Empire: World History - 67. Slavery's Demise

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

The slave trade has been abolished, but the number of slaves within the British Empire remains colossal. Thomas Fowell Buxton, the Elephant, has taken the mantle of leadership from William Wilberforce with one singular aim: the complete abolition of slavery. But how will he fare against the West India Interest? Listen as William and Anita are once again joined by Michael Taylor to discuss how much of the British establishment united to try and block his efforts. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/empirepod. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport + Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening, and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpower.com. Hello, and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnand. And me, William Durunpool. And this is part two on the abolition of slavery. And if you didn't hear Tuesdays, go back and listen. It's brilliant because we have a fabulous guest in the shape of historian Michael Taylor,

who's written this wonderful book called The Interest, which catalogs the stages from Britain being the biggest slave-owning nation in the world to actually being the spearhead of the abolition, first of the trade, and then of slavery itself. So the last episode was really about how it wasn't the same thing. There were two different things going on here. The abolition of the trade was one thing, which was supported by the Royal Navy that went out and stopped slave-carrying ships.

But that is not the same as saying that actually slavery was abolished on the same day because actually, as Michael pointed out, rather startlingly in the last episode of the pod, the number of slaves increased after that abolition of the trade. And so we pick up now, you had introduced us to this rather marvelous character, Thomas Fowell Buxton, the leader of the Anti-Slavery Society. I'm going to read you just something that he said in Parliament in May 1823. The state of slavery is repugnant to the principles of the British Constitution and of the Christian religion. It ought to be gradually abolished throughout the British colonies.

And this is a new message, isn't it, Michael Taylor, that actually the whole thing has got to go now, not just part, the whole thing. It is for the first time the abolitionists who had for so long disavoured any. intent to emancipate the slaves themselves. They would not go after property, they would not go after the bedrock of colonial society, have now decided that they need to act and that they need to encourage the abolition of slavery throughout the Caldony. Michael, is there a road to Damascus moment that leads to that change of tact? Because presumably that's a huge moment when they decide to disavow their former promises to the slavers that they're not going to go after their property. There isn't one great shock. There isn't one great moment. What happens is that in late 1822,

James Cropper, who is a merchant from Liverpool, who is an abolitionist, and who will not surprise you to learn, is a Quaker, writes to all of his old friends and says, right, okay, we've got to do something now. Because the abolitionist had assumed that slavery would wither and die out if the planters were forbidden from refreshing the slave population by importing new blood, as they called it, from Africa, that they would, by gradual stages, have to improve the livelihoods and the conditions in which the slaves lived, and that the slave population would gradually become what the abolitionists hoped would be a free black peasantry, which is what they called it. But that wasn't happening. What's there any, I mean, this is a sort of, maybe an odd question, but given the terrible conditions in the slave colonies, and given the fact that the numbers continue to keep rising, and yet the ports are being policed,

the Royal Navy is out there capturing slave ships and sending them back or send them to Sierra Leone or the free colonies. How do the slave owners manage to keep the numbers up? Do they have, I mean, it's a horrible idea. Do they have breeding programs or what are they doing to maintain their number? God, I hate that phrase. God, that phrase when you said it made me feel sick, actually. But we've seen before in this episode that even Thistlewood, our demon planter from Taki's Revolt, does indeed have something like this. Yes, so the comparison that I made, and it's quite a distasteful comparison in the last episode, was that the slaveholders are now forced to look at the enslaved people on their plantations, not as disposable property, but as long-term investments. So they do begin to take better care of them, although everything is relative. These are still fearfully dreadful conditions. The numbers are relatively static, maybe increase a little bit in the existing colonies, but the British Empire has expanded. It has gotten new slave colonies and Demerese. in South America, what we now call Guyana, and in Mauritius.

I hadn't made that, Demerara is Guyana. Yeah. So Demerara, where we get the brown sugar, was combined with the colonies of Rabis and Nessa Keyboard to become Guyana in 1831. So these slavers who have been, you know, very resistant for enormously compelling economic reasons, they do although, I mean, they have a sort of a union of sorts called the London Society of West India Planters. And there he was dug in quite deeply, except there is a friendship that is at the heart of a change here too.

So you've got the man who is running this London Society of West India Planned, is a man called Charles Rose Ellis. And he happens like, you know, you talked so beautifully about this dinner party that William Pitt happened to be at and who becomes very important later on in the politics of abolition. But he is best friends with a man called George Canning. Now, tell us a little bit about Canning. So this friendship, you're right, is absolutely essential to understanding the early part of the campaign against slavery. George Canning had, for the past 20 years, been one of the most important influential politicians in Britain. He had been a disciple in his early days of William Pitt the Younger. He's always been a Tory.

He famously duels with Castle Ray and gets shot in Putney Heath after a disagreement about troop movements. By Castle Ray. Castleray himself. Yeah, by Castleray. Yeah, Casroy kills himself in 1822. And so Canning, who had been out of favour, is called back in to be not a new leader of the House of Commons, but also the Foreign Secretary. And he is arguably the most important person in the government. Lord Liverpool is Prime Minister, but it's Canning who is really driving everything.

And you're right. He is best friends with Charles Rosellis, who is the chairman of the West India interest, which is the interest of the title of my book. We should quickly maybe add that Lord Liverpool is an Anglo-Indian. Not many people know that. We had only Anglo-Indian Prime Minister. I didn't know that. He had an Indian grandmother. Good Lord.

I didn't know that. Wow. Okay. I'm just going to let that fact just sit on my shoulder for a little while. I don't think it was something he trumpeted from the depths of Downey Street. But it's the nearest thing we had to Rishi Sunak before Rishishishanak. Well, I just may I just issue a bloody hell? That was one of those.

Bloody hell. God, didn't know that. Okay. So, yes, canning the most important, most influential parliamentarian under Liverpool. And what does he believe? What does he care about, Canning? So his own self-promotion is one thing. But Canning is also one of these statesmen who, no matter how much you might disagree vehemently with the positions that he takes and the opinions that he have, he really does care about British greatness and the interests of the state. And he is incredibly important in not only a famous phrase, he says, he brings the new world into existence to balance out the old. He's essential to the Monroe Doctrine.

He's essential to recognizing the independence of all the former Spanish imperial colonies that become places like Mexico and Peru and Colombia. And what he wants, above all else, is to guarantee British strategic security in the Western Hemisphere. And we've talked before about how there is a fear, a prevalent fear, that if slaves are emancipated too soon, there might be scenes of rebellion and bloodshed and the colonies could be lost. So for Canning, the idea that we should emancipate immediately is completely inconceivable. And to be fair, to Buxton, he is politically aware of this, and there's an

important word that you mentioned, which is gradually. And so the abolitionists are not going after the immediate emancipation of slavery. They want it to be a gradual process, at least at first. And the importance of Canning's friendship to Charles Rose Ellis is that whenever Buxton stands up and says, right, we should do something about this. We need to start acting about slavery. And Canning from the other side of the house nods sagely and says, that's a very good thing to do. In fact, I will recommend a process of amelioration, which is the improvement of the condition of the slaves. And this appears to be a wonderful victory for the abolitionists. They think, right, we've got the Tories, we've got the government onside, they're going to do something. The problem is that a

month before that night in the House of Commons, the West India interest, tipped off by canning, had already met and proposed the measures to the government. So it's the West Indian planters themselves who are drafting the resolutions that the government will adopt. And Michael, just to be clear about this, who are the members of the London Society of the West Indian Planters? Are they aristocrats with large landed interests, or is it a joint venture with the Liverpool and Manchester merchants?

What sort of people are we talking about in this group? Well, certainly cities like Glasgow and Liverpool and Bristol have got their own West Indian societies, their own West Indian interests, but it's the London interest, which is really the controlling committee. And just who is a member of the interest can vary quite wildly, depending on how you define it. But, you know, looking through the legacies of British slave ownership website and looking through hands out at the time, we can say with reasonable confidence that there are about 100 MPs at this moment who are connected to the West India interest. There are quite a lot of members of the House of Lords, somebody like the Earl of Harwood from Yorkshire, is a West Indian slaveholder. There are lots of journalists. There are lots of financiers. There are judges, soldiers.

It's really, really a powerful interest. And could you compare this to a modern political lobbying group, the National Rifle Association or something in the States? Do they have an office? Are they lobbying? Are they giving money to journalists to write articles for them and this sort of thing? I think that's probably quite a fair comparison. So they have two main hubs. One is in the city of London. One is St. James's Mayfair. They have a clubhouse there, which is very close to the houses of Parliament. And they put an awful lot of money into the right wing press. Through bribery or, I mean, literal paying journalist to write pieces? Some bribery, some direct payments, some just very good friendships in the conservative press. So John Murray, which is still excellent publishing. House is the most influential publisher probably in the English-speaking world in the 1820s.

Byron's publisher, for example. Yeah, absolutely. So he puts his publishing house basically at the West Indians' disposal. The quarterly review, which is the most important magazine in the world, is a home for pro-slavery literature. Okay, but, I mean, they've got printed matter on their side, but so do the abolitionists. So, I mean, this is really important to remember this is a time of print more. Yeah. So pamphlets carry a great deal of impact.

There are other newspapers. People are voraciously reading at this time. And Buxton's message, the anti-slavery message, is also being proliferated around the world. Most importantly, it reaches places like Demerara. And some people credit actually the seeping of the ink towards places like Demerara for a slave revolt that takes place. Because those who are, you know, those enslaved Africans who are working on Demerara get to hear that there is such a thing as an anti-slavery society. There is a man called Buxton who is trying to free us. Is that the cause? You know, is Buxton's proliferation of his message the cause of that uprising? Because some people certainly blame him for it. Those who don't thank him for it, do blame him for it.

So it's important to remember some of the incidents we talked about in the first episode. So whenever the Haitian revolution happens, abolitionists are blamed. Whenever the rebellion and Barbados happens in 1816, the slave registry is blamed. So when in August, 1823, from a plantation owned by the Liverpool merchant prince John Gladstone, the father of future Prime Minister William Gladstone, there is a rebellion of slaves in Demerara. It is once again the abolitionists who are blamed for this. Now, I don't necessarily credit that. I think the horrors of slavery itself are a pretty good excuse for an enslaved uprising, but certainly there's some blame attached to Buxton for raising the issue of rights being denied to enslaved Africa.

in Parliament, and some blame is attached to the missionary John Smith, who has been preaching the gospel and attempting to convert the enslaved Africans in Demire to Christianity. And you have some of these missionaries actually being physically attacked by mobs in the West Indies. You have this guy Shrewsbury attacked in Barbados. Tell us about that. So Shrewsbury, an incredibly earnest, hopeful young man, goes out to Barbados and establishes a Methodist chapel on the island. And his great sin, apart from not being an Anglican, because most of the planters and the aristocracy in the island are Anglican, is to preach to not only the slaves, but to the free blacks in the island. And there are a few free black people on Barbados. And so over the course of

1823, Shrewsbury becomes a figure of persecution by what is basically a pro-slavery Anglican mob. They gather rounds as church. They throw the equivalent of stink bombs and peasant. bombs through the windows of the church, hurting the black congregants, and eventually they chase him off the island. They tear down his house, and they compare this to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and Shrews being his pregnant wife have to hurry down a cliffside into a boat, and they beat away, trying to get to Dominican and to safety. It was a very, very dangerous thing, in Jamaica, in Demerara, in Barbados, to be preaching to slaves, but also to be preaching a version of Christianity which emphasizes things like the Exodus and liberation rather than rendering

unto Caesar what is Caesar's. And also, I mean, these things happening to, you know, Shrews being he has his wife and as you say that. I mean, that is a compelling piece of propaganda for those who want to, you know, ha ha, I told you what would happen if you, you know, give an inch and this is the kind of thing that will happen to, you know, good white Christian folk. Is that how it translates back here in Britain? And what impact does that have? So if you're, you're already predisposed to favor the persistence and the continuance of slavery. You're going to look at something like the Demerera rebellion, and you're going to blame it on the abolitionists,

just as the abolitionists had been blamed for the uprising in Barbados in 1816, and even for the Sandamang Revolution in 1791. But it does cut both ways because the terrible treatment of John Smith, who the Demeraron authorities in prison and who dies in prison of consumption, means that he becomes a martyr for the anti-slavery cause. And it maybe seems a little bit perverse that no matter how many hundreds of thousands and not millions of black people have died in slavery over the course of the previous couple of hundred years in British colonies,

it's the death of this one white man, a good Christian missionary, that finally gives them this figurehead to rally around. So, I mean, that's interesting. So, you know, the Shrewsbury case is all powerful because it is a white man and a white woman fleeing for their life. and then the man who they blame for that, who's put in prison and dies in prison, is a white man. And upon these two people, history pivots, you put it beautifully.

This is astonishing. Okay, so what is the government's reaction to the slave revolt? Well, for somebody like George Canning, who receives the news of the uprising in Demerera, at the same time that Buxton is meeting with him, he is absolutely aghast. This reinforces his belief that, whatever action is taken cannot happen too quickly and perhaps should be reversed.

I mean, that's not to say that there is nothing that happens because after Smith's martyrdom, there is a groundswell of abolitionist activity and in 1824. The government issues an order in council. So basically an executive order, which applies to the island of Trinidad. Trinidad doesn't have its own constituent assembly. It doesn't have its own charter. So the government can use it as a sandbox for abolitionist activity. And it imposes the resolutions that had been agreed the year before in Trinidad.

But this is really a kind of sop to the abolitionist movement. They know that it doesn't really matter. One island out of the whole of the Caribbean. And these measures aren't really designed to do all that much. In fact, they're designed as a kind of a dead letter to appease the abolitionists at home to give the appearance that something is being done for the slaves. And Canning comes into battle now reaffirming his pro-slavery, credentials with this horrible speech about Frankenstein. Will you tell us about this? To turn him

loose in the manhood of his physical strength, he's talking about the liberation of the slaves, in the maturity of his physical passions, but in the infancy of his uninstructed reason, would be to raise up a creature resembling the splendid fiction of a recent romance. What's going on there? Here's a terrible, terrible quote from Canning. It is. It's this constant fear that because in the opinion of the pro-slavery lobby and their allies in government, that Africans are uncivilized, that they're still savage and barbarous and basically children in the great scale of civilization, that if you were to emancipate them too soon, that they, like Frankenstein's monster, would wreak a terrible vengeance upon the people who had created them and oppressed them beforehand. Now, enter the scene. Anyone who listens to this podcast will know I love a kick-ass woman. I live for kick-ass woman. And enter the freight, Elizabeth Hadrick, who, you know, is looking at all of these, sort of the, you know, the ebbs and flows of sympathy, you know, the nation's sympathies towards the complete abolition of slavery. She comes forward. She's also a Quaker, isn't she? Tell us more about Elizabeth Hadrick and how much impact she has on this debate. So it's important to emphasize that all of the official abolitionist activity is undertaken by men,

not just because only men can set in the House of Commons, but also because leading abolitionists, like Wilberforce, did not think that it was right and proper for women to be involved in this kind of stuff. Hayrick has got absolutely no time for that. She's also got absolutely no time for the mealy-mouth gradualism of some of the abolitionist leaders. I feel a new Anita biography carrying on. Sitting up straighter in my chair, William. Yeah, okay.

So she's not having it. No, and she understands that even if the abolitionists are making these incredibly sophisticated, complicated, arguments about the impropriety and the inefficiency of slavery, the man in the street just is not going to care or understand them. But what she knows is that if she can organize a widespread boycott of slave-grown sugar, this is something that people can buy into and this is something that will hurt the weather. Indians on their bottom line. So this is the equivalent of the kind of BDS or the anti-apartheid struggle and It is.

It's a boycott of West Indian produce. Not made by slaves is the... Not made by slaves. Yeah. And it's the encouragement instead of buying in sugar or other comparable produce from, admittedly other colonial territories such as the East Indies that is cultivated by people who are nominally free, even if they are also working under horrendous conditions. This is very important. And the East India Company goes to town on this and starts producing sugar

in jars that you still see in museums with this phrase not made by slaves. I just want to spend a bit more time on our girl, Elizabeth. Go back to your girl. Sorry, Elizabeth Hadrick. Yes. I mean, so she's, I've just been looking at pictures of her because I could become obsessed trying to kind of crawl into somebody's life through their face, but she's very sort of stern looking. She's not old when she's doing this. I mean, I'm not sure what age she is when she's doing it,

but certainly the portraits of her. Very dark eyes, very, you know, sort of prominent, but elegantly arched eyebrows, and she looks stern. I mean, they paint her as a powerful creature. She's there in sort of her lace bonnet, but she's in charge in these portraits that I've seen of her. She is one of the great grassroots organizers, and this is a campaign that involves so many more people than anything like a high political campaign could do. Because at the time, you know, if you are a woman in charge of the purse strings of your household, that gives you a degree, you know, quite a considerable degree of power in the marketplace.

And if you can swing all of your household's expenditure towards places like the East Indies, and the East India Company is accused of conspiring with the abolitionists because of this. and people like Buxton and Wilberforce are accused of being East India Company lackeys, then you can make a real difference in the way that, you know, high-minded arguments in Parliament maybe don't reach as many people. So she's, you know, so she's launching this incredibly successful campaign about, you know, by sugar with a conscience in effect. Is this the first of its kind? I mean, today we're used to, say, you know, the BDS movement or the campaign against apartheidate

and using economic boycotts as a, as a means of political pressure. Is she the person that invents this technique? I don't know. Not in America. Didn't the Boston Tea Party happen? They've got a choice to you. Good point. Good point.

Yes. She resurrects this during the campaign against slavery, but it's also very active during the campaign against the slave trade itself. And there are companies who will only deal in free ground produce. And in fact, there are companies such as the one that McCauley is involved in. So the historian's father, Zachary, is involved in a company which sells, goes out to Sierra Leone and tries to deal with the African

chiefs who are selling their people to slave traders, and it tries to sell them good so they will not be bartering with people. They were trying to sell things for cash. Okay. And at this point, I mean, we've sort of lost sight of our friend William Wilberforce, but he then reenters the fray in a way, you know, sort of the voice comes back. I mean, he hasn't stopped doing things, but others have moved into the forefront of this campaign. But now Wilberforce is back. And he says, look, we want commissions, a royal commission to investigate slavery. And that is a really, I mean, that's a very important point in the history of the abolition of slavery, because people are looking and they're going to be stats, economic stats, which are very

convincing placed against some horrifying descriptions. Tell us more about that. Well, I would say that it probably should have been one of the great turning points in this campaign. So Wilberforce gets this commission appointed, and two commissioners are sent out to the West Indian Island of Tortola to examine how the Africans who have been liberated from slave ships are faring. How are they doing? The commissioners that they send out, one is a reformed slaveholder and now a sturdy abolitionist. The other is one of the most virulently pro-slavery characters of this whole drama, Colonel Thomas Moody. And so they both spend weeks and months out there. They conduct their surveys and their interviews. The problem is that Duggan, who's the abolitionist, dies during the writing of the reports, and Moody gets to dictate everything that happens. So he produces this report, and then he gets rewarded with the job of the colonial office looking at the slavery and the slave trade. So again, there's this kind of regulatory capture of the whole governmental process. And rising at this point as a champion of the pro-slavery lobby is the Duke of Wellington, who again, you know,

these characters that we have on our banknotes who, like Churchill and Duke of Wellington, the closer you look at their views on anything to do with empire or slavery, the worse that these things get. So what is the Duke of Wellington's position? Four square, he says, behind slavery. So the political context of this is really, really important. So Lord Liverpool dies in 1827. He's a stroke. He retires, then he dies the next year. George Canning takes over, but Canning himself dies in August 1827. The slightly more liberal Vicund Goodrich takes over, and by January 1828, you have the Duke of Wellington,

one of the most reactionary tories as Prime Minister. At this time, the anti-slavery movement is almost dead. Buxton himself falls really seriously ill. In fact, he's knocked out unconscious for 10 days by an illness. He refuses to believe that he's been asleep for so long, and they have to show him a copy of the Times with the day's date on. to convince him that he's been asleep for so long. We've got the Tories in charge.

Things are not looking terribly good. But there is a bright spot on the horizon for the abolitionist movement. And that coming from left field is the issue of Catholic emancipation. The Duke of Wellington and Robert Peel, who's home secretary at the time, do not want to grant Catholics' rights, such as the ability to enter parliament. But they realize that if they don't, there's the risk of civil war in Ireland. Wellington, the old soldier, knows he doesn't really want to fight that war because it will be brutal and it will be terrible.

So in 1829, reluctantly, they pass Catholic emancipation, and this splits the Tories apart. So finally, there is a political gap for the Whigs who are much, much more likely to support emancipation. And in 1830, Earl Grey and the Whigs are invited to form a minority government. And this, for the abolitionists, is their chance. Okay, Earl Grey, many will know for his excellent cups of tea. But tell us more about Al Gray. Tell me what kind of figure he is. So I've just actually finished editing the papers belonging to one of Earl Grey's sons,

who was an Admiral in the Navy. So hopefully I should know enough. But he's one of the great Whig Grandees. He's been in Parliament for about 40 years by this stage. He has always supported parliamentary reform as his primary objective. And that is what the Whigs address. But he is now invited to form this government in 1830. This is not to say that he's a radical or a liberal.

In fact, the government that he forms is perhaps the most important. aristocratic in British history, and it involves a number of Grey's own family. And it's a minority, it hasn't got that much power, and it's not going to address itself directly to slavery, first of all. In fact, Earl Grey is really quite concerned that his son, he's called Viscount Hayek at the time, is a little bit too ardent in his support for abolition. But he's not a Tory. He's not in the pocket of the slaveholders, and this really, really matters over the next few years. It's a really good point. And now I've mentioned tea, it's all I can think about. To take a little tea break. We're going to take a break here. Join us after the break where we continue with this

rather marvellous story in the company of an excellent historian. Michael Taylor, this is the story of abolition. Join us after the break. Welcome back. So, yes, we've just been introduced, I hope you had a nice cup of tea, to Earl Grey and Sugar with a conscience and the whole changing landscape of British politics. William, also we talked about politics where we need to talk about economics as well. Yeah, so what's going on, Michael, in the Westerners, economically speaking. We've seen earlier in history that this is the great generator of money for the British Empire, that the American colonies are nothing compared to the riches coming out of Jamaica and so on. But what's going on by the 1820s? The situation is quite different.

So it's certainly true that it is more expensive for the slaveholders to maintain the people who are on their plantations than it is simply to import news. slaves into the West Indies. And therefore, while it's not necessarily the case that the West Indian interest was completely diminished or was becoming broke, the production of sugar in the West Indies is becoming less profitable and certainly less profitable in comparison to production in new places like Mauritius or the East Indies. So the relative economic strength of the West Indian interest is diminishing.

Sorry, that was clear joining in. Is there some kind of dispute going on? Okay, she agrees. Okay, that's an agreeing meow. So the West Indies prophets are going down. The Duke of Wellington is losing control. The very pro-slavery Duke of Wellington, who says he stands four square behind slavers

and the right of slave owners to control their property. Terrible. So this is the moment that the abolition is now going to get momentum up. Yeah, so the Duke of Wellington's gone. The Whigs under Earl Grey are now in par. And finally, the abolitionists decide to move. decisively. Now, the patricians at the top of the movement are still a little bit hesitant about this. They're still trying to keep government on boards, move slowly. But the young

Englanders among them, especially a guy called George Stephen, who's the son of James Stephen, who's a really important clerk within the government, he decides to form the anti-slavery agency society. This is the splinter group who are going to do everything that they can possibly can to push forward the case for immediate emancipation. So they send lecturers out around the country to try and whip up fervor for immediate emancipation. They can be disavowed by the patricians in the main body of the parent society, even though they might support what they're doing. They put posters up all over the country, all over London,

often pasting over the pro-slavery placards that the West Indians are putting up. And by this way, by this agitation, there is more and more support for the cause of abolition. And what really crystallizes all of this is a rebellion in Jamaica in 1831. This is known as the Christmas Rebellion. Yeah, also known as the Baptist War, because it's organized by Samuel Sharp, who's a Baptist deacon in Jamaica. And what happens in the days after Christmas, with holiday denied to the slaves,

they effectively go on strike. But they do more than that. They also burn down several plantations. There are tens of thousands of slaves who are in rebellion. Now, the British have, the British army has a detachment, has a garrison on the island, and eventually it's put down. But millions of points are of the damage's cause. and for the first time, if you remember how slave uprisings have often been blamed on abolitionist activity beforehand, this is the first time.

Whenever the news reaches London and reaches the Whigs in government, they think actually the cause of this, rather than abolitionist activity, might be slavery itself. Let's go back to Sharp, though, because we've glossed over him. He's a crucial figure, and he's a very big figure in the US to the States. He's a black preacher, and he's actually hung by the planters. He's marched to the gallows. He is. He's marched to the gallows in 1832, wearing a crisp white suit that one of his fans has knitted for him. He's an incredibly powerful, persuasive speaker who manages to organize secretly all of these different plantations to rise up on the same day.

And is this a new thing that you have black Christian preachers? Presumably this was not going on a generation earlier. I don't know about the extent of it, but certainly the idea that you could have a black Christian. preacher in the Western, who's himself still a slave and has been a pardoned, has been allowed to preach a version of Christianity that is not being governed by the planters or by the Anglican Church, say, that is new. And he certainly takes the opportunity to use the function and the meeting houses of his Baptist congregation as also a headquarters for rebellion. And wonderful quotes, as he's standing at the gallows, rather like sort of braveheart on the scaffold

I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery. This is freedom. All that sort of stuff. And he's a national hero in Jamaica today. He is. And more of the point in Britain, for the purposes of the abolitionist cause, you had John Smith as a martyr seven or eight years beforehand. Now you have Sam Sharp, you know, a slave who they can humanize,

who British Christians can relate to because he is also a Christian. He is somebody who's speaking about values of liberty and freedom and Christianity, and they sympathise with that. And that's incredibly important because for the first time lots and lots of people in Britain are beginning to look at the slaves, not as property, but as fellow human beings who share the same values that they do. Just one observation about, you know, the putting down of the Jamaica Christmas rebellion. Once again, it's a reappearance of our friends of the Maroons who are the ones that do the dirty work for the planters to get their slaves back. And we've seen this time and time again. But we also have a sort of,

white planters Christian Union, the colonial church union, who are like an ancestor of the Ku Klux Klan. Gosh, tell us more about that. They are high church Anglican pro-slavery terrorist group is the best way to describe them. And so in Jamaica in 1831, 32, 33, in reprisal against not only Christian missionaries but abolitionists, but also the slaves who have rebelled, they are meeting out the most violent kind of justice to anybody that they regard as a threat to the stability. Burning chapels, attacking and hunting down missionaries. Tarring and feathering them, trying to murder people.

It is horrendous behavior, often orchestrated by George Wilson Bridges, who is one of the greatest villains of 19th century history, who is a rabidly pro-slavery Anglican cleric in Jamaica, and who really is already notorious for certain acts of violence, but this really cements his legacy. So this is the same sort of thing as, as the deep south in the kind of civil rights time, that you have active working class whites fighting the freeing up of black people

and resisting in every way they can. Yeah, the colonial church union is the direct ancestor of that kind of activity. Of the clan. I mean, I've never heard of them until I came across them in your book. But, you know, one thing that happens, and you find this throughout history, is that when you have a satellite of the British Empire, that starts to police itself, which is what this protein Ku Klux Klan is doing, it worries London because they've lost control.

You know, there is a void of authority. You don't have any say in how it's run. You're not policing it. You don't have the muscle. What was the reverberation happening in Parliament? Well, there are always threats from the planters. Should there be interference? Should there be a hint of abolitionist activity on the part of the government?

That they will secede and that they will become the latest slaveholding states of the American Union. And this is a threat they make in 1823. When everything starts, they gather in Grenada in 1831, they form a colonial Congress and they begin to discuss revolution and secession. What government in London, what they have on their side is simply the relative strength of force. There are too few white planters and their allies in the Caribbean for these threats really to be made good on, but it is a concern nonetheless. When we were dealing with Haiti in the last episode, we had, I think it was one to ten, white to black. Do you know what it is in Jamaica at this point? What the...

It depends entirely in which part of Jamaica, but it could be anywhere open up to 60 to 1 in certain parishes to maybe 10 to 1 in the more urban. So this whole place is becoming ungovernable as far as London is concerned. The whites are trying to break off. The blacks are up in rebellion. What happens? next? What is London's response to this growing anarchy in Jamaica? London does begin to realize that if slavery persists, not if slavery is abolished, if slavery persists, you may lose the colonies altogether because the slave population is so much bigger than the white population, very distinct from the American South.

And Haiti being the obvious paradigm. Yeah. And the shadow of Haiti is hanging over all of this. So they resolve that they're finally going to do something, but they know if they are to get anything through Parliament, then reform needs to happen first. So this is the era of Roddenborough's corrupt boroughs. There are constituencies returning two MPs to the House of Parliament with seven voters, with four voters. It is hideously corrupt and those pocket burrows, those rotten burrs, are often controlled either by Tories or by West Indians. So what they do first, and the abolitionists know this. They're in London, they're told basically by the government, okay, we will do something,

but we need to do this first. And reluctantly, they take a bit of a backseat. But when reform is finally passed in April and May 1832, and when finally there is an election in the winter of 1832, 1833, this is when George Stephen and the Agency spring into action. This is finally when the patrician leaders of the Anti-Slavery Society can go for immediate abolition as well. And they go on a pledge campaign. They go around all of the new boroughs, all of the new constituencies, in places like Manchester and Birmingham and Sheffield and Broughford, where there are more likely to. to be dissenting Protestants. They're more likely to be people from the middling classes who are more likely to be sympathetic to the cause of emancipation. And the candidates that are standing, they get something like 217 of the candidates to commit themselves to pursue immediate

emancipation in the first session of the new parliament. How many of those 217 lose? Five. So you immediately have 212 MPs bound to immediate emancipation. To the abolitionist cause. But also, I mean, you know, as important as taking on, on the rotten boroughs, you have extended the franchise. So there is a new now rule. So, you know, before you had to be rich and property owning to be able to vote in Britain. It wasn't all men. I mean, people think, you know, the suffragettes fought to extend the franchise to women and that was it. But actually, at this time, there is a new pushing back of the wall so that if you have 10 pounds, you now can vote. And that, as you say, extends it to people who haven't

benefited from plantations, who perhaps, you know, this message of being the oppressed worker, it appeals, it speaks to them. So it is, it is sort of a twin track approach that changes all of this. And they make the case very persuasionally to these new voters. Use your vote to do something humane. You know, you've been given this new liberty. Now use your own liberty to do something for the liberty of others. And when does that finally result in a new parliament full of, these pro? So 1833, we finally have a parliament where there is a majority that is in principle in favor of emancipation. There is, however, one major problem, which is that to emancipate colonial slaves is to confiscate property, which has been recognized as being lawfully held. And so even if the

Western Indians in London begin to realize that the game is up, and once the wheels begin to turn, they will lose a vote. They managed to negotiate one of the best deals. in British history. West Indians in London, we should say for anyone that hasn't been following, means the white interest. The white... The absentee vanders, yeah. So beginning in the spring of 1833, they begin to negotiate with the government and they strike a deal for an indemnity of 20 million pounds, which if you translate that into today's money is something pretty shocking. It was about 40% of all government expenditure in 1833. Good Lord, 40%. Yeah. It is the single greatest payout in British history before the banking bailout of 2008-2009. It's several billion pounds in today's money as a proportion of...

$260 billion in today's money. As a proportion of total government expenditure adjusted for inflation, yeah. How do they negotiate that? If you've got already in Parliament a pro-ab abolition majority, how do the interest manipulate things in such a way to get this massive payoff? Well, the problem is that even the whigs, even the abolitionists, some of them recognize that first compromise is necessary. And secondly, Parliament has already recognized the right of the slaveholders to hold other people as property. What kind of precedent they worry would this set? Are you going to repeat the expropriations of the French Revolution by taking land and property off people? They don't want to risk that.

They are still inherently conservative people rather than radical nihilists. So not only do they negotiate this 20 million points, they negotiate something else, and that's the apprenticeship. So all the way through this, informing all of these debates, is the inherently racist idea that Africans are uncivilized and will not work for wages if they are freed. So they get the compensation for the expected loss of profits and the loss of property. And also they are guaranteed at least six years, although it ends up being a little bit shorter. six years, 75% of the week, the former slaves will do the same work in the same jobs on the same plantations for the same masters. And it's only with these two things that everybody consents to put emancipation through Parliament at last. And so is it Buxton, once again, who comes to the

four at this time and says, right, the time is right, the door is now? The hinges are, you know, they are well-oiled and I just have to push. Is it him? And how does he push? Well, he does push, but there are now an awful lot of quite important people within government itself who are going to do this job for him. He doesn't have to do everything now. So James Stephen, who is the son of the old James Stephen from the first abolitionist campaign, is an Undersecretary of State at the Colonial Office. And he does a hell of a lot of work, drafting legislation. Working through Sundays, which is an evangelical, is almost never heard of, never done. So you have somebody working on the inside. You've got people within the government pushing for this,

you've now got a majority of Parliament. So all of the pieces are falling into place, where it's no longer Buxton standing up on his own, carrying the burden himself. You've got people in government, in the commons, you've got popular support, because a lot of the papers who had once been pro-slavery are finally swinging round behind abolition.

And what date does it go to vote? What's the moment of liberation? So the Act finally gets through Parliament in August 1833. It receives Royal Assent, and then the date, the Jubilee, is the 1st of August 1834. And the 1st of August becomes a date of celebration, not just through the West Indies, but it also becomes a beacon of hope for abolitionists in the United States.

It becomes a date in which abolitionists in Northern American states for the next 30 years celebrate and hold great parties. And the British solution to the problem of slavery is held out, at least in those places, as an example that Americans could follow. Of course, in the American South, it's regarded with horror. Michael, but again, in our national myth and everything I thought I'd learned at school, the British are the first to liberate the slaves. This is our contribution to civilization, that we were the ones that let the shackles free, had the keys that took the handcuffs off,

and so on. But the reality is that by this point, by 1834, Haiti is already free. The Northwest United States even has freed its slaves, and most of South America. Yeah, so the myth of the British being first is really quite pervasive. But when it comes to the slave trade, the Danes had abhor. it years before the British did. The Americans abolished it before the British did. In fact, every American state except South Carolina had done it long before the British abolished slave trade. When it comes to slavery itself, you're quite right. Most American states in the North had already abolished slavery, the Northwest Territory that would become places like

Wisconsin and Minnesota, slavery was forbidden from being extended in the north of America's. All of the Spanish-American republics who have carved themselves out of the former Spanish Empire, they've abolished slavery before the British. So who's behind us in this? If we're still, is there anything we can pat ourselves on the back for? Are we ahead of the French? We've got the American South. We have the American South. Napoleon has reinstated slavery after its initial abolition during the 1790s in the French colonies in the Caribbean. But they are many fewer than the British colonies because they've lost so many of them to the British over the years. You have Havana, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Brazil. I'm very much aware that in this series,

one of our big missions, I think, has been that we haven't dealt with the Portuguese and the same, because they arguably ship the most of all, even more than the British? Or is that wrong? No, no, they do. So if there are 12.5 million Africans enslaved and trafficked over the Atlantic, the British are responsible for more than 3 million. The Portuguese and the Brazilians successively are responsible for about 6 million. And when do they abolish? When do the Portuguese?

It goes on for a very long time. There are treaties between Britain and Portugal and Brazil enforcing the eradication of the slave trade, but not south of the equator. They don't take effect until after 1850, and slavery itself in Brazil isn't abolished until 1880. I just really want to notice the mechanics of, you know, you finally you're there, you're Buxton, and you finally you've done the thing that you promised, and slavery is abolished. I mean, one likes to think, and then everybody lived happily ever after, and everybody went free and things were better. But you're shaking your head already, so I know that not to be the case. What happens to those enslaved Africans the day after?

Well, they become apprentices under the system, which is itself pretty horrific. It's slavery in all but name. They are forced to do the same work for the same masters on the same plantation. They're allowed to do a little bit of work themselves to earn some money. But if they don't, if they become indigent, then they get sent to the workhouses that spring up all over the Caribbean. So the apprenticeship is a failing system. And whenever a campaign is started in 1838 to eradicate it, it gets waived through. So it's only in the 1st of August 1838 that slavery in all of its residual forms is properly abolished.

But that's not to say, as you said, the end of slavery doesn't bring sweetness and light to everybody. The end of apprenticeship doesn't necessarily bring sweetness and light to everybody. There's still slavery in British India, and there is until 1843. And it's not to say that the Africans who had been enslaved, you had been apprentices, join the ranks of free white Britons and enjoy all of the liberties and prosperity that the British, Empire did enjoy in the 19th century. Life is still hard. There is not much other industry to do in the British West Indies at the time. And there is still the endemic threat of violence that's something like the More Bay Rebellion in the 1860s makes very, very clear. So, I mean, just in

conclusion, because we're coming to the end of our time together, and I've really enjoyed it, and I've really learnt so much from speaking to you. We both have. When people say, actually, you know, Britain led the way. Britain has every reason to be. To be. proud for the abolition of slavery? What would you say? How would you couch that? Britain did not lead the way in a chronological sense, because as we've just discussed, there are so many other places in the Western Hemisphere, which had abolished the slave trade and slavery before Britain did. Britain did, however, after the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, use its considerable diplomatic heft to try to persuade other countries to

abolish both their own trade and slavery itself. I think it is still the case, however, that the abolition of the slave trade and then the emancipation of colonial slaves were incredible achievements, but they're often not incredible achievements for the reasons that we think. They're incredible because whenever the abolitionists went out to achieve these things, whenever they tried to do this, first, it took them over 50 years to do everything they wanted to do. These were incredibly difficult feats to achieve, morally, intellectually, politically, they had to change the way that an entire nation thought about the institution of slavery, which had been endemic to all human societies and civilizations from the beginning of time.

So whenever we celebrate abolition and emancipation, we are celebrating really the actions of not that many people, really daring, brave campaigners, rebels against slavery in the West Indies, and the few politicians who are willing to stand up and take all the slings and arrows and do what they thought was right. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you so very much indeed. What a fantastic book and amazing performance.

Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. So goodbye from me, William Dalrymple. And goodbye from me, Anita Arnan.