YouTube Transcript:
1807 - The Year Britain Abolished Its Slave Trade (Part 1)

Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.

AutoDub

Understand YouTube Foreign Videos

Immersive YouTube Voice Translation

Break language barriers, embrace global quality content

Solve Foreign Video Barriers Instantly

Video Transcript

the Enlightenment was appeared in

history that transformed Western culture

the age of reason as it became known

occurring in the 17th and 18th century

saw long-established monarchies

religious institutions social systems

and hierarchies challenged from below

and a philosophical search for human

improvement ideas of Liberty and

religious tolerance traversed Europe

created social upheaval revolution and

change

but as the Enlightenment spread across

Europe Europe was spreading across the

world and this process was far from

peaceful while developments in industry

and politics may have encouraged

exploration and discovery

they also witnessed the rise of

imperialism and a vast and oppressive

institution that would transform the

lives of millions of people across the

globe this institution was slavery in

the early modern era native populations

in the new world had paid the ultimate

price as a result of European expansion

do you main lead to the introduction of

foreign and deadly diseases that they

have no immunity to roughly 80 million

Native Americans had died after European

contact this mass mortality was so

significant as to cause the Little Ice

Age a period of global cooling as a

result of reforestation colonists

seeking fortune seized land across the

new world and set about making it

provide profit African markets were

exploited an unprecedented quantities of

slave labour was used for cultivation

between 1500 and 1866 roughly 13 million

Africans were enslaved and transported

to the new world where a new profit

driven systematic and brutal plantation

system based on violence awaited them

and that was if they made it at least

one in ten of those transported did not

even survive the no tourists Middle

Passage

Britain claimed a significant stake in

the trade alongside other European

powers including the Dutch Portuguese

French and Spanish more than 3.2 million

slaves were transported from Africa on

British ships to the new world primarily

disembarking in the British Caribbean

colonies of Jamaica Barbados and Saint

Kitts to name but a few

roughly 500,000 slaves did not survive

the voyage

the transportation of slaves was

exercised on a massive scale it was part

of a wider triangular Atlantic commerce

slavery is absolutely central to the

British Empire from the 17th century all

the way through the 18th century and the

reason for that is that slavery is at

the center of a system of trade slaves

were purchased by British merchants on

the West African coast and they're

transported across the Atlantic on the

notorious Middle Passage to plantations

in the Americas primarily in the

Caribbean and their slaves are put to

work producing a variety of crops but

principally sugar that gets transported

back to Britain for British consumers

this was a modern commercial system

which created long range markets both

labor and consumer consumption none of

which would have been possible without

reason rationality or the Enlightenment

in fact many believe the Industrial

Revolution the hallmark of the

enlightened era actually began in the

Caribbean the slave trade became hugely

profitable to Britain through capital

flows investment and the establishment

of a market for manufactured goods some

have claimed that a stimulus was

provided for industrialization to occur

within the Metropole slavery in sugar

created huge individual fortunes and and

also benefited the British consumer in

the 17th century if you're gonna eat

sugar you have to have a lot of money

because it's incredibly rare but these

plantations that being planted in the

new world mean that this commodity is

being produced in far greater quantities

than ever it was before and so the price

goes down and so British consumers are

very hungry for this they like it and if

you think about our diet now cakes and

scones Jam all of these things depend

upon sugar even though the sugar that

British people who would have been using

to sweeten their tea in the 18th century

all of those things quite quickly become

central to the way that people lived

their lives britain's treasury also

gained immense wealth from the trade and

hence imperial defense was able to

receive substantial funding it could be

easily argued that the trade in Africans

lay at the foundation of Britain's

Empire so it actually goes quite quite a

long way beyond just people eating sugar

the money from sugar

transformed society create new wealthy

elite but it also enriches the extension

of the British state it's after roughly

two centuries of involvement in a trade

that generated vast amounts of wealth

and developed ports towns and cities and

had transformed the lifestyles of those

within the Metropole Britain decided to

abolish its slave trade on the 25th of

March 1807 but why was the abolition

bill ratified in an age where

politicians motivations rarely strayed

beyond the nation's security or economic

interest was the abolition act really

passed in philanthropic spirit as an act

of pure altruism or for the good of

humanity in this documentary I'll

attempt to answer this question I'll be

exploring the lead-up to abolition and

in particular the initial humanitarian

impulse and by figures such as William

Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson I will

also be exploring pro-slavery responses

both within the Metropole and across the

Atlantic to the fierce debate in Britain

in my journey to understand why

evolution occurred I will acknowledge

the challenges faced by the abolition

campaign and a change in political

strategy that along with favourable

external factors eventually led to the

abolition Act

you

[Music]

on the 22nd of May 1787 12 men 9 Quakers

and 3 Anglicans met here and what used

to be a printing shop in the City of

London

they met to coordinate a campaign which

had one sole purpose ending the human

traffic of Africans across the Atlantic

together they formed a Society for

effecting the abolition of the slave

trade the movement had emerged

universally amongst all of its

evangelical and Quaker founders from a

religious reaction against what they all

derided as nominal Christianity the

gospel however had been used for

centuries to endorse the commerce many

slave owners and merchants including the

highly regarded planter Edward long and

emphasized the compatibility of slavery

with the Christian scripture using

passages from the Bible to reinforce the

moral foundation of the institution

members of the abolition committee

represented a new form of Christianity

however a generation of Quakers and

evangelicals who viewed the slave trade

in a new enlightened era as a Commerce

which went against all of its religious

principles the movement had also emerged

in an era when colonial institutions

were already beginning to be questioned

by those in Britain after the American

Revolution many began to debate the

identity of the British Empire and what

role it should undertake on the global

stage

abolitionists had clearly expressed

through their attack on the slave trade

their visions for Empire one which

abided by and promoted new enlightened

forms of Christianity and became a

bastion of reformed and positive change

the conflict of the trade with

Christianity was best expressed in the

widely read and influential essays

written by two abolitionists

retrospectively the Scottish Anglican

curate James Ramsay and a devout

evangelical Christian Thomas Clarkson

James Ramsay had worked as a naval

surgeon in the West Indies and had lived

on the island of st. Kitts from 1762 to

1777

the curate commented on the inhumane

treatment he had personally witnessed

Schloss living in the Caribbean in his

essay on the treatment and conversion of

African slaves published in 1784 Ramsey

suggested that those involved in the

brutal trade who would be willing to

sacrifice their profits in order to

ameliorate the conditions of slaves

would be rewarded by God endless are the

methods by which in an unprecedented the

common accidents of life to reward men

who preferred duty to present advantage

who cooperate with his benevolence in

promoting the happiness of their fellow

creatures the pains that we use to

improve the minds of our fellow

creatures or a tun with advantage into

our bosoms God's grace will be stirred

up within us and our own disposition and

behavior will be corrected and amended

Ramzi also commented on the benefits of

ending the trade in terms of its

promotion of Christianity among slaves

many of whom I convert to the faith and

hence Christianity would receive new

strength Liberty new subjects the

Anglican campaigner and founding member

of the abolition society Thomas Clarkson

in his award-winning thesis published in

1786 entitled an essay on the slavery

and commerce of the human species echoed

the words of his influencer Ramsey in a

more direct attack on the slave trade

itself and those slave owners involved

Clarkson claimed how Christianity

suffers by the conduct of you receivers

for by prosecuting this impious Commerce

you keep the Africans in a state of

perpetual ferocity and barbarism and by

prosecuting it in such a manner as must

represent your religion as a system of

robbery and oppression you not only

opposed propagation of the gospel as far

as you are able yourselves but throw

impediments in the way of other who

might attempt the glorious task it's a

really important thing to remember that

as important as sugar was and as

lucrative as sugar was there were always

people who had their doubts about how it

was being produced so anti-slavery

questioning slavery is something that we

see from the 17th century through to the

18th century in some form or another and

very often those qualms that people have

about the institution of slavery are

moral and religious is it right to

exploit other human beings in these ways

simply so that we can have a commodity

that we enjoy eating

looking back today it would seem

appropriate to view these men as the

evangelical heroes after all they were

doing the right and honorable thing by

attacking such a brutal and degrading

commerce it's at the time these men was

seen as little more than mad eccentrics

and at the very best romantic idealists

and that's because they're attacking an

institution that had to find British

wealth and power for generations and an

institution that was growing every year

and so this begs the question how was

the abolition society going to gather

the support of the increasingly literate

but still predominantly illiterate

population in Britain and more

importantly how were they going to get

government to listen

the abolition committee set about this

task by mobilizing a campaign that would

gather the support of millions across

Britain morality humanitarianism and

Christianity was central to this

campaign and abolitionists would use

innovative strategies and propaganda

still seen in effective pressure group

politics to this day clever and perhaps

at the time unconventional campaigning

tools were used by the committee to

mobilize the public to play upon the

moral conscience of the population

pamphlets were published and brandished

with images that elicited sympathy from

even those who were illiterate Brooks's

slaveship was a prime example of an

image used to rile the public an

illustration of the inhumane and cramped

conditions endured by Africans aboard a

slave vessel that had sailed from

Liverpool to Jamaica in the late 18th

century the use of branding also enabled

the public to express their disapproval

of the traffic and feel as though they

were engaging in the debate the

campaign's emblem designed by Josiah

Wedgwood in 1787 that depicted a knelt

and shackled slave begging and uttering

the words am I not a man and a brother

was worn on bracelets or medallions

stamped into pottery and kitchenware and

even used on tobacco pipes

to many it became a symbol of an

enlightened view of the world really

quite suddenly a group of abolitionists

motivated for a variety of reasons but

mainly through an interest in religion

and a moral outrage at slavery managed

to galvanize popular opinion so that by

the end of the 1780s with the formation

of a abolition society looking to end

the slave trade in 1787 millions of

people had started to sign petitions

calling for the abolition of the slave

trade by engaging with the wider public

the campaign was able to gather huge

momentum dozens of sugar boycotts were

organized and petitions received

millions of signatures despite there

already being an appetite for debate in

Parliament the campaign was now

bolstered by the support of the masses

and the fundamental question of

abolition

it can be ignored by government no

longer

it was also not only white abolitionists

in Britain who opposed slavery for

generations and slaved Africans in the

Caribbean had been finding ways to

resist and rebel against the system this

would continue and take on new forms

during the time of the abolition debates

and in Britain the black community many

of whom were escaped or former slaves

also found ways to raise their voices

against slavery one such man was Paula

alder heck we are no one of the most

influential abolitionists of his

generation a former slave who had

purchased his freedom and travelled to

Britain published his autobiography in

1789 which documented his kidnap from

Africa his voyage across the Atlantic

and the brutality he witnessed during

his life in slavery it was very common

for slaves to be branded with the

initial letters of their masters name

and a load of heavy iron hooks from

around their neck

indeed on the most trifling occasions

they were loaded with chains and often

instruments of torture were added the

iron muzzle pump screws and such are so

well known assume not need a description

and was sometimes applied for the

slightest fault I have seen an equal be

into his bones were broken for only

letting a boil over by 1792 at qui a

nose book became a best-seller evidence

such as this not only gained public

attention but became extremely useful

when it came to lobbying for abolition

and government the man to spearhead the

campaign in Parliament was William

Wilberforce the MP for Yorkshire perhaps

best known for a speech he delivered to

the House of Commons on the 12th of May

1789 was convinced that the trade should

be stopped not only in principle but

also due to the inhumane conditions

endured by slaves across the Atlantic

and throughout the infamous Middle

Passage using facts and figures

accumulated by Clarkson Wilberforce

reason that the trade was morally

reprehensible and an issue of natural

justice exposing in detail the appalling

conditions in which slaves traveled from

Africa during the Middle Passage and

arguing that abolition would also bring

an improvement to the conditions of

existing slaves in the West Indies never

had the issue been so explicitly

described in the Commons chamber

Wilberforce's 12 resolutions signaled

the beginning of a long battle to

abolish the traffic in Parliament and

his arguments were echoed by MPs

throughout the 20-year debate that would

follow the early campaign however for

all its noise and all its support saw

very little legislative success

Wilberforce's first proposed bill

introduced in April 1791 was defeated

convincingly and eight years later

Britain's slave trade witnessed its

biggest year with nearly 50,000 children

women and men forced onto British

merchant ships to labor on sugar

plantations in the tropical colonies as

the 19th century dawned Wilberforce and

the other abolitionists clearly still

had a mountain to climb

one major obstacle that they had to

overcome was the overwhelming influence

and vested interest of both the colonial

planters so the abolitionists are trying

to abolish something that is really

really quite important and entrenched it

was the slave trade slavery and the

production of sugar had been central to

the British Empire for a while by the

time that they begin their campaign so

it's not a surprise that they come up

against opposition and principal

opponents for them perhaps

unsurprisingly are those people who own

large numbers of slaves and those people

involved in the slave trade sugar

planters with big properties in the West

Indies are a really vocal group that

seek to oppose the abolitionists and

argue against their case for ending the

slave trade but also the traders of

slaves Liverpool merchants and Bristol

merchants traders operating ships out of

those two really big British ports that

are central to the the slave trade on

the West African coast those slave

trading merchants are also really

important voices in opposition to the

Appalachia

I see that the miscreant Wilberforce has

begun upon the slave business again if

they mean nothing why do they play us

but they are so ignorant and obstinate

that they do not nor will not hear truth

or reason reason tells everyone to be

humane to everything under him but they

will not allow us to have common sense

reason tells them not to grate and

harass the minds of people that give

them a revenue of a million and a half

yearly and feed six hundred thousand of

her inhabitants but then who says no I

will annihilate you and I will suck the

blood from your vital

the initial momentum of the abolitionist

movement was in the early 1790s stopped

in its tracks but this was not a result

of any mismanagement or miscalculation

by the movement it was external factors

that came into play events occurring

across the channel and in the Caribbean

in part two of this documentary we will

focus on these external events namely

the revolution in France and

consequently the slave uprising in the

former French colony of Santa mang what

effect did these events have on the

abolition campaign and how abolitionists

able to utilize the domestic political

environment in their bid to see the

trade abolished forever

[Music]

you

Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video

Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds

One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps

Paste YouTube URL

Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript

Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds

Get Our Chrome Extension

Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.

Add to Chrome — Free

Works with YouTube, Coursera, Udemy and more educational platforms

Get Instant Transcripts: Just Edit the Domain in Your Address Bar!

YouTube

←

→

↻

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

YoutubeToText

←

→

↻

https://youtubetotext.net/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

YouTube TranscriptPreparing your results…