I just finished the book Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild. It's a fantastic book about the long struggle to end slavery in the British Empire. Each person in the "cultivator" track at the Fourth Estate conference got a copy of the book, and I can see why. As the author points out, the British abolitionist movement was the first of its kind in history, where citizens organized all over the nation to protest slavery and lobby for its end. Its an inspiring story, and Hochschild tells it well. It is a long book, and a bit of a long read, but its so engaging that I flew through the pages. There were parts where I literally could not have put the book down had my house been burning down around me. I'd have been running outside with my nose still shoved in the pages, trying to read by the light of the burning house. I truly think anyone would enjoy it, but its especially relevent to those interested in activism.
In their decades long fight to free Britain's slaves, the abolitionists "forged virtually every important tool used by citizen's movements in democratic countries today (6)." This included pamphlets, newspaper articles, local abolitionist committees scattered all over the nation, petitions with hundreds of thousands of names- unheard of in that time, book tours, government lobbying, and even pictures. The famous picture of the slaves packed into a slave ship like sardines in a can is the most famous (and one you've probably seen countless times, such is its fame even today), and in a time before photography, had a huge impact in spreading the horror of slavery in a very visceral way. Leaving England after hearing and reading much of the accumulated evidence against slavery, Tsar Alexander I of Russia became somewhat sick on his ship. Pointing to the famous slave ship diagram, the Tsar said, "It is that... which has made me more sick than the sea (317)."
The pro-slavery advocates used the same sort of misinformation and euphemism we see today in corrupt industries and organizations. One witness testified before Parliament, saying this about the slaves during the trip across the ocean:
"If the Weather is sultry, and there appears the least Perspiration upon their Skins, when they come upon Deck, there are Two Men attending with Cloths to rub them perfectly dry, and another to give them a little Cordial... They are then supplied with Pipes and Tobacco... they are amused with Instruments of Music peculiar to their own country... and when tired of Music and Dancing, they then go to Games of Chance (154)."
One committee of slavers considered referring to their slaves with the euphemistic title of "assistant-planters", so that "we shall not then hear such violent outcries against the slave-trade by pious divines, tender-hearted poetesses, and short-sighted politicians (160)." And when hundreds of thousands of people around Great Britain began boycotting slave-grown sugar, pro-slavery supporters began disseminating materials extolling the health virtues of sugar.
The British abolitionist movement counted on a core of dedicated members, especially in the beginning before popular support had really caught on. Thomas Clarkson, one of the central figures, was for decades the main organizer and investigater. After winning a Latin essay contest on slavery, he became horrified by what he had discovered in his research. As he said, "I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end (89)." He would spend the rest of his life fighting slavery; he died only a few weeks after the last of Britain's slaves had been freed in 1846. He had sat down on the roadside to ponder the issue in 1785.
He partered with the Quakers, who for years had been fighting, unsuccessfully, for abolition. William Wilberforce, a member of the House of Commons, was their voice inside parliament. Olaudah Equiano, as a former slave, provided a unique and first-hand voice in a mostly white movement. James Stephen used his knowledge of nautical law and commerce to halt fully 2/3 of the British slave trade, before the entire trade was abolished soon thereafter. There were many other amazing abolitionists I'm skipping over, but in the book Hochschild manages to weave each of their personal stories into a very coherent picture of Great Britain and its antislavery movement.
Of course, they couldn't have succeeded without the unprecedented surge of popular support that arose around the anti-slavery movement. From factory workers and women to sailors and soldiers, the people of Great Britain stepped up to combat an injustice that their government was doing nothing about. Even more amazing, they were fighting for the rights of a distant people an ocean away. How did that happen? Abolitionist Granville Sharp said, "We are clearly of opinion that the nature of the slave trade needs only to be known to be detested." He was right.
Uniquely, no other country had near the public fervor for abolition as in Britain. The arguement has been made that the British outlawed slavery first, and peacefully (compared to American abolition) because their economy was not dependent on it, as was the American south. The author points out, however, that no other slave-trading European nation had a major abolition movement, atleast not until long after the British. Hochschild makes the convincing arguement that empathy was the key. The abolitionists succeeded in evoking the empathy of a majority of the British people. Before, most had never connected the sugar they consumed on a daily basis to the horrific labors of slaves thousands of miles away.
As a people, the British could empathize with the plight of the slaves because many whites in Britain still faced the possibility of being basically enslaved. When the Royal Navy needed more manpower, armed "press gangs" of sailors roamed the streets of cities, kidnapping any able bodied man and forcing them into service on a ship. There, the conscripted sailors faced hellish conditions, low pay that they were often cheated out of, harsh discipline, and tours of five years or longer. It was a brutal form of conscription, and it was very much close to the minds of the British people. In other parts of Great Britain, where the industrial revolution was bringing sweeping change more quickly than in any other place on earth, factory workers who faced long hours for low wages could also empathize with the plight of the black slaves. This capacity for empathy was what set the British apart, and made them the first major power to outlaw slavery. Indeed, Hochschild ends his book with: "The abolitionists placed their hope not in sacred texts, but in human empathy. We live with that hope still (366)."
