Abolishing the slave trade
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On 22nd May 1787, twelve devout men assembled at a print shop in the City of London. Nine of them were Quakers, the rest Anglicans. Together they formed the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Within twenty years of this meeting the slave trade had been abolished in the British Empire. By 1833 parliament had abolished slavery itself in the empire, and all slaves had been freed. By the 1880’s slavery was ended in the southern United States. “From any historical perspective”, writes the historian of slavery, David Bryon-Davis, “This was a stupendous transformation” . [1]
Why did this group of people feel so strongly that slavery ought to be abolished?
To us it is obvious; it seems obscene to ask that question. The problem is that our ability to exercise an historical imagination is poor and we are quick to judge the people of the past by 21st century standards. Christians in the 1700’s were largely complacent about the slave trade. Most felt that, since the Bible did not condemn it directly, and since there were slaves in the Bible, there was no problem. Only a few felt otherwise and they were regarded as the lunatic fringe.
The size of the problem – the Atlantic slave trade
Although it was illegal to own slaves in the British Isles, slaves were central to the economy of Britain in the eighteenth century. Manufactured goods were sent to Africa, traded and exchanged for slaves in the costal areas. The slaves were then taken to the Americas and sold. The money was used to buy raw materials which were then taken to Britain and Europe. It was a profitable cycle of activity and hundreds of ships circled the Atlantic each year.
It is estimated that, in the end, 20 million Africans were taken from their homes and sold into servitude in the Americas. Try to imagine yourself living at this time and accepting this as being perfectly normal. The British economy depends on it and your income is relying on it. If anyone were to abolish the slave trade, thousands of seamen would be thrown out of work. Great cities such as Bristol and Liverpool were thriving because of the buying and selling of living human beings.
Many Christians were slow to see the iniquity of this system. A famous hymn writer will serve as an example.
John Newton – the Christian slaver who changed his mind slowly
John Newton, born in 1725, was living at sea by the age of eleven! His dad was a sea captain and John Newton followed in his wake, serving in the crew of several slave-ships. During one voyage a violent storm brought Newton to realise the power of God and his own vulnerability. He was dramatically converted in 1748.
But Newton continued to work on slave ships, serving a captain on the Duke of Argyle and The African in 1753 and 1754.
Then Newton left the sea and trained to enter the Anglican ministry. He once wrote, “Only God’s amazing grace could and would take a rude, profane, slave-trading sailor and transform him into a child of God”. Newton’s hymn, Amazing grace is well known but Newton became an abolitionist only gradually – it is an indication of how normal slavery had become that a man like Newton could continue to regard it as acceptable until well into the 1770’s.
But eventually Newton was convinced. In 1787 he wrote Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade, an abolitionist tract based on his experiences as a slave captain. It was an influential work, but even before it was written Newton had already exerted a deep influence upon the abolitionist movement…
William Wilberforce – the rebel who found a cause
In 1759 William Wilberforce was born in Hull, Yorkshire. He belonged to a conventional Anglican family and went to St John’s College Cambridge where he was not an impressive student, frittering away his time enjoying himself. On graduating, he entered parliament at the age of 21. This was in 1780, but in 1785 Wilberforce had an extraordinarily powerful conversion experience. He realised with horror that he had wasted his life so far and dedicated himself to serve God in the future. But how could a man like Wilberforce do this?
Torn between choosing a life in the ministry and a life as a politician he went to his spiritual mentor for guidance. This was John Newton – the old slave-trading captain now converted and serving as a pastor. Newton urged Wilberforce to remain in parliament.
It was 1785 and Wilberforce was a rebel without a cause. But two years later, in 1787 he met Thomas Clarkson. Clarkson was, by any standards, one of the most remarkable individuals these islands have ever produced.
Thomas Clarkson – the brains behind the operation
Clarkson was born in 1760. Another St John’s graduate, Clarkson was the opposite of Wilberforce. A brilliant student, he entered a competition to compose an essay in Latin and won hands down. The title of the essay was, Is it lawful to enslave the unconsenting? Researching and writing his essay got Clarkson thinking – the issue disturbed him deeply but it took a dramatic encounter with God to push him into action. Travelling on horseback from Cambridge to London, he had what he later called a spiritual revelation of God during which it became absolutely clear to him that he was to campaign for the abolition of the slave trade. “A thought came into my mind”, he wrote, “that if the contents of the essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end”
Clarkson was an impressive man. Forgetting his ambition to enter the Anglican ministry, he committed himself to gathering information about the slave trade. In the course of the next few years he rode 35,000 miles on horseback, repeatedly travelling the length and breadth of Britain. He interviewed as many as 20,000 sailors from slave ships.
In 1787 he published his findings in a book entitled, A Summary View of the Slave Trade and of the Possible Consequences of it’s Abolition. Earlier that year he had been beaten up and left for dead by slave-ship crewmen in Liverpool, later that year he was one of the twelve who founded The Abolition Committee.
It was Clarkson who, on behalf of the Committee, recruited Wilberforce to the cause.
Post 1787 - parliamentary action
On 12th May 1789 William Wilberforce made his first speech I parliament advocating the abolition of the slave trade. He spoke for four hours on the floor of the house, a speech that is still recognised as the finest oration ever heard in the British parliament. He presented fact after devastating fact with clarity, accuracy and heartfelt passion. The passion came, at least in part, from his friend and mentor John Newton; the facts were the result of the tireless work of Thomas Clarkson.
Two years later he introduced a bill for the abolition of the slave trade, it was defeated 163 votes to 88. For the next eighteen years Wilberforce introduced such a bill almost every year, every one was defeated. The slave traders had a stranglehold on parliament.
In the 1790’s the French Revolution scared the living daylights out of the British establishment. It was easy for the pro-slavery campaigners to present the abolitionists as hot headed revolutionaries just like the French. Then, in 1803, Britain found itself at war with Napoleonic France.
With the direct assault on the slave trade proving so difficult, more success was achieved when the Abolitionists adopted a more oblique approach; a bill to prohibit British subjects from serving in ships flying French or American flags of convenience. The measure went through without problem but very soon it caused havoc in the slave trading community. The victory at Trafalgar had given Britain unchallenged power to enforce the new law; most slavers were British men serving on ships with American flags. Two thirds of the slave trade was brought to a halt!
This was in 1806, a year later parliament passed an act banning the slave trade altogether. John Newton died later that year. In 1833 another act emancipated all slaves in the British Empire. William Wilberforce died on 29 July 1833, two days after hearing that the legislation for the abolition of slavery in British dominions had successfully completed its passage through the House of Commons, a fitting conclusion to the work he had begun nearly half a century before, Clarkson would live on until 1846.
Postscript – let’s hear it for the Quakers!
We tend to emphasise the role of Wilberforce and neglect to mention others in the fight against slavery. Wilberforce himself would have been keen to stress the significance of Clarkson, Hannah Moore and James Stephen among many others. But let’s not forget the Quakers.
Nine of the original twelve members of the Committee for the Abolition of Slavery were Quakers. They were the first church in Britain or America to condemn slavery, in and it was Quakers who kept the movement going until slavery itself was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833. Without the Quakers we would probably never have heard of Wilberforce.
What can we learn from this amazing story?
I think we can point up four things:
Christians are meant to do things and not just spend their days attending religious meetings – today we are big talkers but what difference do we make to the oppressed and the suffering?
All the characters in this story had a direct, personal and powerful experience of God – it was an experience that redirected and re-energised their lives. It was not a self-indulgent religious trip. We should seek God again to re-align us to his will and re-engage us in the work of his kingdom.
Apart form a small lunatic fringe led by Wilberforce and his friends, Christians in 1787 were united in thinking that slavery was acceptable. What could we be tolerating in our modern world that a closer look at scripture would challenge us to change?
You don’t have to be in full time Christian ministry to be useful to God.
[1] John Coffey, The abolition of the slave trade: Christian conscience and social action, Cambridge Papers Vol 15 No 2, June 2006