Tagged with Olaudah Equiano
Resource : Thomas Clarkson’s campaign chest
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, producing sugar, tobacco and other commodities. These plantations were largely owned by Europeans and Euro-Americans. Britain grew rich on the profits from this transatlantic slave trade, which were reinvested into 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 : The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African
Olaudah Equiano was an African-born writer who documented his experiences of capture and enslavement, worked and travelled all over the British Atlantic world, and later became involved in the movement to abolish slavery. He was among the first and most effective black political activists within Britain’s African community. The recollections and arguments of people of African origin made a profound contribution to arguments for the abolition of the slave trade, adding urgency and authenticity to the work of fellow white campaigners.
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.
