Sourcing: Why Was Slavery Abolished? Excerpts
WORLD HISTORY PROJECT1750 / LESSON 4.4ACTIVITYSOURCING: WHY WAS SLAVERY ABOLISHED?EXCERPTSUnless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Credit: “Sourcing: Why Was Slavery Abolished?Excerpts”, OER Project, https://www.oerproject.com/1ProcessAs you read these documents, focus on completing the Audience and Point of View sections of the Sourcing Tool. As you read, keep these questions in mind: Why was slavery abolished? Was the main reason related to morality, economics, or empathy?SOURCING EXCERPTS: WHY WAS SLAVERY ABOLISHED?Source 1: Capitalism and SlaveryEric Williams (1911–1981) was born in Trinidad and Tobago and obtained his DPhil (PhD) in history from Oxford. He later entered the political world and became the first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago. The excerpt below is from Williams’s book Capitalism and Slavery, which was adapted from his doctoral dissertation at Oxford.Source: Williams, Eric. Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1944 (pp. vii–viii, 120–124, 126, 132, 135–136).‘When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...’ Jefferson wrote only part of the truth. It was economic, not political, bands that were being dissolved. A newage had begun ...American independence destroyed the mercantile system and discredited the old regime. Coinciding with the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, it stimulated that growing feeling of disgust with the colonial system ...The Caribbean ceased to be a British lake when the American colonies won their independence. The center of gravity in the British Empire shifted from the Caribbean Sea to the Indian Ocean, from the West Indies to India. ...Prior to 1783 the British government was uniformly consistent in its policy towards the slave trade. The withdrawal of the thirteen colonies considerably diminished the number of slaves in the empire and made abolition easier than it would have been had the thirteen colonies been English when the cotton gin revivified a moribund [dying] slave economy in the South. ...
WORLD HISTORY PROJECT 1750 / LESSON 4.4 ACTIVITYSOURCING: WHY WAS SLAVERY ABOLISHED?EXCERPTS2The attack falls into three phases: the attack on the slave trade, the attack on slavery, the attack on the preferential sugar duties. The slave trade was abolished in 1807, slavery in 1833, the sugar preference in 1846. The three events are inseparable. The very vested interests which had been built up by the slave system now turned and destroyed that system. The humanitarians, in attacking the system in its weakest and most indefensible spot, spoke a language that the masses could understand. They could never have succeeded a hundred years before when every important capitalist interest was on the side of the colonial system...The rise and fall of mercantilism is the rise and fall of slavery.
WORLD HISTORY PROJECT 1750 / LESSON 4.4 ACTIVITYSOURCING: WHY WAS SLAVERY ABOLISHED?EXCERPTS3Source 2: The LiberatorThe passage below was published in the first edition of an American antislavery newspaper, The Liberator, written and edited by the noted abolitionist and suffragist William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879). The newspaper was published in Boston and had about 2,000 paid subscribers, the majority of whom were African Americans.Source: Garrison, William Lloyd. “District of Columbia.” The Liberator, 1, no. 1 (January 1, 1831): 1.Petition to Congress for the Abolition of Slavery in the District of ColumbiaTo the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, the petition of the undersigned citizens of Boston in Massachusetts and its vicinity respectfully represents—That your petitioners are deeply impressed with the evils arising from the existence of slavery in the District of Columbia. While our Declaration of Independence boldly proclaims as self-evident truths, ‘that all men are created equal, that they are endowed [gifted] by their Creator with certain inalienable [undeniable] rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’—at the very seat of government human beings are born, almost daily, whom the laws pronounce to be from their birth, not equal to other men, and who are, for life, deprived of liberty and the free pursuit of happiness. The inconsistency of the conduct of our nation with its political creed, has brought down upon it the just and severe reprehension [criticism] of foreign nations. ...Your petitioners therefore pray that Congress will, without delay, take such measures for the immediate or gradual abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, and for preventing the bringing of slaves into that District for the purposes of traffic [selling], in such mode, as may be thought advisable; and that suitable provision be made for the education of all free blacks and colored children in the District, thus, to preserve them from continuing, even as free men an unenlightened and degraded [humiliated] caste [class].
WORLD HISTORY PROJECT 1750 / LESSON 4.4 ACTIVITYSOURCING: WHY WAS SLAVERY ABOLISHED?EXCERPTS4Source 3: Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human SpeciesOttobah Cugoano (c. 1757–1791) was kidnapped when he was 13 years old from his home in present-day Ghana and enslaved to labor on a plantation in Grenada (West Indies). About two years after his arrival in Grenada, an Englishman bought Cugoano and returnedwith him to England, where Cugoano was educated and freed in the same year. He wrote of his experiences and published this work in 1787.Source: Cugoano, Ottobah. Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Humbly Submitted to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, by Ottobah Cugoano, a Native of Africa. London, 1787 (pp. 9–12, 15–17).As several learned gentlemen of distinguished abilities...have written various essays against that infamous traffic of the African Slave Trade, carried on with the West-India planters and merchants, to the great shame and disgrace of all Christian nations wherever it is admitted in any of their territories, or place or situation amongst them ...It is therefore manifest, that something else ought yet to be done; and what is required, is evidently the incumbent duty of all men of enlightened understanding, and of every man that has any claim or affinity to the name of Christian, that the base treatment which the African Slaves undergo, ought to be abolished ...the robbers of men, the kid-nappers, ensnarers and slave-holders, who take away the common rights and privileges of others to support and enrich themselves, are universally those pitiful and detestable wretches; for the ensnarings [capturing] of others, and taking away their liberty by slavery and oppression, is the worst kind of robbery, as most opposite to every precept [teaching] and injunction [command] of the Divine Law, and contrary to that command which enjoins that all men should love their neighbours as themselves, and that they should do unto others, as they would that men should do to them. ...I was snatched away from my native country, with about eighteen or twenty more boys and girls, as we were playing in a field. We lived but a few days journey from the coast where we were kid-napped, and as we were decoyed and drove along, we were soon conducted to a factory, and from thence... consigned to Grenada ...But when a vessel arrived to conduct us away to the ship, it was a most horrible scene; there was nothing to be heard but the rattling of chains, smacking of whips, and the groans and cries of our fellow-men. Some would not stir from the ground, when they were lashed and beat in the most horrible manner. ...