Background
- By the eighteenth century, moral and religious opposition to slavery began to challenge the economic and political systems that sustained it.
- Early critics of slavery emphasized the contradiction between Enlightenment ideals of liberty and the ongoing exploitation of millions of Africans.
- What began as a small religious protest evolved into a broad, organized movement that reshaped British and transatlantic attitudes toward human rights.
Religious and Moral Origins
The Role of the Quakers
- The Society of Friends (Quakers) were the first religious group to formally condemn slavery.
- By the 1750s, Quaker meetings in Britain and North America banned members from owning enslaved people.
- Leaders such as John Woolman and Anthony Benezet published pamphlets arguing that slavery violated Christian teachings of equality and peace.
- Quakers laid the foundation for a wider abolitionist movement rooted in conscience and faith.
Definition
Abolitionism
The political and moral movement dedicated to ending the slave trade and the institution of slavery itself.
Moral and Enlightenment Influence
- The rise of humanitarian thought and Enlightenment philosophy encouraged new ideas about universal rights and liberty.
- Activists argued that slavery contradicted both Christian ethics and natural law.
- These ideas helped turn moral conviction into political activism.
Definition
Humanitarianism
A belief in promoting human welfare and dignity; during the eighteenth century, it became a guiding principle for reformers opposing cruelty and injustice.
Expansion of the Abolition Movement
Early British Abolitionists
- Figures such as Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson investigated and publicized the abuses of the slave trade.
