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GLADSTONE AND SLAVERY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

ROLAND QUINAULT
ROLAND QUINAULT*
Affiliation:
London Metropolitan University
*
London Metropolitan University, 166-220 Holloway Road, London, N7 8DB[email protected]
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Abstract

William Gladstone's views on slavery and the slave trade have received little attention from historians, although he spent much of his early years in parliament dealing with issues related to that subject. His stance on slavery echoed that of his father, who was one of the largest slave owners in the British West Indies, and on whom he was dependent for financial support. Gladstone opposed the slave trade but he wanted to improve the condition of the slaves before they were liberated. In 1833, he accepted emancipation because it was accompanied by a period of apprenticeship for the ex-slaves and by financial compensation for the planters. In the 1840s, his defence of the economic interests of the British planters was again evident in his opposition to the foreign slave trade and slave-grown sugar. By the 1850s, however, he believed that the best way to end the slave trade was by persuasion, rather than by force, and that conviction influenced his attitude to the American Civil War and to British colonial policy. As leader of the Liberal party, Gladstone, unlike many of his supporters, showed no enthusiasm for an anti-slavery crusade in Africa. His passionate commitment to liberty for oppressed peoples was seldom evident in his attitude to slavery.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 363 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

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45 Parliamentary Debates, third series, 19 (1833), c. 1241.

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51 Ibid., cc. 486–8.

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83 Parliamentary Debates, third series, 109 (1850), cc. 1158.

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85 Ibid., 125 (1853), cc. 1404–5.

86 BL, Gladstone papers, Add. MSS 44722, fo. 148.

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88 Parliamentary Debates, third series, 42 (1838), c. 255.

89 Entry for 15 Oct. 1852, Gladstone diaries, ed. Foot and Matthews, iv, p. 461.

90 Entry for 7 May 1853, ibid., p. 524.

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99 Cf. Christine Bolt, The anti-slavery movement and reconstruction, a study in Anglo-American co-operation, 1837–1877 (London, 1969), p. 70.

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101 Parliamentary Debates, third series, 216 (1873), c. 951.

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104 Leslie Bethell, The abolition of the Brazilian slave trade, Britain and the slave trade question, 1807–1869 (Cambridge, 1970), p. 387.

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107 Gladstone to Granville, 7 Nov. 1872, ibid., p. 359.

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110 Ibid., 221 (1874), c. 1285.

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