BTW M,
Here is the rest of the story...
freerepublic.com
Abolition Campaign
The first man to organize a campaign against slavery was Granville Sharp, who founded an Anti-Slavery Society in 1760. Sharp became famous for his defence of a black immigrant in England, James Somersett, whose right to be free when he was here was established in law. Sharp also championed the idea of a home for slaves in Sierra Leone. It was Sharp's prolific campaigning against slavery that caused an Abolition Committee to be established in Parliament in 1787.
But the best known anti-slavery campaigner is William Wilberforce, the son of a wealthy merchant and the MP for Hull and Yorkshire. Wilberforce became the conscience of Parliament and in conjunction with Sharp lobbied hard for the Bill for Abolition of the African slave trade. With them was a third prominent campaigner, Thomas Clarkson, a man who campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade in all British colonies. Clarkson wrote the important book History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade in 1808. These three men are accredited with raising the issue to such a height that it became a vital political matter to the competing Tories and Whigs in the Parliament of the late 18th century.
By the end of the 18th century, leading methodists and Quakers were campaigning vigorously against slavery in Africa. Wilberforce stated that the fight for abolition was a religious and humanitarian triumph over economic and political interests. From 1788 on, Parliament was inundated with petitions against the slave trade. Abolition came in 1807 with an act of Parliament that called for forfeiture of ships engaged in slavery and a fine of £100 for each slave discovered aboard. Participation in the slave trade was punishable by transportation to a penal colony. Enforcement of abolition was carried out primarily by the Royal Navy. Constant action by the navy eventually encouraged other European nations to pass anti-slavery laws.
It was following the abolition of the slave trade that the British Empire expanded into Africa, as efforts to eradicate the trade led to more involvement in the continent. Treaties with African rulers, and the activities of merchants strengthened the links that Britain had with Africa. When Britain annexed part of Nigeria in 1861, the main reason for doing so was to stamp out the slave trade there. In fact, many African states and their rulers saw the abolition of slavery by Britain as an insult to Islam, which taught that non-Muslims could be lawfully enslaved.
Policing the Ban
Although it must be said that there can never be a case made for participation in the slave trade, it must remain a credit to this country that it played a leading role in stamping it out with the use of the Royal Navy as the policeman of abolition. Writing in his 1869 book, A History of European Morals, W. H. Lecky stated that: "The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four virtuous pages comprised in the history of nations." In present-day Britain, there those who try to burden the entire nation with the guilt of slavery. This is palpably unfair.
The vast majority of the people at the time were unaware of its existence and, even if they had known of it, they were unable to do anything about it, since they had no voice in Parliament. The power in the land was held by some of the very people who profited from the slave trade, or by those who had the wealth to afford a conscience. Those who trooped to work a sixteen-hour day in the factories and mills of industrial cities like London, Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield had no knowledge of the profits made by slavery. Nor did they have the luxury of having the time and money for a conscience about the political issues of the day.
At the height of the anti-slavery campaign William Cobbett wrote to Wilberforce:
"You seem to have great affection for the negroes... I feel for the hard-pinched, the ill-treated, the beaten down labouring classes of England, Scotland and Ireland, to whom you do all the mischief that it is in your power to do; because you describe their situation as good, and because you do, in some degree, at any rate, draw the public attention away from their sufferings. In an impassioned letter to the Leeds Mercury in 1830, a social reformer, Richard Oastler,
The Black Swan
note Wilberforce above ... one of your references.. I recall :O) |
