The 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act

The Atlantic Trade in Africans was officially abolished in 1808. But, from then until 1823, the antislavery campaign train seemed to have run out of steam. Abolitionists showed little interest in abolishing slavery itself. In 1823, the Anti-Slavery Society was founded in London. And the last serious effort to implement the Amelioration proposals (see Part V) was the Order in Council of November 1831, which applied to all the Crown colonies.

This law strengthened the previous orders and introduced new and tougher regulations to protect the rights of the enslaved and guarantee better standards of food, clothing, housing, and hours of work. It also made it possible to bring criminal prosecutions against owners charged with breaches of the order. These additional laws infuriated the colonists in the West Indies. Jamaica and the Leeward Islands simply refused to enact any similar law.

Yet, the efforts to end British slavery went beyond laws and legal wranglings. They also came from various individuals and organisations. British Quakers (Friends), as well as middle-class and working-class women’s groups, were the main allies to the prominent abolitionists. They all spoke out against and write about the evil of slavery between 1823 and 1833. They published and distributed literature which greatly influenced the public’s opinion on slavery.

Prominent Quakers, such as William Wilberforce and Thomas Fowell Buxton, represented the abolitionists in the British Parliament. Buxton himself managed to get 1.5 million signatures on his petition to end slavery in the British Empire. His efforts to set the enslaved free, however, encountered great resistance from merchants, planters, and members of parliament, some of whom were plantation owners themselves.

WORK OF BAPTIST MISSIONARIES

Also of note was the work of Baptist missionaries, such as William Knibb and Thomas Burchell. Burchell arrived in Jamaica from England in 1822 and quickly developed a deep hatred for slavery. He was instrumental in persuading the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) and other social organisations to lobby the British Parliament to end slavery in its Caribbean colonies. He wrote several letters to the BMS criticising slavery, urging the organisation to join with the Society for the Abolition of Slavery in lobbying the British government to end slavery.

In 1827, one of Burchell’s letters was published in a popular British magazine and when news of the letter reached Jamaica, the local planters had Burchell arrested for sedition. The planters offered to drop the charge if Burchell would make a public apology for his statements, but Burchell refused. The case was eventually discontinued, but Burchell earned folk-hero status among the enslaved for his firm antislavery stance.

Burchell was arrested as an instigator after the 1831-32 Sam Sharpe Rebellion. He was released later that year, but he travelled to Britain where he began working with the antislavery movement, providing firsthand details of the atrocities of slavery. This information was heavily relied upon by members of the antislavery movement to gain the passage of the Emancipation Act of 1833.

USING MEDIA

William Knibb, who arrived on the island in 1824, became an unrelenting critic of slavery. He gained the respect of the enslaved after publicising the arrest of an enslaved man, Sam Swiney, who was convicted and flogged for preaching without a licence, when in fact he was only praying. Knibb published the full details of the case in an island newspaper, which led to the dismissal of the magistrates involved.

After the 1831-32 Sam Sharpe Rebellion, Knibb was arrested on suspicion that he helped instigate the rebellion. After his eventual release, he continued his outspoken criticism of slavery. In 1832, he went to England where he appeared before committees of both Houses of Parliament, outlining the atrocities of slavery and the difficulties facing missionary groups. He also toured Scotland. Because of the loss of property and lives in the said uprising, the British Parliament held two inquiries. The Whig, Earl Grey, was prime minister at the time.

The Whigs (composed largely of members of the middle class) dominated the House of Commons after the Great Reform Act of 1832. The pro-slavery lobby pushed back by arguing that slavery was crucial to the prosperity of the West Indies and the British Empire. Colonial Secretary Edward Smith-Stanley wrote a new proposal in an attempt to find a compromise. The members of parliament debated the secretary’s proposal in Parliament, but the terms proved unacceptable to both sides.

The Abolition of Slavery Act (also known as the British Emancipation Act) passed its second reading in the House of Commons unopposed on July 22, 1833. The same year, Parliament received several more petitions calling for the end of slavery. By the end of July, the act was read for the third time in Parliament, a few days before the death of Wilberforce. It received the Royal Assent on August 28, 1833 to be effective August 1, 1834.

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