: THE HEROES Words Rosemary Goring FREEDOM FIGHTER Zachary Macaulay spent a lifetime gathering evidence to show how appalling slavery was. So why did this quiet witness to inhumanity always let others do the talking?

n 1784 at the age of 16, Zachary Macaulay, sister’s four orphans and was guardian to the indifferent, and could allude to them with a who was working in a merchant’s counting son of one of his nephews. His youngest son levity which sufficiently marked my depravity.” house in , was leading a life that Charlesrecalled hismotherscolding this This sentiment is echoed in a letter from an would have horrified his father, a Highland menagerie of youngsters forchattering too anti-slavery campaigner living in Cape Town, minister. Sent to work in the city when he much. “Letour children talk, Selina,”said who noted, “I have known ladies, born and I was 14 – he was one of 12 children – Macaulay Zachary. “We shall know them better by what educated in England, charitable and benevo- gotintobadcompanyand abandoned the comes out than by what stays in.” lent in their general character, yet capable of douce habits of rural Inveraray where he was He himself, however, was neither garrulous standing over their female slaves while they born for more intoxicating thrills. As he later nor gregarious. Dogged in his pursuit of aboli- were flogged, and afterwards ordering salt and wrote, among otherpleasures,“Ibeganto tion, he became so hated and feared by those pepper to be rubbed into their lacerated flesh.” think excess of wine, so far from being a sin, to with interests in the plantations – known as Gradually, however, Macaulay sickened of be a ground of glorying; and it became one of the West IndiaParty–thattheysetout, the barbarism around him, and after four years the objects of my ambition to be able to see all tabloid-style, to dig up any dirt in his early life of increasing disillusionment he left my companions under the table.” that could be used against him. Interestingly, for . By all accounts his behaviour on But this way of life was to come to a bad end. they never discovered the reason for his hasty his return was boorish, a product, no doubt, of Monthsof drinking,gambling and flirting exitfrom Glasgowasateenager,nordid the company he had kept on the plantation. Yet culminated in an event that remains shadowy, anything else come to light that could damage while he may have looked unpromising mate- but is thought to have involved a woman. As his reputation. Despite a constant barrage of rial for a social reformer, his brother-in-law, Macaulaywroteinhismemoir,“acircum- lampoons and caricatures Macaulay remained ThomasBabington, who hadmarried his stancehappened whichgaveatemporary untarnished and undaunted. sister Jean, saw his potential and introduced suspension to my career of vice and folly, and him to his circle of abolitionist friends, among led toafewsoberreflections.Ithen sawthe them Wilberforce and Sharp. Nobody could only way that remained for extricating myself For almost 50 years have predicted Macaulay’s influence was to be from the Labyrinth in which I was involved, almost as great, if unsung, as theirs. On the was going abroad …” bust erected in his honour on his death in 1838 Whatever form his trouble took, it proved a he rubbed salt into in , he is acknowledged turning point in Macaulay’s career. Without it, forhaving “finallyconferred freedom on he would probablyhavegone on tobecome Britain’s conscience 800,000 slaves”.Even so, manyknowhim The five main one of Glasgow’s many rich merchants, melting onlyasthe fatherof historianThomas abolitionists of the intowealthyand gout-ridden obscurity. On first arriving on the plantation, however, Babington Macaulay. slave trade in Britain: Instead, he wenttoJamaica and became a thoughts of socialreformwerefarfrom his The first step on Zachary Macaulay’s illus- Granville Sharp, book-keeper on a sugar plantation. The years mind. All he wanted to do was fit in. This he trious career was taken when the Anti-Slave Zachary Macaulay, he spenttheretransformed him intoa managed, despitethe pricking of his Trade Committee, led by Wilberforce, sent , passionate advocate of eradicating slavery. conscience. In a letter to a friend, he described him out to a new trading colony at Freetown Thomas Fowell Largely because he insisted on anonymity in his new life, “The air of this island has some in SierraLeone.The SierraLeone trading Buxton and Thomas all his anti-slavery work, Macaulay is pitifully peculiarquality in it,forno soonerdoesa company, of which he quickly became governor, Clarkson. Macaulay unknowninthe history of the abolitionof person set foot on it than his former ways of had been established as a place for freed slaves was called a “walking slavery. Looking out from a portrait of five of thinking are entirely changed. The contagion to run their own businesses. Despite a desper- encyclopedia” on the main abolitionists in the National Gallery of an universal example must indeed have its ately unhealthy climate for westerners – 57 of abolitionism by his alongside WilliamWilberforce, Granville effect. You would hardly know your friend … the 119 men sent to establish the scheme died fellow anti-slavery Sharp, Thomas Fowell Buxton and Thomas were you to view me in a field of canes, amidst in the firstyear–Macaulayturned itintoa campaigners Clarkson, he is a stern-looking, small-featured perhaps a hundred of the sable race, cursing successful operation. PHOTOGRAPH: NATIONAL manwithhooded greyeyesand acalm, and bawling, while the noiseofthe whip After the colony at Freetown was razed to PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON unreadable expression. Some described him resounding on their shoulders, and the cries of the ground by French marauders, Macaulay as dour and unimaginative. “Imperturbable” the poor wretches, would make you imagine fell seriously ill. Forced to return to England is the word his memoirist Charles Booth gave some unlucky accident had carried you to the to recover, he chose to travel home on a slave him. Yethe wasanaffectionatefamilyman doleful shades.” ship so he could see for himself the conditions. despite being a workaholic. As well as his nine Macaulay recalled that far from feeling pity Did slaves really have berths “perfumed with children byhiswife Selina,headopted his forthe Negroes,“NowIwascallous and incense” as some slavers claimed?

24 THE HERALD MAGAZINE 06.01.07 Preposterous myths about slave conditions “You must kill yourself if need be, but the slave were regularly peddled. In 1788, for instance, must be emancipated.” a parliamentary report claimed: “The Slaves At times it must have seemed to Macaulay’s are comfortably lodged in rooms fitted up for wife thathe mightindeed befelled bythe them. They are amused with instruments of workloadhenowshouldered. Working late music and when tired of music and dancing into the night, keeping up with reports from theythen go togamesof chance. Theyare hisassociatesacross the world, devouring indulged in all theirlittle humours.”So political papers and memorising the new slave attractive were their lives, indeed, that in the laws sohecould exposethoseplantation same report AdmiralBarrington said, “They owners – almost all – who flouted them, he had appeared to him so happy that he often wished no time to oversee his own business interests. himself in their situation.” He was on the brink of bankruptcy when his son Henry stepped in and staved off ruin. ut farfrom finding fragrantslave Macaulayalsopublished aninfluential quarters, Macaulay was met by an monthly pamphlet, the Anti-Slavery Reporter. overpowering stench as he slept in a Largely written by himself, this 30-odd page bed above a floor packed with fetid publication offered stark, often harrowing bodies. When he asked the captain facts about slavery. B if he waseverafraid of aslavemutiny,he Faced with formidable opponents, the Anti- replied, “I put them all in leg-irons. If handcuffs Slavery Association seemed a long way from betoo little, Iput acollarround theirneck reaching its goalwhen news arrived of a with a chain fastened to it, which is locked to massacreofslavesin Mauritius.In1832, a ring-bolt in the deck.” Buxton reported to parliament that it had been Macaulay returned to England permanently proved that since 1810 the 60,000-strong slave around 1798, his knowledge of the plantations population of the island had been murdered of the West Indies and the slave traders of and replaced on more than one occasion. As making him uniquely valuable as Buxton stated, “Slaves were murdered piece- a witness in the parliamentary inquiries that meal, roasted alive in ovens; flogged, starved, finally led to the abolition of the slave trade. A dismembered, tortured and slaughtered. superb statistician who kept up a huge corre- Suicide and infanticide were the daily resort spondence from across the empire in his search of parents; mothers killed their children from for facts to pit against prejudice and ignorance humanity, and killed themselves from despair. of the trade, he became known as “the walking And the decrease in the slave population was encyclopedia” of the movement. Wilberforce supplied by daily importations from Madagas- constantly urged those seeking information to car and the Seychelles, unchecked by our cruis- “look it up in Macaulay”. Thus, when the Anti- ers, and unheeded by the local authorities.” Slave Trade Acts were passed in 1807 Macaulay The scale of this inhumanity created uproar already deserved a place in the abolitionists’ in Britain, and swiftly led to the Anti-Slavery hall of fame. But even greater and harder work Actof 1833.The daythatActwaspassed, lay ahead. Macaulayhadhisfinest hour.Given his Asbecame clearafter1807,plantation reserved personality,one cannotsee him owners were alarmed to learn their slaves had cracking open champagne but he must have felt powerful supporters back in Britain. Terrified a grim sense of relief in achieving the goal he of revolts,theygreweven harsherin their had worked towards for more than five decades. treatment.AsMacaulay’s memoirist Booth Yet far from ending his life in the comfort he wrote, “Such information as leaked out, past deserved, he spent his last widowed years in the vigilance of the West India Party, was so poverty, evading creditors and living a hand- horrible it was unbelieved.” Macaulay realised to-mouth existence among his children. For he would have to act. four days and nights, as his father lay dying, his In 1823, in opposition to governmental and son Charles sat holding his hand. It is said that plantation owners’lobbies,heformed the hiseldest son, the historianThomas,was Anti-Slavery Association. Where Wilberforce almost prostrated with grief at the news of his had been the leader of the Anti-Slave Trade father’s death. The man who had faced down movement in parliament, on his retiral Thomas the empire’s most powerful bullies may have Fowell Buxton became the parliamentary been severe, but he was greatly loved. leader of the Anti-Slavery Association. All the For almost half a century, with a clear-headed while insisting on anonymity,Macaulay lack of bombast or exaggeration he had rubbed supplied the statistics and facts for every single saltintoBritain’s consciencebyputting his speech made in the House of Commons and knowledge into the hands of more charismatic the House of Lords during the decade it took campaigners.Itisimpossible toassess his tosee the abolition of slavery across the contribution to ending slavery. All that can be empire. In Buxton, Macaulay had met his equal said for sure is that few have ever done more as a crusader. As the MP told his followers, for the welfare of humankind. I

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06.01.07 THE HERALD MAGAZINE 25