British Slave Trade Abolished

The Palace of Westminster, Drawn by J. Shury & Son, Printed by Day & Haghe

In a development inspired by the testimonies of enslaved and formerly enslaved campaigners such as Ignatius Sancho and Olaudah Equiano, as well as British abolitionists like Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, the official Act of Parliament abolishing the British slave trade was passed on March 25, 1807, to begin on May 1st of that year. Though landowners were still permitted to use their existing enslaved labor force (slavery itself wouldn't be officially outlawed in the British Empire until 1833 with the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act), this marked the first major success in the campaign to end slavery in the British Empire.

Founding of the Anti-Slavery Society

Also known as the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions and, later, the London Anti-Slavery Society, the Anti-Slavery Society was founded with the purpose of advocating for the eradication of slavery in the British Empire. Following the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, a new organization, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was formed in its place, shifting the focus to abolition on a global scale.

Great Reform Act of 1832

The first Reform Bill aimed to address inequalities in voting and governmental representation between rural and urban areas of England. Industrial cities like Manchester and Birmingham, whose populations were rapidly increasing, found themselves underrepresented in parliament, stifled by the larger number of representatives allowed from less populated rural regions, called “rotten boroughs.” By redistributing seats and altering electoral qualifications to include smaller property owners, the Act effectively strengthened alignment between the upper and upper-middle classes while maintaining a social hierarchy predicated upon the possession of land. Despite increasing the total English electorate by 217,000 people, it not only excluded men from the working and lower-middle classes, but also prohibited all women from voting.

For more information, please see Carolyn Vellenga Berman's BRANCH article, "On the Reform Act of 1832."

Slavery Abolition Act

The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 received the Royal Assent (which means it became law) on 29 August 1833. The Act outlawed slavery throughout the British Empire; Britain’s colonial slaves were officially emancipated on 1 August 1834 when the law came into force, although most entered a form of obligatory apprenticeship that ended in 1840. Image: The Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Image: the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Articles

Elsie B. Michie, "On the Sacramental Test Act, the Catholic Relief Act, the Slavery Abolition Act, and the Factory Act"

Sarah Winter, “On the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica and the Governor Eyre-George William Gordon Controversy, 1865-70″

Frederick Douglass Publishes "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass"

Often considered among the most well-known and influential abolitionist texts in the United States, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass details the life and abolitionist work of Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery in Maryland in 1817 or 1818. After suffering under twenty years of violence and forced labor—ranging from work in the fields of Maryland to Baltimore's shipyards—Douglass escaped to freedom in New York City in 1838. Though Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass received much praise, Douglass feared recapture by his former enslaver and spent two years in Britain and Ireland until he was able to buy his freedom with the monetary support of those he met abroad. He died at the age of 77 or 78 in 1895.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Publishes "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"

Elizabeth Barrett Browning first published "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" in December 1847, as an invited contribution to the 1848 issue of the Boston-based abolitionist annual The Liberty Bell. The third of five poems about slavery that EBB wrote throughout her life, "The Runaway Slave" is the first of these works to directly address the issue of slavery beyond the scope of the British Empire, focusing specifically on slavery in the United States through the perspective and voice of a woman who has escaped from a plantation after killing her child—a product of rape by her enslaver. EBB addressed the intensity of the poem's content in an 1846 letter: "I am just sending off an anti-slavery poem for America .. too ferocious, perhaps, for the Americans to publish: but they asked for a poem & shall have it" (BC, 21 Dec. 1846, EBB, no. 2643). EBB would go on to publish the poem (with some variations) in her editions of Poems (1850, 1853, 1856).

Title page of the 1848 volume of The Liberty Bell.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Publishes "Hiram Powers' Greek Slave"

Title page of the first volume of Household Words.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning originally published "Hiram Powers' Greek Slave" in the second volume of Charles Dickens's Household Words. The poem considers The Greek Slave, a statue sculpted by American artist Hiram Powers, with whom she and Robert Browning were acquainted and near-neighbors in Florence. Because the statue was, at the time of the poem's inception, being displayed across the U.S. and Britain, it is likely that EBB saw a model cast of the statue for herself at Powers's studio in early 1847. "Hiram Powers' Greek Slave" is the fourth of the five poems EBB wrote about slavery and is primarily responsible for shifting the statue's popular context away from that of the Greek War of Independence that had initially inspired Powers' work and towards broader questions of morality surrounding slavery abroad in the United States.

Harriet Beecher Stowe serializes "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

Initially published in the form of weekly installments in the abolitionist periodical The National Era between June 5, 1851 and April 1, 1852 before its publication as a two-volume book, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was a landmark anti-slavery text of the American Antebellum period. The sentimental novel, which interweaves Stowe's Christian beliefs with the violent realities of the slavery industry, was inspired not only by the 1850 passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, which required that all escaped slaves—even those in free states—be returned to their enslavers, but also the real-life narratives of those who had been formerly enslaved, such as Josiah Henson and Phebe Ann Jacobs. Uncle Tom's Cabin is often credited with fueling the abolitionist cause in the decade preceding the Civil War, with President Abraham Lincoln himself quoted as saying, upon meeting Stowe, "So this is the little lady who started this great war." At the same time, it reinforced harmful stereotypes about Black people, including the creation of the titular "Uncle Tom" literary archetype.

Poems before Congress

On 12 March 1860, publication of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Poems before Congress. Image: An 1871 engraving of an 1859 photograph of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (photograph by Macaire Havre, engraving by T. O. Barlow). This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

Articles

Alison Chapman, "On Il Risorgimento"

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George William Gordon executed

Gordon, a Jamaican former slave and elected member of the Jamaica House of Assembly, is executed by hanging after a court martial condemns him to death for his alleged role in encouraging the Morant Bay rebellion.

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Sarah Winter, “On the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica and the Governor Eyre-George William Gordon Controversy, 1865-70″

“Jamaica Committee”

The Jamaica Committee, a coalition of politicians, writers, and scientists, is organized to seek governmental and legal accountability for the actions undertaken by Governor Edward John Eyre and his subordinates during thirty days of martial law in the aftermath of the Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica. Image: Photograph of Governor Edward John Eyre, circa 1870, by Henry Hering. The Caribbean Photo Archive. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

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Sarah Winter, “On the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica and the Governor Eyre-George William Gordon Controversy, 1865-70″

Edward John Eyre indictment hearing

The Jamaica Committee’s first attempted indictment, at Market Drayton in Shropshire, of Edward John Eyre, ex-Governor of Jamaica, for the murder of George William Gordon; hearing ends in Eyre’s discharge by the grand jury. Image: Photograph of Governor Edward John Eyre, circa 1870, by Henry Hering. The Caribbean Photo Archive. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

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Sarah Winter, “On the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica and the Governor Eyre-George William Gordon Controversy, 1865-70″

Edward John Eyre acquitted

3 June 1868 saw the last, unsuccessful action against Edward John Eyre. This was the final effort by the Jamaica Committee to prosecute ex-Governor of Jamaica Edward John Eyre under the Colonial Governors Act for abuse of power in imposing an extended period of martial law during the 1865 Morant Bay rebellion; the case is sent forward to a grand jury, but Eyre is not indicted. Image: Photograph of Governor Edward John Eyre, circa 1870, by Henry Hering. The Caribbean Photo Archive. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

Articles

Sarah Winter, “On the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica and the Governor Eyre-George William Gordon Controversy, 1865-70″