Campaign for Abolition (Summary)

What was the campaign about?

People in Africa were being captured and traded by Europeans and taken to the Americas to be bought by
plantation owners. Evidence to support this can be found in the following historical sources:
What was the goal of the campaign?
Abolishing the slave trade prevented people from Africa being captured, sold and used as slaves by European
traders and American plantation owners.
How did the campaigners become experts on the issue?
By collecting personal accounts from former slaves and former slave traders as well as gathering information
about the trade itself, abolitionists were able to support their point of view.
Was there a resource pool? Who were their allies?
Josiah Wedgewood, the potter, joined the campaign and designed a medallion for Abolitionist campaigners
to wear. William Cowper, the author, also wrote a poem. Both were able to raise the profile of the
campaign.
Who were their opponents and what stood in their way?
Some individuals and groups wished for the slave trade to continue. Often, they had an economic interest in
slavery - some owned plantations, others profited from the trade of goods, such as sugar, grown on them.
Material published by these individuals and groups reveals an alternative point of view.
How did they plan for success?
The first meeting of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade met on 22nd May 1787. The twelve
members of the Committee realised that formal organisation was needed to raise the profile of the
campaign. William Wilberforce, an MP, was recruited by the Committee to be the campaign's advocate in
Parliament.
What campaign tactics and media did they use to get their message across?
Supporters of the Abolition campaign were numerous. They included politicians as well as writers and artists.
This meant that the message of the campaign was communicated in a variety of different forms.
Organising action groups
Quaker Meeting House (with permission of 'The Library of the Religious Society of Friends')
By the late 1700's, a number of people had stated their opposition to slavery. The Quakers had put the first
petition to Parliament in 1783. Granville Sharp had used the courts to protect the freedom of former slaves,
such as Jonathan Strong and James Somerset. John Woolman, Anthony Benezet, James Ramsey and Thomas
Clarkson had all written anti Slavery literature. Slave rebellions were escalating and black people had fought
for their freedom through the courts and in their writings.

However, the impact of all this on the general public and law makers in Britain had been more limited. To be
successful, those fighting slavery needed to ensure that as many people as possible knew the truth about the
trade and the struggle going on. They also needed to work with people who had the skills and influence to
make this happen. This could only be achieved by working together in a more organised way.
The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed on 22 May, 1787, to be the driving force
behind the movement in Britain. It consisted of 12 men, nine of them Quakers. However Quakers were
religious dissenters (disagreed with the doctrines of the Church of England) and banned from public life. To
ensure a wider appeal and greater political influence, three Anglicans, Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson and
Philip Sansom, were chosen to represent the committee. Later, William Wilberforce was later recruited by
Thomas Clarkson to be the voice of the movement in Parliament.
The committee utilised the national network of Quaker meeting houses to raise funds, get involvement from
the public and spread information. Soon a network of local action groups developed across the country.
They were mainly led by Quaker or Evangelical Christians but membership came from across the political
spectrum and from all walks of life.
By the 1780s, Africans in England, who had gained their freedom or escaped from enslavement, formed their
own political organisation, 'The Sons of Africa'. Membership included the famous writers Olaudah Equiano
and Ottabah Cugoano. They collaborated with other abolitionists, lobbied parliament and the newspapers.
Working in a more organised way allowed the abolitionists to draw on people with the skills and knowledge
to advance the cause:- printers, writers and artists, lawyers and those with political influence, as well as the
ordinary campaigners willing to promote the cause, rally support and disseminate information.
Using a variety of media (the written word, the spoken word and images)
The anti-slavery movement was remarkable in that it got huge numbers of the British people to join in. This
was because the campaigners tried to get their message across to the whole population, rather than to a
narrow part of it. They did this by using different communication channels, in different ways, to reach
different audiences.
The campaigners wrote complex arguments to persuade politicians and decision makers of the case for
abolition but they also produced simple works, in a popular easy to read style and issued posters and voting
guides. They used the arts - the anti-slavery poems from William Cowper, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and
William Wordsworth, for example, proved popular.
However, only about half of the British population could read. Therefore it was essential to find other means
to get the message across. One way to do this was to take the campaign to the people, by talking directly to
as many groups as possible. Campaigners such as Clarkson and Wesley travelled widely and gave
impassioned speeches in halls, churches and even in the open air. Olaudah Equiano also toured the country
to promote his autobiography at events organised by the various committees. Regular public debates were
held, sometimes addressed by Africans, particularly in London.
The audience at these events varied widely, depending on the reason for the gathering and the location,
from the rich and well educated to ordinary working people. Other campaigners engaged in door to door
canvassing. Sophia Sturge, for example, personally visited 3000 homes during a sugar boycott in the 1820s,
to engage support and explain what the campaign was all about.
The Campaigners also realised the importance of pictures and images. Cartoonists and artists, like JMW
Turner and William Blake, provided pictures of slavery that reached audiences in ways the written word
could not. However, the most important and powerful image came from a piece of evidence uncovered by
Thomas Clarkson at Plymouth. It was a plan and section of a loaded slave ship. The ship was packed so full
that it was hard to comprehend the sheer inhumanity.
The shocking diagram of the Brookes (a slave ship from Liverpool) became the defining image of the battle to
end the slave trade. It showed 482 slaves lying shoulder to shoulder and, as Clarkson said, made "an
instantaneous impression of horror on all who saw it". The printer, James Phillips, copied and published the
image in April, 1789, and it was widely distributed throughout the campaign.
The campaign, however, went even further than this, to produce an especially commissioned image that
would provide an identity for the campaign itself; today we would call this branding.
Obtaining support from the media and influential people
Strong public support helped to drive the campaign forward but the campaigners still needed to get the
decision makers to act on this. It was important that the campaign was not restricted to any political party or
group and could be moved forward by influential people amongst several key groups, politicians, wealthy
businessmen and industrialists, journalists and religious leaders.
This was recognised from the beginning of the campaign. The Quakers (as religious dissenters) knew that
they needed the support of Anglicans when they joined forces with Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson to
form the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Clarkson also recognised this in 1787, when he visited
William Wilberforce to help persuade him to take up the cause in Parliament.
As a well respected, articulate and fashionable young politician, Wilberforce was influential amongst groups
that Clarkson was not. He was able to turn the vague sentiment amongst the more privileged in society, into
real opposition. Wilberforce and his supporters were also ultimately successful, as they were able to rise
above party politics, to engage the support of both conservative and radical politicians.
The abolitionists also canvassed the support of other leading members of society. They wrote hundreds of
letters. Thomas Clarkson, for example, wrote to Josiah Wedgwood asking if he would help to distribute some
pamphlets. In reply, Wedgwood came back with his own suggestions for making the campaign more
successful. As he was a respected business man, people listened to Wedgwood and he was able to convince
friends and colleagues of the evils of the slave trade.
Olaudah Equiano was also adept at getting decision makers to take up the slavery issue. Equiano formed the
Sons of Africa group which campaigned for abolition through public speaking and lobbying parliament and
London's daily papers, such as The Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser.
In 1789, Equiano and Cugoano were two of the nine Sons of Africa' who signed a letter, published in The
Diary newspaper, which stated thanks to God the nation at large is awakened to a sense of our sufferings,
except the Oran Otang philosophers' (ie - the pro-slavery supporters). The other Sons of Africa' who signed
the letter were Yahne Aelane, Boughwa Gegansmel, Cojoh Ammere, Thomas Cooper, William Green, George
Robert Mandeville and Bernard Elliot Griffiths. Equiano, like Cugoano and Clarkson, highlighted in his letters
and speeches, the benefits of trading with Africa in goods instead of human beings.

Petitioning and lobbying Parliament
The House of Commons at Westminster as drawn by Augustus Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson for
Ackermanns Microcosm of London (1808-11).
The abolitionists regularly lobbied Parliament and put forward bills to abolish the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Another tool that was first used by the abolitionists was the mass petition. Submitting petitions to
Parliament clearly demonstrated the strength of public opinion and showed just how many people opposed
the trade. At one time, just about every town and city in the country organised a petition.
The first major campaign was in 1787-8, in which over 100 petitions containing 60,000 signatures were
presented to Parliament in just three months. Then, in 1788, Olaudah Equiano led a delegation to the House
of Commons to support a William Dolben's bill, to improve conditions on slave ships, by limiting the number
of enslaved Africans that ships could carry. He was consulted by Dolben, MPs and the Prime Minister, as the
abolitionists attempted to introduce a law banning the Slave Trade.
In 1789, Wilberforce made his first speech to Parliament putting forward twelve propositions for abolishing
the trade. However, supporters of the Slave Trade used delaying tactics, asking for a new inquiry. They
employed lobby groups and even produced witnesses to speak in their favour during the parliamentary
debate. For example Captain James Penny described how well the slaves were treated on board ship.
"...They are then supplied with Pipes and Tobacco ... they are amused with Instruments of Music peculiar to
their own country".
The first time a bill was introduced in 1791, Wilberforce lost the debate by 163 votes to 88. After the bill was
rejected, the abolitionists flooded Parliament with petitions. By 1792, they had presented 519 petitions with
over 390,000 signatures, showing that public opinion was turning against the slave trade. Clarkson organised
witnesses and evidence for the House of Commons committee hearings.
A bill to cease the Slave Trade was passed in the House of Commons in 1792 - but with the amendment that
the ban should be 'gradual', which effectively meant 'never'. A change in political tactics led to the first
breakthrough in 1806, when James Stephens advised Wilberforce to propose a ban on British subjects
participating in the Slave Trade with France and its allies. Britain was at war with France and this made it
difficult to oppose the proposal, without seeming unpatriotic. The bill was passed, limiting the Slave Trade by
about a third and paving the way for the Abolition Act, which was finally passed on 25th March 1807,
abolishing the Slave Trade in the British colonies.
The end of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, however, did not see the end of slavery and abolitionists continued
to lobby Parliament for a total ban, which was not achieved until 1833.