Early Social Reformers: Hannah More and the Clapham Sect; Abolitionists
Within the Early Social Reformers project, our group analyzed and explained More’s “The Sorrows of Yamba: Or, The Negro Woman’s Lamentation”. Starting off, we published a timeline that highlighted the year in which More’s poem was published, what year she was born in, and what her poem means. We explained that “The Sorrows of Yamba” details the slavery of a black woman-Yamba- who is taken from her home in Africa. We discussed that this poem was a part of the abolitionist movement, and what that entailed. Abolitionists are people who favor the abolition of a practice or institution, especially slavery, which this poem certainly played its part in. Furthermore, our group created another timeline entry. This post explained that the Clapham Sect was a group of Christians that worked to abolish slavery, specifically in England. They believed in keeping class as it was and supported Hannah More. In 1788, More’s poem “Slavery” was published. In this poem, Hannah More is continuing her work in advocating the movement to abolish slavery. The next significant event that we included in our timeline was the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. This was England's official act to end slavery across the country. While it was still 32 years before the US establishment of the 13th amendment this still demonstrates the significant amount of time it took for anything to be done legally regarding the Abolitionists movement, and what More, and Clapham Sect. fought for. In order to add visual context and appeal to More's writing and the work of Abolitionists we included a gallery post of a physical copy of More's "The Sorrows of Yamba" with illustrations, a picture of Hannah More herself, and a map of Clapham showing the Holy Trinity church where the first group of Clapham Sect Abolitionists was formed. The gallery and timeline work together to give context and physicality to not only Hannah More's writing, and the work of the Clapham Sect but the significance that both had on the abolition of slavery in England.