Thomas Clarkson - Anti-slavery Campaign

Anti-slavery Campaign

Encouraged by publication of Clarkson’s essay, an informal committee was set up between small groups from the petitioning Quakers, Clarkson and others, with the aim of lobbying Members of Parliament (MPs). This was to lead, in May 1787, to the foundation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The Committee included Granville Sharp as Chairman and Josiah Wedgwood as well as Clarkson himself. Clarkson also approached the young William Wilberforce, who as an (Evangelical) Anglican and an MP could offer them a link into the British Parliament. Wilberforce was one of very few parliamentarians to have had sympathy with the Quaker petition; he had already put a question about the slave trade before the House of Commons, marking himself out as one of the earliest Anglican abolitionists.

Clarkson took a leading part in the affairs of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and was given the responsibility to collect evidence to support the abolition of the slave trade. He faced much opposition from supporters of the trade in some of the cities he visited. The slave traders were an influential group because the trade was a legitimate and lucrative business, generating prosperity for many of the ports. On a visit to Liverpool in 1787, the year the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded, Clarkson was attacked and nearly killed by a gang of sailors paid to assassinate him. He barely escaped with his life. That same year, Clarkson published the pamphlet: "A Summary View of the Slave Trade and of the Probable Consequences of Its Abolition".

Clarkson was very effective at giving the Committee a high public profile: he spent the next two years travelling around England, promoting the cause and gathering evidence. He interviewed 20,000 sailors during his research. He obtained equipment used on slave-ships, such as iron handcuffs, leg-shackles, and thumbscrews; instruments for forcing open slaves' jaws; and branding irons. He published engravings of the tools in pamphlets and displayed the instruments at public meetings.

Clarkson’s research took him to English ports such as Bristol, where he received much data from the landlord of the Seven Stars pub. (The building still stands in Thomas Lane.) He also traveled to Liverpool and London, collecting vital evidence to support the abolitionist case.

One of the first African trading ships that Clarkson visited was The Lively. Although not a slave ship, it carried cargo of high quality that had a powerful impact upon Clarkson. The ship was loaded with beautiful African goods: carved ivory and woven cloth, along with produce such as beeswax, palm oil and peppers. Clarkson could see the craftsmanship and skill required to produce many of the items. The idea that their creators could be enslaved horrified him. Clarkson bought samples from the ship and started a collection to which he added over the years. It included crops, spices and raw materials, along with refined trade goods.

Clarkson noticed how pictures and artifacts were able to influence public opinion, more than words alone. He quickly realised that his collection of fine goods could reinforce the message of his anti-slavery lectures. He used the items to demonstrate the skill of Africans and possibilities for an alternative humane trading system. The "box" of his collection became an important part his public meetings, and was an early example of a visual aid.

He rode by horseback some 35,000 miles for evidence and visited local anti-slave trade societies founded across the country. He enlisted the help of Alexander Falconbridge and James Arnold, two ship’s surgeons whom he met in Liverpool. They had been on many voyages aboard slave ships, and were able to recount their experiences in detail for publication.

Clarkson also continued to write against the slave trade. He filled his works with vivid firsthand descriptions from sailors, surgeons and others who had been involved in the slave traffic. Examples included "An Essay on the Slave Trade", the account of a sailor who had served aboard a slave ship, published in 1789. In 1788 Clarkson published his Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade (1788), which was printed in large numbers. These works provided a firm basis for William Wilberforce's first abolitionist speech in the House of Commons on 12 May 1789, and its twelve propositions.

That same year an autobiographical narrative by an African with direct experience of the slave trade and slavery was published; it was highly influential. Clarkson wrote to the Rev. Mr. Jones at Trinity College, introducing Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano), the African anti-slavery author, who wished to visit Cambridge. Clarkson asked the Rev. Jones for help in selling Equiano's autobiography.

In 1791 Wilberforce introduced the first Bill to abolish the slave trade; it was easily defeated by 163 votes to 88. As Wilberforce continued to bring the issue of the slave trade before Parliament, Clarkson traveled and wrote anti-slavery works.

It was the beginning of their protracted parliamentary campaign, during which Wilberforce introduced a motion in favour of abolition almost every year. Clarkson, Wilberforce and the other members of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and their supporters, were responsible for generating and sustaining a national movement that mobilised public opinion as never before. Parliament, however, refused to pass the bill. The outbreak of War with France effectively prevented further debate for many years.

By 1794, Clarkson's health was failing, as he suffered from exhaustion. He retired from the campaign and spent some time in the Lake District, where he bought an estate at Ullswater, and became a friend of the poet William Wordsworth. In 1796 he married Catherine Buck of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk; their only child Thomas was born in 1796. They moved back to the south of England for the sake of Catherine’s health, and settled at Bury St Edmunds from 1806 to 1816, after which they lived at Playford Hall, halfway between Ipswich and Woodbridge, Suffolk.

When the war with France appeared to be almost over, Clarkson and his allies revived the anti-slave trade campaign in 1804. After ten years, he again mounted his horse to travel all over Great Britain and canvass support for the measure. He appeared to have returned with all his old enthusiasm and vigour. He was especially active in persuading MPs to back the parliamentary campaign.

After the passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, Clarkson's efforts were directed toward ensuring enforcement of the act and furthering the campaign in the rest of Europe. He travelled to Paris in 1814 and Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, trying to reach international agreement on a timetable for abolition of the trade. He also published a book in 1808 about the progress of the abolition of the slave trade. For Rees's Cyclopaedia he contributed the article on the Slave Trade, Vol 33, 1816.