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Economic importance

The Slave Trade Abolition Act of 1807, which prohibited the trading of Africans into slavery in the West Indies, was one of the most momentous laws ever passed by the British parliament.

It took abolitionists nearly 20 years of pressure on parliament to secure this victory, but in the end it came with remarkable speed. This was partly because, by 1807, moral repugnance at British involvement in the continuing Atlantic slave trade had become almost universal, both outside and inside parliament.

Member of Parliament Lord Mahon, making his maiden speech in favour of the abolition bill in the key House of Commons debate early in 1807, declared that: 'this odious and execrable traffic ... has been forcibly but truly described as a traffic in human blood and tears, in misery and suffering.'

Significantly, it was another young MP - the lifelong abolitionist Stephen Lushington - who emphasised that he 'was greatly surprised to hear the opponents of this bill enter into cold calculations of loss and gain; for his part, he could never stop to balance imports and exports against justice and humanity'.

The strength of this feeling was shown by the size of the majority for abolition (283 votes for to 16 against) in the ensuing division, which ended any doubts that the abolition bill would soon become law.

Yet just over half a century earlier, in the uncompromising language of the act that ended the slave trading monopoly of the Royal African Company, parliament had asserted that: 'the Trade to and from Africa is very advantageous to Great Britain, and necessary for supplying the Plantations and Colonies thereunto belonging with a sufficient Number of Negroes, at reasonable Rates.'

The simple fact was that, for most of the commercial and landed elite, the British slave trade was an accepted and unquestioned part of the nation's growing imperial and naval supremacy.

If its barbaric nature was sometimes recognised, its continuance was nevertheless considered essential to the success of the prevailing economic system.

In any case, a plentiful supply of cheap Caribbean sugar sweetened the Englishman's conscience as surely as it did his favourite hot beverages.

Parliamentary initiatives

William Pitt addressing the House of Commons, 1793  © The rebuff that prime minister Lord North gave to the Quakers' abolition petition in 1783, namely that nothing could be done because it would be impossible to get international cooperation on the issue, was typical of the parliamentary inertia faced by anti-slavery campaigners.

Yet with the backing of the long-serving premier William Pitt the Younger, the powerful Commons advocacy of William Wilberforce, and the enthusiastic endorsement of a popular petitioning campaign, abolition seemed to be unstoppable by the late 1780s.

But time was lost during the lengthy inquiries by the privy council committee for trade and plantations (1788) and by the Commons itself (1789-1790), and Wilberforce's motion for abolition was disappointingly defeated by 163 to 88 votes in 1791. In the following year, a compromise was reached in the Commons whereby the trade was to be prohibited from 1796.

The House of Lords stalled the motion pending its own inquiry, which was eventually allowed to lapse because of the wars against revolutionary France. Wilberforce introduced an abolition motion in most subsequent sessions, and these were occasionally lost by only narrow margins, including by only four votes in 1796, when several supporters had deserted the chamber for the pleasures of the opera house.

A conservative parliament was not the only reason abolition took so long to achieve. The opponents of the trade, led by the Evangelicals or 'Saints', also had to confront the West India interest, an active lobby group.

This comprised planters with estates in the British islands (notably Jamaica), and merchants trading with Africa and the Caribbean, as well as associated shipbuilders, manufacturers and financiers. The group had a central London committee, which was adept at counter-petitioning, as well as representatives in the Commons such as the MPs for Bristol, Liverpool and London.

Not surprisingly, given this level of opposition, the abolitionists' only legislative achievements were Sir William Dolben's Regulation Act of 1788 (which was renewed every year after that) and William Smith's Slave Carrying Act of 1799.

These were partial measures, which by reducing shipboard overcrowding only slightly improved the horrific conditions experienced during the notorious middle passage (the journey between West Africa and the Caribbean).

Abolition

The obstruction by the House of Lords and the West India interest of 1804 and 1805 was dramatically overturned in 1806 with the appointment of the coalition ministry ('of all the Talents') led by Lord Grenville and Charles James Fox, whose abolitionist principles were shared with most of their supporters.

Building on the writings of the influential economist and adviser James Stephen, the new government secured an act to prevent British traders (in British or foreign vessels) from shipping Africans to foreign colonies or to newly conquered islands such as Trinidad, which it was thought might be returned to France or Spain after the Napoleonic wars.

The government was able to promote the act successfully, in some cases with the approval of the West India lobby, because it was clearly in the country's economic and strategic best interests.

Stephen, in a briefing paper, asked: 'Would it be expedient to bring in a bill immediately for the general abolition of the slave trade?' He then argued that, despite the considerable opposition it would inevitably arouse, a total ban was achievable in parliament if ministers committed themselves wholeheartedly to it.

This, following on from the parliamentary resolutions in favour of abolition that Grenville and the ailing Fox obtained in June 1806, was exactly what Grenville did in February 1807 when he personally managed the passage of the bill through the Lords.

He refused to listen to calls for further inquiry, even when they came from such formidable figures as the duke of Clarence (the future William IV). He appealed to the Lords on the basis that the country looked to it to 'wipe away the stigma attached to its character in continuing this detestable traffic'.

The surprisingly easy passage of the bill through the Commons, where no pro-abolition petitions needed to be presented, was partly due to the relative weakness of the West India lobby, but mainly to the favourable climate of public opinion and the momentum given to the cause by the government.

Much the same was to ocurr in 1833, when a recent Jamaican rebellion and the long-running British petitioning campaign persuaded Lord Grey's administration to push through the Emancipation Act.

This belated piece of legislation at last freed enslaved Africans in the British Caribbean islands (whose status had not been improved by the earlier abolition of the trade) from 1 August 1834 (although the slave-owners controversially received £20 million in compensation and an interim period in which slaves were deemed to be 'apprentices' did not end until 1838).

Influencing the government

The Slave Trade Abolition Act shows how critical it was - and still is - for any external pressure group to have the support of government ministers.

A modern example is Jamie Oliver's high-profile campaign, which led to the introduction of a private member's bill. The Children's Food Bill aimed to improve the quality of children's food and was sponsored first by Debra Shipley MP in 2004-2005 and then by Mary Creagh MP in 2005-2006.

This bill has not yet become law, although in October 2005 the government indicated that it would accept its proposals for applying minimal nutritional standards for school meals and ending the sale of junk food in vending machines.

These examples illustrate that campaigning, often by convincing a local or sympathetic MP, sometimes involves raising an issue in parliament to put indirect pressure on a government department. This is usually true, for instance, with environmental issues.

Other campaign techniques include direct electoral challenges, such as independent candidates standing on issues like opposition to hospital closures, and the targeting of vulnerable MPs, for example by the anti-war candidate George Galloway who was able to deafeat Oona King at the general election in 2005 because her support for the invasion of Iraq had damaged her popularity.

The House of Lords can block acts, but this can be overcome if the ruling party in the Commons is determined to enforce parliamentary acts. This effectively vetoes the decision of the Lords.

Direct action of dubious legality, like the invasion of the Commons chamber by protesters for the 'Fathers 4 Justice' group, can be effective but also counterproductive.

The internet and current campaigning

The abolitionists pioneered techniques such as circulating printed materials, presenting evidence before inquiries and promoting petitions. These ways of lobbying are still in use today.

Indeed, Anti-Slavery International's bicentenary petition against world slavery was set up to mimic the 19th century campaign.

In many ways, the internet replicates this type of networking effectively, and provides the potential for gauging public opinion through chatrooms and online opinion polls.

Most MPs now have websites and welcome email communications, and it is still possible for anyone to petition the Commons, as long as they follow the rules.

Other questions, such as the effectiveness of a national apology and the payment of reparations to compensate for the enslavement of African people, together with the more practical issues of African debt cancellation and ending contemporary forms of slavery and trafficking, could benefit from unofficial referendums.

These issues all arise from the evolving public debate about the legacy of the British slave trade. But, at the time of writing, controversy is currently centred on the likely government decision to hold a slavery memorial day on 25 March 2007, the 200th anniversary of the date on which the Slave Trade Abolition Act was given royal assent.

Many sections of the black community have expressed doubts about the relevance of this date to their ancestors' desperate and unending struggle to resist colonial slavery, because it is a parliamentary anniversary.

There are strong calls for any commemoration to take place on the United Nations' chosen 'International Day for the Remembrance of Slavery and its Abolition' on 23 August. The internet offers enormous scope for exploring this complex debate and influencing it.

Find out more

Books

African History: a Very Short Introduction by John Parker and Richard Rathbone (Oxford, 2007)

The British Slave Trade: Abolition, Parliament and People by Stephen Farrell, Melanie Unwin and James Walvin (Edinburgh University Press, 2007)

Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery by Adam Hochschild (Macmillan, 2005)

Popular Politics and British Antislavery: The Mobilization of Public Opinion Against the Slave Trade, 1787-1807 by J. R. Oldfield (Manchester University Press, 1995)

The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760-1810 by Roger Anstey (Macmillan, 1975)

Links

For details of the forthcoming parliamentary exhibition, and the related website

About the author

Stephen Farrell is a senior research fellow at the History of Parliament in London, specialising in the early 19th-century House of Commons. He is a member of the curatorial team for the parliamentary exhibition on the abolition of the British slave trade (opening in May), and has co-edited an accompanying volume of essays.