J.M.W. Turner, Slavers Throwing the Dead and
Dying Overboard, Typhoon Coming On, 1840
The Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade
Important Dates:
- 1772: Mansfield
Case (No Slave could be forcibly removed from England)
- 1773: Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects
published (England)
- 1775: American War for Independence begins
- 1781: Nov-Dec: 131 slaves thrown overboard the slave ship
Zong to allow the owners to collect insurance
- 1783: American War for Independence ends
- 1786: Wheatley's Poems published in U. S.
- 1789: French War for Independence begins
- Equiano's Narrative published (England)
- 1791: Haitian (St. Dominique) War for Independence
begins
- Equiano's Narrative published (America)
- 1793: France abolished slavery in St. Dominique
- 1802: Slavery reestablished by French under
Napoleon
- 1804: Haitian Independence
- 1807: Britain, U.S. abolish slave trade
- 1831: Prince's History published
- 1833: Slavery in British territories "abolished"
- (As of Aug. 1, 1834, for those under six; others become
unpaid "Apprentices" for six year period)
- 1838: July 1: All British slaves freed
- 1863: Emancipation Proclamation in U.S.
- 1865: Thirteenth Amendment to U.S. Constitution
ratified, ending slavery
Homework Questions:
533:
- What arguments were used by
supporters of slavery during this period?
- Explain the negative consequences
of associating abolitionism with Jacobinism.
- What events finally led to the
abolition of slavery?
Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846),
"Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species" (1788)
537:
- Explain the rhetorical strategy employed by Clarkson
in his discussion of the interaction of Christians and
Heathens.
538:
- Describe what happened aboard the
slave ship Zong in 1781.
William Cowper (1731-1800),
"The Negro's Complaint" (1789)
540:
- What, according to the editors, made
this poem so powerful?
541:
- To what does "all-creating Nature" (17) refer?
- How is this entity different from the "One who reigns on
high" (26)?
- Explain the purported answer of the "One ... on high" to
the treatment of Africans (33-40).
- Explain the final four lines.
Other Discussion Questions:
532:
- Explain the "triangular trade" (532).
- Why, according to the editors, were most white Britons at
the time unconcerned with the problem of slavery?
535:
- What does impressment involve?
538:
- Describe the dimensions of a slave vessel.
539:
- Describe the conditions inside the vessel.
Another Text (from the 10th Edition):
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
"On the Slave Trade" (1796)
116:
- What, according to Coleridge, is the main cause of
slavery's continuance?
- Why, according to Coleridge, are slave-captains and
slaveholders "more to be pitied than slaves" (116)?
- Explain Coleridge's appeal to Christians.
117:
- Explain: "Sensibility is not Benevolence" (117).
- Explain: "Benevolence impels to action, and is accompanied
by self-denial" (117).
