The Abolition of the British Slave Trade Sofía Muñoz Valdivieso (Málaga, Spain)

2007 marks the bicentenary of the Abolition of individual protagonists of the abolitionist cause, the Slave Trade in the British Empire. On 25 the most visible in the 2007 commemorations March 1807 Parliament passed an Act that put will probably be the Yorkshire MP William an end to the legal transportation of Africans Wilberforce, whose heroic fight for abolition in across the Atlantic, and although the institution Parliament is depicted in the film production of of slavery was not abolished until 1834, the 1807 Amazing Grace, appropriately released in Act itself was indeed a historic landmark. Britain on Friday, 23 March, the weekend of Conferences, exhibitions and educational the bicentenary. The film reflects the traditional projects are taking place in 2007 to view that places Wilberforce at the centre of commemorate the anniversary, and many the antislavery process as “the man who came different British institutions are getting involved to personify the abolition campaign” (Walvin in an array of events that bring to public view 157), to the detriment of other less visible but two hundred years later not only the equally crucial figures in the abolitionist parliamentary process whereby the trading in movement, such as Thomas Clarkson, Granville human flesh was made illegal (and the Sharp and many others, including the black antislavery campaign that made it possible), but voices who in their first-person accounts also what the Victoria and Albert Museum revealed to British readers the cruelty of the exhibition calls the “Uncomfortable Truths” of slave system. Amazing Grace captures the British involvement in the slave trade. Some of essential participation in the campaign of these events make an effort to qualify the Quakers and abolitionists such as Clarkson, celebratory mode and shift the focus from Olaudah Equiano, or the former slave ship Britain’s enlightened role as beacon of the captain John Newton, but because of its focus humanitarian defence of slaves’ rights to wider on the parliamentary fight the film presents the issues of past and present slavery as they abolitionist struggle as resting fundamentally on confront “the irony that many of the museums the shoulders of William Wilberforce, the MP and galleries marking the bicentenary have who started submitting bills against the slave historically benefited from the wealth generated trade in Parliament in 1791 and who, despite by slave trading” (Behrman). repeated defeats, maintained his focus against The passing of the Abolition Act in Parliament slavery until he died one month before in 1807 was the successful ending of a struggle Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act in that had started in the 1780s and had involved 1833. many different people, both well-known The Amazing Grace website makes an effort historical figures and anonymous individuals to underline the role of the film as a springboard who published against slavery in the press, for wider engagement in contemporary issues signed petitions, participated in boycotts of of slavery and offers educational links on the slave-produced sugar and attended crowded topic of slavery as well as an outline of a project halls for events that made the abolition related to the abolition of modern-day slavery. movement “soon renowned for the size and Like most of the 2007 commemorations, the film enthusiasm of its public meetings” (Walvin attempts to widen its audience’s perspectives 155)—without forgetting the acts of resistance on slavery: of the slaves themselves who in the colonies It was in 1807 that the long, arduous anti-slave trade escaped, resisted and rebelled. The antislavery campaign spearheaded by William Wilberforce resulted campaign in Britain was the first genuine mass in the passing of the abolition bill in the British movement in the country and its appeal crossed Parliament. The March 2007 release date of the film is purposeful, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of social and class boundaries. Among the 41 The European English Messenger 16.1 (2007)

the abolition of slave trade in Great Britain. In Objections to the trade in Britain emerged first conjunction with the release of Amazing Grace, our Amazing Change campaign and partners, a campaign amongst the Quakers and in May 1783 Quakers encouraging us all to take action on behalf of social in London presented a petition against the trade justice throughout the world Through this film and to the Houses of Parliament. That same year campaign, we rekindle one luminous story of one “great the shocking story of the Liverpool slaver Zong soul” and the good he sought to do. We hope it leads to brought to public view one more horrifying the telling and re-telling of many other stories for years to come (Amazing Grace: Educational Resource). aspect of the trade, the practice of throwing Although the promotion live slaves overboard for campaign for Amazing commercial interests. The Grace adapts the wording captain of the Zong had of the famous hymn to ordered the drowning of summarize the production in 133 slaves at sea to claim the simple outline “A nation insurance for damaged was blind until one man goods upon his return, and made them see”, the film the case was indeed website acknowledges that presented in court as an the story of William insurance claim which the Wilberforce is just one point captain won. Throughout of entry to many other the years Quakers would stories with their different remain prominent in the resonance and importance, abolitionist battle, “possibly and the many commem- because many Quaker orations of the Abolition of families had profited the Slave Trade in 2007 substantially from their across the country will involvement in the trade and indeed provide varied considered their partici- perspectives into a complex pation in the abolitionist past event whose rever- campaign a means of berations continue in the alleviating their guilt” present. The hymn “Amaz- (Thomas 33). When the ing Grace” that has provided Society for Effecting the the title of the film was Abolition of the Slave Trade written by John Newton in was founded in 1787, nine 1772, a full twenty years out of its twelve committee before he actually became involved in the members were Quakers, who sensed that the abolition movement with the publication of a advancement of the cause would depend to a powerful pamphlet, Thoughts upon the African great extent on their ability to bring the distant Slave Trade (1788), in which he gave an and rather vague reality of slavery closer to the account of the institution from his first-hand British public. In order to achieve this they perspective as a former slave ship captain. searched throughout of the country for relevant Newton, an Anglican clergyman since 1764, had testimonies and physical evidence that could remained silent in his sermons on the issue of provide a more accurate vision of slavery, and slavery for many years, but seemed to have indeed some of their findings such as the been shaken by the information campaign staged diagram of the slaver Brookes would become in the previous months by Thomas Clarkson and emblems of the fight against slavery. The person the Quakers, who certainly felt that “having a that travelled most in search of information and prominent Anglican clergyman like Newton on witnesses was Thomas Clarkson, the author of record was a coup for the committee” a 1786 essay on slavery that helped win over (Hochschild 131). William Wilberforce to the antislavery cause.

42 Clarkson became the movement’s main no one to be a slave in England itself. Slave researcher as he travelled 35,000 miles around owners of course felt differently, but case law Britain between 1787 and 1794, giving lectures on the subject was scant and unclear, and there and looking for testimonies and physical were simply no statutes allowing, forbidding or evidence that could be presented in Parliament regulating slavery in the British Isles” in the case against the slave trade, such as (Hochschild 46). Lord Mansfield was careful chains, manacles, iron collars and branding to cast his decision in a way that allowed irons. The final success of Somerset to be freed the movement hinged upon without implying that all a number of “brilliant slaves in the country had alliances [and] this between the right to freedom. Clarkson and the Quakers Although misinterpreted by was the first one” (Hoch- many black and white schild 95). William Wilber- contemporaries as a ruling force was the central against slavery, the deci- parliamentary figure of the sion in the Somerset case antislavery movement, but was that a slave could not Clarkson was its main be removed from England organiser, and indeed against his wishes—a the public campaign—the ruling that despite its popular agitation in the limitations has been seen by country at large—was inspired some historians as the first and led by Thomas Clarkson, abolition’s indefatigable foot signal of the end of slavery soldier: lecturer, traveller and in Britain. The case of researcher. Clarkson was the Somerset was not the first man who helped to transform one that Granville Sharp, the public’s vague sense that initially an obscure clerk in there was something wrong with the Atlantic slave trade the Ordnance Office, had into a powerful and focused fought in court in defence national voice of wide-spread of slaves; it was neverthe- and strident oppo-sition. less the one that made him Clarkson stirred up, and then more visible and brought channelled, this voice (Walvin 157-58). some hope about freedom: The antislavery campaign “On the evening of the 22nd had nevertheless started in the English law of June 1772, blacks in London had no doubt at courts twenty years earlier with Granville all that there was reason to celebrate, and they Sharp’s efforts to bring cases against owners did so at a party at Dr Johnson’s house organized in Britain that forcefully wanted to remove by his servant Francis Barber” (Schama 63). slaves to the colonies. Sharp became best known Lord Mansfield’s ruling of 1772 proved to be a after the famous Somerset case of 1772 and momentous occasion precisely because it was Lord Mansfield’s subsequent ruling. James misinterpreted by many as an indication that, Somerset was a slave from Virginia that had as was often couched in the press of the time, come to England with his owner and had the air of England was too pure for slaves to escaped; his owner claimed the right to send breathe.1 him to the West Indies after his recapture, and It is significant that the Abolition members, Granville Sharp brought the case to the court who were gathering first-hand evidence on the of King’s Bench, Britain’s highest criminal court, slave trade from people directly involved in it, presided over by Lord Chief Justice Mansfield: did not attempt to seek the voices of the African “Sharp argued forcefully that the law allowed slaves who could certainly provide an insider’s

43 The European English Messenger 16.1 (2007) perspective on the institution. As Hochschild These domestic servants of the upper classes points out, the campaign’s paternalistic attitude were only the top of the social scale of blacks so well summarized by Wedgwood’s pottery in the country, a population that included a few image of a kneeling chained black with the motto well-known figures, among them some free “Am I not a Man and a Brother?” owes much men. The numbers of deprived blacks in Britain to the fact that the campaigners’ final target at the end of the century were significantly were the Members of Parliament, who “might larger and the situation of the black destitute in be moved by pity, but certainly not by a passion London was so extreme that in 1786 the for equality” (134). The voices of the almost Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor was half a million slaves in the British Caribbean created to provide health care, clothing and jobs plantations at the time may have been indeed for needy black people. The Committee soon too distant for British people to hear—except approved a plan to transport the black population when they staged rebellions, in particular the of London to the coast of Africa, so that they revolt that would eventually lead to the could live as free men in a town to be founded independence of the French colony of Saint in Sierra Leona which would be called Granville Dominique. There were, however, increasing Town to honour Granville Sharp, an initiative numbers of both free and slave Africans in their that some historians have interpreted as “more midst, especially after 1783, when loyalist blacks like social convenience than utopian idealism” who had been granted freedom by joining the (Schama 185). The time of the transportation British forces against the American rebels to Sierra Leone coincides with the beginning of emigrated to Canada and London.2 Owing to the antislavery campaign in the 1780s, a the scarcity of reliable data, what Norma Myers movement that would eventually incorporate the calls “the black numbers conundrum” (18) will voices of some former slaves. probably never be solved, but at the time of the First-person narratives by Africans now living Somerset case in 1772 the usual estimated figure in Britain contributed to the abolition campaign was 15,000 and recent calculations range by providing first-hand accounts of the harsh between 10,000 (Folarin Shyllon, Peter Fryer realities of slavery in the voices of individuals and Norma Myers) and 14,000-20,000 (Vincent who had themselves undergone the Middle Carretta). There is agreement as to the Passage and lived as slaves on plantations. significantly smaller numbers of females in the These were the stories of former enslaved country—in Felicity Nussbaum’s estimate as Africans such as Ottobah Cuogano, Ukawsaw few as twenty percent of the total (167), and Gronniosaw and Olaudah Equiano. In his black men are much more conspicuous than Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and black women in the artistic manifestations of Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce the time, when the liveried pageboy of African of the Human Species (1787) Ottobah origin became a fashionable possession to signal Cuogano devoted only five pages of his invective social status and as such “a motif in against the trade to his life story, but his volume contemporary paintings, textiles, prints, went through at least three printings in 1787, porcelain, and poetry” (Molineux 498). Painters was translated into French and was revised for loved black pages for the visual contrast and another edition four years later, when “Cuogano drama they lent to portraits, and the subjects drops from sight [and] we know nothing of what loved what their inclusion said about their own happened to him” (Hochschild 136). Both economic status (Gerzina 17). These boys were Gronniosaw and Equiano provide fuller flaunted as prized ornaments by their masters narratives of their personal experience of and especially their mistresses and became slavery prior to their settlement as free men in highly-valued status symbols for the few who Britain. In A Narrative of the Most Remark- could afford them, fashionable exotic objects able Particulars in the Life of James Albert that were frequently associated in paintings with Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, the consumption of foreign luxury good such as Written by Himself (1772), Gronniosaw sugar, tea, tobacco, and coffee (Tobin 27). narrates his story from his capture in Africa 44 through slavery to a life of poverty as a free Joseph Nollekens, and his portrait was painted man with his English wife in Britain. In The by Thomas Gainsborough, so that for many Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah contemporaries Sancho became a symbol of the Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. humanity and intellectual achievement of Written by Himself (1789) Equiano offers a Africans. detailed account of his life as a slave and Olaudah Equiano and Ignatius Sancho have becomes the first writer of African origin who been chosen by the Royal Mail for its series of tries to assert his identity as a Briton: “[H]e is six commemorative stamps featuring British by acculturation and choice [H]e contemporary portraits of prominent aboli- adopts the cultural, political, religious, and social tionists of the time, the others being William values that enable him to be accepted as British” Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson (Carretta xvii). Although in recent years there and Hannah More.4 The selection tries to grant has been some speculation as to whether visibility to the different forces working together Equiano did indeed undergo the Middle Passage in the antislavery campaign that finally brought or was actually born in South Carolina,3 the the abolition of the slave trade to a successful version of his life that is generally accepted is conclusion in 1807, after a period in the 1790s the one provided in his autobiography: Equiano when enthusiasm was low as a result of the was enslaved at around the age of eleven in war situation and the many obstacles to social Africa and transported to the Americas but reform. The stamps thus honour the black voices managed to buy his freedom after years serving that contributed to the abolition movement, the a Royal Navy officer on various vessels and many women who became involved in the later working in commerce in the West Indies. campaign, as well as the movement’s three As a free man in Britain he was very active in more emblematic figures: the forerunner of the antislavery movement, giving lectures, abolition in the courts of law Granville Sharp, writing letters and collaborating with members the parliamentary leader William Wilberforce, of the Abolition committee. His major and the movement’s main organiser and agitator contribution to the fight against slavery was the Thomas Clarkson. Many relevant people parti- publication of his extremely successful cipated in the process, and any single narrative Interesting Narrative, a book that very quickly of the fight for abolition can hardly hope to sold out its first edition of more than seven weave in all of their stories. Different events hundred copies. The book was translated into across the UK this year will provide an Dutch, German and Russian, and went through appropriately complex array of perspectives and eight more editions within his lifetime, “each angles on the commemoration as museums, prefaced by an ever-lengthening list of archives, libraries and other cultural institutions subscribers—people who had ordered copies across the country become involved in and paid half the book’s price in advance, commemorative activities. As may be expected, thereby financing the printing costs” given their major role in the slave trade, (Hochschild, 170). Rather visible in its own time Liverpool, Bristol and London will host a great were also the letters of Ignatius Sancho, a former number of events this year, but activities related slave who maintained a prolific correspondence to the commemorations are found in almost with key artistic and intellectual figures and every location in the UK, from Hull to whose letters were an immediate best-seller Portsmouth, and from Glasgow to Birmingham. when they were published two years after his The events typically highlight the connections death in 1782. Just as the Interesting Narrative of each place with the abolition process or more presented an African as a man of considerable generally with the slave trade and its talent, Sancho’s letters helped circulate the consequences. The range of events is extra- image of another former slave as an intelligent ordinary, from the Portsmouth exhibition and refined man of sentiment. Sancho’s circle “Chasing Freedom: The Royal Navy and the of friends included eighteenth-century artists Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade” such as David Garrick, Laurence Sterne and that presents the Royal Navy’s role in combating 45 The European English Messenger 16.1 (2007) the trade, to the reopening of William trading of slaves and in the abolition movement, Wilberforce’s House Museum in Hull with new and the British Empire and Commonwealth exhibits showing his role in Parliament as well Museum in the city opens an exhibition entitled as contemporary slavery issues; from a series “Breaking the Chains” to remember and of lectures and exhibitions “Towards commemorate the events, people and actions Understanding Slavery—Past and Present” in that made the 1807 Act so significant a part of Glasgow museums to “The Equiano Project” in British history. Birmingham celebrating his life and times with a In London the British Museum has prepared multimedia and multidisciplinary programme of “The Atlantic Trade and Identity Season” exhibitions, educational resources and events. featuring a series of exhibitions, displays and In August 2007 the International Slavery events that explore transatlantic trade and its Museum will open in Liverpool to replace the relationship to slavery, resistance and diasporas, Transatlantic Slavery Gallery at Merseyside and Museum in Docklands has received funds Maritime Museum. It will be located close to from the Heritage Lottery Fund to open in the dry docks where slave trading ships were October the only permanent museum gallery to repaired and fitted out in the eighteenth century, explore London’s relationship with the and it will be devoted to the history of slavery transatlantic slave trade. The new gallery will be and its forms in the contemporary world. The called London, Sugar and Slavery and will show International Slavery Museum plans to how the slave trade has shaped the capital since collaborate with other museums and institutions the seventeenth century and funded much of the to provide greater awareness and understanding city’s industrial and financial success. The gallery of the legacy of slavery today. Liverpool became will emphasise the role of the slaves themselves Europe’s capital of the transatlantic slave trade, and the grass-root efforts of many people in the and at the end of the eighteenth century it process that led to the abolition of the slave trade. controlled up to 60 per cent of the British slave The historian Steve Martin has devised a walk trade. The city is hosting many other activities around Westminster that highlights events and related to the trade and its abolition, including a individuals involved in the campaign to abolish lecture programme to be held at Merseyside the slave trade. This map has been jointly Maritime Museum throughout the year and a produced by the National Gallery, the National multi-faith Service of Penitence at Liverpool Portrait Gallery, Parliament, Tate Britain, Cathedral in March. Another city directly Westminster City Archives, and Westminster involved in the slave trade, Bristol, prepares a City Council, all of whom are hosting exhibitions series of events for 2007 called ‘Abolition 200’ and programmes of events linked to the in which the university plays a major part. Bicentenary, such as the “Portraits, People and Among them we find an exhibition, Abolition” exhibition at the National Portrait “Documenting Slavery and the Abolition Gallery, a trail that highlights some of the Controversy”, a display of original manuscript individuals in the collection who in different ways and printed material from the University Library, were associated with the slave trade. including the correspondence of a slave-trading An exhibition at the Victoria and Albert captain and the administrative records of Museum is significantly entitled “Uncomfortable plantations, and a series of lectures jointly Truths: Traces of the Trade” and is part of a convened by historians and human rights series of events including talks and debates, experts at the University of Bristol and the dance, music, theatre performances, and film University of the West of England, not only on that will be staged at the museum throughout the history of the transatlantic slave trade but the year to remember slavery. The exhibition also on present-day forms of social injustice, takes visitors through the permanent collections such as human trafficking, forced labour, debt in what the leaflet describes as discovery trails bondage and trade inequity. “The Bristol Slave that explore the links between art, design and Trade Walks” guide visitors through the the transatlantic slave trade. The tours pass run shipyards, docks and houses involved in the through the collections to highlight objects 46 related to slavery in five different itineraries: Anniversary of the End of the British Atlantic “Consuming the Black Atlantic”, “Black Slave Trade”, which will reflect on the struggles Servants in British Homes”, “Britain and the of enslaved peoples and abolitionists to end the West Indies”, “Representing Slavery and British slave trade, as well as the impact of Abolitionism”, and “Gold and Slaves: emancipation on Caribbean societies and the Transnational Trade Links”. The trails are not legacies of slavery in the postcolonial world. A easy to follow, their objects at times deeply complete list of academic events would be very buried in the very rich museum collections much longer, but even a sample such as this (sometimes almost hidden in unnumbered demonstrates how the bicentenary commem- cases). The difficulties in following the trails orations resonate differently in their different can be perceived as an unintended metaphor contexts. for the difficulties that contemporaries using the A number of journals such as EnterText or exhibited objects may have had in finding images Patterns of Prejudice are producing special of slavery in their comfortable everyday lives, issues devoted to the 200th anniversary, and as, for instance, in the delicate porcelain and several books related to the issue of abolition silverware related to the consumption of coffee, and slavery have been published in this chocolate, sugar, tobacco and rum. bicentenary year, in which a few bookshops Among the institutions that are taking part in have allotted special window and shop space the commemorations of the abolition of the slave to the display of volumes related to the trade are several British universities that are commemoration. EnterText will publish two organizing different events around the special issues, “Abolition’s Bicentenary: The bicentenary with different approaches and Black Atlantic Then and Now” and “Human emphases, including conferences related to the Rights, Human Wrongs: Slaveries and Freedoms commemoration. In March the University of Today”. Patterns of Prejudice will publish Southampton and the Chawton House Library Imagining Transatlantic Slavery and Aboli- co-sponsored “Imagining Transatlantic Slavery tion, an issue that explores the relationship and Abolition”, a conference exploring cultural between history, memory and transatlantic and historical representations of slavery and slavery, with articles covering historical and abolition from the eighteenth century through contemporary examples in all the geographical the present and the relationship between history, areas involved in the transatlantic trade. Among cultural memory and transatlantic slavery. In the volumes on slavery and abolition published April the University of York organised the in the bicentenary year we have James Walvin’s conference “Abolitions 1807-2007: Ending the A Short History of Slavery and The Trader, Slave Trade in the Transatlantic World”, looking the Owner, the Slave: Parallel Lives in the at the impact of the formal abolition in 1807 of Age of Slavery, Richard S. Reddie’s Abolition! the slave trade in the Atlantic world. The The Struggle to Abolish Slavery in the British conference was also designed to reconsider the Colonies, and Marika Sherwood’s After voices of abolition and to explore the longer- Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade since term meaning and legacy of abolition in the 1807. Like the abolition commemorations, each twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For July one has a different resonance and import: one the Centre for Romantic Studies at Bristol of Walvin’s volumes offers a very general University is preparing “Emancipation, survey of world slavery, while the other brings Liberation, Freedom”, linking the bicentenary together the experiences of John Newton, to the significant resonances of those three Thomas Thistlewood and Olaudah Equiano, concepts in the Romantic period. And also in Reddie’s book focuses on the contributions of July, in a very different context, the Centre for Africans themselves to their liberation and the Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick ambivalent role played by the Christian hosts an interdisciplinary conference with the churches, while Sherwood’s work concentrates title “Free At Last? An Interdisciplinary on the continuation of British involvement in Conference to Commemorate The Bicentennial slavery and the slave trade after the formal 47 The European English Messenger 16.1 (2007) abolition of 1807, which she insists is an acknowledge the many possible accounts of a overlooked aspect in historical accounts: very complex story involving many lives and British merchants, shipbuilders, insurers, bankers, many efforts. The different events highlight manufacturers and many workers as well as investors varied aspects of this historic landmark and profited from this trade and the use of slaves on resonate in different ways as they try to avoid plantations, farms and mines until the final abolition unqualified celebrations. The overall impression of slavery, in 1880 in Cuba and in 1888 in Brazil (3). is that the commemorations will provide a The slave trade that had begun during the sufficiently rounded picture of abolition and the reign of Elizabeth I when John Hawkins led the British involvement in the slave trade, so that first slaving expedition in 1562 was formally we can be satisfied that “the bicentenary does abolished in 1807. The Abolition of the Slave not privilege abolition at the expense of the Trade Act did not end slavery in the British horrors that occurred” (Thieme 3). As Empire, nor did it mean the definite conclusion Behrman indicates, of British involvement in the slave trade, but the bicentenary could easily be seen as a chance for the formal ending of legal transportation is celebration and national redemption, a salve by indeed a historic landmark worth commem- which a traumatic episode can be safely confined orating. Museums, libraries, universities and to yesteryear. Thankfully many of the exhibitions commemorating the event have recognised it as an other cultural institutions mark the occasion with opportunity for continuing debate about an issue specific displays and events that try to that is, unfortunately, very much alive (14).

Notes

1. “Almost everyone believed that Mansfield had indeed outlawed slavery in England, including many lower-court judges who subsequently ruled against more than a dozen masters trying to assert ownership over slaves on English soil” (Hochschild 50). 2. For an excellent account of the role of black loyalists in the American Revolution, see Simon Schama. 3. See Vincent Carretta, Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2005. Against Carretta’s argumentation see Paul E. Lovejoy, “Autobiography and Memory: Gustavus Vassa, alias Olaudah Equiano, the African”. Slavery and Abolition 27.3 (2006): 317-47. 4.The Royal Mint is producing a £2 coin featuring on the reverse a design of chains with one link broken and the edge inscription “Am I not a Man and a Brother?”, the anti-slavery motto of Josiah Wedgwood’s seal. References Amazing Grace: Educational Resource. March 2007. Behrman, Pryle. “Slavery 1807-2007”. Galleries Magazine, April 2007, 14. Carretta, Vincent. “Introduction”. The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings. By Olaudah Equiano. Ed Vincent Carretta. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995. ix-xxviii. Fryer, Peter. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto, 1984. Gerzina, Gretchen. Black England: Life before Emancipation. London: John Murray, 1995. Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery. London: Macmillan, 2005. Molineux, Catherine. “Hogarth’s Fashionable Slaves: Moral Corruption in Eighteenth-Century London”. ELH 72 (2005): 495-520. Myers, Norma. Reconstructing the Black Past: Blacks in Britain 1780-1830. London: Routledge, 2003 (1996). Nussbaum, Felicity A. The Limits of the Human: Fictions of Anomaly, Race and Gender in the Long Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Reddie, Richard S. Abolition! The Struggle to Abolish Slavery in the British Colonies. Oxford: Lion House, 2007. Schama, Simon. Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution London: BBC Books, 2005. 48 Sherwood, Marika. After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade since 1807. London: I.B. Taurus, 2007. Shyllon, Folarin. Black People in Britain, 1555-1833. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977. Thieme, John. “Editorial”. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 42.1 (2007): 1-4. Thomas, Helen. Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Tobin, Beth Fowkes. Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth-Century British Painting. Durham and London: Duke UP, 1999. Walvin, James. A Short History of Slavery. London: Penguin Books, 2007. _____. The Trader, the Owner, the Slave: Parallel Lives in the Age of Slavery. London: Jonathan Cape, 2007.

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