How the Christian Led Abolition Movement contributed to the Abolition of Slavery within the British Empire

[0:00] Well, good morning to you all, and thank you for being patient. But I was wondering if we could, first of all, stand and together sing the Doxology. Praise God from whom all blessings come.

[0:16] Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him above the heavenly host.

[0:30] Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. Dear Lord, thank you for this opportunity to come together today.

[0:45] Please help me, Lord, to honour you, to glorify you. And from the talk that I give today, Father, please move the hearts and the minds of the faithful in order to bring glory to you.

[0:58] Through your Son, Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The title for the talk today is How the Christian-led Abolition Movement Contributed to the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

[1:19] Ever since Admiral Sir John Hawking took African slaves to the Caribbean in the 1560s, England, and later Great Britain, including Scotland, greatly prospered from the trading of human African lives.

[1:34] By the 18th century, the slave trade was seen as indispensable to the economy and supported the infrastructure of major cities such as Liverpool, Bristol, and London.

[1:45] It supported industries, shipbuilding, gun manufacture, sugar, and wool, and was claimed to be the foundation of the Industrial Revolution. And whilst doing so, it made many people fabulously rich.

[2:00] Over the centuries, members of royalty, the aristocracy, parliament, the bourgeoisie, and even the established church, all prospered from the forced subjugation of human lives.

[2:12] Through the strength of the military and navy, as well as the robust economic power of the slave trade, Britain was elevated to a level of power and international prestige.

[2:23] So why, on March 25th, 1807, that's 203 years ago this coming Thursday, did the British government ban the British involvement in the transatlantic slave trade?

[2:39] There were, in fact, a number of reasons why Britain turned from bringing slave oppressor to emancipator. And these included social, economic, and political reasons.

[2:51] Yet it would be inaccurate to say that these factors alone brought about the end of the British slave trade. Without a cohesive, coercive abolition movement placing more than half a century of pressure on parliament, this abominable trade may have painfully continued for much, much longer.

[3:10] As a side note, the rise of the economic and political liberalism drove the British parliament to pass the Great Reform Act of 1832, which sought to remove representational abuses.

[3:25] Previously, many members either inherited or bought their right to be a member of parliament, but now more members would have to be elected to their position. Writing in 1821, Sidney Smith angrily proclaimed that, the country belongs to the Duke of Rutland, Lord Lonsdale, the Duke of Newcastle, and about 20 other holders of boroughs.

[3:49] They are our masters. Therefore saying that the country was, in a sense, controlled by just a few. And many of those were owners of plantations.

[3:59] William Beckett, for example, the owner of a 22,000 acre estate in Jamaica, was twice Lord Mayor of London. And in the mid to late 1700s, over 50 MPs in parliament represented the slave plantations.

[4:16] Up until the reform of 1832, there were many representational abuses. The two most notorious were the existence of Pocket and Watton Burroughs.

[4:27] Just in case you don't know, Rottenborough was a city or a town that was once heavily populated and had much influence.

[4:38] However, over time, the population and the influence dwindled. Yet, the member of parliament that still represented that town still maintained the same power in parliament.

[4:49] He still had the same voice. So one of the prime examples was Old Serum in Wiltshire in the UK. And at one time, this was a very important, very prosperous town with a lot of power.

[5:02] Therefore, its MP, its member of parliament, had a lot of power. However, over time, the population dwindled. And in fact, in the 1700s, there was no one living in Old Serum. Yet, it was still represented by the MP.

[5:14] So, in a sense, the MP wasn't representing anyone, except himself and his interests. And that was called a Rottenborough. There was also a pocket borough, which was where a local member of parliament in a town or village or city would have so much power in that city that, in a sense, everyone, he could sway the vote of everyone.

[5:36] So he, in fact, had that borough in his pocket. So these abuses were going on. Again, there wasn't the ability for the population to vote.

[5:47] And there were a lot of abuses that were happening in the Houses of Parliament. And as I say, most of the 50 members of parliament at that time were pro-slavers, they were campaigning for slavery.

[6:03] As James Welvin accurately states, these reforms swept away many of the old pro-slavery MPs and replaced them with men in favour of abolition. To state that this movement was purely Christian would be inaccurate.

[6:19] However, the foundation and driving force behind it was conceived of and sustained by a coalition of Christian voices that transcended denominational backgrounds. The coalition brought together the voices of many who opposed slavery and brought to an end a trade that had inhumanely kidnapped, shipped, raped and enslaved millions of Africans.

[6:43] So who were these groups that made up the abolition movement? What did they do? And how did they combat and defeat the powerful forces behind the trade? The success of the movement was based on the ability of separate groups to unify and couple their abilities and resources to replace the slave traders' lies with truth and by successfully dissimulating the factual information to the whole of society.

[7:13] As mentioned, not all members of the movement were Christian but the vast majority were. And although they came from a variety of denominational backgrounds and held varying beliefs they put aside their differences in order to focus on what they had in common.

[7:31] All those involved believed that humans were made in the image of God. Genesis 1.27 which states So God created man in his own image.

[7:44] In the ESV the word man means both male and female he created them. So Genesis 1.27 So God created man in his own image.

[7:55] In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. And thus humans could not be traded as possessions. Each slave was a human being and not a fool.

[8:09] The British abolition movement found its origins in the 1660s with the religious society of friends the Quakers who believed that everyone was equal in the sight of God.

[8:22] One of the central Quaker creeds was the testimony of equality which states that all people contain the divine spark of God and thus all are made equal male, female, black, brown and white every creed.

[8:37] In the 18th century a Quaker named Joel Woolman appealed to the rationality of others by stating that slavery was inconsistent with the Christian message and that all who enslave actually sin.

[8:49] The Quakers wrote the first anti-slavery literature in the 1760s and in 1783 they presented a petition to the House of Commons to this effect.

[9:01] However it was largely ignored by Parliament who categorically denied its practicality. Despite this setback the Quakers continued to write and voice their opinions against the trade and in July of 1783 they formed the first British Anti-Slavery Committee.

[9:18] In December of that year the committee wrote an article presenting a case for the cessation of the trade. Thousands of copies were made and distributed throughout the British Isles to anyone who had some form of authority or influence.

[9:35] Unfortunately their efforts were mostly ignored. Although the Quaker movement contained many influential people they lacked political clout. Because they were classed as religious dissenters they could not hold public office.

[9:50] But they did have a nationwide network of abolition committees that contained many affluent and influential members. The Quakers sought to join forces with a group of Evangelical Anglicans.

[10:03] They would bring finance and a support network whilst the Anglicans who held a far wider following would bring respectability to the cause and act as the voice of the movement.

[10:15] These two Christian groups put their differences aside and worked on what they had in common. Their desire to love the Lord their God and love others as themselves.

[10:28] At this time the Quaker anti-slavery machine was clearly more focused and organised than any other denomination. However they did not see God's work as something that was restricted to a particular sect or group.

[10:42] Rather it was something that all Christians should work on together. For this group the emancipation of African slaves was far more important than the prestige of any denomination.

[10:56] All Christians were called to act in unity and serve the Lord by loving and edifying others. The first collaboration between the two denominations came in 1785 through the Quaker's contact with Granville Sharp.

[11:16] There he is. Handsome road. He was known as the father of the cause who was the grandfather of an Archbishop of York devout Anglican evangelical and legal genius.

[11:32] Sharp used his abilities to win a milestone legal case which was Somerset's case in 1772 that resulted in the decision that slave owners could not forcibly remove their slaves from Britain.

[11:45] This ruling did not outlaw slavery in England but as the ruling was widely misunderstood in effect that was its result. A legal precedent had been set and this was used as a legal foundation on which the abolitionists would build upon.

[12:03] Sharp then introduced the two other Anglicans to the Quaker Abolition Committee Thomas Clarkson there he is and Philip Sanson.

[12:16] Together with Sharp they joined with nine Quaker abolitionists and in 1782 they formed the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Clarkson set out to find a figurehead for the movement and found it in the Evangelical MP William Wilberforce.

[12:38] Clarkson and Wilberforce were already well connected but through the Quaker network they brought many murmuring voices fighting the cause of abolition together in order to create a roar.

[12:51] Through the abolition movement sorry though the abolition movement included different denominations it was not a movement fully embraced by the denominations represented. There were members within many denominations who approved of slavery some even claiming that it was biblical and thus God's good will.

[13:09] Okay. I was going to show a slide of a pamphlet by the Reverend Raymond Harris and it was entitled Scriptural Researches on the Slave Trade.

[13:40] showing its conformity with the principles of natural and revealed religion delineated in the sacred writings of the word of God and that was published in 1788 in Liverpool and so we have Anglican clergymen who are stating that slavery is God's will and he was based in Liverpool which was one of the main slave trading ports in the UK and was greatly prospering from it.

[14:07] So in our church we had two sides. We had pro-slavery and the abolitionist movement and the hero or the many heroes of course we shouldn't just assume that it was Wilberforce who was doing it all because that was completely wrong.

[14:23] Here's one of our heroes here who was not an Anglican but a clergyman but was a faithful evangelical Anglican.

[14:38] Additionally Anglican leadership actively participated in the slave trade. The Bishop of Exeter Henry Philpots purchased 665 slaves whilst through its missionary wing Society for the Propagation of the Gospel the Anglican Church owned slaves of the Codrington Plantation Estate in Barbados.

[14:59] These slaves were physically branded with the word society. Together as a unified team this group of Christian abolitionists sought to reach out to all who shared their faith that all men and women should be free.

[15:16] Denominational allegiance was not a boundary that Anglicans Quakers Methodists and Baptists and many others individuals from many other groups rallied together for the sake of the cause.

[15:28] Each brought their skills and persuasion to the movement acting as separate parts of a body each performing their function for the benefit of the cause. Not every group saw eye to eye and thus some worked separately from one another.

[15:42] However each group utilized and built upon the successes of the others. Amongst the Evangelical Anglicans a group of like-minded determined men met regularly to plan their involvement in the campaigning against the slave trade.

[15:58] Let me stop myself there. it wasn't just men. Many women were involved and I'll be coming back to that later. This group became known as the Clapham sect.

[16:10] William Wilberforce persuaded prominent and wealthy individuals to join the sect. Members include the Governor of the Bank of England, Chairman of Directors of the British East India Company, Colonial Governors, Clergymen, Solicitors and Parliamentarians.

[16:25] This sect had significant influence in the political, economical and spiritual arenas that they were determined and they were determined to pull their abilities and resources together in order to overcome the abolition trade, the slave trade.

[16:43] Back to Thomas Clarkson, Anglican, was one of many leading forces in the abolition movement who was graced with many abilities and in today's mind he would be judged as a public relations stroke marketing guru campaign manager and investigative journalist par excellence.

[17:04] Through his unceasing efforts he aroused the minds of the nation by furnishing them with accounts of the slave trade. He did so in a way that they were not personally threatened but he did awaken their consciences.

[17:20] He gathered information from sailors who had worked on slave ships from ports, industrial centres and personally travelled thousands of miles on horseback to take the abolition message to the whole country.

[17:33] Furthermore, he obtained equipment used on slave ships such as iron handcuffs, leg shackles and thumb screws, instruments for forcing open slaves' jaws and branding irons so that he could show evidence of the brutality of the trade.

[17:49] Here we have a photo of the Seven Stars pub. It's just a regular pub in Bristol in the UK and this is one of the places where Clarkson would go and he'd spend a lot of time in the pub doing research, talking to the sailors and just finding out the truth.

[18:11] What are these conditions like? What is actually happening? What do you do? and so he travelled around the country to places like this and just gathered this information.

[18:24] Because in the UK of course, not that many people travelled abroad and so it was difficult to find out what the conditions were personally.

[18:35] So Clarkson went around and got this information. He also gathered together products that were created by Africans. The pro-slavery lobby was saying that Africans weren't civilised, that they were brutes and that they couldn't produce good products.

[18:54] So Clarkson bought lots of African products and the craftsmanship in the weaving and in the woodwork and in many other things in many ways surpassed anything that was produced in England.

[19:08] So he was there just showing, look, is this what a brute would make. No, it's a skilled piece of artwork and he's also supplied that, accompanied that with information as well.

[19:23] The abolitionists knew that they needed to expand from simply being a small religious movement into a broad social movement, one that incorporated all stations of society.

[19:35] Political influence and economic power were extremely important, but initially, with few supporters in parliament, the voice of the public was seen as imperative.

[19:46] The movement wished to build upon a growing public distaste for the slave trade by proving that the claims made by the pro-slave groups were false. However, those who gained from slavery were not going to let their profitable businesses disappear without a fight.

[20:04] They had money, political power, and influence, and they were determined to use it. They organized the coherent methodical defense of the slave trade, publishing and distributing numerous convincing pamphlets that sought to bring the slave trade back into public favor.

[20:24] slave traders have long promoted the idea that slave trading wasn't inhumane, and in fact, the practice was beneficial to the slaves.

[20:37] They argued that the Africans had been rescued from an uncivilized, barbaric culture, and placed in a safe, working environment, where they were housed, fed, and protected from the horrific actions of their despotic tribal governments.

[20:53] So here, you can see we have a picture from the pro-slavery group, and we have African slaves here wearing finest fashions, dancing in leisure, in some sort of paradise, and having music, and look, the food is plentiful.

[21:09] Who says that slavery is bad? It's a lie, look. The anti-slavery movement sought to correct this situation by informing the public of the real conditions that slaves were forced to bear, and that it was in fact the slave traders who were in fact the brutes.

[21:31] The anti-slavery movement had a tough fight on their hands. Many within the halls of power had much to gain from the slave trade, whilst others perceived it as a necessary evil.

[21:43] To defeat pro-slavery opinion, the abolitionists hoped that with the public's voice behind them, they would be able to match and then exceed the power and influence of the pro-slavery lobby.

[21:56] But first, they needed to gain and then consolidate their support. John Wesley, the unintentional founder of Methodism, was an ardent critic of the slave trade.

[22:08] Working from material from Anthony Benzonet's text, who was a Quaker, some historical accounts of Guinea, Wesley produced his pamphlet, Thoughts Upon Slavery.

[22:21] In it, he decried slavery and questioned the morality of the enslavers. And there's the, just the front page. I think it's interesting here, the quote from the Bible.

[22:36] And the Lord said, What hath thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. I think that's the case that they were all trying to say was that these Africans are our brothers.

[22:52] They are human beings. And sisters, brothers and sisters. It was Wesley's writings that inspired many in Britain to speak up and show their resistance to the slave trade.

[23:11] One example is that 95.2% of Wesleyan Methodist church members signed anti-slavery petitions. One such person was a former slave captain turned Anglican minister named John Newton.

[23:30] Here he is. Of course, as you know, the author of Amazing Grace. He wrote of the horrors he had witnessed whilst he had been a slaver. Wesley, Newton, Clarkson, and many other pamphleteers sought to wake the nation's conscience from its slumber by refuting and discarding the false perceptions of the slave trade and by replacing them with the cold, uncomfortable truth.

[23:54] The movement sought to dispel the myth that the trade was operated by benevolent, caring masters, by exposing actions and events that the traders wished could be kept hidden. They wanted to show that it was not exotic, benevolent, nor did it please God, as the pro-slavery lobby insisted.

[24:13] We see here, it's actually a French slave ship, the Safire, the Sapphire, and it looks exciting.

[24:27] It sort of, there's the boat, it's sitting across the oceans, and there goes the benevolent slavers. And not only do the parliamentarians think it's good, but look here, we've got Christ giving his permission there and waving them along.

[24:41] So the pro-slavery lobby is churning out material such as this. The public now had a glimpse of the truth of the horrendous conditions the slaves were forced to live in.

[24:58] They were told about the horrors of the slave ships themselves and how Africans were ripped away from their families, placed into shackles, and transported in unbearable conditions, lying in their own human waste.

[25:12] As I've said, here we can see how cramped the conditions are. Each slave had an assigned space of only four feet by 18 inches.

[25:25] So, this is my very technical piece of prop here. But, I mean, I'm not a tall person, but this was the space that a slave would have on a slave boat.

[25:36] So, there's a cramped, and there's no room to move. So, that was their luxury berth on the cruise ships, such as these.

[25:57] There was no room to move, unable to sleep on a hard wooden floor. After three days, they were lying in human waste, surrounded by an incomprehensible stench, and the cries and moans of men, women, and children.

[26:12] Just imagine, you've been wrenched away from your family, transported to a foreign land. The slavers have branded you, changed your name, taken your identity, and stolen your future.

[26:24] One of the reasons that the slaves were chained in the boat was to prevent them from jumping into the sea and committing suicide. For as one slave said, death is now my only friend.

[26:40] And here's just a close-up of the conditions they were in. So, four feet by 18 inches, and they just were crammed in, changed down, obviously so they wouldn't revolt, but also to prevent them from just giving up, just jumping into the sea.

[27:09] Pamphlets and lectures reminded the public of the Zong Law Case, 1783. This is a replica of the Zong slave ship.

[27:22] It was rebuilt for the 2000 memorial of the abolition of the slave trade, and this is outside Tower Bridge in London.

[27:37] The Zong Law Case was where the captain of the slave ship, the Zong, threw 131 of his sickest slaves overboard, so that the shareholders could claim insurance money for the lost cargo.

[27:49] The insurance policy would pay for cargo that had been thrown overboard, if done so to secure the remaining cargo. Thus, a dead slave was worth much more than a sick one, and so shrewd economic policy dictated that the best way to secure high profits and a good return on investment was to throw the sick overboard.

[28:15] The Zong wasn't a one-off situation. It was just that on this occasion, the insurers said no, and so it went to court. The resulting court case, or not by the authorities, as a mass murder charge against the ship owners, but as a civil action by the ship owners seeking compensation from the insurers for their lost cargo.

[28:42] The abolitionists appealed to the hearts and minds of the public, asking whether it was acceptable to view African human beings as things. The genius of this ploy was that it presented this atrocity to the public without associating them, and asked whether this was tolerable for a Christian Great Britain.

[29:05] The pro-slavery lobby promoted the concept that blacks were primitive compared to whites, and therefore could be treated as such. Eluda Equiano, a Methodist, and Mary Prince, Moravian, sent a resounding shot that sent a lethal blow to this argument.

[29:28] Both were freed black slaves who wrote eloquent autobiographical accounts of their lives. there's Equiano's autobiography, which by the way was a bestseller.

[29:45] It was in a sense flying off the shelves. People just, many people just bought a copy of this. They just wanted to know this, couldn't believe the information that they'd been given by the pro-slave lobby.

[30:01] And here we have a first-hand account of what the conditions actually were, and spoken in a really eloquent, educated manner. So, not the work of a brute.

[30:19] The very nature of the work offered clear evidence that they were civilised, educated beings who demonstrated both literary skill and an unanswerable case against slavery.

[30:29] In addition, these accounts, funded by members of the Abolition Society, provided first-hand evidence of the atrocities suffered by slaves. Evidence which could refute the lies of the traders.

[30:44] It was clear that Equiano did not benefit in any way by being kidnapped and taken by force from his family, beaten, forced to live in squalor, and made to work as the property of another man.

[30:57] Equiano was able to refute the false claims of the traders and expose them to the public and to Parliament as ruthless, lying tyrants. Here is an excerpt from his autobiography entitled, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Eluda Equiano.

[31:15] The Interesting Narrative of the Dead, the Evil of the Truth, the Truth, the Truth, the Truth, the Truth, the Truth, and the Truth, the Truth, and the Truth.

[31:54] Now that all ships' cargo were confined together, it became absolutely persilential. The closeness of the place and the heat of the climate added to the number in the ship, which were so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn themselves.

[32:11] It almost suffocated us. This produced copious respirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died.

[32:28] This wretched situation was again aggravated by the golem of the chains, which had now become insupportable, and the field of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell and were almost suffocated.

[32:44] The shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying rendered the world a scene of horror, almost inconceivable. Often did I think men of the inhabitants of the deep much more happy than myself.

[33:04] I envied them the freedom they enjoyed, and I wished I could be changing my condition for theirs. Every circumstance I met with served only to surrender my state more painful and heightened my apprehensions and my opinion of the quality of the wise.

[33:25] One day they had taken a number of fishes, and one day had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fit. To our astonishment who were on the deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat as we expected, they tossed the remaining fish into the sea.

[33:45] Again, although we begged and prayed for some. Some of my countrymen, being pressed by hunger, took an opportunity, when they thought no one saw them, of trying to get a little of the fish.

[34:00] But they were discovered, and the attempt procured them some very severe floggings. So, as I say, people had never heard or read anything like this.

[34:18] And the pro-the abolition movement just used Equiano's autobiography to show that slavery is just wrong.

[34:33] That it's un-Christian, that it is barbaric, that if you're involved in it you are a brute. And that men, women, little children are dying.

[34:46] They're being sent across, away from their families, ripped apart, and they're dying. And why are they dying? They're dying so they can bring you cheap sugar. So this is one of the many tools that the abolition movement used.

[35:03] More than a million people are thought to have died while in transit across the so-called Middle Passage of the Atlantic, due to the inhumane conditions aboard the slave ships and brutal suppression of any resistance.

[35:17] That's one million human lives. BBC research states that 11 million Africans were forcibly removed during the transatlantic slave trade.

[35:28] However, numbers are still contested. Furthermore, while the Europeans were taking slaves from the African West Coast, the Arab world is thought to have enslaved between 9.4 and 14 million Africans from the East Coast.

[35:42] The figures are uncertain due to the lack of written records. Thus, Africa from both sides was left decimated. The Middle Passage was part of the triangle of trade which sent Africans from Africa to the New World.

[35:58] So here we have Europe and the west coast of Africa and where the slaves went. And here is the notorious Middle Passage where one million died just due to the bad conditions.

[36:11] I mean, a little side note, it's not rocket science. Even if the slavers improved the conditions on their boat, even like for their bottom line, it would make sense to make the conditions better for the slaves.

[36:28] They'd have more chance of them surviving to the other side. Of course, this isn't the matter because slavery is bad outright. But it just seemed that the slave traders were just seeking to make as much money as they could at the expense of human lives.

[36:44] And this passage here would take three weeks. As I say, after three days, perhaps about here, the conditions are horrendous. Another way the abolitionists gained support for the movement was by inflaming the growing notion that the white plantation owners, although British, were different, that they weren't the same as those in Britain.

[37:08] The thinking went that these colonials had been affected by cultural slippage. They had moved away from the British cultural norms. So what may have been acceptable to them was clearly not acceptable to those good people back home.

[37:24] Just another slide as well. These are figures of numbers that were removed from the west coast of Africa. So you have 5 million down to Brazil, 4.5 to the West Indies, 0.5 up to the USA, Central Africa, and also to Lima.

[37:47] Again, figures are contested, but no one believes that it's... The most conservative was 8 million. And my humble opinion is that the more realistic is about 11 million.

[38:00] Some even go up to 14. And the triangular trade came with goods from England.

[38:12] Of course, it's not just England. It's France, Spain, Portugal. They ship down guns, cloth, iron, beer.

[38:24] They bring it to the tribal leaders and they exchange for gold, ivory, spices and hardwoods, which then go back up.

[38:36] So they're given these products and they get the slaves, which come over here. The slaves they got to the USA, the colonies and to the USA.

[38:51] And then good old rum comes back to Africa. So we're taking their people and giving them rum. And then with the slaves in North America, we then have rice and silk and sugar come back to the UK and to Europe.

[39:13] The triangular trade. The triangular trade. Clarkson and the abolitionists sought to constantly keep the matter fresh in the mind of Parliament and the general public.

[39:27] Through public lectures, petitions, posters, leaflets, pamphlets, and by boycotting sugar, they continued to speak out about the evil horrors of slavery to every level of society.

[39:39] The movement utilized the skills of poets, Hannah Moore and William Cooper, and artists William Blake and later J.M.W. Turner, in order to be able to touch the hearts and the minds of the British people.

[39:53] They convinced the acclaimed craftsman, Josiah Wedgwood, to create a now famous cameo, which depicted a slave in chains with the inscription, Am I not a man and a brother?

[40:05] So here it is, the Wedgwood, the producee's, and it was the height of fashion. And here we have, Am I not a man and a brother? And there he is, bounded in chains and praying.

[40:19] This became a logo icon for the abolition movement. Ladies wore the cameos on their blouses or in their hairs, while gentlemen had them on their snuff boxes.

[40:32] The movement cleverly tapped into society, the arts, and even fashion, in order to keep the topic fresh in the minds of the public. Another tactic was to get Parliament and the public to consider exactly where their coffee, sugar, and rum had come from.

[40:49] Once folk found out how bad the slave conditions were, and that the luxury goods that they used were available to them only as a result of human suffering, people became outraged.

[41:02] The abolitionists cleverly levied this anger by positioning anti-slavery as something fashionable, something to be adopted by those who wished to be associated with civility and patriotism.

[41:15] Now there was a cross-denominational anti-slavery effort, and a clear public debate on the matter. But the seat of power in Britain was found in the Crown and in Parliament.

[41:27] If slavery were to be abolished, it would have to be done through an act of Parliament. And the abolitionists were ready with a two-pronged tactic to persuade Parliament of the moral and social need to abolish slavery.

[41:40] First, through lobbying Parliament and presenting bills. And secondly, through the mobilisation of the public voice. During this period, the parliamentary voice of the public was not as well represented as it is in modern Britain.

[41:55] Nevertheless, as the number of signatures on each petition grew, Parliament started to sit up and take notice. And they hadn't yet figured on the power of women.

[42:08] Encouraged by Clarkson, 73 women's anti-slavery societies were founded around Britain's main industrial centres.

[42:19] Members came from all classes of society. It was from within these societies that women stepped out of the shadows of men and shone as an integral part of the abolition force.

[42:31] As women learnt about the inhumane actions involved in the slave trade, many were outraged and looked for ways to combat and end this evil. At this time, women could not vote.

[42:44] It was actually British women aged 30 and over finally could vote in 1918. And it was not until 1928 that women aged 21 could vote. So, because they could not vote at this time, they used their voices and their purses to show their disgust.

[43:03] After the first abolition bill was defeated in 1792, 300,000 British people showed their grievance by boycotting the purchase of sugar grown on slave run plantations.

[43:18] So, here we have a pot of sugar, and this was grown in the East India sugar, not made by slaves. So, on the West side, the sugar came from slave plantations.

[43:31] On the East side, it wasn't through slavery. So, people boycotted West Indian sugar and they went for this. These people used their purses in order to make a statement.

[43:44] When British women began to understand that African mothers were forcibly separated from their children, and that both women and children were beaten and sexually abused, they came out in force and in fury.

[44:01] They saw themselves as having the moral responsibility for speaking for those who had no voice. The helpless, the voiceless and the hopeless. After the 1807 abolition of the Slave Trade Act, many women grew impatient with the slow progress that the anti-slavery society was making, and they formed societies that campaigned for immediate emancipation.

[44:26] The first campaign was the Sheffield Female Anti-Slavery Society, 1827, and was culturally revolutionary and radical. So much so that it faced opposition even from the male-led abolitionist movements, including Wilberforce and Buxton, who saw gradual emancipation.

[44:48] But by the way, the pro-slavery basically saw gradual emancipation as no emancipation, i.e. they just put it back in time and hoped that nothing would happen, that the campaign would fizzle out.

[45:02] And there was a very good chance that it would fizzle out, because at this time, Europe was pretty much constantly in and out of war, and the French were a constant threat, and the UK economy was being held up by the slave trade.

[45:18] So why remove, when you have an enemy at your door, why remove the industry that is financing your security and your protection? Elizabeth Hayrick, a Quaker, treasurer of the Birmingham Women's Anti-Slavery Society, pressured the male leaders to strive for immediate emancipation, or they would withdraw their funding.

[45:50] Since women funded a significant proportion of anti-slavery budget, they once again used the power of their purses to make a stand. Here is her pamphlet, in which she even criticises Wilberforce and Clarkson by stating, The West Indian planters have occupied much too prominent a place in the discussion of this great question.

[46:13] The abolitionists have shown a great deal too much politeness and accommodation towards these gentlemen. She was a force of nature, definitely not to be messed with.

[46:23] So, this is her paper, author of immediate, not gradual abolition, otherwise known as An Inquiry into the Shortest, Safest and Most Effectual Means of Getting Rid of West Indian Slavery, 1824.

[46:40] The combined efforts of the many groups that constituted the British Abolition Movement culminated in the British Parliament passing the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which abolished slavery in the British Empire.

[46:56] The BBC reports, and I quote, that up to 3 million Africans had been transported in British ships since 1650, and at the end of the 18th century, Britain was dominating the trade.

[47:10] With an average of more than 150 slave ships leaving Liverpool, Bristol and London each year. Yet following the success of the Abolition Movement, the Royal Navy, which had at once time protected the interests of the slave trade, was now actively sought to crush it.

[47:28] Parliament ordered the Royal Navy to turn its attention to establishing the West Africa Squadron, known as the Preventative Squadron, whose role for the next 50 years would be to operate against slavers.

[47:41] The task of enforcing the 1807 and then later the 1833 Abolition Act was huge, and quite beyond any one nation without the cooperation of all governments involved.

[47:53] I.e., if the British stopped trading, the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese would continue their slave trade. Unsurprisingly, the cooperation of other governments proved difficult to obtain.

[48:09] The French paid eloquent lip service to the idea, but sensitive to any appearance of civility to the British, would not allow boarding parties to search their ships. Nor were the Americans, who were in any case too dependent on slave labour to join the campaign in these early years with any great real enthusiasm.

[48:27] The Spanish, the Portuguese and Brazilians continued their human trafficking openly, and their colonial economies were so bound with slave trade that they had neither the will nor the power to act effectively.

[48:41] Despite this, the Squadron had many successes. The HMS Buzzards successfully chased and engaged the slaver formidable in 1834. The Electra brought down a Carolina slaver with its human cargo in 1838.

[48:55] An acorn captured the Roe of Gabriel in the summer of 1841. To name just a few of the many sensationalised actions. An expectant public would follow vivid accounts in the newspapers, while many of these battles were also reported at home in watercolours and oil paintings, which helped sustain the positive reputation of the Navy, whilst also maintaining public interest in Britain's suppression of the slave trade.

[49:24] Think about this. The UK did a complete U-turn. It abolished a business activity that made the country rich and powerful. And now, through the action of a Christian-led abolition movement, not only did it stop trading, this lucrative activity, but in 1833, they spent 40% of annual government expenditure, that was £20 million at the time, because they had to pay compensation to the owners of the freed slaves.

[49:56] They, in a sense, had to pay compensation for what the slavers called as their cargo, their goods. In 2008-2009, the UK government expenditure was £617 billion.

[50:13] Now, the figures I'm about to give, you can't cut and paste, because obviously the UK has a much larger population at this time, so you can't just cut and paste the figures from 1833 to 2008 and have a direct equal match.

[50:30] However, just as a guide, here are some figures. As I say, the UK government expenditure is £617 million, the amount of money the UK government spent in that year.

[50:42] 40% of that, the amount that in 1833 they used to free the slaves, equals £246 billion, which in Canadian dollars is $376 billion.

[50:56] This is more than the whole of the Canadian government's annual expenditure. Plus, you could buy outright the three largest companies in Canada.

[51:07] According to Forbes, the Royal Bank of Canada is worth £46.9 billion market value, Manulite Financial, £44.8 billion, Bank of Nova Scotia, £37.5 billion, and you'd still have $8.8 billion as loose change.

[51:23] So this is an idea of the amount that was spent by the British government, 40%, £20 million in that year, in order to free slaves. The complete U-turn that had happened.

[51:38] On top of this, Britain was going up against the world's superpowers, who had money, power, and motivation to throw back anything the Royal Navy could give them. They were up against the equivalent of the modern USA, Russia, and China, the superpowers.

[51:53] Along with every major drug cartel. Enemies within and without of the nation. In effect, the Christian-led abolition movement took on what must have seemed the whole world.

[52:06] Yet through their faith, they were unable to persevere. They were not overcome by evil, but they overcame evil with good. And to God be the glory. Through an ecumenical, peaceful, yet relentless moral crusade, British Christians led a movement that would see the abolition of a barbaric business enterprise.

[52:25] In a campaign that spanned over half a century, the movement helped transform the nation, the notion, that slavery was acceptable, genteel, even benevolent, to one that it was an embarrassing, unjustifiable evil.

[52:40] The movement successfully attacked the foundations of slavery by exposing its crimes against humanity to the community, to the country, and then by appealing to their hearts, minds, and consciences.

[52:53] Step by step, the movement slowly gained ground, rallying churches, poets, artists, women, and even fashion, to pressure on parliament and the market economy. Each victory loosened the grip the slavers had on parliament, and thus the stranglehold they had on slaves.

[53:10] Although slow, the shift of power from the pro to the anti-slavery movement was dynamic and dramatic, and turned a slave trading nation into a nation that would eventually be an emancipator and protector of those caught in slavery.

[53:27] And why? Because the scriptures taught that the abolitionists, that man, humankind, was made in the image of God. And thus, in imitation of Christ, they utilized their lives in order to raise up their fellow human beings, through the word and through acts of love.

[53:45] Brothers and sisters, we are called to go and do likewise. You know what?

[53:57] Slavery still exists. The US government, in their Trafficking in Persons Report 2009, state that 12.3 million adults and children are in forced labour, 56% of which are women and girls.

[54:24] So what is still happening today? Well, as I say, there's forced labour, involuntary domestic servitude, sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, bonded labour, forced child labour, child soldiers, debt bondage among migrant labourers.

[54:43] In many cases, people are so poor that they sell their children into slavery, into domestic servitude, to sex trafficking.

[54:53] Also through deceit, they trap people into slavery. They lend them some money or give them, the police people are so desperate that they give them food and say, here, I'll give you this and you can pay me back.

[55:07] But the interest rates are set that they can never pay them back and so they're always in servitude, they're always a slave to this person. And if they haven't paid it off, then so is their family.

[55:18] And if this person dies, still in debt, which is what it's planned to be, then their family will continue to be their slaves. So these things are still going on, friends.

[55:34] This is recently, from again 2009, as the child is making bricks. As I say, slavery still exists.

[55:49] And I believe that it is still our call to take off where the abolitionists were. And that it is our call to go and love our neighbour as ourselves, to show mercy to the whole of humanity and to stop these atrocities that are still going on.

[56:09] I know in our minds it's hard to believe that slavery still continues. I mean, it's almost ridiculous. You know, how can this be? Well, friends, it is. The US government said so.

[56:21] But not them only, of course. I mean, the Canadian, the British government, you just can't hide the fact. So why does it still exist? Well, that question I'll leave to you, for you to something to think upon.

[56:34] Thank you very much. We have ten minutes for questions, if anybody has any.

[56:50] Julia, a very impressive presentation. I'd like to just get some dates in my mind. Can you give us the date when John Westway first did his track?

[57:03] Yes. And also, John Newton, did he publish as well on the subject? He did. He did publish. If you could give us the dates. And also, when was the first motion to the Great Parliament to ban the transportation of the state?

[57:19] So, go for your last question. It was a gradual process. So the Quakers initially put in a bill to try to put in a bill through Parliament in the 1780s.

[57:38] And it was just thrown out. But it was the 1807 abolition, sorry, before that as well, there was the Somerset law case whereby a slave with the surname of Somerset fled from his slavery and went to the UK.

[58:01] And it was there that his slaver caught up with him and beat him and tried to put him back into slavery. However, Granville Sharp, he went to court to defend this slave and the result was misunderstood.

[58:18] The result was sort of ambiguous. But its result was that slaves, once they were in the UK, once they were in Britain, they couldn't be taken out.

[58:29] So that was one of the first steps. And the 1807 was the first abolition of the slave trade, which, Dr.

[58:41] Packer, help me if I go wrong, but that was where slavery was banned in the British Empire. Slavery was banned in the British Empire.

[58:53] But there were still catches, there were still things that slaves still had to work as an apprentice, which is basically a slave, for another six years, I think, in the field, in the plantations, and I think it was another eight years for domestic servitude.

[59:10] So it was still functioning, but in a different form. Also, British slavers, after the act, all that they would do would be to change their flags.

[59:23] They had no problem with putting a Portuguese or an American flag on their ship. slavery. So in a sense, the British didn't have the official power to chase that slaver in international waters, as it were.

[59:42] But something the West African squadron didn't really pay much attention to. Again, it was a process of gradual moving up. In 1833 was the abolition of the slave trade, where the British government really sought to try and eradicate slavery full stop, not just in the British Empire.

[60:03] But in regard to Wesley, thank you, he says fumbling through his notes, almost there, there we go, 26, 1772, was Wesley's pamphlet.

[60:32] And John Newton, here we go, his was 1787, so that was six years afterwards, after Wesley, and the title of his work was Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade.

[60:48] So just to repeat, it's 1772 for Wesley, and then 1787 for Newton. I would just ask one more. Who was responsible for getting a piano of the puzzle?

[61:03] It was, I would say that it was mainly Clarkson, but it was an abolition, it was an abolition wide event.

[61:13] Was that 1795? Yeah, I should have these dates in my head, but as you see, I don't. I don't. 1793.

[61:47] 1793 was when it was published. And it was published actually in both of his names. His real name was Elorda Equiano.

[61:59] His slave name was Gustavus Bass, named in honour after the Swedish king, and probably. So yes, so 1793 for Equiano, 1772 for Wesley, and 1787 for John Newton.

[62:17] This is just an anecdotal in connection with what you said about the slave trade in Barbados. You mentioned the Wigrington family, and about 50 years ago I was accidentally in their home, in the southern thing, a place called Donington, crumbling, moldy plaster kind of place, big Georgian house, and there weren't flocks and herds of tourists going to these places that long ago, and the housekeeper not only let me in, she said, oh, you're interested in history, maybe let's see the documents in the library.

[62:52] Yes, please. I saw the correspondence between Codrington and his overseer in Barbados, in which he says, I have purchased 200 slaves, they're coming at such and such a time, and you will collect them from here, and so on, and you will brand them on the left breast, Jesse has the iron.

[63:16] Jesse was apparently a house slave, so she looked after the equipment, Jesse has the iron. It was just a chilling little statement. Now, you know, I've mentioned this to white and black Barbadians that I know, all of whom think of this guy as a great benefactor, because he built the library at the only university in the West Indies, which is apparently in Barbados.

[63:39] And I thought, you know, how did he get to be a benefactor out of this sort of background, but the wealth of that family seems to have been based on exactly what you said, the site trade and the sugar plantations.

[63:53] Yes, yes, and they were philanthropic. They also, this doesn't justify, of course, but the All Souls Library in Oxford was paid for by the Codrington family as well.

[64:13] And in my mind as well, there's no excuse, full stop, of the slave trade and people who made money through it. But I think as well we need to acknowledge that and we need to acknowledge and learn from what people have done, what we've done in the past, and to use that and to move forward in order to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

[64:43] So in my mind I'm kind of, with standing on history, the Bible, it is a thing of looking to the future to try and completely eradicate this disease.

[64:59] I'm glad you asked. I was like, you know, then it was huge, pretty much more character.

[65:17] You had black people, white people, and now it's much more of the human state. Yes, yes, definitely.

[65:30] It's not a black, white issue. India, according to this website at the moment, India, at the moment, has the most slaves in the world.

[65:44] The Russia imports a lot of teenage girls to the UK for the sex trade, and it also is happening in Africa, and there are lots of slaves in Canada and in the USA.

[66:01] There are slaves working here now, you know, in Vancouver. So, to answer your question, I think two responses.

[66:13] The first is, one, that you need to, being a Christian, we need to pray about this to God, because Clarkson and Wilberforce and others, they had this huge conviction that they felt that they were called to their position, and I think that we are all called to benefit humankind, but yes, one pray, see what God, what part he wants you to play in it.

[66:40] But also, this anti-slavery is the descendant of the abolition slave trade in the UK.

[66:50] This was formed in the UK. So this is, in a sense, started up by Thomas Clarkson, and it's changed its name over the years, and it's formed.

[67:01] But here, what you can do, I can't actually go on the internet, because we haven't got wireless, but there's many things you can do. One, lobby your parliament. Power still is in parliament.

[67:14] Also, the things that you buy. You've heard of fair trade. Fair trade is where the people, the free people, earn a fair wage for the work that they do.

[67:26] It doesn't, so therefore they are not slaves to anyone, they're earning a fair wage. obviously the big companies get their cut, but not the microscopic cut that they do from other places, so just coffee, chocolate.

[67:41] Also, other clothes and rugs, there are symbols on, I think it's something like rug, rug hug, I think it's the symbol.

[67:55] and these rugs are simply made by people around the world and sold on. So in a sense, you're funding, you're enabling these people to live outside of slavery and you know that you are not funding slavery, such as with the boycotting of the West India sugar, it's the same.

[68:21] Friends, go and buy East India sugar, in a sense, go and buy fair trade, it's not just sort of some pie in the sky, hippie notion, it's real facts.

[68:32] You buy fair trade, you are buying people, you're being able to avoid slavery. So that's what I do, and there's movements, campaigns, this is an international, there's a slavery international as well.

[68:51] I think they're the two main bodies that focus solely on slavery, but of course there's many other big charities.

[69:02] Does that help? The Salvation Army is advertising their involvement in the industry. Great, yeah, yeah, absolutely, Salvation Army, and again, it's a trans-denominational, it's not an Anglican, Anglicans are here to save the day, it's God's people, through the power of the Holy Spirit, are here to love their neighbours.

[69:32] Thank you. Salvation Army got into trouble last week, didn't it? Through some groups that were recruiting workers, weren't getting paid, weren't getting fed, people, they had put that right now, choosing the wrong agents, and they used the word human in the time.

[70:00] So, thanks so much. You're very welcome. Thank you.