on January 1, 1808.
Yet the work of abolishing slavery was very much unfinished. It took a huge, renewed campaign
in England to emancipate all the slaves in the British Empire. Legislation was officially passed in England
in August 1833, effective a year later with a four-year apprenticeship period. The United States, unable to
take the next step peacefully in the emancipation of slavery, began to split into north and the south in the
1840s, culminating in the inevitable Civil War.
“In 1791, a bill to abolish the trade was brought in by Wilberforce...with the utmost ability and
faithfulness…and lost. During the next sixteen years, ten times, year after year, the attempt was
renewed…and ten times defeated by the planters. The king, and all the royal family but one, were against
it….But the nation was aroused….The planters were obliged to give way; and in 1807, on 25th March,
the bill passed, and the slave-trade was abolished.”
--Ralph Waldo Emerson28
“The closure of the African slave trade was probably the most important slavery legislation
Congress ever passed and among the most important American laws on any subject.”
--William W. Freehling29
28
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Emerson’s Antislavery Writings, ed. by Len Gougeon and Joel Myerson, (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1995),
pp. 12-13.
29
William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 (New York, 1990), 136-39.
49
Anthony Benezet (1713–1784) Anthony Benezet was born in northern France of French Protestant and Huguenot parents. Early
on, his parents immigrated to London where he received his education. In 1731, Benezet, seventeen years
old, immigrated to Philadelphia where he joined the Quakers. He became a teacher at the Friends’ English
School of Philadelphia, now the William Penn Charter School. In 1754, he left to set up a school of his
own exclusively for girls—the first public girls school in America.
From the 1750s, Benezet became an abolitionist. He first worked to convince his fellow Quakers
in Philadelphia that slave owning was not consistent with being a Christian. He wrote and published, at
his own expense, a number of anti-slavery tracts and pamphlets.
Benezet’s Some Historical Account of Guinea, written in 1772, was influential on both sides of
the Atlantic. Granville Sharp and John Wesley both wrote to Benezet and distributed his works in
England. Benezet’s work was instrumental in persuading Thomas Clarkson to embark on his abolitionist
career.
Some Historical Account of Guinea (1772)
Introduction
The slavery of the Negroes having of late drawn the attention of many serious minded people;
several tracts have been published setting forth the inconsistency with every Christian and moral virtue,
which it is hoped will weight with the judicious; especially at a time when the liberties of mankind are
become so much more the subject of general attention. For the satisfaction of the serious enquirer who
may not have the opportunity of seeing those tracts, and such others who are sincerely desirous that the
iniquity of this practice may become effectually apparent, to those in whose power, it may be to put a stop
to any farther progress therein; it is proposed, hereby, to republish the most material parts of said tracts;
and in order to enable the reader to form a true judgment in the matter, which tho’ so very important, is
generally disregarded, or so artfully misrepresented by those whose interest leads them to vindicate it, as
to bias the opinions of people otherwise upright; some account will be here given of the different parts of
Africa, from which the negroes are brought to America; with an impartial relation from what motives the
Europeans were first induced to undertake, and have since continued this iniquitous traffic. And here it
will not be improper to premise, that tho’ wars arising from the common depravity of human nature, have
happened, as well among the negroes as other nations, and the weak sometimes been made captives to the
strong; yet nothing appears, in the various relations of the intercourse and trade for a long time carried on
by the Europeans on that coast, which would induce us to believe, that there is any real foundation for the
argument, so commonly advanced in vindication of that trade, vix “The slavery of the Negroes took its
rise from a desire, the purchasers, to save the lives of such of them as were taken captives in war, who
would otherwise have been sacrificed to the implacable revenge of their conquerors.” A plea which when
compared with the history of those times, will appear to be destitute of Truth; and to have been advanced,
and urged, principally by such as were concerned in reaping the gain of this infamous traffic, as a
palliation of that, against which their own reason and conscience must have raised fearful objections.
Chapter XV
…A farther considerable advantage might accrue to the British nation in general if the slave trade
was laid aside, by the cultivation of a fair, friendly and humane commerce with the Africans; without
which, it is not possible the inland trade of that country should ever be extended to the degree it is capable
of; for while the spirit of butchery and making slaves of each other, is promoted by the Europeans
50
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence amongst the Negroes, no mutual confidence can take place; nor will the Europeans be able to travel with
safety into the heart of their country, to form and cement such commercial friendships and alliances, as
might be necessary to introduce the arts and sciences amongst them, and engage their attention to
instruction in the principles of the Christian religion, which is the only sure foundation of every social
virtue. Africa has about ten thousand miles of sea coast, and extends in depth near three thousand miles
from east to west, and as much from north to south, stored with vast treasures of materials, necessary for
trade and manufactures of Great-Britain; and from its climate, and the fruitfulness of its soil, capable,
under proper management , of producing in the greatest plenty, most of the commodities which are
imported into Europe from those parts of America subject to the English government; and as, in return
they would take our manufactures, the advantages of this trade would soon become so great, that it is
evident this subject merits the regard and attention of the government.
51
John Jay (1745–1829) John Jay was a New York state legislator, first Chief Justice of the United States, an Ambassador
to Britain, Governor of the state of New York, and president of the American Bible Society, among other
things.
In 1777, a full decade prior to Wilberforce’s efforts, Jay drafted a state law to abolish slavery that
failed, as well as a second attempt in 1785. In the second attempt, every member of the New York
legislature except one had voted for some form of emancipation. However, there were differences on
what rights to give free blacks. While serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1785, Jay helped form
a voluntary association committed to manumission.
Jay worked with the Manumission Society and together they were more successful with
incremental legislative measures, such as securing a law to prohibit the importation of slaves for sale in
New York in 1788 and another to make the manumission of slaves easier for owners. Efforts were also
made to prohibit slave exportation from the state.
The Society also attempted to exert its influence nationally by urging the Philadelphia
constitutional convention to ensure that the new constitution would prohibit importation of slaves.
Political realities forestalled their hopes and the 1787 Constitution effectively postponed the issue of
importation for twenty years. Article 1, Section 9, expressly limited Congress from prohibiting
importation of slaves before 1808.
By the 1780s, a fairly well developed transatlantic cooperation for the abolition of the slave trade
was emerging. Therefore, abolitionists in Britain were disappointed to learn of the failure of the American
government to prohibit the trade. Social activist Granville Sharp, Chairman of the Society for Effecting
the Abolition of the African Slave Trade and a colleague of Wilberforce, wrote to Jay and the leadership
of the Manumission Society:
Remembering the declarations of the American Congress so frequently repeated during the
Contention with Britain we could not but flatter ourselves that the late [constitutional]
Convention would have produced more unequivocal proofs of a regard to consistency of
Character than an absolute prohibition of the proposed federal government from complying with
the acknowledged obligations of humanity and justice for the term of twenty-one years.30
Sharp and the British abolitionists had been hopeful that an American prohibition would have
strengthened their own lobbying efforts in the British Parliament. Their opposition in Parliament had
recently been arguing that “if the British Nation ... lay down the Trade, other Nations [presumably France,
the United States, etc.] will take it up; & therefore that the situation of the Africans would not be
improved, though England would sustain a considerable loss [of profits].” Regrettably, America did not
lead the world in prohibiting the slave trade.
In 1794, President George Washington sent Jay to Britain to improve relations with Britain and to
negotiate a new trade treaty now called The Jay treaty. During this trip, Wilberforce dined with Jay.
Wilberforce’s diary stated: “Dined at Hampstead to meet Jay (the American envoy), his son, etc.—quite
American—sensible. I fear there is a little spirit of religion in America; something of French, tinctured
with more than English simplicity of manners; very pleasing, well-informed men. American Abolition of
Foreign Slave trade.”
30
52
Letter to the New York Manumission Society from Granville Sharp, May 1, 1788, JJPP.
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence This meeting was the beginning of a friendship, correspondence, and collaborative relationship
that would carry on for fifteen years. Jay was an early and leading advocate of manumission—that is of
freeing a slave at the will of the owner.
During the 1794 trip to England, Jay angered southern slave owners when he negotiated the Jay
Treaty by dropping their demands for compensation for slaves that had been captured or carried away.
In 1799, five years after meeting with Wilberforce, Jay as Governor of New York signed “An Act
for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.” There were no rights granted to slaves and the process of
emancipation was over a period of years. Children born to slaves after July 4, 1799, would be free, subject
only to apprenticeship. Males became free at age twenty-eight and females at twenty-five. The last slaves
in New York were freed before Jay’s death.
In 1808, Wilberforce appealed for Jay’s support in influencing the United States’ full cooperation
in enforcing its own anti-slavery law. He further suggested that “a convention could be made between our
countries by which, the ships of war of each should be authorized and encouraged” to seize for forfeiture
the ships employed in the unlawful trade. The letter closes with Wilberforce’s recollection of their last
meeting in England:
I cannot address you without having my way to the period when we were last together, through
the long & interesting interval which lies between that [and] the present moment what events
have since happened! What events may take place in the same number of years yet to come. How
many whom we loved have gone in the last 13 years, how many will go in the next?”31
Excerpts from Wilberforce’s Correspondence with John Jay in 1809:
I (do not ) see any prospect of preventing this abuse, unless a convention could be made between
the two countries, by which the ships of war of each should be authorized, and even encouraged (by the
hopes of gaining by the forfeitures) to seize and bring in for adjudication the vessels of the other, when
persecuting the unlawful commerce. I rather believe there is another particular in which it still remains for
your country to render its law similar to ours, by subjecting to forfeiture any slave-ship of any country,
and under any flag, which is fitted out in and cleared out from an American port.
Now my dear sir, may I hope for your assistance towards the production of the effects I have
specified. 32
Jay’s reply to Wilberforce on November 8, 1809:
The patrons of the Abolition Act and of the African Institution certainly do honor and will
probably do more than ordinary good, to Great Britain, against whom complains have ascended both from
Asia and Africa. It is pleasing to behold a nation assiduously cultivating the arts of peace and humanity in
the midst of war… That your and our governments should co-operate in rending their respective laws
against the slave trade effectual, is to me very desirable, and I believe that a contention for the purpose
would be approved by all who think and feel as you and I do respecting the base and cruel traffic… They
who offer to do what is fit and right to be done, cannot be losers by it.. I can do but little- that little shall
be done.33
31
Letter to John Jay from William Wilberforce, August 1, 1809, JJPP.
JAY vol2, 317
33
JAY1 Vol 2, p. 319.
32
53
James Monroe (1758–1831) James Monroe was the fifth president of the United States (1817-1825). Monroe served in the
Virginia House of Delegates in 1782 and served in the Continental Congress in 1783-1786 and
subsequently as U.S. Senator in 1790. From 1794-1796, Monroe was the Ambassador to France.
Wilberforce met Monroe in 1803 when he came to London to negotiate a treaty with Britain completed in
1807 to replace the Jay treaty of 1794. When Jefferson rejected it as unsatisfactory, Monroe returned back
to America. On September 5, 1808, a letter from Wilberforce to Monroe in the Monroe papers records
Wilberforce’s request to Madison to forward a letter to Thomas Jefferson to intercede on behalf of the
slaves in two American ships seized by the British that the high court in Britain had ruled be returned to
their owners.
Monroe’s next involvement with slavery was in 1819 when Missouri applied for admission to the
United States as a slave state. This precipitated a two year bitter debate in Congress. The Missouri
Compromise bill resolved the struggle, pairing Missouri as a slave state with Maine, a free state, and
barred slavery north and west of Missouri forever.
Wilberforce’s Correspondence with James Monroe
On June 7, 1803 when Monroe was one of two American commissioners sent to Britain to
negotiate a commercial treaty. Wilberforce wrote:
“Without having so much light thrown on the subject (of the slave trade) as has been cast on it
here, you have seen enough to induce you to do your utmost to put a stop to this unjust traffic.”34
After passage of British and American Abolition, Wilberforce wrote to Madison:
“All our hope of success in our endeavors for the internal benefit of Africa must be grounded on
our preventing these infractions of the law.”
34
54
POLL 3, p. 188, 208, 228
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) Thomas Jefferson was governor of Virginia (1779–1781), first U.S. ambassador to France (1787),
first United States Secretary of State (1789–1793), second vice president (1797-1801), and the third
president of the United States (1801–1809).
Jefferson had an ambivalent approach to slavery. He owned many slaves over his lifetime and yet
at times he was outspoken in saying that slavery was immoral and should be abolished. In the first draft of
the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson condemned King George III for sponsoring the importation of
slaves to the colonies and stated that the crown “had waged cruel war against human nature itself,
violating the most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended
him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere.” However, this language was
dropped from the Declaration at the request of delegates from South Carolina and Georgia.
In 1784, Jefferson’s draft of what became the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 stipulated that “there
shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude” in any of the new states admitted to the Union from the
Northwest Territory.
In 1806, in his message to Congress, Jefferson urged Congress to interpose “your authority
constitutionally to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those
violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa,
and which the morality, the reputation and the best of our country have long been eager to proscribe.
Although no law you may pass can take prohibitory effect until the first day of the year 1808, yet the
intervening period is not too long to prevent by timely notice expeditions which can not be completed
before that day.” On March 2, 1807, President Jefferson signed the abolition of the U.S. slave trade.
Wilberforce wrote to President Thomas Jefferson pleading for Jefferson’s intervention on behalf
of “the unknown multitudes whose fate is involved in the decision you may form on this particular case.”
Just after the abolition bills passed in the United States and Britain, Wilberforce wrote:
“…A compact formed between our two countries for the benevolent purpose of stopping,
perhaps, the most destructive scourge that ever afflicted the human race, may lead to similar
agreements with other countries, until at length all the civilized nations of the earth shall have
come into this concert of benevolence. It was by a compact of a similar nature, established
between a number of different independent states, that in the darkness and anarchy of the middle
ages, the ravages of private war were arrested in a great part of Europe for near three centuries;
during which period political order, respect for the laws, together with the equal administration of
justice, made a considerable progress. Surely a better precedent cannot be followed. Surely there
can never exist an occasion more proper for resorting to such a measure; and may we hope that
the adoption of it would now be followed in Africa by the same happy consequence, which it
formerly produced in Europe.”35
Years later, in 1814, Jefferson wrote to Edward Coles:
“It is an encouraging observation that no good measure was ever proposed, which, if duly
pursued, failed to prevail in the end. We have proof of this in the history of the endeavors in the
English Parliament to suppress [the slave] trade…”
35
WILB-RS2, vol. 3. 374; Belmonte p. 198
55
William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) William Lloyd Garrison became a prominent American abolitionist, writer, and social reformer.
Garrison joined the Abolition movement in 1830 at the age of 25. Initially, he became part of the
American Colonization Society, an organization that believed free blacks should emigrate to a territory on
the west coast of Africa. While some members of the society wanted to grant freedom to slaves, the
majority wanted the former slaves relocated to reduce the number of free blacks in the United States
while preserving the institution of slavery. But Garrison rejected the programs of the American
Colonization Society.
Garrison became co-editor of the Baltimore Quaker newspaper Genius of Universal
Emancipation. In 1831, Garrison formed and became the editor of the abolitionist paper The Liberator, a
weekly anti-slavery newspaper which he published until December 29, 1865 when the Thirteenth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed.
In 1832, Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society and a year later founded the
American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833, Garrison traveled to Britain to assist in the anti-slavery
movement there. He met with Wilberforce in June 1833, one month before Wilberforce died.
In founding the American Anti-Slavery Society, Garrison wanted to stay above politics. He also
wanted to involve full participation of women. Susan Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott,
and other feminists joined his Society.
Garrison’s comments on June 19, 1833 to William Wilberforce
“Too delightful and too important ever to be forgotten by me – I bade him farewell, expressing
my fervent wishes for a long continuance of his valuable life, and my hope to meet him in that world of
glory where change, and decay and separation are unknown.”36
“His (Wilberforce’s) voice had a silvery cadence, his face a benevolently pleasing smile, and his
eye a fine intellectual expression. In his conversation he was fluent, yet modest; remarkably exact and
elegant in his diction; cautious in forming conclusions; searching in his interrogations; and skilful in
weighing testimony. In his manners he combined dignity with simplicity, and childlike affability with
becoming gracefulness. How perfectly do those great elements of character harmonize in the same
person, to wit—dovelike gentleness and amazing energy—deep humility and adventurous daring!...These
were mingled in the soul of Wilberforce.”37
36
37
56
HARF, p. 53-56
Belmonte, Hero for Humanity, p. 322
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Benjamin F. Hughes There is nothing about Benjamin Hughes that we know other than he was a man of color, a
principal of the Free School No. 3, and that the Officers of the Convention for the Improvement of the
Free People of Color in the United States, in a special public meeting held at the colored Presbyterian
Church on September 16, 1833, selected him to give the eulogy of William Wilberforce.
Out of respect for what William Wilberforce had achieved, the free blacks throughout the United
States and especially those in New York City were requested to wear a black band of mourning for thirty
days “in testimony of their sympathy and respect for the deceased to commence the Sabbath next.”
Pastors of the Colored Churches were requested to deliver sermons descriptive of the life of Wilberforce.
Eulogium
The praises of departed greatness have ever been said or sung, in the lofty tones of the orator, or
in the enchanting strains of the poet.
The statues of heroes and princes and the encomiums of statesmen have proclaimed their worth,
as the martial prowess of the one, or the brilliant genius of the other, may have fired the world, or
attracted the admiration of men.
The splendid achievements of Napoleon, amid “the bristling points of countless bayonets” and
deluged fields of blood, leave him unrivalled in the annals of war. He stood forth a prodigy that overawed
the world,
“The King that levell’d haughty Troy.”38
Napoleon and the band the preceded him in ambition’s lawless strife have ceased to breathe—
their swords to other hands have passed, their crowns on other heads are placed. A thousand tongues have
their praises told—a thousand songs their requiem sung.—The scourge of mankind, the extirpator of his
species, the Corsican, is no more; and with him sleep those vast designs, which convulsed the world in
bloody contest for empire.—He lives, however, in the hearts of the nation he aggrandized; his cenotaph
has been erected in the Place Vendome.
There is a charm that attracts the admiration of men to their destroyers; a propensity to applaud
those very acts that bring misery on the human race; and on the other hand to pass by unheeded, the
placid and even tenor of the real benefactors of their species.
The prodigious in nature and in morals arouse the stupor of the unthinking multitude; they stare
and are astonished; while the steady luster of those heavenly bodies which from age to age maintain their
wonted position to cheer the inhabitants of earth—and the moral sublimity of the untiring zeal of
philanthropy and virtue, have no allurements, and are of no consideration. But there is a spectacle more
glorious and venerable than the transient blaze of a meteor; or the triumphant entry of a conqueror. It is
the benign manifestation of those nobler feelings of our nature in behalf of the oppressed; in munificently
extending the arms to embrace and succor the unprotected; it is that species of love to man, designated
philanthropy; it is not circumscribed within the narrow precincts of country, restricted to religion or
party;—it is co-extensive with the world.
38
A citation from Book 18 of Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey.
57
Hence, of all men, it is to the Philanthropist that we are chiefly indebted; it is upon his
disinterested deeds that we are to stare;—and his is the memory for which we should cherish the fondest
recollections. How appropriate then will be our expression this day of the unrivalled worth of a
distinguished benefactor of the African Race!
My friends we have assembled hither under no ordinary circumstances, for no ordinary purpose:
it is to announce to you, that William Wilberforce is dead! it is to speak his praise.
I present you no bloodstained hero; he has led no slaughtering armies, he has desolated no
kingdoms; for him no triumphal arch is reared; his laurels have been won in another and nobler sphere.
He was aspirant to popular applause; no time serving politician; he was the friend of the “robbed and
peeled;”39 he was not one of those, who having fattened on the spoils of the African, turned monitor and
moralized the world on the atrocity of the traffic in slaves; he was a perfect character, “That shot
effulgence like the solar ray.”40
Yes! the earthly career of him, who was emphatically one of the greatest men of the greatest
nation of modern times, was terminated on the 29th day of July last; and in him fell the Hercules of
Abolition. The frosts of three score and ten had bleached his brow; their snows had whitened his locks;
but they did not abate his fervor in his favorite theme.
A distinguished author remarks, that “there is no man who, in a case where he was a calm bystander, would not look with more satisfaction on acts of kindness than on acts of cruelty. No man after
the first excitement of his mind has subsided, ever whispered to himself with self-approbation and secret
joy that he had been guilty of cruelty or baseness. Every criminal is strongly impelled to hide these
qualities of his actions from himself, as he would do from others, by clothing his conduct in some
disguise of duty or necessity.”—Now, in the retrospect, if this be fact, in what light are we to consider
those persons engaged in promoting the slave trade, despite prohibitory Legislative enactments, backed
too by a consciousness of its barbarity? And with whom shall we class those, who on the ground of
expediency would rivet faster the chains of the enslaved, and ferret from their homes new victims to
supply their place, when they shall have been worn out with toil, or murdered in tortures? It is enough that
we know that such fiendlike wretches exist, but that their triumph is visionary.
Mr. Wilberforce was one of the earliest and ablest advocates for the abolition of the slave trade;
and in the midst of that assemblage of talent and benevolence which his eloquence and perseverance
elicited, he was brightest of the train. He led the valiant band, and pointed onward as to certain
conquest…
39
Cross-reference the Old Testament book of Isaiah, Chapter 42, verse 22. The phrase “robbed and peeled” also occurs in several other early
African-American sources, including a book entitled Sermons, Speeches and Letters on Slavery…, by Gilbert Haven, (Boston, Lee and Shepard,
1869). Thus, the phrase “robbed and peeled” appears to have been a recurring one in early African-American literature.
40
Again, a citation from Book 18 of Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey.
58
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Abraham Lincoln (1808–1865) The Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History reports that “Lincoln eloquently states his
opposition to slavery as an inhumane practice in this undated speech fragment believed to be from the
Lincoln-Douglas Senate race of 1858.41 Through his moving rhetoric Lincoln clearly states his belief in
the ultimate demise of slavery while acknowledging the nation’s economic dependence to the institution.
Though Lincoln spoke frequently during this campaign – a time in his career when he came to the
political forefront and that helped shape him into a presidential candidate – very few Lincoln manuscripts
survived from this period. In this fragment, Lincoln compares the United States’ struggle to abolish
slavery to Great Britain’s toil. He notes that English abolitionists had fought for nearly one hundred years
in Parliament discussing the same arguments that American abolitionists now faced and he praises their
efforts. Reading this speech fragment one observes that Lincoln felt the abolition of slavery would be a
slow process and that he might not live to see the end of slavery in his lifetime. Considering this, he still
proclaims strongly his unwavering belief that its end must come. Lincoln also champions his commitment
to the cause and the pride he holds for his minor, though what would become enormous, involvement.
I have never professed an indifference to the honors of official station; and were I to do so now, I
should only make myself ridiculous. Yet I have never failed – do not now fail – to remember that in the
republican cause there is a higher aim than that of mere office – I have not allowed myself to forget that
the abolition of the Slave-trade by Great Brittain [sic], was agitated a hundred years before it was a final
success; that the measure had it’s open fire-eating opponents; it’s stealthy “don’t care” opponents; it’s
dollars and cent opponents; it’s inferior race opponents; it’s negro equality opponents; and it’s religion
and good order opponents; that all these opponents got offices, and their adversaries got none – But I have
also remembered that [inserted: though] they blazed, like tallow-candles for a century, at last they
flickered in the socket, died out, stank in the dark for a brief season, and were remembered no more, even
by the smell – School-boys know that Wilbe[r]force, and Granville Sharpe, helped that cause forward; but
who can now name a single man who labored to retard it? Remembering these things I can not but regard
it as possible that the higher object of this contest may not be completely attained within the term of my
[inserted: natural] life. But I cannot doubt either that it will come in due time. Even in this view, I am
proud, in my passing speck of time, to contribute an humble mite to that glorious consummation, which
my own poor eyes may [struck: never] [inserted: not] last to see.
--A. Lincoln
41
GLC 05302
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Harriet Beecher Stowe Harriet Beecher Stowe praised Wilberforce in the pages of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
One highlight is a letter giving her reason for writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin: “... I wrote what I did
because as a woman, as a mother, I was oppressed & broken hearted, with the sorrows & injustice I saw,
because as a Christian I felt the dishonor to Christianity, - because as a lover of my country, I trembled at
the coming day of wrath ....It is no merit in the sorrowful that they weep, or to the oppressed &
smothering that they gasp & struggle, nor to me, that I must speak for the oppressed -- who cannot speak
for themselves ....”
Excerpt from Uncle Tom’s Cabin
The trader searched the boat from stem to stern, among boxes, bales and barrels, around the
machinery, by the chimneys, in vain.
“Now, I say, Tom, be fair about this yer,” he said, when, after a fruitless search, he came where
Tom was standing. “You know something about it, now. Don’t tell me, - I know you do. I saw the gal
stretched out here about ten o’clock, and ag’in at twelve, and ag’in between one and two; and then at four
she was gone, and you was a sleeping right there all the time. Now, you know something, - you can’t help
it.”
“Well, Mas’r,” said Tom, “towards morning something brushed by me, and I kinder half woke;
and then I hearn a great splash, and then I clare woke up, and the gal was gone. That’s all I know on ‘t.”
The trader was not shocked nor amazed; because, as we said before, he was used to a great many
things that you are not used to. Even the awful presence of Death struck no solemn chill upon him. He
had seen Death many times, - met him in the way of trade, and got acquainted with him, - and he only
thought of him as a hard customer, that embarrassed his property operations very unfairly; and so he only
swore that the gal was a baggage, and that he was devilish unlucky, and that, if things went on in this
way, he should not make a cent on the trip. In short, he seemed to consider himself an ill-used man,
decidedly; but there was no help for it, as the woman had escaped into a state which never will give up a
fugitive, - not even at the demand of the whole glorious Union. The trader, therefore, sat discontentedly
down, with his little account-book, and put down the missing body and soul under the head of losses!
“He’s a shocking creature, isn’t he, - this trader? so unfeeling! It’s dreadful, really!”
“O, but nobody thinks anything of these traders! They are universally despised, - never received
into any decent society.”
But who, sir, makes the trader? Who is most to blame? The enlightened, cultivated, intelligent
man, who supports the system of which the trader is the inevitable result, or the poor trader himself? You
make the public statement that calls for his trade, that debauches and depraves him, till he feels no shame
in it; and in what are you better than he?
Are you educated and he ignorant, you high and he low, you refined and he coarse, you talented
and he simple?
In the day of a future judgment, these very considerations may make it more tolerable for him
than for you.
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The British Abolitionists and Their Influence In concluding these little incidents of lawful trade, we must beg the world not to think that
American legislators are entirely destitute of humanity, as might, perhaps, be unfairly inferred from the
great efforts made in our national body to protect and perpetuate this species of traffic.
Who does not know how our great men are outdoing themselves, in declaiming against the
foreign slave trade. There are a perfect host of Clarksons and Wilberforces42 risen up among us on that
subject, most edifying to hear and behold. Trading Negroes from Africa, dear reader, is so horrid! It is not
to be thought of! But trading them from Kentucky, - that’s quite another thing!
42
Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) and William Wilberforce (1759-1833), English philanthropists and anti-slavery agitators who helped to secure
passage of the Emancipation Bill by Parliament in 1833
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The Slave‐Ship Icon, by Cheryl Finley Professor Cheryl Finley is in the process of writing a book on the Brookes ship diagram discussed
below. The following essay is condensed from an article appearing in the Chicago Art Journal.
The use of visual and literary metaphors to recall the memory of slavery has been one of the
defining characteristics of the black-Atlantic artistic practice. Artists have found it important to insist on
their connection to the history of slavery so that the present generation can identify with it, forging a
sense of collective identity. This strategy of making history tangible and present is part of a tradition
concerned with remembrance, identified by Walter Benjamin as key for survival of oppressed peoples and
a safeguard associated with the keepers of Jewish history to prevent the recurrence of unspeakable crimes
against humanity.
Importance of the Brooke’s Ship Diagram in the late 18th century
The original publication of a diagram or plan of the slave ship Brookes, a notorious slaving vessel
weighing 297 tons, in 1789, according to Thomas Clarkson, one of the leading figures of the British
abolitionist movement, was “designed to give the spectator an idea of the sufferings of the Africans in the
Middle Passage.” The Middle Passage refers to the infamous transatlantic crossings from the western
coast of Africa to North America of some 11 million enslaved Africans in the holds of European and
American built slave ships from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the close of the nineteenth
century. The Brookes was chosen because it was listed in a report earlier that year by Captain Parry of the
Royal Navy investigating the slave trade for the Privy Council of the British Parliament. The report had
provided statistical evidence of the barbaric manner in which African men, women, and children were
held captive in the holds of slave ships during the Middle Passage.
The idea for the design of the plan may have originated with the charts that resembled packing
instructions used by slave-ship captains. The goal of the abolitionists was to visualize for the public the
layout of the human cargo hold as well as the content. The description below details how exactly the 297
bodies representing African slaves were laid out. According to these remarks, “In the Men’s apartment,
the space allowed to each is six feet in length, by sixteen inches in breath…The Women, five feet ten
inches, by sixteen inches. The perpendicular height between the Decks is five feet eight
inches…Platforms, or wide shelves were erected, between the decks…by which the perpendicular height
between each…was reduced to two feet six inches.” The key value of the plan was to visualize the horrors
of the slave trade that lay within the belly of the slave ship. From the hold, the abolitionists exposed to the
public the actual bodies that fueled the business of the slave trade. An “improved version” of the plan, as
Thomas Clarkson would later claim, revealed seven different sections which allowed the viewer to
imagine the hold in three-dimensions.
Below the plan of the ship was an excerpt from Dr. Alexander Falconbridge’s Account of the
slave trade describing the confusion, suffering, and disarray to be expected in the old: “the deck, that is,
the floor of their rooms, was so covered with blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in
consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house.”
Clarkson commented on the British reaction to the plan of the Brookes: “No one who saw it but
was impressed. It spoke to him in a language, which was at once intelligible and irresistible. It brought
forth the tear of sympathy in behalf of the sufferers and it fixed their sufferings in his heart.”
62
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence The Importance Today
Walter Benjamin writes “Every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of
its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably.” Thus, the slave-ship icon serves as a template for
the memory of the Middle Passage. As such, it becomes what Barbie Zelizer calls “a shared frame of
reference about the past” that “helps one hold onto one’s identity in ways that are meaningful not only to
the individual, but to the collective.”
Three artists, Malcolm Bailey, Keith Piper, and Magdalena Campos-Pons, have used the slaveship icon both to recall the Middle Passage and expand upon it. By reclaiming their ancestors’ stories,
these artists return to their origins in order to make sense of the present as a way of defining themselves.
Indeed, these artists, by deliberately choosing to revive bits and pieces of the past, connect themselves to
a common black-Atlantic identity.
The slave-ship icon is a metaphor for birth and death at the same time. On the one hand, it can be
imagined as the womb from which the black Atlantic was born, having carried the African Diaspora to the
new World. On the other hand, the shape of the icon itself visually resembles a coffin and still bodies
within its sections recall the millions who perished in the Middle Passage, the loss of homeland, and
dislocation from family. I believe that the tension between these two metaphors—birth and death—sparks
the multivalent nature of the slave-ship icon.
In summary, why do we remember the slave-ship icon? It is simple. It is graphic. It is schematic.
It is a concise statement in black and white. It offers an inside view of the life-threatening conditions of
the hold of a slave ship that sickens the senses. It takes the most valuable part of the ship – the hold – and
displays it before our eyes in all of the sanitized horror. It is an image that repeatedly affirms our ability to
rise to the surface from the depths of our past.
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64
The British Abolitionists and Their Influence Teaching Strategies for The British Abolitionists and Their Influence This short work is best used as an independent study module in senior high school. It can also be
used for adult study as well. The readings contained in this work should be done in private and any class
time spent on the work should be in allowing students to actively debate the issues contained in the work
or engage in other activities that will bring their own investment in the subject to the class. The following
four strategies are suggestions only.
Engaging the Abolitionists
Invite students to assume the roles of some of the abolitionists written about here. Then invite
them to discuss the issue of slavery in the roles they have assumed. The students can use the Internet or
the library to add depth to the roles they have chosen. Be sure to put a time limit on the discussion.
Go to Parliament
Search the news media for a glaring example of contemporary slavery and human trafficking.
Using the material found this work, stage a parliamentary debate on ways to put an end to this
contemporary slavery.
Current Issues
What current issues in your community, city, state, or the nation could now use the kind of effort
put forth by the British abolitionists? What issues of human rights or other societal ills would benefit from
a strong group action? Plan strategies for addressing theses issues.
Challenges
One of the constant threads in the abolitionist movement was a deep commitment to work on
behalf of others. It is important for young people to know that they, too, can participate. They need to be
engaged and challenged to use their own creativity and their own relationships to make the world a better
place.
A project that might flow from the reading and discussing of this work might be an invitation for
the young people to gather on their own—to be their own little Clapham Circle.
•
•
•
•
As a group they can continue to investigate their communities to find social needs they can
address.
They can define the problem and assesses what resources they will need to make a change for the
better.
Next, they can agree to work together for a defined and limited amount of time to address the
problem.
Finally, the group can document in some way (essay, video, blog, etc.) what effect they had on
the problem addressed.
The study of the British and the American abolitionists is an exercise in discovering how people
dedicated to a cause can make a difference over time. As an educational experience, it will provide you
and your students a chance to turn learning outward and into action in the service of others.
65
Contributors Rodney Stark
Rodney Stark is Professor of Social Sciences at Baylor University and the author of numerous
books and articles. Professor Stark has studied history from the perspective of a sociologist and might be
called a history sociologist. Professor Stark’s latest book is The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led
to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Random House, 2005). The article included here,
however, is an excerpt a chapter on slavery in his book For the Glory of God.
Cheryl Finley
Cheryl Finley is an Assistant Professor of Art at Cornell University and a Ph.D. candidate in the
joint program in African-American Studies and Art History at Yale University. Her paper “Committed to
Memory: The Slave-Ship Icon in the Black-Atlantic Imagination” won the 1998 Sylvia Ardyn Boone
prize from the History of Art Department at Yale for the best examination of African and AfricanAmerican art. Her dissertation examines the history, meaning, and use of the British abolitionist
engraving Description of a Slave Ship from its emergence in 1789 as a political tool of the abolitionist
movement in the present day, where it remains a powerful icon in the Black-Atlantic Imagination.
Chuck Stetson
Chuck Stetson is a Managing Director of PEI Funds, a private equity firm based in New York. He
is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He is the author
of articles for Harvard Business Review, Pratt’s Guide to Venture Capital, and The Journal of Corporate
Strategy. He created the Doubleday Pocket Bible Guide. He is the author of Creating the Better Hour:
Lessons from William Wilberforce published by Stroud and Hall in 2007.
Dr. Stetson is the Chairman of Essentials in Education and the Bible Literacy Project and coauthor of The Bible and Its Influence, the first student textbook for academic study of the Bible in public
schools in more than 30 years. The course is being used in 285 school districts in 41 states in its third
year.
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