Different historians believe that the abolitionist movement in Great Britain came from left wing and right wing politics. David Brion Davis wrote that the movement stemmed from new ideas on production associated with industrialization. James Walvin feels that the anti-slavery movement was started by women who at the time were at the fringes of politics. Nicholas Hudson believes that the movement was started by conservatives who preached loyalty to the crown and church. The abolitionist movement can be viewed across the political spectrum due to the wide variety of the people associated with it.
Davis, a liberal, associated the movement with the industrialization of Great Britain. The shift from an agrarian society to an industrial one created a new class of people. The new class of people that arose from this transition made slavery obsolete. The new ideology on labor also led to new ideas on slavery. Entrepreneurs who were not associated with shipping or trade gained status during this time. This new system valued the individual, which was inconsistent with the old idea of slavery. Further progress under this system would lead to the emancipation of slaves (Davis, 23). During this time, the new views of capitalism made slavery seem outdated.
According to Walvin, the abolitionist movement was created by women who were worried about families and women in the slave community. Women in Great Britain were not allowed to directly participate in politics. Through this movement women were allowed to be in the public realm. These women were concerned with the virtue of female slaves and their roles as mother. Slavery did not allow women to truly fulfill their jobs of mothers to their families. Female abolitionist felt it was their duty to end slavery in order to restore slaves to their proper roles in society. The abolitionists did not care about slavery enough to stop using sugar, however (Walvin, 560-561). At the time women in politics was progressive, which falls under left wing politics in the present day.
Hudson views conservative individuals as the ones responsible for bringing the issue of slavery into political debate. The majority of early abolitionists were Anglican and loyal to the church and the king. For example, Samuel Johnson had close ties to the Anglican Church and was fiercely loyal to the king, even though he was viewed as radical by some. He was responsible “for bringing slavery to the stage of legal and political debate during the 1770’s” (Hudson, 561). This people were not on the fringe of society, in fact they mostly represented the status quo. Through their work these conservatives advanced the cause of emancipation in Great Britain.
Slavery gave Great Britain great wealth through the production of sugar. The trade was outdated and prevented the country from future success. The country needed to stop the slave trade in order to flourish under the new system of capitalism. There was also a moral cost as represented by the women abolitionists. The trade prevented slaves from fulfilling their obligations as human beings. The abolitionists represented the entire political spectrum, but everyone viewed the system as one that needed to be stopped.
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I think you correctly identified the scholars addressing the Whig/Tory debate but left out some of their arguments. For instance, Davis credited the Quakers with getting the ball rolling on effective abolitionism, the Quakers were also some of the best capitalists around but stood outside the norms of the day because of their nonconformist religious ideologies.
ReplyDeleteWalvin too, gave the Quakers their due credit. He also argues that Whig intellectuals trained in Enlightenment thought had a beneficial effect on Britons in terms of building public awareness about abolition.
All three of the historians in this debate agree that slavery and the slave trade ended due to changing ideologies and not because there was a marked decline in the profits from the trade. So I agree with your assessment that it was the beliefs and values of the British population that brought down the slave trade in Britain.
Although I don't disagree with what you said, I too agree with Carol in the fact that the Quakers played an important role in the abolitionist movement. However, I think that the ideology played a much higher role in abolishing the slave trade, than capitalism did. Sure money was important but I think that what really caused the Briton's to push for abolition was ideology. With the Enlightenment and the change in ideology, people began to view slavery in a new light. Religious groups began to feel the immorality of the slave trade and women began to sympathize with other women, including black women. Thus, sure capitalism and the Industrial Revolution were important, I thinking changing thought was much more important.
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