There are numerous resources relating to the slave trade, and the experience of enslavement. Although British involvement in the slave trade was banned in 1807 and slave ownership was ended between 1834 and 1838 in most British colonies, there were many ways in which individual Britons could be involved illegally in the slave trade, in slave ownership in non-British slave economies, and in sourcing slave produced goods for manufacturing and processing in Britain. In addition to the campaign for abolition of the trade, there were debates and practical action to try and stimulate non-slave commercial trade, including the establishment of Sierra Leone, which Equiano played a part in, and by the free African-American Paul Cuffee. After 1838 British abolitionists turned their attentions to seeking to end the slave trade and slavery in other parts of the world.
Slaves, resistance and revolt took many forms including individual acts of defiance, escape, rebellion and revolution. In many cases fugitives set up Maroon (free) communities. Others, like Mary Prince, escaped to Britain. Up until the early 1770s those who escaped to Britain, or escaped their owners while in Britain, were vulnerable to capture and re-enslavement. Many found positive help in working-class communities, and from abolitionists like Granville Sharp. Sharp took slave owners to Court, as in the Somerset case (1772), which was regarded as meaning slavery was illegal in Britain. In the United States, the Underground Railway network helped escaped slaves reach freedom in British controlled Canada. Revolts like the Haitian Revolution had an enormous impact on the slavery and abolition debate. Slave Narratives, such as those of Equiano and Mary Prince, became an important part of abolition literature in Britain up to 1838.
The 200th Bicentennial of the abolition of Britain's official involvement in the slave trade in 2007 gave a great deal of emphasis to the abolition movement. Equiano's role in the campaign was particularly emphasised, alongside the contributions of the Quakers, Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, and others, and the anti-slavery campaign organisations around Britain, including those run by women. After the abolition of slavery in most of the British colonies in 1838 attention turned particularly to the emancipation of slaves in the United States. American slave narratives played an increasingly important role in supporting the arguments for emancipation. In Britain, their impact was particularly connected with their authors campaigning here such as William and Ellen Craft, Frederick Douglas, Rev. James Pennington, Samuel Ringnold Ward and Moses Roper. The abolition movement created a large amount of campaigning material, and aspects of the abolition story can be seen on many of the sites listed in the website resource file.
Reading
A comprehensive reading list can be seen on the '1807 Commemorated' website:
www.history.ac.uk/1807commemorated/reading.html
These are some recommended books:
Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848, Verso, 1994.
M. Campbell, The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796, Africa World Press, 1990.
Sylviane A. Diouf (ed.), Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies, James Currey, 2003.
David Geggus (ed.), The Impact of the Haitian Revolution on the Atlantic World, University of South Carolina Press, 2001.
Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains, Macmillan, 2005.
C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins – Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, Allison & Busby, 1980.
Franklyn W. Knight (ed.), General History of the Caribbean, Volume III – The Slave Societies of the Caribbean, UNESCO, 1997.
R. Price, Maroon Societies- Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, John Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Simon Schama, Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution, BBC Books, 2005.
Verene Shepherd and Hilary Beckles (eds.), Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic World – A Student Reader, James Currey, 2000.
Marika Sherwood, After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807, I.B. Taurus, 2007.
Websites
For details of key websites go to website resource file. These sites contain relevant images. Useful information and controversial views can be found on:
The BBC’s Abolition of the Slave Trade 1807 webpages.
www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition
Breaking the Silence – Learning about the Translatlantic Slave Trade webpages.
www.antislavery.org/breakingthesilence/index.shtml
There are three key websites with original texts and images on slavery and abolition:
Recovered Histories
www.recoveredhistories.org
Anti-Slavery International's digitised collection of 18th and 19th Century literature on the Transatlantic Slave Trade, captures the 'narratives of the enslaved, slave ship surgeons, abolitionists, parliamentarians, clergy, planters and rebels'. It contains useful pages covering the following topics, with links to some of the original texts: Africa, Capture & Enslavement, The Middle Passage, Caribbean Enslavement, Resistance & Rebellion, Pro-Slavery Lobby, Anti-Slavery Movement, Religion, Abolition & Emancipation, and Legacy.
Samuel J May Anti-Slavery Collection
http://dlxs.library.cornell.edu/m/mayantislavery/index.html
Cornell University Collection consists of the material gathered by the American abolitionist Rev Samuel J May, to which was added other material. The site also contains an overview section: '”I Will be Heard!” Abolitionism in America'.
The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/index.php
University of Virginia Digital Image Lab Library of about 1,235 images for use by students, teachers, scholars and the general public for educational and non-commercial use.
The texts on Recovered Histories and the May Collection sites complement each other making available a greater number of texts than is held in each collection. As research on slavery and abolition continues it is apparent that there are many other collections containing original texts which are not on these sites, and which have not yet been digitised. Both sites can be searched by author, title and year, and by key word.
The following are some of the original material viewable on these websites:
Slave Trade 1789-1799
Evidence given to the Committee of the Whole House (of Commons) 1789/90.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?page=1&orderby=MaxID&catid=34
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=35
Abstract of an act for better regulating the manner of carrying slaves in British vessels from the coast of Africa, passed July 12th, 1799. 1799.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=115
Sierra Leone and Non-Slave Trading:
Alexander Falconbridge, Substance of the Report of the Court of directors of the Sierra Leone Company to the general court, held at London 19th October, London 1791.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?page=1&orderby=date&catid=128
‘A discourse delivered on the death of Capt. Paul Cuffee before the New York African Institution in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, October 21st, 1817’, by Peter Williams, A Man of Colour, New York: 1818.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=42
Slavery in West Indies:
Thomas Cooper, Facts illustrative of the conditions of the negro slaves in Jamaica, with notes and an appendix', London: 1824.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=132
Horrors of West Indian Slavery, 1806.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=149
Extracts from a West India Plantation Journal kept by the Manager: showing the treatment of the slaves and its fatal consequences.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=342
Details on the treatment of the apprentice labourers in the period 1834-8 before final emancipation in the West Indies in James Williams, A Narrative of Events since the 1st August 1834, London: 1838.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=507
Haitian Revolt:
A particular account of the commencement of the insurrection of the Negroes in St Domingo, which began August 1791, being a translation of the speech made to the national assembly 3rd November 1791 by the deputies from the General Assembly of the French part of St Domingo, 2nd edition, with notes and an appendix containing extracts from other authentic papers, London: 1792.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?page=1&orderby=MaxID&catid=92
Marcus Rainsford, Historical Account of the Black Empire of Haiti, London: 1806. (with engravings)
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=743
The History of Toussaint L'Ouverture, London: 1814.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?page=1&orderby=MaxID&catid=652
Insurrections:
Facts and documents connected with the late insurrection in Jamaica and the violations of civil and religious liberty arising out of it. London: 1832.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=213
Illegal and foreign slave trade after 1807:
The trials of the Slave Traders: Samuel Samo, Joseph Peters and William Tufft, Tried in April and June 1812 Before the Hom. Robert Thorpe LLD Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, With Two Letters on the Slave Trade.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=50
‘State of the Foreign Slave Trade’, British Review, No. XXXVI, London: December 1821.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=293
The Foreign Slave Trade, a Brief Account of its State, of the Treaties Which Have Been Entered Into, and of the Laws Enacted for its Suppression, From the Date of the English Abolition Act to the Present Time, London: 1837.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?page=1&orderby=date&catid=196
Special report of the Anti-Slavery Conference 1867 held in Paris, London.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=784
US Slave Narratives:
A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper from American Slavery', Philadelphia: 1838.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=456
Samuel Ringnold Ward, Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro: His Anti-Slavery Labours in the United States, Canada & England, London: 1855.
www.recoveredhistories.org/pamphlet1.php?catid=737
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American, 1845.
http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/Literature/Douglass/Autobiography
James W. C. Pennington, A Narrative of Events of the Life of J. H. Banks, an Escaped Slave, from the Cotton State, Alabama, in America, Liverpool: 1861.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/penning/penning.html
Underground Railway
National Geographic website area:
www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/j1.html
http://education.ucdavis.edu/NEW/STC/lesson/socstud/railroad/contents.htm
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASunderground.htm
William Still. The Underground Railway. Philadelphia 1872. Text on:
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15263
Films about the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Timewatch: African Slave Trade (1997)
Prod: BBC
Documentary that concentrates on the involvement of the trade by Africans in Africa.
Repos: BFI
Location (Ref. no.): tx 25/11/1997
Britain’s Slave Trade (1999)
Prod: Brook Lapping/Pepper Productions Channel 4
4-part series:
1) Gold, Silver Negroes, Slaves
2) Unfinished Business
3) Old Corruption
4) Message From Our Ancestors
Repos: BFI
Location (Ref. no.): 1) tx 3/10/1999; 2) tx/10/10/1999; 3) tx 17/10/1999 4) tx 24/10/1999
Age of Revolutions: Slave Trade (1972)
Prod: BBC Open University
Repos: BFI
History File: Black People’s of America (Episode: Atlantic Slave Trade) (1997)
Prod: BBC Schools
Documentary that concentrates on the involvement of the trade by Africans in Africa.
Repos: BFI
Location (Ref. no.): tx between 10/2-17/3/1997
500 Years Later (2005)
Dir: Owen Alik Shahadah
Prod: Halaquah Media
Documentary. History of atrocities in slave trade and the struggle still going on globally 500yrs+.
Repos: BFI