The Movement

Rise of The Movement


Image: William Wilberforce (Rising, 1790).

Popularized by widespread petitioning and breakthrough legal cases, Britain's abolitionist movement was directly responsible for abolishing slavery in the British Empire.

“[The Movement was] possibly the very first full-fledged social movement.”
— British history and slavery expert Richard Huzzey ("A Microhistory...", 2019).
Abolitionists William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and others founded the Anti-Slavery Society in 1823, which lobbied in Parliament, petitioned, and was key to the abolitionist movement ("Anti-Slavery Society…", 2014).

Hundreds of thousands signed thousands of petitions.

Graph: (Figueroa, 2023).

“An estimated 20% of all British men over 15 years of age had signed a petition for the abolition of slavery.”
— Seymour Drescher, historian and professor (Drescher, 1982).
“Signatures in moral condemnation of the slave trade or, later, slavery, broke from the general pattern of private petitions for local 'improvement' bills.”
— Richard Huzzey ("A Microhistory...", 2019).
Somerset v. Stewart, a landmark case, proved abolitionist sentiment spread to the legal system.

After runaway slave James Somerset was about to be transported from Britain to Jamaica, leading abolitionist Granville Sharp represented Somerset in court against Somerset's captor, Charles Stewart (Cotter, 1994; Kelly, 2009).

Image: Granville Sharp the Abolitionist Rescuing a Slave (Hayllar, 1864).

“William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, heard the case and produced a carefully worded ruling that held that masters could not send slaves out of England.”
— Jason Kelly, professor in British History at Indiana University (Kelly, 2009).
“[Somerset's case was] as co-equal [as] the Declaration of Independence”
— William Cotter, former president of Colby College (Cotter, 1994).

Olaudah Equiano, former slave turned abolitionist, published The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, his memoir, pivotal to the movement.
Image: (Frontispiece and Title Page from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, 1794).

“Olaudah describes not only his ancestral customs, but his experiences of enslavement from kidnapping to the eventual purchase of his own freedom...Olaudah's life, legacy and the detail in which he describes his experience significantly drove the abolitionist movement.”
— Khaleb Brooks, National Museums Liverpool (Brooks, 2022).
Equiano had the platform to convey the perspectives of slaves.

“Are they treated as men? Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its fire and noble sentiment?”
— Olaudah Equiano in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, his memoir (Equiano, 1789).
“Let the polished and haughty European recollect that his ancestors were once, like the Africans, uncivilized, and even barbarous. Did Nature make them inferior to their sons? and should they too have been made slaves?”
— Olaudah Equiano in his memoir (Equiano, 1789).
The abolitionist movement was in full swing; thousands were petitioning, courts were siding with abolitionists, and many understood the mistreated slaves, but abolitionists needed to overcome various challenges.

Challenges Enlightenment, Religion, Slavery

(Slaves Cutting the Sugar Cane, 1823).