Course: History of
Modern Missions
Section Three:
Lesson 5
Lesson Title:
The Slave Trade
Introduction:
The ugly
side of British trade.
·
The
Slave Trade was part of a triangle of trade where goods were shipped from the
ports of
·
Christians
in
Introductory Story: The testimony of John Newton –
Amazing Grace
Pre-conversion
– worked on ships selling slaves.
Book: Letters of John Newton
·
Triangular trade (One journey took about one year)
Ships leaving ports –
Took goods to
Goods traded for slaves in
Slaves sold in
Goods brought back to
Some slaves brought back to
Anglican clergy associated with wealthy plantation
owners. Not associated with slaves.
·
Methodists
and Non conformists left to work with slaves.
Conversion
of slaves in the colonies.
·
Attitude
of evangelicals towards slavery. Before
1828 Baptist and Methodist Missionaries did not speak out against slavery. Preached scripture – ‘slaves obey your
masters’. After 1828 began to demand
abolition of slavery. From August
1834 slaves in British territories were
declared free. Evangelicals regarded as
friend of slaves, threat to colonial rule.
3.
The
Aims of the Clapham Sect
·
Fight
for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
William
Wilberforce (1759-1833)
1807 Act
of Parliament passed abolishing slave trade within the
1833 Slavery abolished in British domains.
·
The
Advance of commerce and the propagation of the Gospel
Granville Sharpe - 1787
founding Sierre Leone for freed slaves.
Summary:
1)
Slaves
bought in
2)
The
Methodist and Baptist missionaries worked with the slaves. Although they did not initially speak out
against slavery until 1828, from that time they began to vigorously oppose
slavery until the slaves were given their freedom in British territories in
1834.
3)
The
Clapham Sect led the campaign in
Notes:
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano
Thoughts and Sentiments
on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Commerce of the Human Species (
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano
was born in the 1750’s. He was taken as a slave from his homeland (modern day
…I was born in the city of Agimaque, on the coast of Fantyn;
my father was a companion to the chief in that part of the country of Fantee, and when the old king died I was left in his house
with his family; soon after I was sent for by his nephew, Ambro
Accasa, who succeeded the old king in the chiefdom of
that part of Fantee known by the name of Agimaque and Assinee. I lived
with his children, enjoying peace and tranquillity,
about twenty moons, which, according to their way of reckoning time, is two
years. I was sent for to visit an uncle, who lived at a considerable distance
from Agimaque. The first day after we set out we
arrived at Assinee, and the third day at my uncle's
habitation, where I lived about three months, and was then thinking of
returning to my father and young companion at Agimaque;
but by this time I had got well acquainted with some of the children of my
uncle's hundreds of relations, and we were some days too venturesome in going
into the woods to gather fruit and catch birds, and such amusements as pleased
us. One day I refused to go with the rest, being rather apprehensive that
something might happen to us; till one of my play-fellows said to me, because
you belong to the great men, you are afraid to venture your carcase,
or else of the bounsam, which is the devil.
This enraged me so much, that I set a resolution to join the rest, and we went
into the woods as usual; but we had not been above two hours before our
troubles began, when several great ruffians came upon us suddenly, and said we
must go and answer for it ourselves before him.
Soon some of us attempted
in vain to run away, but pistols and cutlasses were soon introduced,
threatening, that if we offered to stir we should all lie dead on the spot. One
of them pretended to be more friendly than the rest, and said, that he would
speak to their lord to get us clear, and desired that we should follow him; we
were then immediately divided into different parties, and drove after him. We
were soon led out of the way which we knew, and towards the evening […] we came
in sight of a town, they told us that this great man of theirs lived there. […]
I was kept about six days at this man's house, and in the evening there was
another man came and talked with him a good while, and I heard the one say to
the other he must go, and the other said the sooner the better. […] Next day we
travelled on, and in the evening came to a town,
where I saw several white people, which made me afraid that they would eat me,
according to our notion as children in the inland parts of the country. This
made me rest very uneasy all the night. […] After I was ordered out, the
horrors I soon saw and felt, cannot be well described; I saw many of my
miserable countrymen chained two and two, some hand-cuffed, and some with their
hands tied behind. We were conducted along by a guard, and when we arrived at
the castle, I asked my guide what I was brought there for, he told me to learn
the ways of the brow-sow, that is the white faced people. […] But when a
vessel arrived to conduct us away to the ship, it was a most horrible scene;
there was nothing to be heard but rattling of chains, smacking of whips, and
the groans and cries of our fellow-men. Some would not stir from the ground,
when they were lashed and beat in the most horrible manner. I have forgot the name of this infernal fort; but we were taken in
the ship that came for us, to another that was ready to sail from
But it would be needless to
give a description of all the horrible scenes which we saw, and the base
treatment which we met with in this dreadful captive situation, as the similar
cases of thousands, which suffer by this infernal traffic, are well known. Let
it suffice to say, that I was thus lost to my dear indulgent parents and
relations, and they to me. All my help was cries and tears, and these could not
avail; nor suffered long, till one succeeding woe, and dread, swelled up
another. Brought from a state of innocence and freedom, and, in a barbarous and
cruel manner, conveyed to a state of horror and slavery: this abandoned
situation may be easier conceived than described. From the time that I was
kidnapped and conducted to a factory, and from thence in the brutish, base, but
fashionable way of traffic, consigned to Granada, the grievous thoughts which I
then felt, still pant in my heart; though my fears and tears have long since
subsided. And yet it is still grievous to think that
thousands more have suffered in similar and greater distress, under the hands
of barbarous robbers, and merciless taskmasters; and that many even now are
suffering in all the extreme bitterness of grief and woe, that no language can
describe. The cries of some, and the sight of their misery, may be seen and
heard afar; but the deep sounding groans of thousands, and the great sadness of
their misery and woe, under the heavy load of oppressions and calamities
inflicted upon them, are such as can only be distinctly known to the ears of
Jehovah Sabaoth.
Wesley’s letter of encouragement to William Wilberforce
Balam,
Dear Sir:
Unless the
divine power has raised you up to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious
enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of
religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for
this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But
if God be fore you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger
than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the
power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the
sun) shall vanish away before it.
Reading this morning a tract wrote by a poor
African, I was particularly struck by that circumstance that a man who has a
black skin, being wronged or outraged by a white man, can have no redress; it
being a "law" in our colonies that the oath of a black against a
white goes for nothing. What villainy is this? That he who
has guided you from youth up may continue to strengthen you in this and all
things, is the prayer of, dear sir,
Your affectionate servant,
John Wesley
John Newton (1725-1807),
Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade (1788).
…With our ships, the great
object is, to be full. When the ship is there, it is thought desirable she
should take as many as possible. The cargo of a vessel of a hundred tons, or
little more, is calculated to purchase from two hundred and twenty to two
hundred and fifty slaves. Their lodging-rooms below the deck, which are three (for
the men, the boys, and the women), besides a place for the sick, are sometimes
more than five feet high, and sometimes less; and this height is divided
towards the middle, for the slaves lie in two rows, one above the other, on
each side of the ship, close to each other, like books upon a shelf. I have
known them so close that the shelf would not, easily, contain one more. And I
have known a white man sent down, among the men, to lay them in these rows to
the greatest advantage, so that as little space as possible might be lost.
Let it be observed, that
the poor creatures, thus cramped for want of room, are likewise in irons, for
the most part both hands and feet, and two together, which makes it difficult
for them to turn or move, to attempt either to rise or to lie down, without
hurting themselves, or each other. Nor is the motion of the ship, especially
her heeling, or stoop on one side, when under sail, to be omitted; for this, as
they lie athwart, or cross the ship, adds to the uncomfortableness
of their lodging, especially to those who lie on the leeward or leaning side of
the vessel.
Dire is the tossing,
deep the groans. —
The
heat and smell of these rooms, when the weather will not admit of the slaves
being brought upon deck, and of having their rooms cleaned every day, would be
almost insupportable to a person not accustomed to them. If the slaves and
their rooms can be constantly aired, and they are not detained too long on
board, perhaps there are not many who die; but the contrary is often their lot.
They are kept down, by the weather, to breathe a hot and corrupted air,
sometimes for a week: this added to the galling of their irons, and the
despondency which seizes their spirits when thus confined, soon becomes fatal.
And every morning, perhaps, more instances than one are found, of the living
and the dead, like the captives of Mezentius,
fastened together.
Epidemical fevers and
fluxes, which fill the ship with noisome and noxious effluvia, often break out,
and infect the seamen likewise, and thus the oppressors, and the oppressed,
fall by the same stroke. I believe, nearly one-half of the slaves on board,
have, sometimes, died; and that the loss of a third part, in these
circumstances, is not unusual. The ship, in which I was mate, left the coast
with two hundred and eighteen slaves on board; and though we were not much
affected by epidemical disorders, I find by my journal of that voyage (now
before me), that we buried sixty-two on our passage to South Carolina,
exclusive of those which died before we left the coast, of which I have no
account.
I
believe, upon an average between the more healthy, and the more sickly voyages,
and including all contingencies, one fourth of the whole purchase may be
allotted to the article of mortality: that is, if the English ships purchase sixty
thousand slaves annually, upon the whole extent of the coast, the annual
loss of lives cannot be much less than fifteen thousand.
John Wesley