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Parliamentary lobbying

Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson were both adept at getting decision makers to take up the slavery issue. They worked in the same way that political lobbyists do today. Equiano brought the infamous 'Zong' case to Granville Sharp's attention and urged him to take it up. He also regularly lobbied members of parliament on slavery issues and led a delegation to the House of Commons to support a bill to improve conditions on slave ships. While there, he met the prime minister and other MPs.

Clarkson helped to persuade the MP William Wilberforce to become the parliamentary spokesperson for the campaign. He also organised witnesses and evidence for the House of Commons committee hearings on the slave trade. After the committee's voluminous report was published, Clarkson produced a highly-condensed summary briefing which was reprinted several times and was still being used in the US some 60 years later.

Changes in the political environment (such as the Act of Union with Ireland in 1800 which saw 100 Irish MPs, most of whom favoured abolition, enter the Commons) strengthened the abolitionist lobby. But it was a change in political tactics that led to the first breakthrough in 1806, when the abolitionist James Stephens advised Wilberforce to try a different parliamentary approach - that of banning British subjects from participating in the slave trade with France and its allies. The bill was presented as a measure that would help ensure victory in the war against France, making it difficult to oppose the proposal without seeming unpatriotic. The bill was passed, paving the way for the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807.