View source for Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade

{{Short description|British abolitionist organization}}
{{for|other societies referred to as the Anti-Slavery Society|Anti-Slavery Society (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{use British English|date=December 2020}}
{{Infobox organization
| name                    = <!-- defaults to {{PAGENAME}}, if not provided -->
| full_name               = '''Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade'''
| logo                    = 
| logo_size               = 
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| logo_caption            = 
| image                   = File:Official medallion of the British Anti-Slavery Society (1795).jpg

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| alt                     = <!-- see [[WP:ALT]] -->
| caption                 = 
| predecessor             = 
| merged                  = <!-- any other organization(s) which it was merged into -->
| successor               = 
| formation               =   {{start date and age|1787|05|22}}    
| founder                 = 
# [[John Barton (quaker)|John Barton]]  
# [[William Dillwyn]]  
# [[George Harrison (Quaker) | George Harrison ]]  
# [[Samuel Hoare Jr]]   
# [[Joseph Hooper]]  
# [[John Lloyd]] 
# [[Joseph Woods (abolitionist)|Joseph Woods]] Sr  
# [[James Phillips (Quaker)| James Phillips]] 
# [[Richard Phillips (Quaker)| Richard Phillips]]<ref name =anjou>{{cite book |author=Leo D'Anjou |title=Social Movements and Cultural Change: The First Abolition Campaign |year=1996 |publisher=Aldine de Gruyter |isbn= 978-0-202-30522-6 |page=198}}</ref>
# [[Thomas Clarkson]]  
# [[Granville Sharp]]  
# [[Philip Sansom]]
| dissolved               =   {{end date and age|1807|01|01}}   <!-- uncertain of date -->
| merger                  = <!-- other organizations (if any) merged with, to constitute the new organization -->
| type                    = <!-- e.g., [[Nonprofit organization|Nonprofit]], [[Non-governmental organization|NGO]], etc. -->  [[Abolishment]] of [[Slavery]]
| status                  = <!-- legal status or description (company, charity, foundation, etc.) -->
| purpose                 = <!-- or |focus = --><!-- humanitarian, activism, peacekeeping, etc. -->
| professional_title      = <!-- for professional associations -->
| headquarters            = 2 George Yard
| location_city           = [[London]]
| location_country        =  [[England]]
| coordinates             =   {{coord|51.514240|-0.111723|display=inline,title}}  
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| language                = <!-- or |languages = --><!-- any official language or languages used -->  [[English]]
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}} <!-- Start of text of article 


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The '''Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade''', also known as the '''Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade''', and sometimes referred to as the '''Abolition Society''' or '''Anti-Slavery Society,''' was a [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|British abolitionist]] group formed on 22 May 1787.  Slavery was abolished in all Britian colonies in 1833 as a result. 

Historians posit that this anti-slavery movement is the first peaceful social movement which all modern social movements are built upon.

The society was established by twelve men; including prominent campaigners [[Thomas Clarkson]] and [[Granville Sharp]], who, as [[Anglican]]s, were able to be more influential in [[Parliament of Great Britain|Parliament]] than the more numerous [[Quaker]] founding members. The society worked to educate the public about the abuses of the [[slave]] trade, and achieved abolition of the [[international slave trade]]  when the [[British Parliament]] passed the [[Slave Trade Act 1807]], at which time the society ceased its activities. (The United States also prohibited the [[African slave trade]] the same year, to take effect in 1808.)

In 1823 the [[Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions]] (also known as the Anti-Slavery Society) was founded, which worked to abolish the institution of slavery throughout the British colonies. Abolition was passed by parliament in 1833 (except in India, where it was [[slavery in India|part of the indigenous culture]]); with emancipation completed by 1838.

== Historical background  ==
{{Slavery}}
[[1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery|The first anti-slavery statement]] was written by Dutch and German [[Quakers]], who met at [[Colonial Germantown Historic District|Germantown]], [[Pennsylvania]] in 1688. English [[Quaker]]s began to express their official disapproval of the [[slave trade]] in 1727 and promote reforms. From the 1750s, a number of Quakers in Britain's [[Thirteen Colonies|American colonies]] also began to oppose slavery, and called on English Quakers to take action with parliament. They encouraged their fellow citizens, including Quaker slave owners, to improve conditions for slaves, educate their slaves in [[Christianity]], reading and writing, and gradually emancipate (free) them.{{cn|date=December 2020}}

An informal group of six Quakers pioneered the British abolitionist movement in 1783 when the London [[Religious Society of Friends|Society of Friends']] yearly meeting presented its petition against the [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trade]] to [[British parliament|Parliament]], signed by over 300 Quakers. They were also influenced by publicity that year about the [[Zong massacre]], as the shipowners were litigating a claim for insurance against losses due to more than 132 slaves having been killed on their ship.{{cn|date=December 2020}}

== Foundation ==

"In 1787, approximately three quarters of the people on Earth lived under some form of enslavement, serfdom, debt bondage or indentured servitude. There were no slaves in Britain itself, but the vast majority of its people accepted slavery in the British West Indies as perfectly normal."<ref>Adam Hochschild. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/abolitionists_gallery.shtml The Unsung Heroes of Abolition].</ref>

The Quakers decided to form a small, committed, non-denominational group so as to gain greater [[Church of England]] and Parliamentary support. The new, non-denominational committee formed in 1787 had nine [[Religious Society of Friends|Quaker]] members and three [[Anglicanism|Anglicans]]. As Quakers were not prepared to receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the rites of the Church of England, they were [[Test Act|not permitted]] to serve as [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Members of Parliament]], having Anglican members strengthened the committee's likelihood of influencing Parliament.<ref name=hoi/> The new society was named the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, later often referred to simply as  the Abolition Society.<ref name=mylearning>{{cite web | title=The Abolition Movement  | website=MyLearning | url=https://www.mylearning.org/stories/william-wilberforce/174 | access-date=20 December 2020}}</ref>

{{quote|The reverberations from what happened on this spot, on the late afternoon of 22 May 1787, eventually caught the attention of millions of people around the world, including the first and greatest student of what today we call civil society. The result of the series of events begun that afternoon in London, wrote French political philosopher [[Alexis de Tocqueville]] decades later, was "absolutely without precedent...If you pore over the histories of all peoples, I doubt that you will find anything more extraordinary".

The building that once stood at 2 George Yard was a bookstore and printing shop. The proprietor was [[James Phillips (abolitionist)|James Phillips]], publisher and printer for Britain's small community of [[Quakers]]. On that May afternoon, after the pressmen and typesetters had gone home for the day, 12 men filed through his doors. They formed themselves into a committee with what seemed to their fellow Londoners a hopelessly idealistic and impractical aim: ending first the slave trade and then slavery itself in the most powerful empire on Earth." -- [[Los Angeles Times]]:The Idea That Brought Slavery to Its Knees.<ref name="Hochschild 2005">{{cite web | last=Hochschild | first=Adam | title=The Idea That Brought Slavery to Its Knees | website=Los Angeles Times | date=2005-01-25 | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jan-25-oe-hochschild25-story.html | access-date=2020-12-20}}</ref>}}

=== Membership ===
Nine of the twelve founding members of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, or The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, were Quakers:<ref name=hoi>{{cite web | title=Foundation of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade| website=History of Information | url=https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3700  | access-date=20 December 2020}}</ref> 
# [[John Barton (quaker)|John Barton]] (1755–1789); 
# [[William Dillwyn]] (1743–1824); 
# [[George Harrison (Quaker) | George Harrison ]] (1747–1827); 
# [[Samuel Hoare Jr]] (1751–1825); 
# [[Joseph Hooper]] (1732–1789); 
# [[John Lloyd]]; 
# [[Joseph Woods (abolitionist)|Joseph Woods]] Sr (1738–1812); 
# [[James Phillips (Quaker)| James Phillips]] (1745–1799); and 
# [[Richard Phillips (Quaker)| Richard Phillips]].<ref name =anjou>{{cite book |author=Leo D'Anjou |title=Social Movements and Cultural Change: The First Abolition Campaign |year=1996 |publisher=Aldine de Gruyter |isbn= 978-0-202-30522-6 |page=198}}</ref> 

Five of the Quakers had been amongst the informal group of six Quakers who had pioneered the movement in 1783, when the first petition against the slave trade was presented to Parliament.

Three Anglicans were founding members: 
# [[Thomas Clarkson]], campaigner and author of an influential essay against the slave trade; 
# [[Granville Sharp]] (Lawyer - had long been involved in the support and prosecution of cases on behalf of [[slaves|enslaved Africans]]); and 
# [[Philip Sansom]].<ref name =anjou/>

==Mission and activities==
[[File:Official medallion of the British Anti-Slavery Society (1795).jpg|thumb|200px|right|[[Am I Not a Man and a Brother?|"Am I Not A Man And A Brother?"]] medallion created as part of anti-slavery campaign by [[Josiah Wedgwood]], 1787]]

The society did not aim at ending slavery altogether, but only to abolish British involvement in the [[international slave trade]]. They would do this by awareness-raising campaigns highlighting some of the cruel practices involved in the trade.<ref name=mylearning/>

The mission of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was to inform the public of the inhuman and immoral treatment of [[slaves|enslaved Africans]] committed in the name of slavery, to campaign in favour of a new law to abolish the [[slave trade]] and enforce this throughout the [[British Empire]]. The society's methods for pursuing its goals included writing and publishing anti-slavery books, abolitionist prints, [[posters]] and [[pamphlets]], and organising [[public lecture|lecture tours]] in the towns and cities of England. Clarkson's ''Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade'', published in 1788, was one of the first books of the subject.<ref name=hoi/>

Petitions were presented to the [[British House of Commons|House of Commons]] (over 100 in 1788<ref name=odnb/>), anti-slavery [[demonstration (people)|rallies]] held, and a range of anti-slavery [[medallions]], crockery and bronze figurines were made, notably with the support of the Unitarian potter [[Josiah Wedgwood]] whose production of pottery [[medallion]]s featuring a slave in chains with the simple but effective question: "Am I not a man and a brother?" was very effective in bringing public attention to abolition.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thepotteries.org/did_you/005.htm|title= Did you know? - Josiah Wedgwood was a keen advocate of the slavery abolition movement|website=thepotteries.org| access-date=20 December 2020}}</ref><ref name=hoi/> The Wedgwood medallion was the most famous image of a black person in all of 18th-century art.<ref>{{cite web| title       = British History - Abolition of the Slave Trade 1807| url         = http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/africans_in_art_gallery_02.shtml| publisher   = [[BBC]]
| access-date  = 2009-04-11| quote       = The Wedgwood medallion was the most famous image of a black person in all of 18th-century art.}}</ref> Clarkson wrote; "ladies wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length the taste for wearing them became general, and thus fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom".<ref>{{cite web |title       = Wedgwood |url         = http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REwedgwood.htm |access-date  = 2009-07-13 |quote       = Thomas Clarkson wrote; ladies wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length the taste for wearing them became general, and thus fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom. |url-status     = dead |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20090708094050/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REwedgwood.htm |archive-date = 8 July 2009}}</ref>

By educating the public, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade gained many members. In 1787, Clarkson's speaking tour of the great ports and cities of England raised public interest. Publication of the African [[Olaudah Equiano]]'s [[autobiography]] heightened public awareness, as the former slave expressed an unanswerable case against slavery in a work of literary merit. In 1789 Clarkson's promoted the committee's cause by encouraging the sale of Equiano's memoir and inviting the former slave to lecture in British ports linked to the slave trade.

[[William Wilberforce]] introduced the first Bill to abolish the slave trade in 1791, which was defeated by 163 votes to 88.<ref name=hoi/> As Wilberforce continued to bring the issue of the slave trade before Parliament, Clarkson and others on the Committee travelled, raised funds, lobbied, and wrote anti-slavery works. They conducted a protracted parliamentary campaign, during which Wilberforce introduced a motion in favour of abolition almost every year.
==Membership==

The committee was later joined by the Quaker philanthropist [[William Allen (English Quaker)|William Allen]], who worked closely with Wilberforce and with his fellow Quaker members,{{cn|date=December 2020}} and Wilberforce's fellow members of the [[Clapham Sect]] were subscribers to the society as well.<ref>{{cite web | title=The role of the Clapham Sect in the fight for the abolition of slavery | website=Art UK | date=10 August 2020 | url=https://artuk.org/discover/stories/the-role-of-the-clapham-sect-in-the-fight-for-the-abolition-of-slavery# | access-date=20 December 2020}}</ref>
===Female membership===
According to Claire Midgley (2004), the proportion of female subscribers to the society was typical of philanthropic societies of the time. Across the whole society, female subscribers comprised about 10 per cent of the membership, while in some centres, notable [[Manchester]] (with 68 women, or nearly a quarter of the total), the percentage was higher. Some of the most identifiable women were members of leading Quaker families, such as the wife of William Dillwyn, Sarah; others were members of the [[Clapham Sect]] and also members of the [[African Institution]], and others were members of wealthy [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] families in Manchester.<ref name=midgley>{{cite book | last=Midgley | first=Claire | title=Women Against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780-1870 | publisher=[[Routledge]], [[Taylor & Francis]] | year=2004 | isbn=978-1-134-79880-3 | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hgaFAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT20 | access-date=7 January 2021 | page=20|chapter=2. Participants from the first}}</ref> By 1788 there were 206 female subscribers.<ref>{{cite web | title=Women & Women's Groups: The Abolition of Slavery Project | website=The Abolition of Slavery Project | url=http://abolition.e2bn.org/people_38.html | access-date=7 January 2021}}</ref> One prominent female subscriber was writer and polymath [[Elizabeth Carter]].<ref name=odnb>{{cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-92867|title=Society for the Purpose of Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade|first=G.M.|last=Ditchfield|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/92867|date=24 May 2007}}</ref>

==Related societies==

Several members of the society also subscribed to the [[African Institution]] (founded 1807 to create a viable, civilised refuge for freed slaves in [[Sierra Leone]]<ref>{{cite book | last=African Institution (London | first=England) | title=Report of the Committee of the African Institution | publisher=Ellerton and Henderson | issue=v. 2 | year=1812 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oaARAAAAIAAJ | access-date=7 January 2021 | page=}}</ref>).<ref name=odnb/> The [[Sons of Africa]] abolitionist society had a membership of educated Londoners, mostly African former slaves. It was closely connected to the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.{{cn|date=January 2021}}

Petitioning peaked in 1792, with up to 100,000 signatures (Manchester alone contributing 10,639), regional anti-slavery groups started taking the lead, especially in the [[north of England]].<ref name=odnb/>

Women had increasingly played a larger role in the anti-slavery movement<ref>{{cite book| last1=Sussman| first1=Charlotte| title=Consuming Anxieties. Consumer Protest, Gender, and British Slavery, 1713-1833| year=2000|publisher=Stanford University Press|location=Stanford}}</ref> but could not take a direct role in [[British Parliament|Parliament]]. They sometimes formed their own anti-slavery societies. Many women were horrified that, under slavery, women and children were taken away from their families. In 1824, [[Elizabeth Heyrick]] published a pamphlet titled ''Immediate not Gradual Abolition'', in which she urged the immediate emancipation of slaves in the British colonies.{{cn|date=December 2020}}

Despite the little influence they carried, many female abolitionists made a big impact on the abolition of the slave trade. An important campaigner was [[Anne Knight]]. She was born into a Quaker family in Essex and took active roles in the anti-slavery campaigns. Knight formed the Chelmsford Female Anti-Slavery Society. She also toured France, giving lectures on the immorality of slavery.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}}

The [[Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves]] was founded in [[Birmingham]], England, on 8 April 1825.<ref>{{cite web | last=Simkin | first=John | title=Women and the Anti-Slavery Movement | website=Spartacus Educational | url=https://spartacus-educational.com/REslaveryW.htm | access-date=7 January 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-96359|title=Anti-Slavery Society|first=Catherine|last=Hall| year=2008| doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/96359|access-date=7 January 2021}}</ref>

==1807 abolition==
In 1807, the British [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliament]] voted to abolish the international slave trade under the [[Abolition of the Slave Trade Act]],<ref name=mylearning/> and enforce this through its maritime power, the [[Royal Navy]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hochschild |first1=Adam|author-]]  Adam Hochschild |title= [[Bury the Chains|Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves]]|publisher=Pan Books |place=London |year=2005}}</ref> The society wound up its work after the Act was passed.<ref name=hoi/>

The United States also prohibited the African slave trade in the same year, to take effect on 1 January 1808.<ref>{{cite interview |first=Eric |last=Foner|interviewer-first = Michel|interviewer-last =Martin|title=End of Slave Trade Meant New Normal for America | website=NPR.org | date=10 January 2008 | url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17988106 | access-date=26 July 2021}}</ref>

In 1808 a separate Act was passed in the UK to give greater British protection to [[Freetown]] in West Africa (now capital of [[Sierra Leone]]), a colony established in 1788 for the resettlement of former slaves and Poor Blacks from London, as well as [[Black Loyalists]] who had initially been relocated to Nova Scotia following the [[American Revolutionary War]]. The Timni chief Nembana sold a strip of land to British official to establish this colony for freed slaves. When the Royal Navy later intercepted illegal slave trading ships, its crews frequently resettled the liberated Africans at Freetown.{{cn|date=December 2020}}

==New society==
{{main|Anti-Slavery Society (1823–1838)}}
From 1823, the [[Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions]] (aka Anti-Slavery Society) became the primary organised group working for legislation to abolish slavery. The Society and supporters, including captive and freed Africans, [[missionaries]] and evangelical movements in the colonies, worked to achieve the first stage of legal emancipation in the colonies. It also supported abolitionists in the United States. Many British supported lecture tours by American abolitionists in Britain who were raising funds for efforts in the United States. Such supporters sometimes provided refuge to Americans who had escaped from slavery and helped raise money to buy their freedom, as for [[Frederick Douglass]].{{cn|date=December 2020}}

==Quotes ==
The society was "absolutely without precedent...If you pore over the histories of all peoples, I doubt that you will find anything more extraordinary."  -- [[Alexis de Tocqueville]]

==See also==
* [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom]]
* ''[[Bury the Chains|Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves]]''
* [[List of Abolitionist Forerunners (Thomas Clarkson)]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{cite web | title=Sierra Leone Colony | website=The British Empire | url=https://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/sierraleone.htm }}
* {{cite web | title=Parliament and the British Slave Trade | website=UK Parliament | url=https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/tradeindustry/slavetrade/ }}
* {{cite web | title=First Petition to Parliament: The Abolition of Slavery Project |format=Transcript| website=The Abolition of Slavery Project | url=http://abolition.e2bn.org/source_34.html }}
* [https://www.scseagrant.org/breaking-the-chains-the-end-of-the-transatlantic-slave-trade Breaking the Chains: The End of the Transatlantic Slave Trade], [[Costal Heritage Magazine]]  Volume 22 – Number 3  winter 2008

[[Category:Abolitionism in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:History of the British Isles]]
[[Category:Organizations established in 1787]]
[[Category:1787 establishments in Great Britain]]
[[Category:Abolitionist organizations]]
[[Category:History of Quakerism]]