…The Slave Trade (by J. Chumbley), from page 1

He began his 20-year campaign to achieve abolition. (See below on Amazing Grace, a film of his life.) Wilberforce and the Clapham Group, as it was called because they all lived in the Clapham area, five miles south of the center of London, became the core, long-term activists. Many were prominent wealthy men and women, such as John and Henry Thornton, and Hannah More, the “versificatrix” (who wrote a tract against Rights of Man, arguing for politics to remain exclusively for the educated few). They had to persuade not only the Whigs (liberals) to work with them for abolition but also other Tories who had interests of their own in slavery. Year after year, resolutions were defeated.

1789 The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African was published in London, and became a phenomenal best seller, both in Britain and America. A freed slave living in England, Equiano (c. 1745-1797), was a prominent campaigner for the abolition of the slave trade and helped to fuel the anti-slavery movement. Thomas Paine, back in England then, must have known about this publication. Did he meet Equiano? Was Equiano too much of an opportunist, despite his travails,and too closely connected by 1789 with the British political establishment for Paine’s taste? (Equiano is featured in Amazing Grace.)

1789 Storming of the Bastille (July)--beginning of the French Revolution - just across the Channel !

1791-1804 A slave revolt in the French colony, San Domingo, was led by Toussaint L’Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Surely, Thomas Paine knew of these revolutionaries and their impact because in 1804, writing “To the Inhabitants of Louisiana,” he warned that to continue to “import and enslave Africans” could lead to “the horrors of Domingo.”

1792 A British resolution “gradually” to abolish the TST was approved as a delaying tactic.

1792 Thomas Paine may have written a pamphlet in London under the name Vindex, supporting the abolition of “that horrid traffick.” (John Keane, Tom Paine, A Political Life, 1995, Boston: Little, Brown & Co. pp. 342 and 596.)

1797-1804 Demoralized, the Abolition Committee did not meet, but popular support grew through a campaign of meetings, pamphlets, mass petitions, badges and sugar boycott.

1806 William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (as of 1801), was a friend of Wilberforce and a supporter of abolition, but he died a year and two months before the Abolition Bill came into effect. (He is a major figure in the Amazing Grace film.) Although Pitt was a parliamentary reformer, his initial reform bill was defeated in 1785, and he moved on to other matters. Then, during the French Revolution, Parliament and Pitt’s government enacted repressive legislation, fearing revolutionary activity at home, especially regarding the publication of “seditious” material (for example, Rights of Man), the right to assemble publicly ("seditious meetings"), and the formation of societies or organizations that favored political reforms. Those measures impacted Paine especially, and he left England in September 1792, never to return.

March 2, 1807 The document to abolish the US slave trade was signed by President Thomas Jefferson, to take effect on January 1, 1808.

March 25, 1807 The bill to abolish the British slave trade (for its own flag vessels), passed by both houses of Parliament and signed by King George III, came into effect.

1809 Thomas Paine died, having lived long enough to know of the momentous Acts of 1807.

1815-1820 TST became prohibited by most countries—Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, France, Netherlands, Sweden, US, and Spain. Some illegal slave trading continued for decades. Brazil and Portugal were the most recalcitrant slave-trading countries.

1833 Slavery was abolished in all British possessions. (Wilberforce died three days later.)

1850 British ships entered Brazilian ports to search and seize.

1861-1865 US Civil War Between the States

1863 The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln, came into effect.

December 6, 1865 The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, abolishing slavery.

1948 The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 4 states: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude: slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. (Thomas Paine: If the present generation, or any other, are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the right of the succeeding generation to be free. Rights of Man, I, 1791)

2004 The United Nations General Assembly declared 2004 as the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Abolition of Slavery.

2007 200^th Anniversary of the Abolition of the British and US Slave Trade 1807-2007--major events in Liverpool, also "Breaking the Chains" program in Bristol, and others.

It seems that much of the UK has rallied to be part of the anniversary celebration. The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has committed over 16 million pounds toward projects that will make the bicentenary relevant to people today—to reflect on the struggles from the past, the progress made, the challenges that remain. The Advisory Committee is headed by Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, the current MP from Hull, and a distinguished group of scores of people from the Commission for Racial Equality to the Notting Hill Carnival. A sampling of the exhibits, concerts, lectures, and conferences is: Victoria & Albert Museum, “From Cane Fields to Tea Cup”; London Parliament exhibit, “The British Slave Trade”; National Commemorative Service at Westminster Abbey; major events in Liverpool; “The Life and Times of Olaudah Equiano” exhibit at Birmingham City Museum. Materials have been prepared for the schools. Of course, a major focus will be in the City of Hull. (See www.wilberforcecentral.org)

The US, too, will participate. The film, Amazing Grace, has already been released, along with a book of the same name by Eric Metaxas. A television documentary is planned for the fall, The Better Hour. William Wilberforce: A Man of Character Who Changed the World. (See www.thebetterhour.com) There will be activities at the Wilberforce School in Princeton and at Ohio’s Wilberforce University, the first Black university in America.

We are admonished not to become too euphoric in our celebration of noble intentions. (See Tristram Hunt at www.guardian.co.uk). It must be recognized that slavery secured the imperial hegemony of Georgian England, and some people and institutions (the royal family, other titled bankers, merchants, numerous

Continued on page 5, The Slave Trade

4 Bulletin of Thomas Paine Friends, vol. 8, no. 1, March 2007

...The Slave Trade (by J. Chumbley), from page 4

Oxbridge colleges, and even the Church of England) profited greatly from “that horrid traffick.” Policies were determined because of commercial and political advantages, not moral or humanitarian concerns. Perhaps we should be focusing on reparations. Also, it is estimated by various human rights groups (Amnesty International and others) that over 20 million people are still in forms of servitude today—wage slavery (low wages, child labor), contract slaves (some migrant labor), and traditional slaves, who are abducted, smuggled into a foreign country, and sold into lives of forced labor or prostitution. Addressing those concerns, the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) at the University of Hull is sponsoring two conferences: “Twenty-first Century Slavery” and “The Unfinished Business of Slavery.” Every life is precious and contains powerful, unknown potential that is a grievous thing to lose.

“The mind bowed down by slavery loses in silence its elastic power.” –Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, 1795]

Because Thomas Paine was such a clear voice during his time against the scourge of slavery, I think it’s fitting to remember him in the context of this celebration. Therefore, I am sending greetings and best wishes to many of the Bicentennial groups from Thomas Paine Friends.

--Joyce Chumbley, March 2007

Bulletin of Thomas Paine Friends, vol. 8, no. 1, March 2007 5