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How and why was the Trans-Atlantic slave trade abolished?. How?. Out of the Underground Railroad and other movements to help escaped slaves grew a wider abolition movement This movement grew in force during the late 18 th Century and the first few years of the 1800’s.
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How? • Out of the Underground Railroad and other movements to help escaped slaves grew a wider abolition movement • This movement grew in force during the late 18th Century and the first few years of the 1800’s. • Finally abolished in the British Empire March 25th 1807 • But it was only the slave trade that was abolished in the British Empire, not slavery itself. • Slavery in the British Empire abolished in 1833. • However outside the British Empire it continued, the last country to officially ban slavery in law was Mauritania in 1980! • Today slavery still exists: even though it is banned in every country by law.
Why? – Some quick background • You have to try and imagine the rapidly changing situation in the late 18th Century. • The ‘Enlightenment’ is coming to life across Europe.
The Enlightenment – what was it and how could it have contributed to the abolition of slavery? Background taken from: http://demo.lutherproductions.com/historytutor/basic/modern/stories/images/enlightenment.jpg
Before ‘The Enlightenment’ Superstition Tradition Tyranny
The Enlightenment Reason Rationality Liberty
J Rousseau The Enlightenment was all about thinking. So who were these ‘thinkers’? “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.” http://perso.orange.fr/dboudin/Rousseau/rousseau.jpg
Thomas Paine “A hereditary ruler is as absurd an idea as a hereditary mathematician.” www.billofrightsinstitute.org/.../ paine.jpg
Thomas Paine • This man: • Experienced a life of poverty as a child and grew up surrounded by simple farmers and uneducated people • Left school at 12! • Failed in his first job as a corset maker at 13! • Got fired twice from another job! • Went on to write the 3 best selling pieces of writing in the 18th Century!
The Enlightenment • The 18th century philosophical movement • which stressed the importance of reason • and criticized the existing customs and • traditions • www.saburchill.com/history/hist003.html
The Enlightenment was making people think in a different way! • But the Enlightenment alone does not • explain the abolition of slavery. To • understand why this happened we need to • look at many sources and investigate many • different factors: its complicated!
For each source: • At least one question for each of the 5 W’s. • Does the source suggest any possible factor that could have made the abolition of the slave trade more likely? • One member of the group must be prepared to feedback the group’s questions and points to the class.
Source B A plate promoting the abolitionist cause
Source D An earthenware sugar bowl with the words 'East India Sugar Not Made by Slaves' inscribed on the side
Source F A slave uprising in 1791
Source 1: Court records from Dominica, a British colony in the Leeward Islands, January 1814 Source H
Source I Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Haitian revolutionary and statesman who defeated both the British and French armies
Source J Thomas Clarkson's chest of African produce and manufactured articles. He used these to demonstrate that there were many possibilities for trade between Europe and Africa after the abolition of the slave trade
Abolition across the world • France: abolished in 1794, but brought back in 1802, then abolished again in 1848 • USA: 13th Amendment in 1865 officially abolishes slavery • Portugal 1869 • Netherlands 1863 • Today every country in the world has officially abolished slavery: yet it still exists! • The abolition of slavery wasn’t the end of the struggle for equality – it was the beginning!
Bibliography • http://www.nmm.ac.uk/upload/img/E9124.jpg • http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/snapshots/snapshot27/snapshot27.htm • www.bbc.co.uk
