Slavery and Slavery Abolition Act Essay

Introduction
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. The Slave Trade began around the 1400’s. Slavery had existed in Europe from Classical times and did not disappear with the collapse of the Roman Empire. Slaves remained common in Europe throughout the early medieval period.
Many different countries were involved in the slave trade. The Slave Trade first began in Europe and by the seventeenth century it was in full swing. African people were captured and bought and sold to plantation owners. African people were excellent workers: they often had experience of agriculture and keeping cattle, they were used to a tropical climate, resistant to tropical diseases, and they could be "worked very hard" on plantations or in mines.
From before Roman times, the practice of slavery was normal in Britain. Slaves were routinely exported. In 1086, over 10% of England's populations were slaves. By the 18th century, the slave trade became a major economic mainstay for such cities as Bristol and Liverpool, involved in the so-called "Triangular trade". The ships set out from England, loaded with trade goods which were exchanged on the West African shores for slaves; the slaves were transported through the infamous "middle passage" across the Atlantic, and were sold at considerable profit for labor in plantations. The ships were loaded with export crops and supplies, the products of slave labor, such as sugar and rum, and returned to England to sell the items. Slavery was finally abolished in Britain, by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
Shows slaves taken onto the ship.
Slavery

Abolition of Slavery
Many people helped put an end to slavery. Slaves such Olaudah Equaino, Mary Prince who worked very hard and bought their freedom from slavery; they wrote autobiography’s to tell people about the horrors of slavery. Mary Prince also wrote petitions which thousands of people signed and the petition was presented to parliament. Both Slaves campaigned with the anti-slavery society .This society did things like boycott sugar therefore it made sugar sellers and plantation owners weren’t making any profit.
Quakers such as John Wesley were also against slavery. Quakers were very religious people and they believed slavery was against the teaching of Christianity. John Wesley published articles and pamphlets against slavery. In 1774 he spoke out against slavery.
Thomas Clarkson was also campaigning to end slavery. He drew numerous about of pictures to show people about slavery. His most famous work is his drawing of the hold of 'The Crookes', a slave ship, showing how slaves were tightly packed together for the Middle Passage. He was friends with William Wilberforce who also campaigned against slavery.
I believe the most important group in the Abolition of the Slave trade Act were the slaves themselves for example Olaudah Equiano was a slave ,he knew that one of the most powerful arguments against slavery would be his own life story. He published his autobiography in 1789: ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano’. The book began with a petition addressed to Parliament and ended with his antislavery letter to the Queen. The tens of thousands of people who read Equiano's book, or heard him speak, started to see slavery through the eyes of a former enslaved African. It was a very important book that made a vital contribution to the abolitionists' cause.

Slave resistance began in British North America almost as soon as the first slaves arrived in the Chesapeake in the early seventeenth century. African and African-American slaves had three available methods to resist slavery: they could rebel against slaveholders, they could run away, or they could perform small, daily acts of resistance, such as slowing down work. Many slaves in Britain passively resisted. Some urinated in their owner’s food; others would pretend to be ill, cause fires on the plantation

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