how we learned that slavery is wrong alec ryrie

How We Learned that

Slavery is WrongAlec Ryrie

‘Rebel’ slave,

Surinam, 1796

Benjamin Lay

(1681-1759),

abolitionist and

eccentric

Some Christians fear that through the evangelic freedom slavery will disappear entirely from those colonies which Christians own, to the great detriment of the overseers of those colonies.

Jacobus Capitein, On Slavery (1742)

I am perswaded, that if they whom thou call’st thy Slaves, be Upright-hearted to God, the Lord God Almighty will set them Free in a way that thou knowest not, for there is none set Free but in Christ Jesus, for all other Freedom will prove but a Bondage.

Alice Curwen to Martha Tavenor, 1676

Whether the Creator originally formed these black people a little lower than other men, or that they have lost their intellectual powers through disuse, I will not assume the province of determining; but certain it is that a new Negroe (as those lately imported from Africa are called) is a complete definition of indolent stupidity.

Revd William Knox, 1768

Cape Coast castle, where Philip Quaque ministered

1766-1816

Ernst Heinrich

von Schimmelmann (1747-

1831), Danish

abolitionist

Abolition: some key dates

• 1772, Somerset v. Stuart outlaws slavery in England and Wales

• 1777: Vermont’s constitution prohibits slavery• 1787: mass petitioning against the slave trade

begins in Britain• 1792: slave-trade abolition bill passes the

House of Commons, fails in the House of Lords• 1807: slave trade abolished by both Britain

and the USA

The Zong scandal(1783)

Josiah Wedgwo

od, miniatur

e c. 1787

Samuel Sharpe

(modern statue at Montego

Bay, Jamaica)

British abolition

• 1833 Slavery Abolition Act came into force in 1834

• ‘Apprenticeship’ period of 4-6 years, cut short in 1838 by a new Act of Parliament

• Compensation for slave-holders set at £20 million

Frederick Douglass (1818-95)

William Lloyd Garrison

Tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present.

If God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword ...

... as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

Abraham Lincoln, 4 March 1865

Zipha Elaw (c. 1790 – after

1845)This poor brother seemed to manifest an undue anxiety for his freedom. … [He] was very impatient of slavery, and anxiously sighed for liberty. …

Zipha Elaw (c. 1790 – after

1845)… His sighs were heard in heaven by Him who looseth the prisoners. … In the same week he was taken ill, and finally fell asleep in Jesus, departing to be “where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest”.

How We Learned that

Slavery is WrongAlec Ryrie