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Abolishing the slave trade and slavery

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Ending the slave trade took decades of campaigning by abolitionists in Britain and resistance by enslaved people themselves.

The campaigners

In 1787 campaigners including Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp, with many Quakers, formed a society to end the slave trade.
William Wilberforce MP led the campaign in Parliament for about 20 years.
Olaudah Equiano, who had been enslaved and bought his freedom, published his life story in 1789. It showed readers the cruelty of slavery.
Other Black Britons, such as Ottobah Cugoano, also wrote against slavery.

Methods

Campaigners gathered evidence, gave talks and sent huge petitions to Parliament.
A diagram of the slave ship Brookes showed how people were packed in.
Many people boycotted sugar grown by enslaved people. A medallion made by Josiah Wedgwood asked: 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?'

The Acts

The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act (1807) banned the British slave trade, but people already enslaved stayed enslaved.
After a large rebellion in Jamaica in 1831 to 1832, led by Samuel Sharpe, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act (1833). It came into force in 1834.
Enslaved people were first forced into 'apprenticeships' until 1838. Slave owners received 20 million pounds in compensation; the formerly enslaved people received nothing.
Worked example

Was Wilberforce the main reason the slave trade was abolished?

  1. Wilberforce mattered: he kept the issue in Parliament for years.
  2. But others mattered too: Clarkson's evidence, Equiano's book, public petitions and sugar boycotts.
  3. Resistance by enslaved people, such as in Haiti and Jamaica, showed slavery could not last.

Answer: He was important, but abolition came from many people working together, including enslaved people themselves.

Key idea

Abolitionists: Clarkson, Sharp, Quakers, Wilberforce, Equiano. Methods: petitions, evidence, sugar boycotts. Slave trade abolished 1807; Sharpe's rebellion 1831 to 1832; Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (in force 1834); apprenticeships ended 1838; owners, not the enslaved, were compensated.

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