Abolition of Slavery: British Empire

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Abolition of Slavery

Synopsis

The British Parliament, under the leadership of Prime Minister Earl Grey's Whig government, abolished slavery in the British Empire in 1833, although the slaves were not actually freed until the following year. This act was the culmination of decades of struggle by British abolitionists as well as by rebellious slaves. The freedom granted to hundreds of thousands of slaves, mostly in the Caribbean, was initially incomplete in that many were put forcibly into apprenticeships. The remaining apprenticeships were abolished in 1838, however, and slaves became free laborers. In many areas, the ex-slaves became poor but independent peasants and were replaced as laborers by people from India working under harsh contracts. British slavery abolition contributed to the dissolution of the sugar plantation economy in the British Caribbean and was a key step in the abolition of African slavery in the Americas.

Timeline

1809: Progressive British industrialist Robert Owen proposes an end to employment of children in his factories. When his partners reject the idea, he forms an alliance with others of like mind, including philosopher Jeremy Bentham.
1813: Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice.
1818: Donkin, Hall & Gamble "Preservatory" in London produces the first canned foods.
1824: Ludwig van Beethoven composes his Ninth Symphony.
1829: Greece wins its independence after a seven-year war with Turkey.
1831: Unsuccessful Polish revolt against Russian rule occurs.
1834: British mathematician Charles Babbage completes drawings for the "analytic engine," a forerunner of the modern computer that he never builds.
1834: American inventor Cyrus H. McCormick patents his reaper, a horse-drawn machine for harvesting wheat.
1835: American inventor and painter Samuel F. B. Morse constructs an experimental version of his telegraph, and American inventor Samuel Colt patents his revolver.
1837: Queen Victoria is crowned in England.
1841: Act of Union joins Upper Canada and Lower Canada, which consist of parts of the present-day provinces of Ontario and Quebec respectively.
1846: American inventor Elias Howe patents his sewing machine.

Event and Its Context

The Revival of Abolitionism

The British abolitionist movement, which had become quiescent after the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807, began to revive in the 1820s. Leadership passed from William Wilberforce, abolition's champion for many years, to Zachary Macaulay and Thomas Fowell Buxton. The Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery, a new group that incorporated many abolitionist leaders, was the force behind the movement throughout the British Dominions. The group, which was more commonly known as the Anti-Slavery Society, was founded in 1823. Buxton, the parliamentary leader of abolitionism throughout the period, introduced in the House of Commons that year a measure for the gradual abolition of slavery but was outmaneuvered by the government leadership.

Abolitionist pressure led the British government to pass some mild measures of "melioration," such as banning flogging of female slaves and requiring slave families to be kept together rather than broken up by sale. The religious motivations of many antislavery activists are evident in the requirement for religious instruction of slaves and the ban on Sunday markets. Even these weak measures were defeated by the resistance of the West India planters, particularly in those islands where they controlled the institutions of local self-government. It was necessary to coerce the assemblies on self-governing islands such as Jamaica, which held about half the British Caribbean slave population, to pass amelioration acts of their own after much foot-dragging. Jamaica, the most populous sugar island, was marked by the most rebellious slaves and the most hard-line planters. The "Crown Colonies," which were governed directly from London, presented much less challenge to amelioration. These colonies included areas taken in the Napoleonic wars, such as Trinidad. In both legislative and crown colonies, however, the British government suffered from a lack of officials free from ties to the planter class to enforce the amelioration program.

Despite the success of the planters in the struggle against amelioration, their overall position had greatly deteriorated since the 18th century. For industrializing Britain, the sugar islands were not nearly as important as either source of wealth or as markets for exports as they had been. The end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 and the opening up of new areas of sugar cultivation also led to a world decline in the price of sugar. Planters, allied on this issue with some of the Church of England clergy, were also concerned about the increased activity of Methodist and Dissenting missionaries among the slave population, but their steps to limit or end it led to increased opposition on the part of politically influential Methodists and Dissenters in Britain itself.

Whigs and Abolitionists

Slavery and emancipation were important issues in the parliamentary election of 1830, which manifested the strength of antislavery sentiment in many areas of the country and replaced the Tories, generally viewed as sympathetic to slave owners, with the Whigs under the leadership of Prime Minister Earl Grey. In 1831 the new government conceded to abolitionist pressure by freeing slaves who belonged to the crown. Buxton's motion in April for Parliament to take up the question of general emancipation, however, was stymied by the government's indifference. Grey's son, Henry George Grey, Lord Howick, undersecretary of state for the colonies, who personally supported abolition, announced in Parliament that the government had no plans to carry it through.

A slave revolt on Jamaica around Christmas 1831, known as the "Baptist War," was the largest slave revolt in the history of the British Caribbean and accelerated the movement toward emancipation. The leader of the revolt, Sam Sharpe, based his organization on existing religious groups and tried to keep violence to a minimum. Insurgents included calls for the abolition of slavery in their demands. Far more violence was used in suppressing the short-lived rebellion than the rebels themselves used. The planter-dominated Jamaican government executed 312 rebels, including Sharpe, in addition to those killed in battle. Some planters pointed to the revolt to press for a halt to the abolitionist campaign and the activities of missionaries in the West Indies, but British antislavery forces responded to the Baptist War by blaming the repressive measures of the planters for the revolt and pressing for immediate emancipation. Although most of the Whig leaders, including Grey, did not share the antislavery zeal of the abolitionist forces—indeed, some were absentee slaveowners themselves—the government agreed that the West Indian situation warranted reform. Antislavery activity was rising throughout the country. Buxton responded to the new situation by calling for a vote in the House of Commons on immediate emancipation in May 1832. The motion lost by 162 votes to 90.

The reform bill of 1832, which made the House of Commons more representative of the middle classes and the industrial towns, also had the effect of decreasing the power of the West India interest. In the general election that followed the bill, antislavery campaigners vigorously pressed their cause, distributing pamphlets and placards and breaking up proslavery meetings. Constituency groups required parliamentary candidates to pledge to work against slavery. Following the election, the Baptist missionary William Knibb, a powerful speaker, arrived in Britain from Jamaica and became a star of the antislavery lecture circuit. Knibb, who exposed the cruelties of planters and the religious intolerance and complicity with slavery of the Church of England in Jamaica, was particularly popular among dissenters.

Henry Whitely's Three Months in Jamaica (1833) became another important piece of antislavery propaganda of the period.

The Abolition Act

At an 1833 meeting, the new Parliament received antislavery petitions with over a million and a half signatories. Proslavery interests were also active and organized some large demonstrations. However, the weakness of the proslavery side was evident in their inability to use arguments justifying slavery as a positive good, which was the traditional justification based on the supposedly civilizing or Christianizing power of slavery as an institution. Instead, slavery apologists were reduced to a pragmatic argument that emancipation would destroy the West Indian sugar industry and cause untold damage to the British Empire.

The Whig government, although it viewed some form of emancipation as necessary and desirable, was not enthusiastic, and was particularly concerned with safeguarding as much as possible the position of the planters. Some hesitated because slave emancipation seemed an attack on the property rights of slave owners, and property rights were, in the Whig view, to be protected rather than attacked by government. The government-written King's Speech that was delivered at the ceremonial opening of Parliament on 15 February contained no reference to emancipation. (King William IV's personal opposition to emancipation also contributed to Whig hesitation.) Outraged, Buxton informed the Whig leaders that he intended to bring in another emancipation bill. The government convinced him to withdraw by promising to bring in their own measure. In March, however, to prod the government further, Buxton had to again threaten to bring in a motion. Government leaders were caught between abolitionists in Britain and the representatives of the West Indian sugar planters and merchants. The planters knew that they could not stop emancipation but were determined to hedge it with such restrictions that it would be emancipation in name only and would preserve preferred British access to the sugar market. A committee representing the "West India Interest" succeeded in blocking an emancipation plan that had been drawn up by Viscount Howick, provoking his resignation. The new colonial secretary, Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley, published a moderate plan for emancipation in the London Times on 11 May. Three days later, parliamentary debate on slavery began. Buxton presented a new petition with the signatures of 187,000 women.

The government's plan, explicated by Stanley in a speech on 14 May, attempted to balance between the consensus for some form of abolition and the demands of the planters. The plan provided the planters with a loan of 15 million pounds as compensation for their lost property, a sum said to equal 10 years' profits. The newly freed slaves would be required to work for three-quarters of their working hours for their former owners as apprentices for 12 years. Slaves under the age of six would be freed immediately. The plan was unacceptable to parliamentary abolitionists. Negotiations produced a compromise. The period of apprenticeship was cut to four years for domestic slaves and six for fieldworkers; the apprenticeships were to be overseen by salaried magistrates sent from Britain rather than by local justices of the peace, who were usually drawn from the planter class. Compensation for planters, however, was increased to 20 million pounds and converted from a loan to an outright grant. Some abolitionists were appalled by the idea of the apprenticeships and compensation for the planters, but the parliamentary abolitionist leadership went along with the idea for the purpose of passing the bill. After it received minor amendments in the House of Lords, the bill passed the Commons on 31 July 1833. Actual emancipation would take place at midnight on 31 July 1834.

Although it was still necessary to obtain the consent of local legislatures in those colonies that possessed them, this was done with little difficulty by the simple device of making the payment of compensation contingent on the local legislature's passing an emancipation act of its own. Despite the widespread fears that had been encouraged by the proslavery interests, emancipation passed without violence (which would later serve as an example for American abolitionists of peaceful emancipation). Many slaves spent the day in church. The day was also recognized with public ceremonies in Britain itself.

The Failure of Apprenticeship

It was the hope of most British abolitionists that the sugar economy of the British West Indies could continue after abolition, with free wage labor and humane conditions replacing slave labor. The apprenticeship system had two main purposes: to ensure continuing social control of the former slaves and to keep a steady labor force on the plantations. The first purpose seemed less important over time as emancipation was accompanied by little violence or social unrest. Maintaining a steady supply of labor, however, proved impossible, as newly freed blacks preferred individual peasant cultivation to the exhausting, dangerous, and painful work of the sugar plantation.

Apprenticeship did not last its full term. The colonial legislatures of Antigua, where planters cooperated to fix wages at a low level, and Bermuda waived apprenticeship in 1833. Both islands were marked by a surplus of labor and a shortage of available land, which narrowed the economic options of the freed slaves. Similar conditions existed on Barbados and St. Kitts, as well as some of the smaller islands. Apprenticeship produced the most strain on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, Trinidad, Guyana, and especially Jamaica in the Caribbean. Jamaica, a sugar colony for centuries, suffered from exhausted land and outmoded equipment and physical plant. Jamaican planters compensated for the weakness of their situation relative to more recent colonies by harshly exploiting their apprentices. Jamaica also suffered a shortage of plantation labor and extensive territory that was unsuited for sugar cultivation but was well suited for individual peasant farming. Stories of atrocities in the apprenticeship system, workhouses, and savage punishments meted out to former slaves circulated back to England. Knibb, who had returned to the West Indies contributed to the stories. Abolitionists began to mobilize to abolish apprenticeship. In 1836 Buxton successfully pressed for a Parliamentary inquiry, but its report was inconclusive. Antislavery leaders continued to press the issue, however, and in May 1838 Parliament passed a motion to abolish the apprenticeship system. The colonial legislatures quickly followed suit. British humanitarians subsequently lost interest in the ex-slave colonies, now something of a backwater in the British Empire, although the campaign against the international slave trade continued.

The planters' and the imperial government's solution to the problems posed by the changed labor relations following emancipation was the importation of contract laborers from India (and to a much lesser extent, Chinese and free Africans). These laborers partly filled the gap left by the departure of the freed slaves, and provided the planters with what they believed was a more docile and regimented labor force. This began in Mauritius, where in the 15 years following emancipation Indians virtually replaced Africans as the primary plantation labor force. The period of importation of Indian labor in the British West Indies extended from 1838 to 1917. Indian labor did not solve the problems of the West Indian sugar industry, which were particularly marked after the British Parliament's abolition of the duties on foreign-grown sugar in 1846 and the worldwide economic slowdown of the late 1840s. Cuba, where slavery was not abolished until 1886, became the leading sugar exporter in the Caribbean.

Key Players

Buxton, Thomas Fowell (1786-1845): A brewer and Whig Member of Parliament, Buxton took over the leadership of the British abolitionist movement from William Wilber-force in 1822 and helped to found the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society the next year. He was the foremost legislative strategist of the abolitionists. After abolition, he wrote The African Slave Trade and Its Remedy (1839), which urged an aggressive British policy to discourage the slave trade in Africa itself. He was also active in the cause of penal reform.

Grey, Charles, Second Earl Grey (1764-1845): Grey was a long-serving Whig politician who became prime minister in 1830. His government carried the great Reform Bill of 1832, extending the British Parliamentary franchise, abolishing slavery, and passing the Factory Act. He resigned as prime minister in 1834.

Grey, Henry Charles, Viscount Howick and Third Earl Grey (1802-1894): The son of Charles Grey served as undersecretary for the colonies, secretary at war (1835-1839), and secretary for war and the colonies (1846-1852). He was a moderate supporter of slave emancipation.

Knibb, William (1803-1845): William Knibb left England for Jamaica in 1824 as a Baptist missionary. Shocked by the cruel treatment of slaves, even by members of his congregation, Knibb became an antislavery activist, and was imprisoned during the suppression of the revolt of 1831, the "Baptist War."

Macaulay, Zachary (1768-1838): The son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, Macaulay was one of the British abolitionists with practical experience of the slave system, having been a clerk on a Caribbean estate and the governor of the British freed slave colony in Africa, Sierra Leone. A voluminous writer and editor of the Anti-Slavery Reporter, he was the father of the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, who also supported slave emancipation as an MP.

Sharpe, Sam (1801-1832): Sharpe was a leader of a Baptist congregation in Montego Bay, Jamaica, who worked to organize resistance to the planters through religious meetings. After the Baptist War of late 1831, Sharpe was hanged by the victorious whites. He became a national hero of Jamaica.

Stanley, Edward George Geoffrey Smith, 14th Earl of Derby (1799-1869): Stanley served as undersecretary for the colonies (1827-1828), chief secretary for Ireland (1830-1833), and secretary for war and the colonies (1833-1834). Later, as Lord Derby, he was the leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister.

Wilberforce, William (1759-1833): William Wilberforce was the leader of the British abolitionist movement for many years. He was one of the original founders of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and served in the House of Commons from 1780 to 1825, largely retiring from active involvement in the antislavery movement around that date. He died a few weeks before the passage of the Abolition Act. A political conservative, Wilberforce also supported repressive policies against British workers including the Combination Acts.

See also: Abolition of Slavery, United States.