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The Mobilisation of Public Opinion Against the Slave Trade and Slavery: Popular Abolitionism in National and Regional Politics, 1787-1838

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The Mobilisation of Public Opinion Against the Slave Trade and Slavery: Popular Abolitionism in National and Regional Politics, 1787-1838 The mobilisation of public opinion against the slave trade and slavery: Popular abolitionism in national and regional politics, 1787-1838. Mark Jones Submitted for the qualification ofD.Phil in History University of York Department of History November 1998 Abstract In the space of fifty years, the British slaving system was dismantled under pressure from an increasingly hostile and vocal public. The London anti-slavery societies, drawing on networks of provincial correspondents through whom popular support for anti-slavery measures was organised, orchestrated one of the first long-running and successful campaigns to bring 'pressure from without' to bear on parliamentary politics. Abolitionism was the first modern social movement. This thesis looks at the efforts made to mobilise public opinion in the half-century from the formation of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787 to the emancipation of the apprentices in the British West Indies in 1838. In so doing, it explores the methods adopted to raise popular support at the metropolitan and provincial levels and looks at the relationship between the two in organisational and ideological terms. While the geographical focus is principally the North of England, the overall structures of abolitionist mobilisation throughout the British Isles is considered. In particular, the thesis looks at the continuities between campaigns and puts greater emphasis on the contributions of local abolitionists in the periods between bursts of petitioning, including lobbying MPs, writing pamphlets and acting as shareholders. The early abolitionist campaign is shown to be a small-scale affair, reliant on a close network of trusted contacts, but capable of successfully forming and focusing popular outrage. The 1820s, traditionally a period which has received scant attention by historians of abolition, is shown to be a decade of transition during which the ideological and tactical framework of the final campaign against slavery was formed in the provinces. The final campaigns of the 1830s also illustrates the emergence of provincial abolitionists as the defenders of an uncompromising moral stance against slavery. List of Contents THE MOBILISATION OF BRITISH PUBLIC OPINION AGAINST THE SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY - POPULAR ABOLITIONISM IN NATIONAL AND REGIONAL POLITICS, 1787-1838 Introduction 1 PART ONE - THE SLAVE TRADE 1. The Abolitionist Moment, 1787 8 Intellectual developments 8 Catalysts 10 Activists 15 2. The National Campaign, 1787-1790 26 The country correspondents 27 The Manchester example and petitioning, 1787-1788 31 The petitions of 1788 39 Parliamentary investigations 45 3. The National Campaign, 1791-1792 54 London, Abstention and Popular Radicalism 54 Supporters and petitions 62 The petitions of 1792 68 4. Abolitionists and Committees in the Provinces, 1787-1792 77 Who were the abolitionists? 78 Petitioners 87 Lobbyists 91 Subscribers 93 Pamphleteers 97 Shareholders 101 5. Victory and Legacy - the Heirs of Abolition, 1806-1814 108 'Popular' abolition and the passage of the abolition act, 1806-7 108 Party politics and the heirs of abolition, 1807-1814 115 The consensus, 1814 119 PART Two - SLAVERY 6. James Cropper and the Abolitionist Revival, 1821-1822 126 Early endeavours, 1821-22: the East Indian and the sugar duties 128 Developing the economic critique 132 James Cropper and the hegemonic thesis 139 Formation of the London Society 143 7. The Campaign Revived, 1823-1824 147 Pressure from without 147 Mobilising support: the tour 155 Demerara and after: the 1824 mobilisation 165 8. Abolitionist Thought and the Sugar Question, 1824-1829 174 Equalisation vs. abstention 174 Gradualism vs. immediatism 186 Colonial slavery vs. domestic slavery 200 9. Abolitionist Mobilisation in the Provinces, 1824-29 209 Forming committees 209 'To collect and diffuse accurate information ... ' 223 'To raise subscriptions ... ' 232 10. Religious Mobilisation, Provincial pressure and the Abolition 241 of Colonial Slavery, 1829-33 Religious mobilisation and the revival of 1830 241 Congregational petitioning 247 Parliamentary pledges 252 The Agency committee 258 Emancipation achieved: The 1832-1833 campaign 269 Conclusion - Apotheosis - The Provincial Victory and the Defeat of 282 Parliament, 1834-1838 Conclusion 290 Bibliography 297 Acknowledgements My thanks go first and foremost to Professor James Walvin for his advice, encouragement and assistance over the last three years. I am also indebted to Dr. Jane Rendall, Dr. Allen Warren and Dr. Simon Smith for their useful comments and to the teaching and administrative staff of the Department of History at the University of York for their help. I am also appreciative of the many efforts made by those archivists and librarians across the country who have assisted with my enquiries, particularly the staff at Wilberforce House, Rhodes House Library, Oxford and the J. B. Morrell Library at the University of York. Finally, my thanks go to the Department of History at York for providing the scholarship which has enabled this research to take place and to Lorraine Mann for her constant support and limitless patience. Author's declaration Chapter six contains material drawn from a paper entitled 'James Cropper and the Economic Critique of Slavery,' The Economic History Society Annual Conference Journal (3-5 April 1998). Introduction BRITISH POPULAR ABOLITIONISM IN NATIONAL AND REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES. The fifty year period between the formation of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787 and the final termination of slavery in the British Empire in 1838 saw the creation of one of the first national social movements. The campaigns for the abolition of the slave trade and later the emancipation of the slaves commanded powerful expressions of outrage and opposition from individuals, congregations, trades, villages, towns and cities throughout the country. Regional activists, 'active beyond the signing of mass petitions,' I helped the societies in London to channel this rising humanitarian sentiment into a form of potent extra-Parliamentary pressure. The aim of the present study is to analyse the continuities and dynamics of abolitionist mobilisation at the grass-roots level throughout this fifty year period. In particular, the study looks at the ways in which abolitionists co-ordinated anti-slavery sentiment, organising public meetings and petition campaigns, to try to assess the longevity and sustainability of abolitionist sentiment and the extent to which abolitionism permeated British society. The focus is placed principally on the provinces and the work of abolitionists in the North of England. But it is the interaction between the London abolitionists and individuals and committees in the provinces which requires closer examination. The Parent Committees in London used a network of correspondents throughout the kingdom to orchestrate abolitionist agitation at crucial periods. But abolitionists were often in more frequent and direct contact with each other during these fifty years. It was the presence of other stable intersecting networks within British society which sustained the movement and its potential for rapid mobilisation and popular support. This study endeavours to construct an organisational sociology of the abolitionist movement. Popular abolitionism has recently become the subject of specialist study, most notably through the work of Seymour Drescher. In Capitalism and Antislavery (1986), Drescher highlighted the extents of abolitionist mobilisation and popular support and compared their roles in Britain and France. He stressed the movement's broad social base in an attempt to undermine the reliance on the capitalist-abolitionist thesis and the hegemonic arguments of Eric Williams and David Brion Davis. Covering the full fifty year period, Drescher concentrated on mass petitioning as the most obvious I David Turley, The Culture of English Antislavery. 1780-1860 (1991), p.234. -1- indicator of popular cross-class support. Contemporaneously, James Walvin integrated abolition more closely into the radical politics of the late eighteenth century.2 These historians and others helped to challenge the existing frames of reference of abolitionist historiography, placing anti-slavery into the context of provincial urban development and popular politics. Subsequent work has not failed to build on this scholarship. Clare Midgely's Women Against Slavery (1992) convincingly integrated the role of women into the history of abolition. David Turley analysed the abolitionist world view and mentality and drew on provincial examples to discuss the ideologies underpinning the culture of English anti-slavery.3 More significantly, John Oldfield's work on the petition campaigns of 1788 and 1792 has provided us with a greater understanding of abolitionist activity, especially in the South of England, and explored abolition as an aspect of eighteenth century Britain's print- and consumer-culture.4 Abolitionist historiography is now a rich tapestry of interpretation and analysis which more consciously considers the influence of popular mobilIsation on the business of national politics. Aspects of popular abolitionism still remain unexplored. In this field, more than any other, historians of abolition have been conscious of the absence of local detail and the need for case studies.4 Oldfield's work has done much to correct this for two crucial years of agitation (1788 and 1792). Judith Jennings has also highlighted the work of four Quakers central to
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