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A Microhistory of British Antislavery Petitioning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2019

Richard Huzzey
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Abstract

This article refines our understanding of abolitionism as “the first modern social movement” through a microhistory of abolitionism in an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British town. Examining requisitions, which collected signatures calling on a mayor to convene public meetings to launch parliamentary petitions or other associational activities, the article shows how antislavery mobilization in Plymouth grew amongst a multiplying variety of religious, political, cultural, and economic institutions. Through a prosopography of those initiating antislavery petitions, an analysis of the other requisitions they supported, and qualitative evidence from leading abolitionists’ personal papers, the article details the ways local leaders raised petitions for a national campaign. Civic and religious dynamism at this local level facilitated new forms of contentious mobilization on national and imperial issues. The article therefore directs causal attention to those socioeconomic changes that underpinned the associational cultures of abolitionism.

Type
Special Issue Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 43 , Issue 3: The Transformation of Petitioning , Fall 2019 , pp. 599 - 623
Copyright
© Social Science History Association, 2019 

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Footnotes

Many thanks are due to Annika Bautz, Henry Miller, John Oldfield, Peter Stamatov, Stephen J. Taylor, and Philip Williamson for advice in writing this article, though they remain blameless for its faults. The underlying research was only possible thanks to the kind assistance of staff at Plymouth and West Devon Record Office (hereafter PWDRO), especially Louisa Blight, Debbie Watson, and Tony Davey. I am very much indebted to Nino José Cricco for producing visualisation presented as figure 4.

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