Thomas clarkson timeline thomas clarkson and the abolition of the slave trade
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- SECTION C: A BRIEF RETIREMENT – THEN SUCCESS AT LAST 1796
- Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
- The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act
- SECTION D: ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE 1807-c1820: A summary
- Toussaint l’Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines
- 1833 The Slavery Abolition Act
- SECTION F: THE FINAL YEARS
- DOCUMENT 2: How is Thomas Clarkson remembered A FORGOTTEN HERO
1789 In May, Wilberforce begun the debate on the abolition of the slave trade. His speech lasted for three and a half hours. However, supporters of the slave trade managed to delay by asking for a new inquiry and the question was put over until 1790. At Wilberforce’s suggestion, Clarkson went to France for six months, during the start of the French Revolution, to encourage the revolutionaries to abolish the French slave trade. The French trade at this time was at an all time peak. Clarkson was seen as the best-informed person on the subject and was well known in France through his writings and contacts with men in the French abolition movement. Whilst in France, Clarkson distributed 1000 copies of the famous Brookes slave ship plan and his 1788 essay (Impolicy of the African Slave Trade’). Clarkson had powerful enemies working against him in France and he suffered from a lot of abuse. He received a threat that he would be stabbed to death and rumours were begun that he was a British government spy. Although France did not abandon the trade, Clarkson’s efforts were not forgotten. Later in 1792 Clarkson was made an Honorary Citizen of France. During his stay in France Clarkson met Vincent Oge from Saint Dominque (now Haiti) who was campaigning for the abolition of slavery on the French colony. Oge knew and admired Clarkson’s work and visited him at his hotel. Three months later Oge returned home and led an unsuccessful uprising. The colonial authorities broke him on the wheel and cut off his head. This marked the start of a bloody war in Haiti.
A search for one witness shows how determined Clarkson was in his efforts to support the cause. Clarkson wanted to find out how slavers obtained slaves in Africa. He had heard that in the Calabar and Bonny Rivers, when slave ships lay offshore, fleets of well-armed canoes manned by Africans swarmed inland and returned with slaves to fill the ships. The slave traders had claimed that they purchased the slaves at African fairs or markets. Clarkson set off in search of a sailor who had been on one such slaving expedition. He rode to Woolwich, Chatham, Sheerness, Portsmouth and finally Plymouth, boarding 317 ships and interviewing their crews before he finally found his man (Isaac Parker). Parker had seen villages attacked and people seized at gunpoint. Clarkson also undertook a tour of the North that would take him 7000 miles and last four months. He ended up finding another 20 witnesses for the parliamentary enquiry which now dragged on into 1791.
Wilberforce and Clarkson refused to be put off by this setback and their fight against slavery continued. Clarkson again traveled around the country in order to keep the anti-slavery campaign going. This time he traveled throughout England, Wales and Scotland, covering 6000 miles. Wilberforce was now convinced that only massive public support could persuade parliament to abolish the slave trade. Clarkson encouraged new committees to be set up in places such as Nottingham, Newcastle and Glasgow. He helped to organize new petitions and keep the issue in the local press. Clarkson also encouraged people to join the boycott of West-Indian slave grown sugar. This voluntary ban on sugar had been inspired by pamphlets produced by William Crafton of Tewkesbury and William Fox of London. Clarkson calculated that around the country 300,000 people were now refusing West Indian sugar. 1792 During 1792 a total of 519 petitions from all over the country poured into parliament calling for the abolition of the slave trade. This was the height of the public campaign. In April, parliament once again debated abolishing the slave trade. Pitt gave a brilliant speech supporting Wilberforce, said to be one of the greatest ever heard in parliament. However, Henry Dundas proposed an amendment to insert the word ‘gradually’ into Wilberforce’s motion to abolish the trade. The House of Commons agreed and by 230 votes to 85 pledged itself to ‘gradually abolish’ the British slave trade. 1796 was fixed as the year when the trade would end but it was never implemented. By 1793 Britain was at war with France and both public and parliamentary interest in the slave trade fell drastically. 1793 By August Clarkson was beginning to suffer from ill health as a result of his work. He was physically and mentally exhausted. Constant traveling, often by horseback and sitting up writing until two or three in the morning had left him seriously ill. As he himself recorded I am often suddenly seized with giddiness and cramps. I feel an unpleasant ringing in my ears, my hands frequently tremble. Cold sweats suddenly come upon me… I find myself weak, easily fatigued, and out of breath … I feel myself almost daily getting worse and worse. Clarkson had given up what would have been a comfortable career in the church (earning approximately £2000 a year) to work for the abolition of slavery and was by now also very short of money. He had often paid out of his own pockets to send coach-loads of sailors to London to give evidence to parliament.
Clarkson gave up work for 8 years. In March Wilberforce introduced a bill which would fix the end of the slave trade at 1 March 1797. However, it failed on its third reading by just four votes. The anti-slavery movement struggled to make an impact without Clarkson. Even the Committee of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade held no meetings between 1797 and 1804. However, Wilberforce did manage to keep the subject alive in the House of Commons. 1803. Clarkson and his family moved to Bury St Edmunds. Here they lived in a house belonging to Catherine’s father in St Mary’s Square. 1804 Clarkson’s ‘retirement’ from the campaign to abolish the salve trade ended in 1804. In May Clarkson became active in the anti-slavery campaign again. The committee was expanded from 12 to 40 but still included original members such as Clarkson, Sharp and Phillips. For the next three years they worked hard to gain support for the cause, concentrating most of their efforts on parliament. 1805 Clarkson undertook another tour of England. His aim was to gather together witnesses and build support for the anti-slavery movement. He found that there was a lot of work to be done with young people, many of whom knew little about the cause because few books or pamphlets had been published in recent years. Clarkson was able to reactivate many of the local committees. 1806 In 1806 the new government of Grenville (with Fox as foreign secretary) managed to push through a law banning the slave trade to captured colonies. Clarkson and his family moved to Bury St Edmunds, living in house in St Mary’s square at the end of Westgate Street for the next 10 years. Their son, Tom, was enrolled in the local King Edward VI grammar school in Northgate Street. 1807 The slave trade was finally abolished in the British Empire. Lord Grenville masterminded the victory. He started where the move could expect most opposition, in the House of Lords, introducing a bill to stop the trade to the British colonies on the grounds of justice, humanity and sound policy. Due to careful planning and canvassing of support the bill passed the Lords by 100 votes to 34. In the Commons, when the debate took place, MPs actually competed to be heard. The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed by 283 votes to 16. This was a sign of the careful work carried out in parliament by Grenville and the widespread support that Clarkson and other anti-slavery campaigners had built up through their campaigns and tours around the country. The new law stated that any British captain caught with slaves on board would be fined £10 for every slave on the ship. This was a significant achievement for the anti-slavery movement but the law did not go far enough. It did not outlaw slavery completely or make any arrangements for slaves to be set free. Some slave-ships that were in danger of being captured threw slaves overboard before reaching British controlled waters. Clarkson also realized that the slave trade was likely to continue so long as there was a market for slaves. At his suggestion a committee was set up to keep a watch on British and foreign ports. In addition, along with Wilberforce Clarkson served on another committee to collect data on slavery in the British colonies. SECTION D: ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE 1807-c1820: A summary Between the victory over the British slave trade in 1807 and the start of the antislavery campaign in the 1820s Clarkson’s role changed. He became more and more involved on the international stage and together with other abolitionists fought for an internationally enforced ban on the slave trade in Europe. Countries such as France, Portugal and Spain still traded in slaves. He also established links with the King of Haiti. Clarkson’s involvement on the international stage is remarkable, given that he was a private citizen, with little money and only limited access to the government. 1808 Clarkson published his history of the abolition movement. The only contemporary published record of the origin and growth of the British anti-slave-trade movement. During his time in Bury St Edmunds, Clarkson supported other important causes and was active in local issues. He argued that the use of the death penalty should be reduced (at this time more than 200 offences carried the death penalty – from stealing property worth five shillings to forgery and murder) and supported pacifism. The first meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace took place in 1814, chaired by Clarkson’s brother, John. 1814 The war with France ended when Louis XVIII came to the throne in France and Napoleon was exiled to Elba. Abolitionists such as Clarkson were disappointed when, under the conditions of the Treaty of Paris, France was allowed to continue the slave trade for five years. The abolitionists had urged the British government to insist that France abolished the slave trade in return for getting their colonies back. Wilberforce told the House of Commons that the actions of the government meant a ‘death warrant’ for thousands. In protest at the actions of the government a huge public rally was held at Freemasons’ Hall in June, whilst the Russian Emperor and King of Prussia (allies of Britain in the war against France) were in London. Clarkson helped to organize local groups who encouraged members of the public to express their disappointment with the government’s failure to put a block on the French slave trade. A total of 861 petitions, signed by 755,000 people were sent to parliament. Clarkson then traveled to Paris. By circulating his works and talking to prominent people, Clarkson hoped to encourage the French government to end the slave trade sooner than the treaty provided for. 1815 Clarkson returned to Paris in September, 1815. His aim was to speak to the Tsar Alexander I. Russia had no African slave trade and Alexander was a known supporter of abolition. Clarkson hoped that the Russian Tsar could persuade other allied leaders to support the abolition of the slave trade across Europe. Clarkson met Alexander and learnt that he had read Clarkson’s books. The Russian Tsar invited Clarkson to write to him with suggestion on how the slave trade could be ended. In 1815 Clarkson also began correspondence with Henry Christophe, the black ruler of independent Haiti. (After the failure of Oge’s revolt and a series of race-wars the blacks in Haiti had won their freedom. Christophe ha d fought with Toussaint l’Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Toussaint died in a French prison; Dessalines was murdered in 1804. Christophe as commander of the army took control of the north of Haiti, while Alexander Petion, his rival, became president of a southern republic. In 1811 Christophe made himself Henry I, King of Haiti. His country lived under the threat that the French would try and reclaim it.) Henry hoped for trade and international recognition, which had been withheld. He turned to Wilberforce and Clarkson for support. Clarkson became Haiti’s European advisor. Clarkson traveled to Paris in 1819 and 1820 to gather information for Henry. Henry shot himself after his army rebelled against him in October, 1820. His two sons were bayoneted but the Queen and her two daughters were spared. For a few months (1821-22) Madame Marie-Louise and her two daughters lived with the Clarkson’s at Playford Hall, near Ipswich. 1816 Clarkson moved to Playford Hall and lived there until his death in 1846. His friend from University, the Earl of Bristol, owned the hall and let this and its 340 acre farm to Clarkson. Catherine looked after the local school whilst Clarkson became a ‘gentleman farmer’. 
Playford Hall near Ipswich 1818 Clarkson attended the congress of European powers (Austria, Britain, France’ Prussia and Russia) at Aix-la-Chapelle. He hoped to put forward the King of Haiti’s case and press once again for an internationally enforced ban on the slave trade. Whilst at Aix-la-Chapelle, Clarkson again met with the Emperor of Russia. However, their efforts were unsuccessful, other leaders would not interfere with trade. 1822 At the Congress of Verona in 1822, Wilberforce and Clarkson once again appealed to the European powers to ban the slave trade but their efforts failed. SECTION E: THE ANTI-SLAVERY CAMPAIGN 1823 The Society for Mitigating and Gradually Abolishing the State of Slavery throughout the British Dominions was formed. Younger men led the campaign but Wilberforce and Clarkson gave the movement valuable continuity. Tow years later Wilberforce’s role in the House of Commons was replaced by Thomas Fowell Buxton. Clarkson produced his first pamphlet on the abolition of slavery and gave advice to the Anti-slavery Committee on how to pursue their campaign. Clarkson, aged 63, also undertook another national tour, on order to resurrect the old abolition network of local pressure groups and to start up new ones. Clarkson traveled 10,000 miles in two tours lasting eight and five months. By the summer of 1824, 777 petitions had been sent to parliament. 1824 The Anti-slavery Society held its first public meeting in Freemasons’ Hall in June. Local branches were set up and Clarkson became chairman of the Ipswich branch committee. By 1830 the Anti-slavery society had moved away from gradualism and set itself the goal of immediate emancipation. 1830 Clarkson opened a massive Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Wilberforce was invited to chair this conference of 2000 delegates. The Anti-slavery movement was growing in strength. Lecturers had been employed for the first time to hold public meetings which exposed the horrors of slavery. The number of local branches shot up to 1300 and between October 1830 and April 1831, 5484 petitions were sent to parliament. The antislavery campaign could not be ignored. 1833 The Slavery Abolition Act was passed. Sadly Clarkson’s great friend William Wilberforce died one month before the act was passed. The new law meant that from 1st August 1834 all slaves in the British Empire were given their freedom. Some 800,000 people were no longer slaves. However, the new Act had two controversial clauses. Firstly, £20,000,000 compensation was paid to the slave owners (the amount today would be about £1220 million). Secondly, slaves had to work as ‘apprentices’ until at least 1838, for ‘domestic’ slaves, and 1840 for slaves who worked in the ‘fields’. Only then did they become truly ‘free’. As apprentices slaves and had to work a forty-hour week for six years for their former masters, for no pay. This was still effectively a form of slavery under a different name. Only children under six were given true freedom. This was a sign that the slave-owners still had some political control. In the winter of 1836 Joseph Sturge (a prominent figure in the antislavery movement) sailed to the West Indies and saw that apprenticeships were not improving life for supposedly free blacks. He published his findings in 1837. In 1838 a petitions was presented to parliament protesting about the apprenticeship system signed by 449,000 people. Parliament finally ended the apprenticeship system on 1 August 1838.
By the early 1830s Clarkson’s was once again suffering from health problems. He was almost blind from cataracts and was ordered to slow down by his doctors. However, an operation allowed him to read and write again. During the late 1830s and early 40s Clarkson became involved in the American antislavery movement. In 1833 William Lloyd Garrison, who in 1832 had founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society (which demanded immediate abolition of slavery), visited Clarkson at Playford. 1837 Clarkson’s only child (Tom) is killed in a fatal accident, aged 40. 1838 Wilberforce’s sons publish a biography of their father. It downplays Clarkson’s contribution to the abolition of slavery. Clarkson is forced to defend his reputation. 1839 Clarkson contribution to the cause is honoured by receiving the freedom of the City of London. 1840 By 1840 the British Anti-Slavery had set its sights on abolishing slavery throughout the world. In June they set up a general convention in London. Clarkson was voted President of the convention and accepted a standing tribute form 5000 delegates and observers from Britain, the United States, Canada, France, the West Indies, Switzerland and Spain. Clarkson was treated as a major celebrity and there were many requests for his autograph. By this point Clarkson was the only surviving member of the 1878 committee that had been established to abolish the slave trade. In his speech he attacked the American cotton planters who kept more than 2,000,000 slaves in ‘the most cruel bondage’ and encouraged members of the convention to ‘Take courage, be not dismayed, go, persevere to the last’ until slavery was removed form the world’. 1846 At 4 ‘o’ clock in the morning of 26 September Thomas Clarkson died at Playford Hall aged 86. He was buried at the local church (St Mary’s, Playford). His funeral was very simple and only attended by family and close friends. The route was lined with villagers who joined the procession and filled the church to overflowing. On his death, the poet Coleridge said of him ‘He, if ever human being did it, listened exclusively to his conscience and obeyed its voice.’ DOCUMENT 2: How is Thomas Clarkson remembered? A FORGOTTEN HERO ? Thomas Clarkson was one of the founders of the movement to abolish the slave trade and a driving force in one of the most important protest movements in British history. In 1780 Britain was the greatest slave-trader in the world yet Clarkson risked his own life to try and stop the horrific slave trade. When he started his crusade most people in Britain saw slavery as a natural part of the economy, a ‘necessary evil’ and as old as history. By the time of his death it had come to be seen as a crime. The slave trade was also extremely profitable. There was no shortage of investors. It has been calculated that some voyages made 20-50% profit. In a study of the Liverpool slave trade David Richardson calculated that the profits in 74 voyages averaged over 10%. In his own lifetime he was praised for his courage and heroism. In 1839 Clarkson was given the freedom of the city of London. Clarkson was friends with the famous people of the age – Josiah Wedgewood (the creator of fine china) and poets such as Wordsworth and Colerdige. He also moved in high circles, once meeting with the Russian Emperor in Paris. In 1853, Harriet Beecher Stowe (the American author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin) traveled all the way to Playford to visit Clarkson’s grave. Her book told the story of a slave and helped to change attitudes in America (where slavery still existed). However, today Clarkson’s story seems to have been forgotten. Is he in danger of becoming a footnote in history? In their day Wilberforce and Clarkson were recognized as equals but 200 years on the story is very different. Only, Wilberforce, who fought for the cause so hard in parliament, could be said to be a household name. Yet it was Clarkson who planned the tactics and was able to create massive public support for the campaign. Clarkson believed in the power of educated people. He traveled the country investigating every aspect of the slave trade in detail and communicating his findings to the general public through pamphlets and public meetings. Clarkson helped to form and organise anti-slavery groups in towns throughout the country and has been described by Ellen Gibson Wilson (1989) as ‘the architect’ of the ‘first national campaign for human rights that Britain had known’. Hundreds of people should share the credit for the successful campaign to end the slave trade but in the eyes of people at the time it was Clarkson who was the ‘mastermind’, ‘the link’ that held the campaign together. He was the man who devoted his whole life to the cause and it was Clarkson who was known to people living at the time as the ‘originator’ of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Clarkson gave his life to the service of people her never met in lands he never saw. He helped to change the way his generation looked at the world, teaching that slavery was a crime. Despite this massive contribution to human rights only two biographies of Clarkson appear to have been published during the 20th century. His role in the campaign to abolish the slave trade has been obscured. Why have so many historians overlooked the role he played in stopping slavery? One problem is that Clarkson never dreamed that anyone would ever write his life-story and as a result threw out most of his papers. The publication of a popular biography of Wilberforce by his sons (Robert and Samuel) in 1838 also had a damaging effect. In the biography, Clarkson is not even mentioned as a member of the Committee and his wider role is largely ignored. The brothers also refused to mention the mutual respect and admiration that Clarkson and Wilberforce had for each other. Clarkson and Wilberforce were a partnership. Both played crucial roles in the campaign to abolish the slave trade. As Clarkson himself wrote What could Mr. Wilberforce have done in parliament if I had not collected that great body of evidence … And what could the committee have done without the parliamentary aid of Mr. Wilberforce? In 1844 Clarkson received an apology from Robert and Samuel Wilberforce, by way of a letter (no public apology was ever made) for the way that they had portrayed him in their book. We were in the wrong in the manner in which we treated you in the Memoir of our father. We are conscious that too jealous a regard for what we thought our Father’s fame, led us to entertain an ungrounded prejudice against you and this led us into a tone of writing which we now acknowledge was practically unjust. The Wilberforce biography has had a powerful influence on later historians. Unlike Clarkson’s account of the abolition movement it is readily available and contains a great deal of source material. It has been treated as an authoritative source and has not always been read with the caution it deserves. Many historians have therefore followed the line taken by Robert and Samuel Wilberforce. Frank Klinberg in his book Anti-Slavery Movement in England (1926) describes Wilberforce as ‘chief adviser’ and says that Clarkson was a ‘field agent’ ‘directed by’ the Committee. In Britain in the Nineteenth Century (1967) George Trvelyan describes the ‘systematic propaganda begun by Sharp and Wilberforce’, thus overlooking Clarkson’s crucial role. It appears that the Wilberforce’s biography, motivated by a desire to tell the story of abolition with their father in the lead role helped to create a myth. Wilberforce took centre stage whilst Clarkson was demoted to the wings. Statements made by 20th century historians are in stark contrast to comments made by contemporaries of Clarkson. Wordsworth published a sonnet, praising Clarkson’s role in the movement to abolish slavery. In 1837 a book by Charles Lamb paid tribute to Clarkson as ‘the true annihilator of the slave trade’ and at the world’s first antislavery convention in June 1840, Clarkson was hailed as the ‘originator’ of the movement. How is Clarkson remembered today? Wisbech is one of the few places where Clarkson is still remembered. There is an impressive memorial in town centre, between the Crescent and the Town Bridge. This memorial was erected in 1881 at a cost of £2000. In Bury St Edmunds there is a plaque on the house where Clarkson lived in St Mary’s Square. In Ipswich a street is named after Clarkson and his portrait hangs in the Mayor’s parlour at the Town Hall. However, there is no statue, even though Clarkson lived nearly half is life so close to the town. Clarkson is buried at Playford church, near Ipswich. In the churchyard, on the left of the entrance door, is a granite obelisk, raised to the memory of Thomas Clarkson. The obelisk was erected in 1857 by ‘a few surviving friends’ of Clarkson. 
There is also a commemorative obelisk on what is now the A10 at Wadesmill in Hertfordshire, where Clarkson made up his mind to try and end the horrors of slavery. In 1996, £20,000 was raised to have a memorial plaque erected in memory of Thomas Clarkson at Westminster Abbey in London. D.Banham Page Download 316.91 Kb. Share with your friends:
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