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This part of the History list within the Cambridge Library Collection focuses on the practices of slave-trading and slave-holding during the colonial period and their eventual abolition: it is sometimes forgotten that the efforts of the British emancipation movement were not finally successful until 1833, 26 years after the trade in slaves was outlawed. The series contains eye-witness accounts of the conditions endured by slaves on board ship across the Atlantic and on the plantations of the Caribbean and the Americas, including testimonies by former slaves, both male and female. It includes publications arguing for and against abolition by social reformers such as Clarkson and Wilberforce, and by plantation owners and commodity merchants. In addition, there are reports of naval expeditions targeting slave traders and of the judicial proceedings against individuals accused of human trafficking. Further context is provided by books on the geography, history, society, laws and economics of these regions from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

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82 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Slavery and Abolition

Page 1 of 5

American Slavery As It Is
  • Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses
  • Edited by Theodore Dwight Weld
  • Published online:
    05 September 2015
    Print publication:
    27 April 2015
  • First published in 1839, this work was edited by the evangelist and noted abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld (1803–95). It is an extensive collection of first-hand testimony and narratives by slaveholders describing the facts and highlighting the cruelty of the slave trade. One of the most influential books of the anti-slavery movement, it aimed to document the current condition of slaves in the United States, covering all aspects of their lives, in order to further the abolition movement. Weld presents accounts of slaves' food, clothing, living conditions, working hours, and their punishments and suffering. This is interspersed with personal narratives from contributors which corroborate each other, presented in a detached, unsensational manner. Great pains were taken in compiling this work to emphasise the trustworthy nature of Weld's contributors so that there could be no doubt of the authenticity of their claims and the need for an end to slavery.

A New History of Jamaica
  • From the Earliest Accounts to the Taking of Porto Bello by Vice-Admiral Vernon
  • Charles Leslie
  • Published online:
    05 September 2015
    Print publication:
    21 May 2015
    First published in:
    1740
  • Little is known about the anonymous author of this book, later identified as one Charles Leslie, whose family had strong Caribbean interests. In thirteen 'letters', Leslie covers Jamaica's early colonial history, its laws, the lives of its governors and the exploits of famous Caribbean pirates. He provides important evidence for the conditions in which slaves were traded and kept, and describes the slaves' beliefs and customs. Leslie's book was highly topical: it first appeared as 'A new and exact account of Jamaica' in Edinburgh in 1739, following years of growing hostility between Spain and Britain over trade in the Caribbean. That summer, Vice-Admiral Vernon was sent there to destroy as many Spanish ships and settlements as possible, and in November he captured Portobello. This book reproduces Leslie's suitably retitled second edition (London, 1740), which contained an additional chapter. A Dublin edition followed in 1741, and a French translation in 1751.

Up from Slavery
  • An Autobiography
  • Booker T. Washington
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    04 December 2014
    First published in:
    1901
  • Born into slavery on a Virginia plantation, Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) educated himself tirelessly in the years after the American Civil War. In 1881, he was appointed head of the Tuskegee Institute, a teacher-training college for African Americans. As a writer, orator and fundraiser, he became one of the leading figures of the black community. Washington argued that the best way of bettering the social position of African Americans was through vocational education, which would make them indispensable and productive members of society. In this 1901 autobiography, he uses his life as an example to illustrate these principles, covering particularly the work of the Tuskegee Institute and his fundraising on behalf of black education. The book also contains the full text of his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech, which created the model for Southern race relations until Washington's death and the emergence of more overtly assertive African-American civil rights leaders.

The Trials of the Slave Traders, Samuel Samo, Joseph Peters, and William Tufft
  • And the Fugitive Slave Circulars
  • Anonymous, Henry George Tuke
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    04 December 2014
  • In 1812 a number of slave traders were prosecuted in Sierra Leone, the focus of Britain's efforts to eradicate the trade. First published in 1813, this report is believed to have been written by the presiding judge, Robert Thorpe. The trials provoked debate as Thorpe found one trader guilty, but commuted his sentence on the condition that other traders were persuaded to cease their business. Another was dealt with severely as he displayed complicity in evading the laws. Thorpe's judgments relied upon not only the application of the anti-slavery laws, but also the notion of natural laws transcending those of nations, a notion which came under consideration in the landmark Somerset v. Stewart case of 1772, concerning an escaped slave. Published in 1876, a report on this case is also reissued here. Taken together, these two texts provide valuable source material on the history of the slave trade's abolition.

Three Years in Europe
  • Or, Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met
  • William Wells Brown
  • Assisted by William Farmer
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    25 September 2014
    First published in:
    1852
  • William Wells Brown (1814?–84) was uncertain of his own birthday because he was born a slave, near Lexington, Kentucky. He managed to escape to Ohio, a free state, in 1834. Obtaining work on steamboats, he assisted many other slaves to escape across Lake Erie to Canada. In 1849, having achieved prominence in the American anti-slavery movement, he left for Europe, both to lecture against slavery and also to gain an education for his daughters. He stayed in Europe until 1854, since the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 had made it possible that he could be taken back into slavery if he returned. Meanwhile, he had begun to write both fiction and non-fiction, and this account of his travels in Europe, prefaced by a short biography, was published in 1852. Brown was able to return to the United States in 1854, when British friends paid for his freedom.

Memoirs of Granville Sharp, Esq.
  • Composed from his Own Manuscripts, and Other Authentic Documents in the Possession of his Family and of the African Institution
  • Granville Sharp
  • Edited by Prince Hoare
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    11 December 2014
    First published in:
    1820
  • Self-educated in languages and the law, the author Granville Sharp (1735–1813) was a leading anti-slavery campaigner. Though many of his associates in the abolitionist movement were dissenters or freethinkers, he was an Anglican very much concerned with the fate of the church in America after the war of independence. His family consigned his archives to the painter, playwright and author Prince Hoare (1755–1834), who published this biography in 1820. Sharp is less well remembered than other British abolitionists such as Clarkson and Wilberforce, but it was his work which, in 1772, brought the landmark case of James Somerset before Lord Mansfield, who upheld Sharp's legal arguments: as a result, it was henceforth understood that any slave reaching the shores of England became free. Sharp's continuing work for abolition, and his many other charitable and scholarly activities, are detailed in this fascinating work, drawn directly from his own writings.

The Anti-Slavery Cause in America and its Martyrs
  • Eliza Wigham
  • Published online:
    05 April 2015
    Print publication:
    04 December 2014
    First published in:
    1863
  • Eliza Wigham (1820–99), Scots philanthropist and champion of women's rights, was raised as a Quaker, and from an early age was involved in fundraising and other support for the abolitionist cause in the United States. She published this short book in 1863, with the aim of countering pressure on the British government to support the Confederacy by describing 'the frightful reality of scenes daily and hourly acting in the United States … a complication of crimes and wrongs and cruelties, that make angels weep'. She takes the story of the American abolitionist movement from its beginnings in Philadelphia in 1775, through the founding of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, to the present state of hostilities between the north and the south. Interwoven with this narrative are stories of individual hardship and cruelty that make harrowing reading, and justify the use of the term 'martyrs' in the book's title.

A Representation of the Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery
  • Granville Sharp
  • Published online:
    05 December 2014
    Print publication:
    17 July 2014
    First published in:
    1769
  • This work by the anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp (1735–1813) brings together legal and historical documents, as well as the author's own legal arguments, demonstrating that slavery was illegal and therefore could not be upheld in England. Furthering his own intellectual development while working for a linen draper, Sharp later became a government clerk and pursued a writing career. His awakening to the horrors of the slave trade resulted from a chance encounter with an injured slave seeking help from his physician brother. Carrying out the necessary legal research, Sharp published this book in 1769 to demonstrate that slavery has no basis in English law. In 1772, the landmark case of James Somerset was brought before Lord Mansfield, who upheld Sharp's contention: as a result, it was henceforth understood that any slave reaching the shores of England became free. Sharp's memoirs of his life are also reissued in this series.

Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African
  • To Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of his Life
  • Volume 1
  • Ignatius Sancho
  • Edited by Frances Crewe
  • Preface by Joseph Jekyll
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    05 September 2013
  • Born a slave, Ignatius Sancho (c.1729–80) became one of the most influential free Africans of his century. Largely self-taught, he was the first black Briton known to have voted in parliamentary elections and to be given an obituary in the British press. He corresponded with many notable figures, including the author Laurence Sterne, whom he urged to write against slavery in the West Indies. The politician Joseph Jekyll (1754–1837) commended Sancho's 'epistolary talent' in a brief biography, praising his 'wild patriotism' and 'universal philanthropy'. This two-volume collection of Sancho's letters was published in 1782 by the hostess Frances Crewe (1748–1818), who upheld Sancho as proof, in an age of dehumanising slavery, that Africans possessed as much natural intelligence as Europeans. Volume 1 contains Jekyll's biography, a list of more than 1,200 subscribers, and letters for the period 1768–78. It includes the famous 1766 letter to Sterne, incorrectly dated 1776.

Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African
  • To Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of his Life
  • Volume 2
  • Ignatius Sancho
  • Edited by Frances Crewe
  • Preface by Joseph Jekyll
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    05 September 2013
  • Born a slave, Ignatius Sancho (c.1729–80) became one of the most influential free Africans of his century. Largely self-taught, he was the first black Briton known to have voted in parliamentary elections and to be given an obituary in the British press. He corresponded with many notable figures, including the author Laurence Sterne, whom he urged to write against slavery in the West Indies. The politician Joseph Jekyll (1754–1837) commended Sancho's 'epistolary talent' in a brief biography, praising his 'wild patriotism' and 'universal philanthropy'. This two-volume collection of Sancho's letters was published in 1782 by the hostess Frances Crewe (1748–1818), who upheld Sancho as proof, in an age of dehumanising slavery, that Africans possessed as much natural intelligence as Europeans. Volume 2 contains letters for the period 1778–80. Sancho's last letters, betraying his acute suffering from gout, reveal the same warmth of affection and zeal for justice which characterised his life.

Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom
  • Or, The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery
  • William Craft, Ellen Craft
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    26 September 2013
  • In this short work of 1860, William Craft (c.1825–1900), assisted by his wife Ellen (c.1825–91), recounts the remarkable story of how they escaped from slavery in America. Having married as slaves in Georgia, yet unwilling to raise a family in servitude, the couple came up with a plan to disguise the light-skinned Ellen as a man, with William acting as her slave, and to travel to the north in late 1848. This compelling narrative traces their successful journey to Philadelphia and their subsequent move to Boston, where they became involved in abolitionist activities. Later, the couple sought greater safety in England, where they lived for a number of years and had five children. A success upon its first appearance, the book touches on the themes of race, gender and class in mid-nineteenth-century America, offering modern readers a first-hand account of how barriers to freedom could be overcome.

The Proceedings of the Governor and Assembly of Jamaica, in Regard to the Maroon Negroes
  • The Governor and Assembly of Jamaica
  • Introduction by Bryan Edwards
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    21 November 2013
  • A wealthy planter in the West Indies, Bryan Edwards (1743–1800) lived in Jamaica during the peak of its sugar wealth. Upon his return to England in 1792, he wrote several books on the West Indies, including a multi-volume history of the British colonies. The present work, first published in 1796, relates to the recent conflict between the British and Jamaicans descended from runaway slaves, known as Maroons. Living mostly in isolated mountain communities, the Maroons had been granted certain rights under a 1739 treaty. However, by 1795, with a new governor ruling the island, tensions re-emerged and resulted in another war. Prefaced by Edwards' extended discussion of the Maroons and the origins of the conflict, this collection of documents and letters represents a valuable source in the study of Jamaican history and that of British colonialism in the Caribbean.

The Just Limitation of Slavery in the Laws of God
  • Compared with the Unbounded Claims of the African Traders and British American Slaveholders
  • Granville Sharp
  • Published online:
    05 September 2014
    Print publication:
    06 June 2013
    First published in:
    1776
  • The author and campaigner Granville Sharp (1735–1813) was born in Durham to a religious family. In 1765, a chance encounter with a slave, Jonathan Strong, sparked the serious interest in abolitionism that in due course saw him become a founding member of the London committee of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Due in part to his efforts and writings, the anti-slavery movement in Britain gained public attention and became a more focused and organised campaign. This tract, originally published in 1776, is one of several anti-slavery works that Sharp produced in that year. A rigorous defence of liberty and of 'the honour of holy Scriptures', it is a riposte to the idea that slavery is sanctioned by God, citing the biblical doctrines of 'Thou shalt not oppress a stranger' and 'Love thy neighbour as thyself'. Also included are several appendices of material relating to the abolitionist cause.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
  • Or Gustavus Vassa, the African
  • Volume 1
  • Olaudah Equiano
  • Published online:
    05 August 2014
    Print publication:
    06 June 2013
    First published in:
    1789
  • Nigerian-born Olaudah Equiano (c.1745–97), also known as Gustavus Vassa, was sold into slavery as a child and endured the horrors of the transatlantic slave ships. He later worked on board Royal Navy vessels, receiving an education and converting to Christianity. Buying his freedom in 1766, he embarked on several voyages before settling in London, where he became involved in the causes of anti-slavery and the welfare of former slaves. Published in 1789, this successful two-volume autobiography boosted the abolitionist cause, providing a first-hand account of the experience of Africans on both sides of the Atlantic. An important document in the history of slavery and immigration, it remains a classic work of black writing. Volume 1 begins with Equiano's background and kidnapping, and the Atlantic crossing. He recounts his adventures in the Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War, and subsequent experiences of merchant trading in the Americas.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
  • Or Gustavus Vassa, the African
  • Volume 2
  • Olaudah Equiano
  • Published online:
    05 July 2014
    Print publication:
    06 June 2013
    First published in:
    1789
  • Nigerian-born Olaudah Equiano (c.1745–97), also known as Gustavus Vassa, was sold into slavery as a child and endured the horrors of the transatlantic slave ships. He later worked on board Royal Navy vessels, receiving an education and converting to Christianity. Buying his freedom in 1766, he embarked on several voyages before settling in London, where he became involved in the causes of anti-slavery and the welfare of former slaves. Published in 1789, this successful two-volume autobiography boosted the abolitionist cause, providing a first-hand account of the experience of Africans on both sides of the Atlantic. An important document in the history of slavery and immigration, it remains a classic work of black writing. Volume 2 recounts how Equiano achieved his freedom, his conversion to Christianity, his experience of shipwreck in the West Indies, and his life in England.

An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species
  • Particularly the African, Translated from a Latin Dissertation, Which Was Honoured with the First Prize in the University of Cambridge, for the Year 1785
  • Thomas Clarkson, John Newton
  • Published online:
    05 July 2014
    Print publication:
    06 June 2013
    First published in:
    1786
  • This 1786 publication is a translation of a prizewinning Latin essay written by Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) at Cambridge the previous year. Clarkson's deep research into the Atlantic slave trade instilled in him a sense of duty, inspiring him to devote his life to abolitionism. The publication of the essay introduced Clarkson to like-minded campaigners, notably William Wilberforce (1759–1833) and Granville Sharpe (1735–1813), with whom he helped to establish in 1787 the pioneering Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Thoughts on the African Slave Trade (1788) by the sailor, slave trader and Anglican clergyman John Newton (1725–1807) is also reissued in this volume. Published thirty-four years after Newton's retirement from the slave trade, this pamphlet apologises for his 'too late' conversion to the abolitionist movement and describes the horrific conditions aboard slave ships during the Middle Passage.

Slavery
  • William Ellery Channing
  • Published online:
    05 April 2014
    Print publication:
    29 August 2013
    First published in:
    1836
  • In the years preceding the American Civil War, religion was at the heart of the debate over slavery. William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) had rejected the strict Calvinism of his background to become the leading Unitarian spokesman and preacher, and in later life he began to address the subject of slavery. Published in 1836, this work was Channing's most substantial contribution to the debate, revealing the real difficulties men such as Channing had in questioning a practice with which they had grown up. He vacillates between contempt for the institution and empathy for the slaveholders, writing, 'I do not intend to pass sentence on the character of the slave-holder.' He sees black slaves as humans, but not of equal status with white people. The final chapter is particularly prescient: 'There is a great dread … that the union of the States may be dissolved by the conflict about slavery.'

Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species
  • Humbly Submitted to the Inhabitants of Great Britain
  • Ottobah Cugoano
  • Published online:
    05 April 2014
    Print publication:
    06 June 2013
    First published in:
    1787
  • In the late eighteenth century, slave labour in Britain's colonies was seen as central to world trade, and the practice was supported by prominent members of society, including the king. Ottobah Cugoano, an emancipated slave living in England, had joined the Sons of Africa, a group whose members wrote to the royal family, aristocrats and leading politicians to condemn slavery and campaign for its abolition. This work, first published in 1787 and sent to George III, was a daring attack on colonial conquest and enslavement, arguing that slaves had a moral duty to rebel against their oppressors. Widely read upon publication, it went through at least three printings that year and was translated into French, with a shorter version published in 1791. This reissue of the original work makes available an important document in the history of colonialism and slavery in the British Empire.

West African Countries and Peoples, British and Native
  • And a Vindication of the African Race
  • James Africanus Beale Horton
  • Published online:
    05 March 2014
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1868
  • This book, first published in 1868, became the best-known work of medical officer and writer James Africanus Beale Horton (1835–1883), who was born in Sierra Leone to parents of Igbo descent. He was chosen by the British to train as an army medical officer and attended King's College, London, and Edinburgh University. He returned to West Africa and published his doctoral thesis, which was a medical topography of the region; subsequent works called for health reforms. West African Countries, however, went beyond medicine. In it Horton refutes the derogatory racial theories about Africans rife in Victorian Britain and its empire, and he examines the possibility of self-government and how it might function in Sierra Leone and other territories in West Africa, foreshadowing the decolonisation that took place almost one hundred years later.

An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies
  • James Ramsay
  • Published online:
    05 March 2014
    Print publication:
    06 June 2013
    First published in:
    1784
  • Sugar cane plantations had operated across almost every island in the West Indies since the seventeenth century. Run by British planters, they relied on slavery as their main source of labour. A surgeon and Anglican minister, James Ramsay (1733–89) witnessed at first hand the exploitation of African slaves in Britain's West Indian colonies. Working there for over twenty years, as both a Christian missionary and a practising surgeon, he became keenly involved in the campaign to improve the welfare of slaves. This extended essay, first published in 1784, was an early and highly influential contribution to the anti-slavery movement, generating both enlightened acclaim and deep opposition. Analysing the relationships between slaves and their masters, discussing the role of slaves in society, and proposing various measures to improve their lives, this work remains a relevant text in Caribbean and colonial history.

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