Tagged with Abolition
Resource : Anti-slavery sugar bowl
Between the 1500s and early 1800s, millions of Africans were kidnapped, sold and transported to the Americas to work as slaves in unimaginably cruel conditions on hugely profitable plantations. These plantations were largely owned by Europeans and Euro-Americans. Britain grew rich on the profits from this transatlantic slave trade, reinvesting the profits in other economic sectors. Only in the late eighteenth century did public opinion slowly begin to turn against the trade in Africans, and campaigners for abolition used every way they could to bring the issue to people’s attention in Europe.
Resource : Challenging slavery: abolition and opposition
The campaign for the abolition of Transatlantic slavery, acts of resistance by those who were enslaved, and opposition from those who stood to benefit from the brutal trade in African people.
Resource : Bust of Jean-Jaques Dessalines (1758 – 1806)
Jean-Jacques Dessalines (1758 – 1806) was born into slavery in St Domingue (now Haiti) on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Following a mass uprising of enslaved people of African origin – the only successful slave revolt in history – and a series of bloody battles and reprisals, Dessalines eventually became the first ruler of Haiti, the world’s first modern independent ‘black’ republic. The events in St Domingue became known as the Haitian Revolution.
Resource : Roll Jordan Roll
Roll Jordon Roll is a spiritual, sung by enslaved Africans working on plantations in the Americas in the 1800s in resistance to their enslavement and cruel treatment.
Resource : Toussaint Louverture, Chief of the French Rebels in St Domingo
Toussaint Louverture (1743 – 1803) was born into slavery in St Domingue (now Haïti) on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. In 1791 he led the first – and only – successful uprising of enslaved Africans. Although he died before the revolution spawned a nation, in 1804 Haiti became the first independent ‘black’ republic and contributed to the decline of the transatlantic slave trade. The events in St Domingue became known as the Haitian Revolution. This and other depictions of Louverture (in print and portraiture) reflected the high levels of fascination and respect expressed around the world for a radical figure who had refused to yield and who surmounted all foes in the revolutionary contests.
