page_title: Abolitionism
section_title: British Empire
hierarchical_section_title: Abolitionism / Great Britain / British Empire
caption_attribution_description: English: William Wilberforce (1759–1833)
context_page_description: Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, was the movement to end slavery. This term can be used both formally and informally. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and set slaves free.
  King Charles I of Spain, usually known as Emperor Charles V, was following the example of Louis X of France, who had abolished slavery within the Kingdom of France in 1315. He passed a law which would have abolished colonial slavery in 1542, although this law was not passed in the largest colonial states, and it was not enforced as a result. In the late 17th century, the Roman Catholic Church officially condemned the slave trade in response to a plea by Lourenço da Silva de Mendouça, and it was also vehemently condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839. The abolitionist movement only started in the late 18th century, however, when English and American Quakers began to question the morality of slavery.
context_section_description: Prior to the American Revolution, there were significant initiatives in the American colonies that led to the abolitionist movement. Benjamin Kent was the lawyer who took on most of the cases of slaves suing their masters for personal illegal enslavement. He was the first lawyer to successfully establish a slave's freedom. In addition, Brigadier General Samuel Birch created the Book of Negroes, to establish which slaves were free after the war.
  In 1783, an anti-slavery movement began among the British public to end slavery throughout the British Empire. In 1785, the English poet William Cowper wrote:
  We have no slaves at home. –Then why abroad?
  
  And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
  
  That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd.
  
  Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
  
  Receive our air, that moment they are free,
  
  They touch our country and their shackles fall.
  
  That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
  
  And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
  
  And let it circulate through ev'ry vein
  
  Of all your empire. That where Britain's power
  
  Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.
  — from The Task, Book 2
  After the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787, William Wilberforce led the cause of abolition through the parliamentary campaign. Thomas Clarkson became the group's most prominent researcher, gathering vast amounts of data on the trade. One aspect of abolitionism during this period was the effective use of images such as the famous Josiah Wedgwood "Am I Not A Man and a Brother?" anti-slavery medallion of 1787.  Clarkson described the medallion as "promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom". The Slave Trade Act was passed by the British Parliament on 25 March 1807, making the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire. Britain used its influence to coerce other countries to agree to treaties to end their slave trade and allow the Royal Navy to seize their slave ships. Britain enforced the abolition of the trade because the act made trading slaves within British territories illegal. However, the act repealed the Amelioration Act 1798 which attempted to improve conditions for slaves. The end of the slave trade did not end slavery as a whole. Slavery was still a common practice.
  In the 1820s, the abolitionist movement revived to campaign against the institution of slavery itself. In 1823 the first Anti-Slavery Society was founded. Many of its members had previously campaigned against the slave trade. On 28 August 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act was given Royal Assent, which paved the way for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire, which was substantially achieved in 1838. In 1839, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was formed by Joseph Sturge, which attempted to outlaw slavery worldwide and also to pressure the government to help enforce the suppression of the slave trade by declaring slave traders to be pirates. The world's oldest international human rights organization, it continues today as Anti-Slavery International. Thomas Clarkson was the key speaker at the World Anti-Slavery Convention it held in London in 1840. In 1846 Clarkson was host to Frederick Douglass, a prominent African-American abolitionist, on his first visit to England. At risk after passage in the US of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Douglass became legally free in England when British friends raised the money and purchased his freedom from his American owner.
caption: William Wilberforce (1759–1833), politician and philanthropist who was a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.
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