1. The obstacle to abolition was not the economic system, but an industry lobby.

I had always imagined the British abolitionist movement to be a broad battle between an unstoppable moral imperative and an immovable economic incentive. But in practice it started as more of a knife fight between a cabal of moral pioneers and a special interest group representing industry merchants.

The government and the political parties did not come in with any great agenda. MPs were mostly prizes in a furious contest between the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and a coalition of business interests:

"The merchants and planters availed themselves [...] to wait upon members of parliament by deputation, in order to solicit their attendance in their favour, and to renew their injurious paragraphs in the public papers."^[1]

"The committee, for the abolition, when the work was finished, printed it at their own expense [...] sent it to every individual member of that House."

However, the public was heavily activated in favor of the abolition, which forced the issue to parliamentary attention.

"The committee also in this interval brought out their famous print of the plan and section of a slave-ship... As this print seemed to make an instantaneous impression of horror upon all who saw it, and as it was therefore very instrumental, in consequence of the wide circulation given it, in serving the cause of the injured Africans."

But the abolitionist cabal quickly expanded from an esoteric group of Quakers and other oddballs to an elite coalition including many famous figures such as William Pitt the Younger and the Marquis de Lafayette:

"He [Lafayette] hoped the day was near at hand, when two great nations, which had been hitherto distinguished only for their hostility, one toward the other, would unite in so sublime a measure."

"The cause is so lovely, that even ambition, abstractedly considered, is too impure to take it under its protection, and not to sully it."

Part of the explanation for the relatively narrow interests involved in the fight might be that the direct benefits of the trade were quite small and accrued mainly to the merchants themselves.

"The Slave-trade composed but a thirtieth part of the export trade of Liverpool, and that of the trade of Bristol it constituted a still less proportion."

However it should be noted that the system of slavery in general was an instrumental part of a much larger slice of British GDP (maybe something like 10%, but historians differ on the question).

2. The slave trade was truly terrible for sailors.

"Instead of the Slave-trade being a nursery for British seamen, it was their grave. It appeared that more seamen died in that trade in one year than in the whole remaining trade of the country in two. Out of 910 sailors in it, 216 died in the year."

While a lot of this was from disease, for some reason the captains in slave trade vessels seemed to be unusually and exceptionally cruel and brutal.

"The captain, without any inquiry, beat him severely, and ordered his hands to be made fast to some bolts on the starboard side of the ship and under the half deck, and then flogged him himself.... The pain had now become so very severe, that Green cried out, and entreated the captain of the Alfred, who was standing by, to pity his hard case, and to intercede for him. But the latter replied, that he would have served me in the same manner. Unable to find a friend here, he called upon the chief mate; but this only made matters worse, for the captain then ordered the latter to flog him also; which he did for some time, using however only the lashes of the instrument. Green then called in his distress upon the second mate to speak for him; but the second mate was immediately ordered to perform the same cruel office, and was made to persevere in it till the lashes were all worn into threads. But the barbarity did not close here [...]"

This horrible passage goes on for a while and Green ends up dying. Clarkson puts this unusual behavior towards their own race down to the evil nature of the trade degrading men's characters.

"And can the hearts of those be otherwise than hardened, who are familiar with the tears and groans of innocent strangers forcibly torn away from every thing that is dear to them in life...?"

3. The slave trade made Africa scary and violent.

"They came within a certain distance of a village. They then concealed themselves under the bushes... during day-light. But at night they went up to it armed; and seized all the inhabitants, who had not time to make their escape. They obtained forty-five persons in this manner. In the second they were out eight or nine days... They seized men, women, and children, as they could find them in the huts. They then bound their arms, and drove them before them to the canoes."

This is very un-surprising in retrospect, but I hadn't previously thought much about the invidious effects of slavery on the lands where those slaves came from. African powers would fight wars against each other in order to obtain slaves to sell to the European captains.

"The natives never went any distance from home without arms; and when Captain Wilson asked them the reason of it, they pointed to a slave-ship then lying within sight."

4. The main argument against abolition was that if the British didn't do it, other countries would.

"The next objection to the abolition was, that if we were to relinquish the Slave-trade, our rivals, the French, would take it up; so that, while we should suffer by the measure, the evil would still go on."

"[...] as England had done nothing, after having had it so long under consideration, it was fair to presume, that she judged it impolitic to abandon the Slave-trade; but if France were to give it up, and England to continue it, how would humanity be the gainer?"

Interestingly, in the early debates, no one ever suggests the idea of imposing the abolition upon other European powers. Instead, advocates appealed to the overwhelming ethical principle.

"This was, indeed, a very weak argument; and, if it would defend the continuance of the Slave-trade, might equally be urged in favour of robbery, murder, and every species of wickedness."

5. The early abolitionists explicitly distanced themselves from emancipation.

While in many ways the abolitionists stuck to their principles and refused to stoop to the level of the slave traders, they made a decisive call very early on to utter no mention of the abolition of slavery itself until after the trade had been abolished, even though they surely had this in mind from the very beginning.

"It was again insisted upon that emancipation was the real object of the former; so that thousands of slaves would be let loose in the islands [...]"

"Emancipation was now stated to be the object of the Friends of the Negros. This charge I repelled, by addressing myself to Monsieur Beauvet. I explained to him the views of the different societies, which had taken up the cause of the Africans [...]"

6. The slave trade may actually have been bad for the economy (at least after some date).

Much of the early debates focused on the extent to which the slave trade was needed to maintain the slave populations of the British colonies. The abolitionists insisted that better treatment of slaves would allow their populations to increase naturally and make the slaves more productive.

"[Richard Phillips] put into my hands several documents concerning estates in the West Indies, which he had mostly from the proprietors themselves, where the slaves by mild and prudent usage had so increased in population, as to supersede the necessity of the Slave-trade."

"He believed... that the planters would be great gainers by those wholesome regulations, which they would be obliged to make, if the Slave-trade were abolished."

Moreover, the abolitionists insisted that more could be gained from regular trade with African merchants than by the slave trade.

"They were perhaps not aware, that a fair and honourable trade might be substituted in the natural productions of Africa, so that our connection with that continent in the way of commercial advantage need not be lost."

"I wished the council to see more of my African productions and manufactures, that they might really know what Africa was capable of affording instead of the Slave-trade, and that they might make a proper estimate of the genius and talents of the natives."

7. The 1780s were not so different from today

I find myself shockingly compelled by some arguments on the opposing side. In particular, the point that the trade would continue unaffected through the merchants of other countries is hard to definitively refute. It's amazing how effectively motivated arguments can throw doubt and uncertainty on a question that from another vantage point feels so over-determined. It's easy to imagine how people like myself, in those circumstances could end up on the wrong side of history, even in such a monstrous case.

On the other hand, those who favor abolition do so in terms that feel just as vigorous and vehement as any advocate for justice today. The main change might be the superior eloquence of politicians at that time:

"Never, never, will we desist till we have wiped away this scandal from the Christian name; till we have released ourselves from the load of guilt under which we at present labour; and till we have extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic, which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarcely believe had been suffered to exist so long, a disgrace and a dishonour to our country."

8. Thomas Clarkson is a hero for the ages

Clarkson is the key figure in the abolitionist movement. His autobiographical accounts could be cut straight from the script of a fantasy role-playing video game. He travelled around Britain on his horse to collect evidence and witnesses in favor of the abolition in a perfect adventure story.

Many times, he enters an unfamiliar city armed only with a couple of letters of introduction to sympathetic supporters of the cause. He then has to befriend local people and persuade them to tell him about the horrors of the slave trade. In most places, he quickly becomes notorious among slave merchants, who obstruct and intimidate his investigations. More than once, he is almost murdered by thugs or an evil ship captain for his interference and has to make a heroic escape.

He occasionally detours on side quests to assist a poor, helpless sailor who has been abused by his captain and has no other recourse. He travels at breakneck speed through the nights, often braving severe weather or a perilous river-crossing.

"I was absent only three weeks. I had travelled a thousand miles in this time, had conversed with seventeen persons, and had prevailed upon three to be examined."

He is a super-smart scholar, winning the prestigious latin essay competition at Cambridge two years in a row. He befriends many famous figures of the age and rubs shoulders with the leaders of the French Revolution in Paris during 1789.

And he takes ideas seriously. No one told him he should take up the cause of abolition. He derived it from the empty string.

"On returning however to London, the subject of it almost wholly engrossed my thoughts. I became at times very seriously affected while upon the road. I stopped my horse occasionally, and dismounted and walked. I frequently tried to persuade myself in these intervals that the contents of my Essay could not be true. The more, however, I reflected upon them, or rather upon the authorities on which they were founded, the more I gave them credit. Coming in sight of Wades Mill, in Hertfordshire, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end. Agitated in this manner, I reached home. This was in the summer of 1785.

In the course of the autumn of the same year I experienced similar impressions. I walked frequently into the woods, that I might think on the subject in solitude, and find relief to my mind there. But there the question still recurred, 'Are these things true?' Still the answer followed as instantaneously 'They are.' Still the result accompanied it, 'Then surely some person should interfere.'"

1. ^{^}

   Sources:

   1. The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament by Thomas Clarkson (1808)
   2. Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild (2005).

   All quotations are taken from Clarkson (1808).