Bury the Chains

• Robin White writes about "Bury the Chains" in The Guardian

In just a few years at the end of the 18th century, a small group of men (and one woman) took on the vested interests of state, church and big business - and won. .. There was Granville Sharp, a royal musi-cian who rescued a slave, Jonathan Strong, who had been brought to London by his master and so badly beaten up that he nearly died. Sharp went to court and had the slave freed. There was James Steven, a philanderer whose law studies had been financed by an uncle who bought sick slaves, cheaply, and oiled and fattened them up for resale. There was Olaudah Equiano, an eloquent, freed Igbo slave, who gatecrashed London society and wrote bestselling books about his own experiences. .. But above all there was the abolitionist's most tireless worker, Thomas Clarkson. He was a giant of a man, more than 6ft tall, with striking red hair. Clarkson sprang into prominence when he entered, and won, England's top Latin essay competition. His chosen subject was the slave trade and his tract became famous. For the rest of his life he rode and walked the length of Britain (and quite a lot of France, too) addressing meetings, writing pamphlets, collecting signatures on petitions, and compiling a wealth of evidence on the horrors of the slave trade. . With the help of the Quakers (the only religious group to campaign wholeheartedly against the trade) Clarkson founded the all-white anti-slavery committee in 1787 at 18 Old Jewry, in the heart of the City of London. Initially they had spectacular successes. Slavery became the cause of the day. Newspapers took it up. It was the most discussed subject in London's popular debating societies. Just about every town and city in the country organised petitions on scrolls. One hundred and three were sent to parliament with 60,000 signatures. One scroll stretched the entire length of the debating chamber. -But when it came to votes in parliament, even the tiny but eloquent Wilberforce couldn't win the day. The 18th century may have been the age of enlightenment but there was a limited franchise and MPs did not need to respond to the wishes of the masses. Those who benefited from the slave trade fought back, employing lobby groups, bribing politicians and journalists. Wilberforce lost the debate by 163 votes to 88. It was a humbling experience, because it was not even a vote to abolish slavery as a whole, just the trade in slaves. (The argument was that if the human traffic could be stopped, then slavery itself would eventually wither and die.) Clarkson and his friends were not discouraged. There was a nationwide sugar boycott - sugar sales dropped by a third. William Pitt, the prime minister, was enlisted on their side, and he spoke on the abolitionists' behalf in the second parliamentary debate a year later. But vested interests and those who argued that if Britain banned the trade then France would cash in again triumphed. (Then big politics distracted public attention and the conditions of slaves got worse instead of better. Later on, though) electoral reform was in the air, and women's voices were beginning to be heard. The loudest was that of Elizabeth Heyrick, a former teacher and convert to the Quakers. In 1824 she published a pamhlet entitled "Immediate Not Gradual Abolition". Not for her the banning of the slave trade - she wanted all slavery ended for ever. Meanwhile, British soldiers, sent to the Caribbean to suppress slave revolts, returned home with a true picture of the evils of slavery. Their voices added to the clamour. The tide was finally turned and the emancipation bill was passed in 1833. But the victory was a tarnished one: as part of the deal, parliament agreed to pay £20m in compensation, not to slaves but to the slave owners.