Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
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The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed on May 22, 1787, when twelve men gathered together at a printing shop in London, United Kingdom, and committed themselves to founding the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
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[edit] Origins and Membership
The founders were mostly Quakers, debarred from standing for Parliament, but three were evangelical Anglicans, which strengthened the committee's likelihood of influencing Parliament. The founding meeting took place following the first parliamentary petition against the slave trade by 300 Quakers in 1783. Their subsequent decision was to form a small, but committed non-denominational group, to lobby for greater Anglican and Parliamentary support.
The three pioneering Anglicans that co-founded this new non-denominational committee in 1787 with Quakers such as Samuel Hoare Jr and Joseph Woods Sr, were Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, and William Wilberforce; all evangelical Christians sympathetic to the 'religious revival'.
William Wilberforce was chosen to lead the group because of his Parliamentary connections, and the great respect in which he was held amongst nonconformists and evangelical Anglicans alike. He was a young and enthusiastic Member of Parliament from Kingston-upon-Hull in Yorkshire. Wilberforce faced huge odds against succeeding with the Society's objectives, given strong resistence in Parliament, compounded by the unrepresentative make-up of Parliament prior to the nineteenth century Reform Acts (and the much later extension of the franchise to women). The Society pitted itself against the powerful commercial interests of slave owners in the colonies, and the West African chieftain hierarchy that was tied to slavery.
[edit] Mission and Support
The mission of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was to inform the public of the immoral acts committed in the name of slavery, bring about a new law to abolish the slave trade and enforce this on the high seas, and establish areas in West Africa where Africans could live free of the risk of capture and sale. It pursued these proposals vigorously by writing and publishing anti-slavery books, abolitionist prints, posters and pamphlets, and organizing lecture tours in towns and cities. Petitions were presented to the House of Commons, anti-slavery rallies held, and a range of anti-slavery medallions, crockery and bronze figurines were made, notably with the support of the Unitarian Josiah Wedgwood whose production of pottery medallions featuring a slave in chains with the simply but effective question: am I not a man and a brother was very effective in bringing public attention to abolition.[1]
By informing the public, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade gained many members. Public interest was generated immediately after the Committee formed, in 1787, by Clarkson's tour of the great ports and cities of England. Very shortly the public mood was further aroused by the work of the African Olaudah Equiano, whose autobiography demonstrated both literary skill and an unanswerable case against slavery. In 1789 Thomas Clarkson was able to promote the Committee's cause by encouraging the sale of Equiano's first-hand account of the slave trade and slavery abroad, and his own visits to the British ports linked to the trade.
Wilberforce introduced the first Bill to abolish the slave trade in 1791, which was easily defeated by 163 votes to 88. As Wilberforce continued to bring the issue of the slave trade before Parliament, Clarkson and others on the Committee continued to travel, raise funds, lobby, and to write anti-slavery works. This was the beginning of a protracted parliamentary campaign, during which Wilberforce introduced a motion in favour of abolition almost every year.
[edit] Gradual Abolition
Even with all of this support, it took twenty years of work by the Society, and others - including captive and freed Africans, missionaries and evangelical movements in the colonies - to achieve the first stage of legal emancipation in the colonies. Over the course of this period membership of the Committee came to include the Quaker philanthropist William Allen, who worked closely with Wilberforce, and with his fellow Quaker Committee members.
In 1807 the British Parliament voted to abolish the slave trade and enforce this through its maritime power. The following year, Freetown in West Africa, established in 1788, when the Timni chief Nembana sold a strip of land for the use of a free community of ex-slaves from America, was given greater British protection under a separate Act.
Abolition itself followed slowly, as agreements were concluded by the Colonial Office and the various semi-autonomous colonial governments. After further British parliamentary legislation, slaves in all of Britain's colonies emancipated in 1838; although even then, many of the 'replacement' indentured labor schemes had to be challenged then reformed substantially or abolished over time through renewed anti-slavery campaigning, since colonial schemes could be used to thwart emancipation in all but name. Moreover, slavery continued on a large scale in American states until the South, where the problem was most widespread, was defeated in the American Civil War of the mid nineteenth century .
[edit] Quaker Involvement
Nine of the twelve founding members of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade were Quakers: ]]John Barton]]; William Dillwyn; George Harrison; Samuel Hoare Jr; Joseph Hooper; John Lloyd; Joseph Woods; James Phillips; and Richard Phillips. Five of these had been amongst the informal group of six Quakers who had pioneered the movement in 1783 when the London Society of Friends' yearly meeting had presented its petition against the slave trade to parliament, signed by over 300 Quakers.
English Quakers had begun to express their official disapproval of the slave trade since 1727 and promote reforms. From the 1750s, a number of Quakers in the Britain's American colonies also began to oppose slavery, calling on English Quakers to take action, and encourage their fellow citizens, including Quaker slave owners, to improve conditions for slaves, educate their slaves in Christianity, reading and writing, and gradually emancipate them.
[edit] Women’s Involvement
Women played a large role in the anti-slavery movement but were not eligible to be represented in the British Parliament and often, in the manner of the times, had to form their own separate societies. In 1824, Elizabeth Heyrick published a pamphlet titled Immediate not Gradual Abolition. In this Heyrick urged the immediate emancipation of the slaves. The Anti-Slavery Society had been founded to promote gradual abolition and though dominated by members with this view, who sought to downplay the challenge, a ginger group of members formed to campaign for immediate progress. The Female Society for Birmingham had a network of women’s anti-slavery groups and Heyrick’s pamphlet was publicized here.
[edit] Slavery Abolished
In 1827 the Sheffield Female Society was the first to call for immediate emancipation. In 1830 the Female society for Birmingham urged the Anti-Slavery Society to support immediate abolition instead of gradual abolition. In 1830 the Anti-Slavery Society finally agreed to support immediate abolition. The Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833.
[edit] References
- Coffey, John. The Abolition of the Slave Trade: Christian Conscience and Political Action
- Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains, The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery (Macmillan, 2005)
- Abolition in Britain. A KS3 History Resource of Britain and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
- Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
