Chapter 12: The Abolition of Slavery The United States abolished slavery through the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865, in the aftermath of a great Civil War. But the effort to abolish slavery did not begin nor end in North America. Emancipation in the United States was part of a worldwide antislavery movement that had begun in the late eighteenth century and continued through the end of the nineteenth. The end of slavery, like the end of monarchies and aristocracies, was one of the ideals of the Enlightenment, which inspired new concepts of individual freedom and political equality. As Enlightenment ideas spread throughout the western world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, introducing the idea of human rights and individual liberty to the concept of civilization, people on both sides of the Atlantic began to examine slavery anew and to ask whether it was compatible with these new ideas. Some Enlightenment thinkers, including some of the founders of the American Republic, believed that freedom was appropriate for white people, but not for people of color. But others came to believe that all human beings had an equal claim to liberty and their views became the basis for an escalating series of antislavery movements. Opponents of slavery first targeted the slave trade--the vast commerce in human beings that had grown up in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and had come to involve large parts of Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and North and South America. In the aftermath of the revolutions in America, France, and Haiti in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the attack on the slave trade quickly gained momentum. Its central figure was the English reformer William Wilberforce, who spent years attacking Britain's connection with the slave trade. He argued against it on moral and religious grounds, and eventually, after the Haitian revolution, he argued as well that the continuation of slavery would create more slave revolts. In 1807, he persuaded Parliament to pass a law ending the slave trade within the entire British empire. The British example--when combined with heavy political, economic, and even military pressure from London--persuaded many other nations to make the slave trade illegal as well: the United States in 1808, France in 1814, Holland in 1817, Spain in 1845. Trading in slaves continued within countries and colonies where slavery remained legal (including in the United States), and some illegal slave trading continued throughout the Atlantic world. But the sale of slaves steadily declined after 1807. The last known shipment of slaves across the Atlantic--from Africa to Cuba--occurred in 1867. Ending the slave trade was a great deal easier than ending slavery itself, in which many people had major investments and on which much agriculture, commerce, and industry depended. But pressure to abolish slavery grew steadily throughout the nineteenth century, with Wilberforce once more helping.

1. Chapter 12: The Abolition of Slavery
The United States abolished slavery through the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution in 1865, in the aftermath of a
great Civil War. But the effort to abolish slavery did not begin
nor end in North America. Emancipation in the United States
was part of a worldwide antislavery movement that had begun in
the late eighteenth century and continued through the end of the
nineteenth.
The end of slavery, like the end of monarchies and
aristocracies, was one of the ideals of the Enlightenment, which
inspired new concepts of individual freedom and political
equality. As Enlightenment ideas spread throughout the western
world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, introducing
the idea of human rights and individual liberty to the concept of
civilization, people on both sides of the Atlantic began to
examine slavery anew and to ask whether it was compatible
with these new ideas. Some Enlightenment thinkers, including
some of the founders of the American Republic, believed that
freedom was appropriate for white people, but not for people of
color. But others came to believe that all human beings had an
equal claim to liberty and their views became the basis for an
escalating series of antislavery movements.
Opponents of slavery first targeted the slave trade--the vast
commerce in human beings that had grown up in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries and had come to involve large parts of
Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and North and South America. In
the aftermath of the revolutions in America, France, and Haiti
in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the attack
on the slave trade quickly gained momentum. Its central figure
was the English reformer William Wilberforce, who spent years
attacking Britain's connection with the slave trade. He argued
against it on moral and religious grounds, and eventually, after
the Haitian revolution, he argued as well that the continuation
of slavery would create more slave revolts. In 1807, he

2. persuaded Parliament to pass a law ending the slave trade
within the entire British empire. The British example--when
combined with heavy political, economic, and even military
pressure from London--persuaded many other nations to make
the slave trade illegal as well: the United States in 1808, France
in 1814, Holland in 1817, Spain in 1845. Trading in slaves
continued within countries and colonies where slavery remained
legal (including in the United States), and some illegal slave
trading continued throughout the Atlantic world. But the sale of
slaves steadily declined after 1807. The last known shipment of
slaves across the Atlantic--from Africa to Cuba--occurred in
1867.
Ending the slave trade was a great deal easier than ending
slavery itself, in which many people had major investments and
on which much agriculture, commerce, and industry depended.
But pressure to abolish slavery grew steadily throughout the
nineteenth century, with Wilberforce once more helping to lead
the international outcry against the institution. In Haiti, the
slave revolts that began in 1791 eventually abolished not only
slavery, but also French rule. In some parts of South America,
slavery came to an end with the overthrow of Spanish rule in
the 1820s. Simón Bolívar, the great leader of Latin American
independence, considered abolishing slavery an important part
of his mission, freeing those who joined his armies and insisting
on constitutional prohibitions of slavery in several of the
Constitutions he helped frame. In 1833, the British parliament
passed a law abolishing slavery throughout the British empire
and compensate slaveowners for freeing their slaves. France
abolished slavery in its empire, after years of agitation from
abolitionists within France, in 1848. In the Caribbean, Spain
followed Britain in slowly eliminating slavery from its colonies.
Puerto Rico abolished slavery in 1873; and Cuba became the
last colony in the Caribbean to end slavery, in 1886, in the face
of increasing slave resistance and the declining profitability of
slave-based plantations. Brazil was the last nation in the
Americas, ending the system in 1888. The Brazilian military

3. began to turn against slavery after the valiant participation of
the slaves in Brazil's war with Paraguay in the late 1860s;
eventually educated Brazilians began to oppose the system too,
arguing that it obstructed economic and social progress.
In the United States, the power of world opinion--and the
example of Wilberforce's movement in England--became and
important source of the abolitionist movement as it gained
strength in the 1820s and 1830s. American abolitionism, in turn,
helped reinforce the movements abroad. Frederick Douglass, the
former American slave turned abolitionist, became a major
figure in the international antislavery movement and was a
much-admired and much-sought-after speaker in England and
Europe in the 1840s and 1850s. No other nation paid such a
terrible price for abolishing slavery as did the United States
during its Civil War, but American emancipation was
nevertheless a part of a worldwide movement toward
emancipation.
Introduction
British anti-slavery was one of the most important reform
movements of the 19th century. But its history is not without
ironies. During the course of the 18th century the British
perfected the Atlantic slave system. Indeed, it has been
estimated that between 1700 and 1810 British merchants
transported almost three million Africans across the Atlantic.
That the British benefited from the Atlantic slave system is
indisputable. Yet, paradoxically, it was also the British who led
the struggle to bring this system to an end.
The history of British anti-slavery can be divided into a number
of distinct phases. The first of these stretched from 1787 to
1807 and was directed against the slave trade. Of course, there
had been initiatives before this date. The Quakers, for instance,
petitioned Parliament against the slave trade as early as 1783

4. and a similar petition was submitted in 1785, this time from the
inhabitants of Bridgwater in Somerset. But by and large these
were piecemeal efforts, involving a relatively small number of
people. It was the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade,
organised in May 1787, which set the movement on its modern
course, evolving a structure and organisation that made it
possible to mobilise thousands of Britons.
Top
Abolishing the slave trade
Thomas Clarkson ©The Society for the Abolition of the Slave
Trade or, to be more precise, the Society's guiding London
Committee, was the prototype of the 19th-century reform
organisation. Its self-appointed task was to create a
constituency for British anti-slavery through the distribution of
abolitionist books, pamphlets, prints and artefacts. The
Committee also had its own network of local contacts ('agents'
and 'country committees') scattered across the length and
breadth of the country. And, finally, there was Thomas
Clarkson, a sort of 'travelling agent', who provided a vital link
between London and the provinces, organising committees,
distributing tracts and offering advice and encouragement to
hundreds of grass-roots activists.
These different activities culminated in two nationwide petition
campaigns. In the first of these, in 1788, over 100 petitions
attacking the slave trade were presented to the House of
Commons in the space of just three months. The campaign of
1792 was more ambitious still. In all, 519 petitions were
presented to the Commons, the largest number ever submitted to
the House on a single subject or in a single session, but just as
important as the size of the campaign was its range and
diversity. While the industrial north provided the most
enthusiastic support for abolition, every English county was
represented in 1792, in addition to which Scotland and Wales
made significant contributions.
Through the means of mass petitioning William Wilberforce,
who led the campaign in the Commons, hoped to exert pressure

5. on Parliament to abolish the slave trade. The strategy almost
worked; in 1792 the House resolved by 230 votes to 85 that the
trade ought to be gradually abolished. But petitioning on this
scale was always likely to cause alarm in the minds of men with
one eye on events in France. Ultimately, radicalism was to
prove the Achilles heel of the early abolitionist movement. The
rising tide of revolutionary violence in France and, with it, the
growth of political reaction at home, inevitably took its toll. In
1793 the Commons refused to revive the subject of the slave
trade, effectively reversing the resolutions of the previous year.
Top
Extending the campaign
Ironically, however, war in Europe helped to prepare the way
for final victory. The acquisition of new territories in the West
Indies, notably Trinidad, Berbice, and Demerara, led many of
the old planter élite, who were increasingly fearful of
competition, to desert the anti-abolitionist ranks. Capitalising
on this change of heart and the entry into Parliament of a batch
of new liberal Irish MPs, the abolitionists in 1804 renewed their
campaign. In 1805 a Bill providing for the abolition of the slave
trade to conquered territories triumphantly passed both Houses.
The following year this was superseded by a stronger measure
that outlawed the British Atlantic slave trade altogether.
After 1807 British anti-slavery entered a new phase. The
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade gave way to the
African Institution, whose principal aim was to ensure that the
new legislation was enforced and that other countries followed
Britain's example. The first of these objectives was soon
realised. Persuading other countries to join Britain in outlawing
the slave trade proved more difficult, however. Despite the
efforts of the African Institution, and those of British ministers,
the Congresses of Paris (1814) and Vienna (1815) both failed to
reach specific agreement, not least because of French
opposition. The results of the Aix la Chapelle Congress in 1818
were equally unsatisfactory.
The failure of the British to sway foreign powers forced

6. abolitionists to rethink their ideas. So, too, did reports from the
West Indies which suggested that conditions on the plantations
had hardly improved since 1807. The situation seemed to call
for more direct action, namely an attack on the institution of
slavery itself.
Top
The Anti-Slavery Society
An anti-slavery meeting in Exeter Hall, London ©In 1823 some
of the leading members of the African Institution, including,
Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Zachary Macaulay, organised a new
body, the Anti-Slavery Society. Modest in its ambitions, at least
by later standards, the Anti-Slavery Society called for the
adoption of measures to improve slave conditions in the West
Indies, together with a plan for gradual emancipation leading
ultimately to complete freedom.
Like the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, the Anti-
Slavery Society was a national organisation with its own
network of local and regional auxiliaries. And like earlier
organisations, its leaders endorsed mass petitioning. In fact,
between 1828 and 1830 Parliament was deluged by over 5000
petitions calling for the gradual abolition (and mitigation) of
slavery. But progress in the Commons was slow and halting.
Finally, in 1831 some of the Anti-Slavery Society's younger and
more radical elements organised the Agency Committee (which
formally separated from the parent body in 1832). Revivalist in
tone, the Agency Committee took abolition out into the country.
More controversially, it also committed itself to the
unconditional and immediate abolition of slavery.
For obvious reasons, the Agency Committee was ideally placed
to exploit the struggle over the reform of Parliament and to win
over voters newly enfranchised by the Reform Act of 1832. Its
efforts paid off. The first reformed Parliament was clearly
sympathetic to abolition; perhaps just as important the Cabinet
was ready to accept emancipation. In May 1833 Lord Stanley
presented a plan to Parliament which finally passed into law on
August 29. In essence, the new legislation called for the gradual

7. abolition of slavery. Everyone over the age of six on August 1,
1834, when the law went into effect, was required to serve an
apprenticeship of four years in the case of domestics and six
years in the case of field hands (apprenticeship was later
abolished by Parliament in 1838). By way of compensation the
West Indian planters received £20 million.
Top
Foreign anti-slavery
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society ©In the space of
some 46 years, between 1787 and 1833, Britain had not only
outlawed the slave trade but also abolished slavery throughout
her colonial possessions. For many the struggle was over. For
others, however, 1833 signalled a new beginning. Despite
Britain's withdrawal from the Atlantic slave trade, the traffic
still flourished; in fact, since 1807 it had steadily grown (or so
it seemed to contemporaries). Slavery also still flourished, most
notably in the United States. Here was a fresh challenge. In
1839, with the organisation of the British and Foreign Anti-
Slavery Society, British anti-slavery entered a new
(international) phase.
As its name implied, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery
Society was committed to the extirpation of the slave trade and
slave systems globally. Among its targets were legalised slavery
in British India and Ceylon, suppression of the Brazilian and
Cuban slave trades, and, increasingly after 1850, the abolition
of slavery in the United States. None of these issues had quite
the immediacy of West Indian emancipation, however, and there
is little question that support for British anti-slavery declined
significantly during the 1850s and 1860s. Nevertheless, the
abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865 (and the
adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution in
March 1870 which extended the right of voting to all races) was
properly regarded as a victory for abolitionists on both sides of
the Atlantic.
This remarkable story raises a simple but crucial question: why
did the British turn against slavery and the slave trade? Part of

8. the reason is undoubtedly the rise of compassionate
humanitarianism, particularly amongst an increasingly leisured
middle class. Scholars also point to the influence of
Nonconformist religion, on the one hand, and Evangelical
Protestantism, on the other. But of greater significance was a
shift in economic thought. In the British case slavery flourished
because West Indian planters were effectively subsidised by the
British taxpayer. By the late 1820s, when many Britons began to
see the benefits of a world economy untrammelled by
restrictions and controls, such privileges seemed outmoded and
frankly unwarranted. Indeed, it is probably true to say that the
British slave system was 'not so much rendered unprofitable,
but by-passed by the changing economic and social order in
Britain'.