Religion, Urbanisation and Anti-Slavery Mobilisation in Britain, 1787–1833

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, the British were the most successful slavers in the Atlantic world. Their unexpected political conversion to anti-slavery in 1787–1833 proved to be a pivotal moment in the global history of slavery and abolition. In this article, we explore how the extraordinary growth of British towns and cities offered an environment in which opposition to slavery among a small, religious-based group of people would be transformed into a truly national campaign to end first the British slave trade and then slavery itself. To make sense of this complex relationship between anti-slavery sentiments and larger socio-economic transformation(s), we focus in particular upon the spread of religious dissent and non-conformity, upon the emergence and spread of business practices conducive to political mobilisation, and upon the ideological and religious appeal of anti-slavery arguments beyond the middle-class abolitionist leadership.