World History: The End of Slavery: Abolition, Rebellion, Successes, Failures

The symbol of abolition 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?'

Slavery has been a common stain on society throughout human history. Most societies which we have looked at on World History have practised slavery in some way or another, and the last time that we looked specifically at slavery was when we discussed the Atlantic Slave Trade. Today we're looking at how the slave trade and slavery came to an end, and how there were limitations to abolition. Due to how endemic slavery was, and how many forms it took, we cannot discuss the entire history of anti-slavery in just the 1700s and 1800s alone - for example, we'll be discussing the end of serfdom in Russia and slavery in the Ottoman Empire in future posts. Today we're looking at the end of slavery, and the movements against slavery, since the 1700s.

Anti-Slavery before 1700

As long as there have been slaves there have always been an anti-slavery movement. Anti-slavery in the Americas had for a longtime been condemned by both Europeans and the Americas, however, not in a way that we would imagine. Originally in the Americas the indigenous population was enslaved which proved to be one of the prime reasons for the Great Dying - where 90% of the indigenous population were killed thanks to colonialism. The original criticisms of slavery were directed at the enslavement of indigenous peoples - in 1609 Philip III of Spain spoke of 'the great excesses that might occur if slavery were to be permitted in any instance' and in 1639 Pope Urban VIII threatened excommunication for anyone practising slavery. Some of it was pragmatic though - slavery was evidently wiping out the indigenous communities which in turn was wiping out available labour. The enslavement of black Africans were seen as being fine; despite condemning the enslavement of indigenous communities Bartolome de Casas argued that Africans were 'natural' for hard labour. Slavery had also been brought to an end by several areas across Europe - 1315 France banned slavery and the idea of 'English Law' created an anti-slavery impulse on the continent. This was actually used to free slaves - 1755 to 1769 saw several court cases in Britain where slaves arriving in Britain used this idea to obtain their freedom, and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas in 1776 got his freedom when he was sent to France. These ideas were planted and would come into fruition later on. Also, before we move onto abolitionist movements it should also be noted that quite a few Christian denominations opposed slavery on moral grounds - the Quakers in the US are a particularly good example.

Abolitionist Movements

A depiction of the Zong Massacre

One of the key aspects of the end of slavery is the importance of abolitionist groups raising public awareness of the horrors of slavery. As expected, abolitionist movements had existed for a longtime but it was following the Zong Massacre in 1781; a Liverpool slave ship, the Zong, sailed by Luke Collingwood set sail from Sao Tome in September 1781 with 442 slaves, but on their way to Jamaica they got lost. With resources running scarce, and with many slaves dying of illness, and for every slave that died it would be on his head, unless if there was a risk to the crew. As a result, Collingwood had the surviving 133 slaves 'thrown alive into the sea, [so] it would be the loss of the underwriters.' These events were common but it managed to go to court in 1783, and major abolitionist, Granville Sharp, got other abolitionists to spread the word of the massacre. Thomas Day composed a poem entitled The Dying Negro, Dr Beilby Porteus issued sermons denouncing slavery, and George Gregory denounced slavery in Essays Historical and Moral. Although at this stage the general public seemed disinterested, it did influence abolitionists - especially after 1788 when Parliament passed an act for the first time to try and control the Slave Trade. Particularly in the Anglo-American world the Zong Massacre influenced a rise in abolitionist movements. The most notable was the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade which was founded by Quakers as well as Sharp and publisher Thomas Clarkson. However, the most famous member was William Wilberforce - an evangelical philanthropist and politician he provided a key leadership role in the abolitionist movement.

This image of Gordon the slave was distributed by American abolitionists

How did abolitionists get support? Largely it was through public speeches, publications, the funding of African accounts of slavery, and funding anti-slavery missionary societies. Granville Sharp and Wilberforce are the best know abolitionists due to this - their presence in parliament and public society, thanks to their wealth, made them publicly known. Josiah Wedgewood could use his wealth to make the famous 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?' which became adopted across the abolitionist movement. Women were very important to the abolitionist movement - especially in the United States. Especially wealthy women, like Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecroft in the UK and Susan B Anthony in the US, were integral in publishing anti-slavery publications. From 1787-8 it is estimated that 10% of subscribers to the Abolition Society were women. A female version of Wedgewood's ceramic was also produced. It is important to not overlook the working-class aspect to abolition. In the UK working-class abolitionists, although sidelined in the movement, could help by boycotting produce made through the slave-trade. The religious Great Awakening in the United States in the North allowed working-class Americans to oppose slavery on moral terms - by 1838, after five years of existence, the American Anti-Slavery Society obtained 250,000 members. The American anti-slavery movement could be more radical. First published in 1831 The Liberator journal featuring the writing of William Lloyd Garrison savaged the American system of slavery ,and even called for abrogating the Constitution and dissolving the Union to end the US' complicity in slavery.

'Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?'

Continental Europe and Brazil abolitionist societies were fairly different from their English-speaking counterparts. The French abolitionist societies, such as the Amis de Noirs formed in 1788, were a more wealthy, elite movement preferring to work within the system and acting as brokers with external pressure groups. This is particularly noted in Brazil whose 'three stages of abolition' (abolishing of the trade in 1851; 'freedom of the womb' in 1871; and the 'Golden Law', abolition for all in 1888) were largely done behind closed doors. Of course, from the 1860s there was a grassroots abolitionist movement, and free and slave black opposition, so it is important to not ignore this aspect. The more radical nature of the French Enlightenment also brought in abolitionist ideas - as David Hume in Edinburgh and Thomas Jefferson in the US criticised but not condemned slavery, whereas Denis Diderot in the Encyclopedie overtly denounced it. In the US and Latin America their independence movements had used the rhetoric of freedom and liberty. As we saw when we looked at Latin America slaves used this language to justify their freedom, but it also caused a conundrum. How could people call for liberty as they kept slaves? Across parts of Latin America and the Northern US slavery came to an end when slaves successfully showed their own enslavement went against these ideas - Elizabeth Freeman in 1780 used the Constitution to get slavery abolished in Massachusetts as an example.

Black Abolition

Olaudah Equiano, the key abolitionist

Abolition was far from a white movement - in fact white abolitionists sometimes hindered black attempts to bring about their own emancipation. Slave uprisings, especially the Haitian Revolution, were at times condemned by white abolitionists, including Olympe de Gouges, and were even dehumanised. Especially female slaves were stripped of agency - in an attempt disprove the idea that black Africans were violent they were stripped of humanity. As a result black abolitionists, with perhaps the exception of American abolitionists, have been overlooked. The best known individual is perhaps Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa. Equiano, in his account, was born around 1745 in what is now Nigeria - some historians have argued that he was born in South Carolina and combined narratives of African slaves, although it is heavily debated. Equiano lived a truly fascinating life - traumatised by being taken from his sister, he became a slave, a sailor, a devout Christian, and then an abolitionist. In 1794 he published a story of his life, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, where he showed the horrors of slavery, and the trauma of being separated from his sister, and it became a bestseller. Like many abolitionists he was a devout Christian and that is shown in his text - Equiano later was a key figure in the London Missionary Society. His text was so controversial that pro-slavery individuals tried to smear it as being fictitious. Equiano was very important in the abolitionist movement before he was published - Sharp learnt about the Zong Massacre due to Equiano. Britain had the Sons of Africa - an abolitionist group, working closely with Wilberforce etc, made up of freed slaves. In 1731 Ignatious Sancho arrived in the UK where he managed to published speeches denouncing slavery along a Christian lens, and there was also Ottabah Cuguano. Born in Ghana he was freed in 1752 in Grenada and went to Britain where he published Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. Here he denounced slavery, and argued it was morally right for slaves to resist their masters.

Frderick Douglass, c.1879

In Cuba, the independence movement became closely tied with abolition. In 1868 Carlos Manuel de Cespedes declared that 'The Cuban Revolution...could hardly accept the great contradiction of limiting these to only one part of the population of the country.' There were limits to this - pro-independence slaveowners could keep their slaves - but former slaves, or their descendants, became leaders in the movement. The US is particularly known for black abolitionists. Largely this was due to the Underground Railroad which by 1850 is believed to have helped 100,000 escape. Harriet Tubman was a key figure in the Railroad; born into slavery herself she operated under the name of 'Moses' and managed to free over seventy individuals. Southern police could not fathom the idea that a black woman could be the mysterious Moses which aided in her success, as well as her own intelligence. Frederick Douglass has been cited as being one of the most important US abolitionists. Born a slave he taught himself to read and managed to make his way to New York and freedom - his books, like Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), became instant bestsellers. In his Narrative his depiction of the brutality of slavery, both physical and emotional, resonated with audiences, and his discussion of how a friendly old lady, who owned him, was forced to keep him illiterate by her husband showed how destructive slavery was. It destroyed the humanity of even the owners. However, we get a skewed image of slavery through many narratives - mostly young men from a few states had the opportunity to free themselves. Other narratives are exceptional - Solomon Northup was free but taken as a slave, Harriet Jacobs hid in an attic (tragically she had to downplay sexual violence enacted on her to be published), and Henry 'Box' Brown managed to mail himself to Philadelphia. Hence, we only have a small account of what lives of slaves were like.

Rebellion

The statute of Samuel Sharpe

Often it is overlooked how important slave rebellions were in bringing an end to slavery. As mentioned earlier, and a previous World History post, was the Haitian Revolution. Slaves in the French colony Saint-Domingue rose up, defeated European powers, established a black republic, and defeated Napoleon's brother-in-law. Due to the success of the Haitian revolutionaries, such as Toussaint L'Ouverture, fighting French forces for the Spanish and British the French republicans finally abolished slavery in 1794. Napoleon hoped to bring back slavery to enrich his empire so tried to reintroduce slavery and restore French rule to the island - France was roundly defeated. It would take until 1848, however, for France to abolish slavery across the entire empire. Haiti offered a beacon across the enslaved world - freedom was possible. Meanwhile, despite abolishing the slave trade in 1807 Britain continued the practice in its empire; the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was transformed in 1823 by William Wilberforce into the Anti-Slavery Society. The emergence of black deacons, including Baptists, in Jamaica gave slaves increased independence on religious lines. On Christmas Day 1831 a black Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe, encouraged slaves to strike and between 60,000 and 300,000 slaves took part in one of the largest slave rebellions. Although suppressed it shattered the colonial system - Hugh Thomas places it as one of three reasons why slavery was abolished in the British Empire (the other two was the willingness of a reformist Whig government, and a renewal of the anti-slavery movement with Thomas Fowell Buxton in parliament). Spain similarly abolished slavery in Cuba for similar reasons - hoping to keep a lid on Cuban nationalism Spain abolished slavery to show that it could be reformist. 

The United States and Brazil saw numerous slave rebellions - if anything it was traditional in Brazil with the quilombos. Unlike in Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba slave rebellions did not bring abolition in Brazil and the US. The spectre of Haiti hung over both slave states - the US was keen to hamstring the Haitian economy to prevent it inspiring other slave rebellions - and reaction against slave rebellions were harsh. In the US, rebellions in Richmond (1800), Louisiana (1811), and Charleston (1822) were just some rebellions brutally crushed. The most famous one was Nat Turner's Rebellion in Southampton Valley, Virginia on August 22 1831. Turner was a slave preacher and upon seeing an eclipse (albeit he originally wanted to lead a revolt on July 4) led a revolt attacking white families and plantations - despite the idea that he ordered all white people killed he actually called for Quakers and the Dutch to be spared. It was crushed and Turner hung stating just before he died, 'Was not Christ crucified?'. A fear of 'a Turner being in any family' swept the South - Virginia through out a plan to gradually emancipate slaves, blacks (slave and free) were banned from being preachers, and slaves were prohibited from being taught to read. Slave rebellions could see success, however. An abolitionist from Sao Paulo in 1918 recalled how a slave named Pio allowed around 100 slaves to flee, and then there was the Amistad. The Amistad was moving from one Cuban port to another in 1839 when 53 slaves took over the ship and demanded that they been returned to Africa. The captain instead took them to Long Island, New York, and while the president wanted to return the slaves to Cuba abolitionists, including former president John Quincy Adams, convinced the Supreme Court that the Amistad had violated international laws against the slave trade. The slaves were returned to Africa. Albeit it was to Sierra Leone - not where they came from. 

Anti-Abolition

Slavery existed because it was popular and profitable. As argued by Hugh Thomas, the Industrial Revolution in Liverpool and Glasgow were funded thanks to the profits from sugar plantations in the Caribbean. Planters had considerable political power - profits from sugar, tobacco and coffee. In the British Caribbean in the 1770s profits came to £3.8 million (£450 million on today's money), and Saint-Domingue held most of the French wealth. Those who owed their wealth to slavery in Britain, France, Spain, Brazil, the Netherlands, and the US offered a very strong bulwark against abolition. During Cuba's Ten Years' War (1868-1878) support for independence was far less strong in the sugar plantation dominated west compared to the east. Similarly, opposition to abolition was strongest in states reliant on slavery, and slave-states in the US were even willing to secede in order to preserve slavery. Modern racism, partially, emerged thanks to the slavery. As abolitionists dehumanised slaves by stripping them of agency pro-slavery propaganda portrayed the free slave as a mindless brute prone to murder and rape. Fears of racial mixing were pervasive in colonial societies. Haiti, and other slave uprisings, caused hysterical fears of a race war. Haiti freed its slaves and there was violence, we therefore cannot free our slaves. During the Ten Years' War Spain, and loyalist Cubans, portrayed the revolt as a black insurrection wanting to establish a black republic along the lines of Haiti.

The US and the Civil War

African-Americans in the Union Army

I want to devote a World History post to the Civil War so I won't go into too much detail here. Contrary to the 'Lost Cause' myth the US Civil War was about slavery. Naturally, there were other factors, Northern economic domination and states' rights, but even then they were due to slavery - slavery kept the Southern economy rural and it was states' rights to keep slaves. Autonomy and pride in your own state helped convince everyday people in the South to the Confederacy but so was slavery. There are three reasons for this: there was a hope that a regular farmer could own slaves in the future; there was a fear that emancipating slaves would create competition for manual work; and poor whites had the knowledge that they weren't at the bottom of society. Since independence there had always been tension between the North and South - Washington D.C. was even built as a compromise - and the growth of abolition in the North angered the South. Tensions continued to grow as Abraham Lincoln was elected. The Republican Party had emerged as a Northern, abolition supporting party and although it is debated if Lincoln was an abolitionist the South definitely viewed him as one - the Republicans didn't even appear on Southern voting tickets. The South seceded and the Civil War began. The war would end slavery. One part pragmatism and one part genuine abolition Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declaring slaves in seceded states freed. African-Americans were then encouraged to enlist in the Union army, and in 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery - to an extent.

Africa and Abolition

A British depiction of a Dahomian sacrifice ceremony, c.1793

A key region that we have yet to discuss is Africa. As argued by Walter Rodney, the slave trade had made West African states heavily reliant on the slave trade. Britain in 1807 banned the slave trade and used its navy to enforce its ban across the Atlantic - Brazil quickly abolished slavery in 1851 due to British pressure. As a result, West African states saw a crisis - they had been made dependent on the slave trade and now it was throttled. Different states reacted differently. Asante, in modern Ghana, was receiving over 5,000 slaves a year between 1807 and 1816 but now they lost the ability to sell their slaves. Naturally, slaves disliked being enslaved and were starting to riot in the capital of Kumasi. Then Asante had a stroke of luck - to the north the Sokoto Caliphate was established. In need of slaves, gold, and kola nuts, to make a non-alcoholic drink, Sokoto offered a new market for Asante. Slaves were used en masse in gold mines and nut farms, Akan goldfields produced 27,000 ounces of gold in 1807 to 35,000 after 1850, and other slaves were sold to Sokoto. Local leaders who made a fortune through farming and mining bought slaves as a way to show economic power. Meanwhile, Dahomey (in modern Benin) suffered. Due to British pressure Dahomian king Gezo had started restricting slavery and human sacrifice - two things needed for legitimacy. Instead he placed less emphasis on slavery and more on palm oil exports losing him domestic support. In 1858 he was ousted in a coup by his own son.

Britain was keen to stamp out the slave trade in Africa and German writer Goethe described it best: Everybody knows their declamations against the slave trade; and, while they have palmed off on is all sorts of human maxims as the foundation of their proceedings...they themselves use the blacks. Anti-slavery was used as an excuse to exert British, and later European, power over Africa. As we saw already they intervened in Asante and Dahomey to control their economies and many famous explorers were integral in British rule. For example, the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), formed by David Livingstone in 1857, prided itself on combating slavery in Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania - they often failed to mention that their first converts were bought by them. For centuries African slaves had been taken to the Arabian peninsula and India via Zanzibar. Britain established its own interests on Zanzibar, ostensibly to end slavery, in order to also monopolise trade in other goods. Slavery exploited Africa and abolition was used as a way to create a new exploitation.

A sketch of Granville Town

Finally, we also have colonisation in the name of abolition. Granville Sharp had read a pamphlet by Danish botanist Henry Smeathman called Plan of a Settlement to be made near Sierra Leona, on the Grain Coast of Africa. Sharp believed that charity was not enough to help freed slaves and convinced parliament that repatriation was needed. In May 1787 290 men and 41 women arrived in Africa and formed the settlement of Granville Town in land bought from a local sub-chief nicknamed King Tom. Things went bad quickly. Disease and rains wiped out half of the town's population and there was an issue of settlers going off to join slave traders! A new sub-chief, King Jimmy, in 1790 gave the settlers an ultimatum after his village had been attacked: leave in three days because I'll attack. Despite this, in 1791 the Sierra Leone Company was formed and 1,190 volunteers from Nova Scotia (mostly freed during the American Revolution) and 119 Europeans formed a new colony. Equiano even aided in this but was dismissed when he complained of financial mismanagement. Despite being burnt by the French in 1794 the colony soon grew and whenever Britain raided a slave ship they sent the slaves to Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, the US in 1820 formed the American Colonization Society - close to Sierra Leone Monrovia was formed in 1822 which grew to 5,000 occupants by 1840. 

Limits

A sketch of three members of the KKK in Mississippi, c.1871

Despite abolition there were immense limits to the end of slavery. When slavery was ended now freed slaves saw very little change. Britain chose to pay £20 million, about 40% of the treasury or £16.5 billion in today's money, in bailing out former slave owners - many of Britain's wealthy elite today, including former prime minister David Cameron, owe some of their wealth to this. Similar occurrences happened across the world. Brazilian former slaves often had to stay on their old plantations or became a significant portion of the urban poor. The Republicans after the Civil War attempted a policy called 'Reconstruction' to help former slaves, however, government intransigence and Southern opposition prevented its success. The Ku Klux Klan emerged in 1865 to terrorise and murder former slaves and their allies - centuries of slavery gave way to a century of Jim Crow. Racism as we know it today emerged in this time period. Africans in India was classified as 'Untouchable' and the bottom of society, and former slaves, and their descendants, were treated with contempt in society.

India indentured labourers in Mauritius, 1917

Slavery continued in another form in the British empire as they were exerting power over Africa on the pretence of ending slavery. Indians had been taken as slaves since the 1600s and a series of famines in the 1700s caused thousands to tens-of-thousands of Indians to be sold into slavery. Around a third of slaves in the Cape Colony were Indians and 500 were sold as weavers in Sri Lanka. When slavery was abolished indentured servitude was created. People would work for several years and be paid in a lump sum, but the employer basically owned their employee. Flogging, despite government restrictions, was common, the work was the same that slaves once did, and movement was restricted - the only difference was there was a chance that they would get paid after several years. From 1833 until around 1920 this policy took over 3.5 million Indians across the world creating a large Indian diaspora from Kenya to Guyana to Fiji. For example, by the 1940s 60,965 Indians lived in Fiji; 238,909 were in Mauritius; and 453,063 were in Mauritius. Mauritius' first prime minister was Indian, and his father had been an indentured labourer. 

Conclusion

Today we've only just glanced at the end of slavery and its repercussions. When we look at attempts to reform Russia and the Ottoman Empire, as well as the American Civil War, we'll focus more on certain aspects of the end of slavery. The end of slavery is often taught in schools, but it is often a simplified aspect - when I learnt about it we focused heavily on William Wilberforce, and it took until I went to university to learn of the Jamaican Rebellion. Women and men of all classes and races were instrumental in the end of slavery regardless of whether it was violent, peaceful, or otherwise. However, it is hard to imagine how ingrained slavery and its legacy remains today. Racism in its current form was born from slavery, and few attempts to improve the situation of freed slaves means that two centuries on their descendants are still suffering under oppression. Slavery still continues today. Mauritania only banned slavery in 1980 and its very likely that people are still enslaved, as we speak speak black Africans are being sold in markets in Libya, and human trafficking has once again become a global issue. Looking at how abolition and the end of slavery occurred in the nineteenth century we can maybe understand how to deal with the modern crisis and why inequality persists today.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870, (London: Macmillan, 1998)

-Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Fourth Edition, (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2014)

-Martin Meredith, The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor, (London: Simon & Schuster, 2014)

-Seymour Drescher, 'Brazilian Abolition in Comparative Perspectives', The Hispanic American Historical Review, 68:3, (1988), 429-460

-Robert Edgard Conrad, (ed.), Children of God's Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983)

-Ada Ferrar, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898, (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999)

-Paul Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)

-Vincent Carretta, (ed.), The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings of Olaudah Equiano, (London: Penguin, 2003)

-Solomon Northup, 12 Years a Slave, (London: Collins, 1852/2014)

-David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823, (London: Cornell University Press, 1975)
-Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, (Dar es Salaam: Bogle-L'Ouvurture Publications, 1973)

-Marina Carter, ‘Slavery and Unfree Labour in the Indian Ocean’, History Compass, 4, 5 (2006), 800-813

-Megan Vaughan, ‘Slavery and Colonial Identity in Eighteenth-Century Mauritius’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 8 (1998), 189-214

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it useful. The next World History posts will look at the jihadi movements in West Africa in the early-1800s. For other World History posts please see our list here. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.