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showing 317 library results for 'slave trade'

battle against slavery : the untold story of how a group of Yorkshire radicals began the war to end the slave "On 13 December 1776, the Rev. William Turner preached the first avowedly anti-slavery sermon in the North of England. Copies of his sermon were distributed far and wide - in so doing, he had fired the first shot in the battle to end slavery. Four years later, Rev. Turner, members of his congregation and the Rev Christopher Wyvill founded 'The Yorkshire Association' to agitate for political and social reform. The Association sought universal suffrage, annual parliaments and the abolition of slavery. In the West Riding, despite furious opposition, by 1783 nearly 10,000 signatures were collected in support of the aims of the Association. Slavery, or rather its abolition, was now on the political agenda. The Battle Against Slavery charts the story of a group of West Riding radicals in their bid to abolish slavery both in the United Kingdom and aboard. Such became the influence of this group, whose Unitarian beliefs were illegal in Britain, that the general election of 1806 in Yorkshire was fought on an abolitionist platform. At a time when the rest of the world engaged in slavery, this small body was fighting almost single-handedly to end such practices. Gradually, their beliefs began to spread across the country and across the Channel to France, the principles of which found resonance during the French Revolution and even across the Atlantic to America. At a time, today, when the history of slavery is the subject of considerable debate worldwide, this revealing insight into the abolitionist movement, which demonstrates how ordinary men and women battled against governments and the establishment, needs to be told. The Battle Against Slavery adds an important dimension to the continuing debate over Britain's, and other nations', involvement in the slave trade and demonstrates how the determination of just a few right-minded people can change world opinion forever."--Provided by the publisher. 2022. • BOOK • 1 copy available.
Distant freedom : St Helena and the abolition of the slave trade, 1840-1872 /Andrew Pearson. "This book is an examination of the island of St Helena's involvement in slave trade abolition. After the establishment of a British Vice-Admiralty court there in 1840, this tiny and remote South Atlantic colony became the hub of naval activity in the region. It served as a base for the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron, and as such became the principal receiving depot for intercepted slave ships and their human cargo. During the middle decades of the nineteenth century over 25,000 'recaptive' or 'liberated' Africans were landed at the island. Here, in embryonic refugee camps, these former slaves lived and died, genuine freedom still a distant prospect. This book provides an account and evaluation of this episode. It begins by charting the political contexts which drew St Helena into the fray of abolition, and considers how its involvement, at times, came to occupy those at the highest levels of British politics. In the main, however, it focuses on St Helena itself, and examines how matters played out on the ground. The study utilises documentary sources (many previously untouched) which tell the stories of those whose lives became bound up in the compass of anti-slavery, far from London and long after the Abolition Act of 1807. It puts the Black experience at the foreground, aiming to bring a voice to a forgotten people, many of whom died in limbo, in a place that was physically and conceptually between freedom and slavery."--Provided by the publisher. 2016. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 306.3/6209973
Materializing the middle passage : a historical archaeology of British slave shipping, 1680-1807 /Jane "An estimated 2.7 million Africans made an enforced crossing of the Atlantic on British slave ships between c.1680 and 1807 - a journey that has become known as the 'Middle Passage'. This book focuses on the slave ship itself. The slave ship is the largest artefact of the Transatlantic slave trade, but because so few examples of wrecked slaving vessels have been located at sea, it is rarely studied by archaeologists. Materializing the Middle Passage: A Historical Archaeology of British Slave Shipping,1680-1807 argues that there are other ways for archaeologists to materialize the slave ship. It employs a pioneering interdisciplinary methodology combining primary documentary sources, maritime and terrestrial archaeology, paintings, maritime and ethnographic museum collections, and many other sources to 'rebuild' British slaving vessels and to identify changes to them over time. The book then goes on to consider the reception of the slave ship and its trade goods in coastal West Africa, and details the range, and uses, of the many African resources (including ivory, gold, and live animals) entering Britain on returning slave ships. The third section of the book focuses on the Middle Passage experiences of both captives and crews and argues that greater attention needs to be paid to the coping mechanisms through which Africans survived, yet also challenged, their captive passage. Finally, Jane Webster asks why the African Middle Passage experience remains so elusive, even after decades of scholarship dedicated to uncovering it. She considers when, how, and why the crossing was remembered by 'saltwater' captives in the Caribbean and North America. The marriage of words and things attempted in this richly illustrated book is underpinned throughout by a theoretical perspective combining creolization and postcolonial theory, and by a central focus on the materiality of the slave ship and its regimes."--Provided by publisher. [2023] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 306.3/620941
Robert Hibbert 1772-1780 : detailing a merchant family's involvement in defence and of the colonial slave "The Jamaican Diaries of Robert Hibbert 1772-1780 is a deeply personal work that has evolved over the last 15 years. It is intended to foster a greater understanding of a very difficult time in history, in which the enslaved and the enslavers inhabit different, disturbing interlocking narratives, now distorted by time and politics. At its core is the dark stain of an empire and many fortunes built upon the enslavement of the unfortunate. It contains much thorough research into people, places, events and sources that developed as the author followed the twists and turns of a family history often frustratingly opaque and sometimes sensationally public. The book is part genealogy and part social history: a previously unpublished diary of a major figure in the West Indian slave trade, with contemporary sources and biographical notes on those that strutted the Atlantic world of the late eighteenth century. It lays down a chronology to allow a picture of the day-to-day happenings in Jamaica to emerge. This work exposes the deep, raw wounds that have resonated through the centuries, creating a need for a deeper study into many facets of British Atlantic history from a different perspective ? one in which the narrative of the enslaved and the enslavers can be read together in both the geopolitical context of the times and the legal, ethical, humanitarian and religious belief systems of those times on both sides of the Atlantic. In order to consider how the slave trade was run, financed, organised and evolved, the author provides a detailed examination of the Jamaican economy of the time, and offers a better and more balanced understanding of the slave trade?s establishment, adoption, adaption, abolition and, lastly, its legacy, in all its hydra-like forms. The second volume of this work will cover the years when the Diaries resume, 1787 to 1802. The Robert Hibbert diaries and the family involvement with Jamaica extend past the abolition (1834) and emancipation (1838) of slaves to the middle of the nineteenth century."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. txt