Was the Abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean during 1787 to 1834 due solely to the activities of the

humanitarians?

Introduction

The abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean was a crucial event in British and

Caribbean history. The creation of the Emancipation Act in 1834 signified the end of a long

campaign, which began in 1787, carried out by a group of persons in Britain called the

humanitarians, men and women (such as William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson) who were

opposed to the treatment of the enslaved people in the British Caribbean. They fought tirelessly

using various available media (for example pamphlets, speeches in Parliament and books) to

ensure that the enslaved people received freedom from the barbaric system. However, the

gaining of abolition should not be accredited to the humanitarians alone, as there were several

factors that helped to further their campaign. Specifically, activities like slave resistance and

revolt helped to raise awareness of the deplorable system, the changes in Britain’s economic

structure further turned public opinion against the system as they began to view it as

unprofitable, and the writings of persons once involved in the trade further helped the

abolitionists’ cause.

Although the campaigning carried out by the humanitarians in Britain was instrumental in the

fight for abolition, there were other important factors that helped slavery to be abolished. These

include: the effects of the resistance of the slaves, the effects of the Industrial Revolution and the

actions of religious groups.

The fight for slavery’s abolition first began with the slaves. After all, no one in Britain would

have been greatly concerned about abolition had the slaves not resisted; that would have shown

that the slaves were satisfied with their state. In truth, the slaves were subject to very harsh,

dehumanising conditions, beginning with their capture in West Africa1, then the Middle

Passage2, then plantation life. On the plantations, the slaves were subjected to the restricting

British Slave Code, which allowed them little freedom, and, up to the 18th century, allowed the

masters to dictate every facet of the slaves’ lives and to disregard their family lives, rights of

slave women and at times even their health and care. Slaves were punished harshly under these

codes, as the planter did not punish according to the crime, but set out to maim the slave as badly

as possible to set an example. Methods of punishments included brutal floggings, mutilations,

and gruesome death sentences (such as hanging). Slaves also faced problems such as the

breaking up of families due to the selling of slaves to other planters, the raping of female slaves

by white men, the feelings of homesickness for their homeland of Africa and the backbreaking

manual labour of the fields.

It follows then that the slaves would rebel against their state and treatment. But rebellion did not

only take place in major forms, for example the Sam Sharpe Rebellion, but everyday slaves

resisted their condition in many ways. The ways in which slaves resisted slavery are, according

to Emancipation to Emigration by Dyde et al, classified into two categories: Passive and Active

Resistance. Passive resistance refers to non-violent, simpler forms of opposing slavery. Passive

1 See Appendix Extract 1.2 See Appendix Extract 2.

2 | P a g e

resistance usually resulted in the slowing down and hampering of plantation labour and consisted

of the slaves doing acts such as: feigning ignorance of how to work in the fields, working

carelessly, frequently requesting permission to “go a bush” to relieve themselves, allowing

themselves to become sick in various ways, which included reopening sores, and committing

suicide and infanticide. Running away was also a form of passive resistance. Slaves usually fled

the estate to escape punishment, or in response to a punishment already given. In other cases,

where possible, slaves fled to mountainous areas and set up communities there, for example the

Maroons in Jamaica. Active resistance took place less frequently, as there were severe

punishments for such acts if caught. The effects of active resistance usually were sabotage and

murder. These included the damage of machinery; which involved the burning of mills and ripe

cane, the injuring and killing of plantation livestock, petty theft of estate property such as the

masters’ belongings and murdering the whites. Both these forms of resistance affected the slave

system in the following ways, they: 1) increased the cost of running the system; in that the

planters had to spend money on replacing runaway slaves, slaves who killed themselves, and to

obtain new slaves when slave women refused to have children and to replace damaged

machinery and livestock; 2) reduced slave labour in the form of runaways and dead slaves. These

two effects resulted in a reduction of production, and this, together with the fixed cost of

maintaining slaves (giving them food and clothing), undermined the slave system’s profitability

to the British people. Even though these forms of resistance resulted in loss of life and property

damage and did not give the slaves instant freedom, they helped bring to light the plight of the

slaves to the British public. In 1790, investigations were done in Britain by a Parliamentary

Committee on the treatment of slaves from capture to the plantation, and the truth about the

conditions of slavery was revealed. Also, former slaves, namely Olaudah Equiano and Quobna

3 | P a g e

Ottobah Cugoano, wrote autobiographies recording the horrors they endured as slaves (see

Appendix Extract 1, 2 and 3) and beseeched the British to abolish the slave system (see

Appendix Extract 4).

In addition to passive and active resistance, slave revolts also helped to undermine slavery. Slave

revolts were major uprisings among slaves within which much damage was done. This form of

resistance was feared by the whites the most, and everything possible was done to prevent any

such occurrence, for example harsh punishments. However, in the 19th century, there were three

major revolts in the British Caribbean that helped the abolitionist movement: the 1816 Barbados

revolt, the 1823 revolt in Demerara and the Sam Sharpe Rebellion in Jamaica in 1831. Each

successive one was more destructive than its predecessor, according to Dyde et al in

Emancipation to Emigration 3rd Edition, and although none of these revolts brought about

freedom in the colonies instantly, the effects helped to speed up the abolition process. For

example, the planters’ abuse of the missionaries in the colonies following the revolts (for

instance the imprisonment of John Smith after the Demerara revolt and his death in the squalid

prison) turned British public opinion against the planters and slavery.

Similarly, religious groups had an impact on the abolition movement. Prior to the 18th century,

the church of any significance in the British Caribbean was the Church of England. They were

responsible for bringing Christianity to the slaves in the colonies. In fact, a group was formed by

the church for that purpose, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, whose seal is shown in

Figure 3 below, which operated a missionary training school in Barbados, Codrington College,

named after Christopher Codrington, who had previously owned the plantations where the

4 | P a g e

college resided. However, this was not the case in actuality. The Anglican clergy, on the whole,

did not see to the welfare of slaves, in fact, slavery was practised at the college, with their slaves

branded with the word “Society” on their backs (Hochschild 3). In addition, many clergymen

were in league with the planters and depended on them, and since the planters did not want the

slaves to learn Christianity or to read and write, the Anglicans did not minister to slaves.

However, the 18th century saw a rise in nonconformist groups in the West Indies.

Nonconformists refer to the religious groups which did not agree with the practices of the

Church of England, and included the Baptists, Moravians and Methodists. These groups opposed

the Church of England’s way of worship and some of their beliefs. As well as the Quakers, these

groups were against slavery and in 1754, the Moravians first set up missions in the British West

Indies, beginning with Jamaica, and settling in territories like St. Kitts and the Virgin Islands.

Soon afterwards groups such as the Methodists and Baptists arrived in the West Indies. In the

Caribbean, the missionaries faced severe opposition from the planters. The planters, who made

up the colonial Assemblies, were against the slaves receiving religious instruction; in fact, they

were even against them learning to read and write. These things, the planters feared; would

undermine the slave system, in that the slaves’ exposure to Christianity, which seemed to profess

an idea of equality among men, and learning to read the Bible and being influenced by its

teachings could be dangerous, according to the planters (Braithwaite and Phillips 41), in that

educating the slaves could incite them to be disrespectful to authority and to rebel, as said by

Dyde et al in Emancipation to Emigration 3rd Edition. Also, the planters believed that these

religious meetings could facilitate the planning of rebellions by the slaves. So, the planter-run

Assemblies made laws that made it difficult for the Missionaries to preach to slaves, for

example, if a missionary desired to teach in St. Vincent, according to a law passed in 1793, he

5 | P a g e

had to be a resident there for a year. Even the missionary was authorised to teach by the planters,

he still had to be able to teach the slaves on the plantations or to have meetings with them. The

missionary also faced difficulty here. For instance, in Jamaica, the Consolidated Slave Act of

1808 prohibited Methodist missionaries from teaching slaves or to hold meetings with them in

their chapels. In addition, if indeed a missionary was allowed to preach, he could not do so after

sunset or before sunrise. Even then the planters did not allow the slaves that they converted to

preach to their fellow slaves. On top of it all, the missionary societies were harassed by the

planters as well as the slaves who were interested in the societies, like in the case of the

Methodist chapel in Barbados, which, in 1789 was stoned by the planters and the slaves who

attended the chapel were publicly flogged.

In order to appease the planters, the missionaries preached values such as humility, obedience

and hard work to the slaves, and told them that they were to endure suffering in order to gain a

heavenly reward. However, this sometimes resulted in the slaves losing confidence in them, as

they felt that the missionaries were taking the planters’ side.

In spite of the conflict with the planters, the missionaries managed to convert many slaves. By

1834, around 47,000 slaves were members of a missionary church and 86,000 were interested in

learning about Christianity (Claypole and Robottom 153). Since Christian beliefs and practices

were similar to those of the African slaves (for example, both groups believed in a creator and

life after death, and practised naming children in elaborate ceremonies [Christians did so in

christening and Africans in “outdooring”]), the slaves felt a connection to Christianity, as they

now found an acceptable way to carry out their beliefs. In this, the slaves gained a new

confidence in themselves, especially in churches that had all black congregations. This was most

prominent in Jamaica and the Bahamas, in the Baptist churches. There also, slaves could meet

6 | P a g e

and discuss their issues and become informed about the abolitionist movement. It was in these

religious meetings that slaves planned revolts, for example, the Sam Sharpe rebellion was

planned at religious meetings that Sharpe held.

The missionaries played an important role in the fight for abolition, in that they testified about

the horrors of the system, for example, William Knibb, a Baptist missionary, gave a report in

England after being acquitted from his arrest after the Sam Sharpe rebellion, and this greatly

helped in the passing of the Emancipation Act. Also, their abuse in British colonies helped to

turn public opinion against the planters and slavery (for example the imprisonment of Rev. John

Smith after the Demerara revolt and his death in his cell angered persons in Britain). Finally,

their influence on the slaves fuelled the slaves’ fight for freedom.

Britain’s economical shift also had a part to play in the abolition of slavery. The movement

coincided with Britain’s Industrial Revolution, which, according to Dictionary.com, was, “the

totality of the changes in economic and social organization that began about 1760 in England and

later in other countries, characterized chiefly by the replacement of hand tools with power-driven

machines.” These machines employed the use of elements as water and coal, rather than hands,

in order to work.

As a result of these inventions (see Table 1 in Appendix), commodities such as cloth could be

produced more cheaply and in larger quantities, with less people to operate them, for example,

the Spinning Jenny . Because of this increase in production, the industrialists needed a market for

these goods. Coincidentally, the world population had greatly increased at the time these

machines were created and the production of these goods increased. This increase in population

resulted in an increase in demand for these goods now being produced at a lesser cost and in

larger amounts. Soon after, manufacturing in Britain was being replaced by industrialism, as new

7 | P a g e

items were being created by these machines, such as nails, pots, iron bedsteads and new methods

of transportation, for example the train and railway track.

This rise in machine labour and decrease in manual labour in Britain posed a challenge to the

slave system. In the British Caribbean, the planters either refused or could not afford to

implement such machines (Braithwaite and Phillips 60), for example the planters resisted the use

of the plough on the plantations. Besides, sugar profits began to fall for a number of reasons,

such as a decrease in production due to slave resistance and the increased popularity of beet

sugar (which cost less to produce) As a result, young first-time businessmen in Britain chose to

invest in industry rather than sugar, as they viewed the sugar trade as unprofitable. This boosted

the abolition movement in that the abolitionists were able to win over these industrialists by

showing them that the sugar trade was not only unprofitable, but brutal and inhuman as well.

Soon many industrialists joined the abolition movement, such as Josiah Wedgewood, a potter

who was responsible for creating the porcelain cameo, shown below, that became the symbol of

the abolition movement.

Another economic factor that contributed to abolition of slavery was the introduction of cheaper

goods, which included cheaper sweeteners for British consumers. The British people wanted to

buy goods at a low cost, and West Indian sugar, which was once widely used in Britain, was

becoming expensive as the West Indian planters had to increase costs in order to ease the blow

they received from the rising costs of sugar production, which occurred ever since the abolition

of the slave trade in 1807. So the British decided to find cheaper ways to sweeten their teas and

other drinks. The solution came from the production of the sugar beet, which was begun by

Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), as an alternative to British cane sugar which

the British blocked access to in the war. Since the crop was cultivated in Europe (its origins were

8 | P a g e

in Greece (Harveson, Robert M. 1)), transportation costs were reduced as it did not have to travel

over the Atlantic. However, many British people preferred cane sugar to the sugar beet. This

problem was solved by cane sugar being accessed from areas such as the East Indies. These areas

allowed the British to get cane sugar at a cheaper cost than in the West Indies, as labour costs

were lower in these areas. Also, the use of East Indian sugar gave the fight for abolition a push,

as persons in Britain, seeing that sugar can be produced without slave labour at a much lower

cost began to refrain from using West Indian sugar. Some persons even encouraged a boycott of

West Indies sugar, for example, the Peckham Ladies African and Anti-Slavery Association

published a book, Reasons for Using East Indian Sugar, in which they encouraged British people

to refrain from buying slave-produced West Indian sugar, using arguments such as if persons

continued to use this kind of sugar, let them reflect on what it took to produce it, as seen in this

excerpt, taken from page 15 of the book:

“May every man, before he indulges his appetite with the blood-bought luxury, reflect on the price it cost…Let him bring home the subject home to his heart, and say, as he truly may, this lump cost the poor slave a groan; and this, perhaps, worn down by fatigue and wretchedness and despair, he sunk under his misery and died!”

The British public supported this move and soon there was a decrease in demand for West Indian

sugar. This, combined with the fall in profits, weakened the British West Indian sugar trade.

British planters began to lose their influence socially, politically and economically. When the

British parliament underwent reforms in 1832, most planters lost their positions, which they were

once able to purchase. Now those in opposition of slavery had gained power, which included the

industrialists, and in 1834, the Emancipation Act was passed.

9 | P a g e

Conclusion

Indeed, the efforts of the men and women called humanitarians were integral in securing

slavery’s abolition in the British Empire. Persons such as William Wilberforce, Thomas Fowell

Buxton and Thomas Clarkson played an essential role in making the abolition of slavery a

reality, by sharing the horrors of slavery with the British public and campaigning in the British

parliament. However, the abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean cannot be credited solely

to the humanitarians, as there were other factors involved that helped to bring about this change

in Britain’s operations. Without events such as the Industrial Revolution and the series of slave

revolts in the 18th century, the humanitarians would not have been so successful in their

campaign for abolition.

10 | P a g e

BibliographyAbout.com Inventors. 27 August 2011 <http://inventors.about.com>.

Association, Peckham Ladies African and Anti-Slavery. Reasons for Using East Indian Sugar. London, 1828.

Braithwaite, Edward and Anthony Phillips. The People Who Came. Kingston: Longman

Publishers, 1989.

Claypole, William and John Robottom. Caribbean Story Book 1. Kingston: Longman Publishers,

2001.

Dyde, Brian, Robert Greenwood and Shirley Hamber. Emancipation to Emigration 3rd Edition.

Oxford: Macmillan Caribbean, 2008.

Harveson, Robert M. "History of Sugarbeet Production and Use." CropWatch Web site. 24

August 2011 <http://cropwatch.unl.edu/web/sugarbeets/sugarbeet_history>.

Hochschild, Adam. "Slavery: How the Church of England treated its slaves." October 2006. The

CBS Interactive Business Network. 26 August 2011

<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5391/is_200610/ai_n21399700/?tag=content;col1>.

Media, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New. Teaching History.org. 2010. 27 August

2011 <http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/website-reviews/14607>.

PBS. Africans in America. 27 August 2011 <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h67.html>.

Spartacus Education. 27 August 2011 <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk>.

The Abolition Project. 2009. 26 August 2011 <http://abolition.e2bn.org>.

11 | P a g e

Appendix

Machine Inventor Date Powered By Uses“Spinning Jenny”

James Hargreaves

1770 Steam To increase production of cotton

Steam Engine James Watt Late 1760s Steam To increase cloth production

Spinning Mule Samuel Crompton

1775 Water To increase cloth production

Power Loom Edmund Cartwright

1785 Steam, mechanically operated

To increase cloth production

Table 1: Inventions created during the Industrial Revolution

CaptureOne day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both. My sister and I were separated and I ended up in the hands of a slave dealer who supplied the Atlantic slave ships. Six months later I found myself on board a slave ship.

The Middle PassageThe closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. The air soon became unfit for breathing, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died. This wretched situation was made worse by the chains. The shrieks of women, and the groaning of the dying, created a scene of horror almost unbelievable. Three desperate slaves tried to kill themselves by jumping overboard. Two drowned, the other was captured and beaten unmercifully. When I refused to eat, I too was beaten. Extract 2, From ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano’ by Olaudah Equiano.

“Every day I saw the most dreadful scenes of misery and cruelty. My miserable companions were often cruelly lashed, and as it were cut to pieces. I saw a slave receive twenty four lashes of the whip for being seen in church on a Sunday instead of going to work."Extract 3, From ‘Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Human Species’ by Quobna Ottobah Cugoano."Is it not strange to think, that they who ought to be considered as the most learned and civilized people in the world, that they should carry on a traffic of the most barbarous cruelty and injustice, and that many think slavery, robbery and murder no crime?"Extract 4, From ‘Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Human Species’ by Quobna Ottobah Cugoano.

12 | P a g e

Extract 1, From ‘‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano’ by Olaudah Equiano.