Anti-Slavery Society
Encyclopedia
The Anti-Slavery Society or A.S.S. was the everyday name of two different British
organizations.
The first was founded in 1823 and was committed to the abolition of slavery
in the British Empire
. Its official name was the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions. This objective was substantially achieved in 1838 under the terms of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
In 1839, a successor organisation was formed, committed to worldwide abolition
. Its official name was The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. This continues today as Anti-Slavery International
.
throughout the world was frequently in the mind of early abolitionists
. The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which established the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain in 1787, campaigned for an end to the Transatlantic slave trade
from Western Africa to the New World, which Britain dominated by then.
The Slave Trade Act 1807 made the slave trade
illegal in the British Empire. Following this, British abolitionists turned their attention to abolishing slavery itself, first in British colonies, and later in the US and the colonies of other European powers (e.g., in South America), and in parts of the world where it had long been legal, such as in the Middle East, Africa, and China.
and Thomas Clarkson
. Its official name was the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions.
Its work included supporting the first account of slavery to be published by a Black woman, Mary Prince
, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave (1831). The publishers were sued by the family from which she had escaped. The book was much sought after, running into three editions in the year of its publication.
A wide range of views emerged among the members. Broadly, there were abolitionists who insisted on the full working out of the gradual process of abolition and amelioration (which had its successes), and the generally younger, more radical members, whose moral outlook regarded slavery as a mortal sin to be ended forthwith.
The latter group, including Joseph Sturge
and many others, publicly campaigned throughout Britain. The idea was to engender public pressure for a new parliamentary act to outlaw slavery, rather than continue the gradualism of Whitehall's negotiations, mainly with colonial governments. In 1831 George Stephen and Joseph Sturge formed a ginger group
within the Anti-Slavery Society, the Agency Committee, to campaign for this new act of Parliament. This campaign, and public pressure, led to the Slavery Abolition Act
of 1833, though it contained compromises which they disliked.
The indentured labour schemes were particularly opposed by Sturge and the Agency Committee; the full working out of the Act would take several years, with slavery eventually being abolished throughout the British West Indies on 1 August 1838. In response to the new legislation, other members of the Anti-Slavery Society considered their work over. The original purpose, as reflected in the name of the society (abolition in the British dominions), had, they thought, been achieved.
, the committee duly formed a new society, British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society on 17 April 1839. It became widely known as the Anti-Slavery Society, as had the earlier society.
The first secretary was John Harfield Tredgold
, the first treasurer, George William Alexander
of Stoke Newington
. Along with the founding committee, which included the Anglican Thomas Fowell Buxton, the Quaker William Allen
, and the Congregationalist Josiah Conder
, they organised the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840. Thomas Clarkson
was the key speaker, and the Convention attracted people from nations around the world where slavery was practiced, such as the United States.
The convention had been planned as an all-male meeting, but female delegates arrived from the United States. They were not allowed full participation, and prominent female abolitionists such as Anne Knight
were outraged. She went on to form her own society.
In the 1850s, under Louis Chamerovzow, the society helped John Brown
write and publish his autobiography a decade before the American Civil War
ended slavery in the United States.
The second secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, appointed under the honorary secretaries Joseph Cooper and Edmund Sturge, was the Rev. Aaron Buzacott (1829-81), the son of a South Seas missionary also named Aaron Buzacott
. With American slavey abolished in 1865, Buzacott worked closely with Joseph Cooper in researching and publishing work designed to help abolish slavery in elsewhere, particularly in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa.
In 1909, the society merged with the Aborigines' Protection Society
to form the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society. In 1990 the name was changed to Anti-Slavery International
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
organizations.
The first was founded in 1823 and was committed to the abolition of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
in the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
. Its official name was the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions. This objective was substantially achieved in 1838 under the terms of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
In 1839, a successor organisation was formed, committed to worldwide abolition
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
. Its official name was The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. This continues today as Anti-Slavery International
Anti-Slavery International
Anti-Slavery International is an international nongovernmental organization, charity and a lobby group, based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1839, it is the world's oldest international human rights organization, and the only charity in the United Kingdom to work exclusively against slavery and...
.
Precursors
The elimination of slaverySlavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
throughout the world was frequently in the mind of early abolitionists
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
. The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which established the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain in 1787, campaigned for an end to the Transatlantic slave trade
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
from Western Africa to the New World, which Britain dominated by then.
The Slave Trade Act 1807 made the slave trade
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
illegal in the British Empire. Following this, British abolitionists turned their attention to abolishing slavery itself, first in British colonies, and later in the US and the colonies of other European powers (e.g., in South America), and in parts of the world where it had long been legal, such as in the Middle East, Africa, and China.
The Anti-Slavery Society of 1823
The first British organisation to refer to itself as the Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Britain in 1823. Founding members included William WilberforceWilliam Wilberforce
William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
and Thomas Clarkson
Thomas Clarkson
Thomas Clarkson , was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which ended British trade in slaves...
. Its official name was the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions.
Its work included supporting the first account of slavery to be published by a Black woman, Mary Prince
Mary Prince
Mary Prince was a Bermudian woman, born into slavery in Brackish Pond, now known as Devonshire Marsh, in Devonshire Parish, Bermuda. Her autobiography, 'The History of Mary Prince', was the first account of the life of a black woman to be published in the United Kingdom...
, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave (1831). The publishers were sued by the family from which she had escaped. The book was much sought after, running into three editions in the year of its publication.
A wide range of views emerged among the members. Broadly, there were abolitionists who insisted on the full working out of the gradual process of abolition and amelioration (which had its successes), and the generally younger, more radical members, whose moral outlook regarded slavery as a mortal sin to be ended forthwith.
The latter group, including Joseph Sturge
Joseph Sturge
Joseph Sturge , son of a farmer in Gloucestershire, was an English Quaker, abolitionist and activist. He founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society . He worked throughout his life in Radical political actions supporting pacifism, working-class rights, and the universal emancipation of...
and many others, publicly campaigned throughout Britain. The idea was to engender public pressure for a new parliamentary act to outlaw slavery, rather than continue the gradualism of Whitehall's negotiations, mainly with colonial governments. In 1831 George Stephen and Joseph Sturge formed a ginger group
Ginger group
A ginger group is a formal or informal group within, for example, a political party seeking to inspire the rest with its own enthusiasm and activity....
within the Anti-Slavery Society, the Agency Committee, to campaign for this new act of Parliament. This campaign, and public pressure, led to the Slavery Abolition Act
Slavery Abolition Act
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 was an 1833 Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire...
of 1833, though it contained compromises which they disliked.
The indentured labour schemes were particularly opposed by Sturge and the Agency Committee; the full working out of the Act would take several years, with slavery eventually being abolished throughout the British West Indies on 1 August 1838. In response to the new legislation, other members of the Anti-Slavery Society considered their work over. The original purpose, as reflected in the name of the society (abolition in the British dominions), had, they thought, been achieved.
The Anti-Slavery Society of 1839
With abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions achieved, British abolitionists in the Agency Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society considered that a successor organisation was needed to tackle slavery worldwide. Largely under the guidance of Joseph SturgeJoseph Sturge
Joseph Sturge , son of a farmer in Gloucestershire, was an English Quaker, abolitionist and activist. He founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society . He worked throughout his life in Radical political actions supporting pacifism, working-class rights, and the universal emancipation of...
, the committee duly formed a new society, British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society on 17 April 1839. It became widely known as the Anti-Slavery Society, as had the earlier society.
The first secretary was John Harfield Tredgold
John Harfield Tredgold
John Harfield Tredgold was an English chemist in the Cape Colony in Africa. He held a number of voluntary roles including Secretary of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. The suburb of Cape Town called Harfield drew its name from Tredgold's middle name.-Biography:Tredgold was baptised in...
, the first treasurer, George William Alexander
George William Alexander
George William Alexander was an English financier and philanthropist. He was the founding Treasurer of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839. The American statesman Frederick Douglass said that he "has spent more than an American fortune in promoting the anti-slavery cause...
of Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
. Along with the founding committee, which included the Anglican Thomas Fowell Buxton, the Quaker William Allen
William Allen (Quaker)
William Allen FRS, FLS was an English scientist and philanthropist who opposed slavery and engaged in schemes of social and penal improvement in early nineteenth century England.-Early life:...
, and the Congregationalist Josiah Conder
Josiah Conder (editor and author)
Josiah Conder, sometimes spelt Condor, , correspondent of Robert Southey and well connected to romantic authors of his day, was editor of the British literary magazine The Eclectic Review, the Nonconformist and abolitionist newspaper The Patriot, the author of romantic verses, poetry, and many...
, they organised the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840. Thomas Clarkson
Thomas Clarkson
Thomas Clarkson , was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which ended British trade in slaves...
was the key speaker, and the Convention attracted people from nations around the world where slavery was practiced, such as the United States.
The convention had been planned as an all-male meeting, but female delegates arrived from the United States. They were not allowed full participation, and prominent female abolitionists such as Anne Knight
Anne Knight
Anne Knight was a social reformer noted as a pioneer of feminism.-Family background:Anne Knight was the daughter of William Knight , a Chelmsford grocer and his wife Priscilla Allen...
were outraged. She went on to form her own society.
In the 1850s, under Louis Chamerovzow, the society helped John Brown
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
write and publish his autobiography a decade before the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
ended slavery in the United States.
The second secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, appointed under the honorary secretaries Joseph Cooper and Edmund Sturge, was the Rev. Aaron Buzacott (1829-81), the son of a South Seas missionary also named Aaron Buzacott
Aaron Buzacott
Aaron Buzacott the elder , a Congregationalist colleague of John Williams , author of ethnographic works and co-translator of the Bible into the language of Rarotonga, was a central figure in the South Seas missionary work of the London Missionary Society, living on Rarotonga between 1828 and...
. With American slavey abolished in 1865, Buzacott worked closely with Joseph Cooper in researching and publishing work designed to help abolish slavery in elsewhere, particularly in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa.
In 1909, the society merged with the Aborigines' Protection Society
Aborigines' Protection Society
The Aborigines' Protection Society was an international human rights organisation, founded in 1837, to protect the health and well-being and the sovereign, legal and religious rights of the indigenous peoples subjected by colonial powers. The Society published tracts, pamphlets, Annual Reports and...
to form the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society. In 1990 the name was changed to Anti-Slavery International
Anti-Slavery International
Anti-Slavery International is an international nongovernmental organization, charity and a lobby group, based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1839, it is the world's oldest international human rights organization, and the only charity in the United Kingdom to work exclusively against slavery and...
.
See also
- Anti-Slavery InternationalAnti-Slavery InternationalAnti-Slavery International is an international nongovernmental organization, charity and a lobby group, based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1839, it is the world's oldest international human rights organization, and the only charity in the United Kingdom to work exclusively against slavery and...
- American Anti-Slavery GroupAmerican Anti-Slavery GroupThe American Anti-Slavery Group is a non profit coalition of abolitionist organizations that engages in political activism to abolish slavery in the world today...
- American Anti-Slavery SocietyAmerican Anti-Slavery SocietyThe American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass was a key leader of this society and often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown was another freed slave who often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had...