Am I Not a Brother: Abolition of Slavery in the Age of Revolutions

Goals This Week

• Overview of slavery and resistance

• What was involved in the process of abolition?

• Why did it happen during the Age of Revolutions?

Plan This Week

• Slavery and Abolition

• Dimensions of Abolitionism

• Explaining Abolition and Aftermath

I. Slavery and Abolition

Overview of African Slavery

• Did Slaves Oppose Slavery?

Resistance During the Middle Passage

Resistance in the New World

Free Soil

• Maritime Maroons

  • Abolitionist Movements: Growing advocacy for the end of slavery led by both Black and white activists.

• Passing

  • some people pretended to be free and enslave those who should have been free

• Slaves against slavery

  • AFrican slaves had strong allies in the UK

• Granville Sharp

  • prominent anti-slavery activists in 18th century

• Jonathan Walker

  • The Branded Hand

Terms

• Antislavery

  • slaves rising up in rebellion is an act of antislavery

  • buying the freedom of the enslaved is antislavery

  • any action, speech, writing is antislavery

    • does NOT make it abolitionism

• Abolitionism

  • not only antislavery, but antislavery with the idea that we have to bring the institution of slavery to an end

  • act of ending the institution of slavery

  • ending of slave trade

  • finally mancapation of enslaved peoples

• Abolition

  • the happenings

• Political Events/Economic considerations

  • Haitian revolution (not discussed throughout the course but relevant here)

    • post Haitian Revolution, slavery was politically unattainable

  • by the 1790s in the Carribean, slavery was not profitable

What is Abolitionism?

• Religious in nature

  • major role in action against slavery

• Quakers: A religious group that was instrumental in the abolitionist movement, advocating for the equal treatment of all individuals and opposing the institution of slavery.

• Legal Evolution

  • Civil Campaign: A coordinated effort by abolitionists to raise awareness about the injustices of slavery, mobilizing public opinion through petitions, demonstrations, and literature.

• Until the parliament decides to abolish the institution of slavery, nothing will happen

Legality of Slavery

Law and Slavery in Britain

• English Common Law

• Progress through legal precedents

• 1679 Habeas Corpus Law

  • you may have the body brought to the cold

    • you have the right to appeal you confinement

  • many slave owners came home to the British Isle from their plantations and they bring one or two of their favourite slaves with them

  • These slaves often faced a complex legal status, as the application of the Habeas Corpus Law raised questions about their freedom and rights in British courts.

    • As a result, the judicial system had to navigate the delicate balance between property rights and human rights, leading to landmark cases that challenged the institution of slavery itself.

  • “Baptism makes one free”

• 1772: Somersett Case (James Somersett vs. Charles Steuart)

  • Lord Mansfield: Judge

    • realized given the recent decays of legal precident it was impossible for him to come up with anything against James

    • leaves for a month to think

    • comes back with a ruling noting that it only applies to this case

      • James will be set free because he has demonstrated that his enslavement contradicts the evolving legal principles of liberty and justice that emerged during the Age of Revolutions.

  • James: Enslave individual in Jamaica

  • Charles: brough James back to Jamaica, believing he was acting within the law, yet the ruling challenges the very foundation of such practices by reinforcing the notion that all men are entitled to freedom and dignity.

The Enlightenment: An Ambiguous Heritage

• Voltaire

  • French Enlightenment Thinkers

    • against slavery

  • Candide (1759)

    • Summary: In "Candide," Voltaire critiques the institution of slavery by illustrating the harsh realities faced by enslaved individuals, ultimately advocating for compassion and human rights.

    • the price of slavery

    • some are oblivious to the extents of slavery due to some of the common novels

      • “It is at this price you eat sugar in Europe”

        • This stark reminder emphasizes the moral cost of consumer goods, challenging readers to reflect on the ethical implications of their consumption habits.

    • to oppose slavery is human

Civil Campagin: cartoon crossfire…

Parliamentary Debate

• Signature campaign (1784-1796)

• Decline (1796-1806)

Why did it happen when it happened?

• Eric Williams

  • theory that humanitarism is a sham

    • without humanitarism abolitionism would not have happened

• decline in economy profit

  • plantations were unsustainable

• Capitalism and Slavery

• Mercy Killing

• Christopher L. Brown

• Moral Capital (2006)

  • britain loses the US after the American Revolution

  • We may have lost our American colony but we are better

    • we don’t want slavery, they have slavery

    • give them a moral upperhand/capital

• John Ashworth

  • professor in England

• Wage Labour

• Ties abolitionism to the industrial revolution

  • creation of nuclear families opposed to large families prior to indurstialization

  • family values

• when people finally realized how enslaved people are being treated, people will see and undertand that slavery is horrific

1807 - pro slavery activists said it is good for the enslaved population

• said it was the humanitarian option

Readings:

William Wilberforce: The Real Abolitionist?

• name associated with the fight against slavery

• key representative of the anti-slave trade forces

• 20,000 people attended a ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary of his death

  • his house turned into a museum

  • larger-than-life statue in Westminster Abbey

• anti-abortionist

• deserves some credit for the banning of the British slave trade in 1807 and the act that emancipated Britain’s slaves that was finally passed in 1833

A man of his time

• born into wealth in 1759

  • got him a seat in parliament when he was only 21 and was in it for his whole life but the final 8 years

• converted to the new Evangelical strain in Anglicanism which significantly influenced his views

• “his Evangelicalism made him equally concerned with other types of sin, and he worked hard to get George III to issue a royal proclamation condemning”

• formed a Society for Carrying into Effect His Majesty’s Proclamation against Vice and Immorality

  • at one point sent a bookseller to jail who published a piece attacking traditional religion

  • this society was crafted to promote moral reform across the nation, aiming to eradicate vices such as drunkenness, gambling, and blasphemy, while also advocating for the abolition of slavery as a moral imperative.

• at one point he wrote to a female friend urging her to adhere to her husband as he is the head of the household

• he was uneasy about the increasingly tiny percentage of men entitled to vote

  • pretty much everything about the French Revolution appalled him

    • horrified by anything resembling a union

• ring-wing position made him a more effective voice for abolition in a parliament whose members were mostly well-to-do landowners who wanted little change in the status quo

A Clumsy Strategist

• introduced an abolition bill every year

  • did it late in the parliamentary session or when the MPs were distracted by other issues

• disorganised when it came time to line up votes in advance

• when he managed to get the House of Commons to vote to abolish the slave trade in 1792, he had no groundwork in the House of Lords

• bill was finally passed in 1807