Slavery Through Time: from Enslavers to Abolitionists, 1675–1865 - Key Data

This collection explores and offers varying perspectives on the explosive debate around the Transatlantic Slave Trade during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The documents, through a combination of correspondence, pamphlets, memoirs, and statistics, track both the proliferation of British power and the enslavement it was built upon, as well as the moral critiques that arose as a reaction to the horrific practice.

The focus of the documents coalesces around how enslavement and trade manifested in the West Indies, one of Britain’s most valuable colonial assets. Unsurprisingly, those who stood most to lose from the abolition of slavery, namely the business community and plantation owners, undertook activity to convince people of the benefits of slavery. On the other hand, religious and other civil society groups formed the bulwark of opposition to slavery and their resistance is documented through various society papers.

Culminating in a victory for the abolitionists, slavery was abolished throughout most British territories in 1834. Documents featured in the collection after this time examine the impact of slavery, both from a humanitarian and financial standpoint.