British Literature Survey
Reference Pages: Jane Austen Group

The Slave Trade in Regency England
by Trevor Slaven

The trading of slaves in England was opposed by few, but accepted and used by most during the later half of the 18th century. It wasn’t until 1833 that Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, officially eliminating the institution of slavery. However, as early as 1772, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield had declared slavery to be illegal. Despite this condemnation, for much of the next thirty years, many aristocrats and clergymen viewed the deprivation of slaves as “ordained by God" (1).

The extended Regency Period spanned from 1800-1837, and was also known as the Locomotive Age, as railroads were being built to move coal throughout the country (2). Because of the new need for fuel, most male slaves drudged in the dangerous coal mines, while their wives became unpaid, overworked laborers at the loom in weave shops. However, as the 1800s unfolded, abolitionists such as William Wilberforce and William Cobbett impressed their anti-slavery views upon the nation via their influences in Parliament and in newspapers and pamphlets. Before this widespread unveiling of the atrocious and perilous lives of slave workers, the middle and upper classes were in “complete ignorance” of the miserable conditions facing the slaves (3). By the time of the Anti-Slave Trade Act in 1807, the ruling classes in British society had shed their ignorance towards slavery and had adopted an “increasingly humanitarian temper” (4). New found social humanitarianism defined Regency England, and it fulfilled a major goal of the era with the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

Endnotes

1. Osborne, 199.
2. Simpson, 68.
3. Johnson, 14.
4. Osborne, 98.

Works Cited

Clarke, John. The Price of Progress. London: Granada, 1977.

Engerman, Stanley., ed. Terms of Labor: Slavery, Serfdom, and Free Labor. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1999.

Johnson, D.C. Pioneers of Reform. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1929.

Moody, Ellen. “Did You Not Hear Me Ask Him About the Slave Trade Last Night?” Mansfield Park Vol. II, Ch. 3: Commentary. Ed. Jim Moody. 2003. 31 Jan. 2006. http://www.jimandellen.org/ellen/.

Osborne, John. The Silent Revolution. New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1970.

Simpson, David. “The Locomotive Age.” The Millennium History of North East England. 2001. 31 Jan. 2006. http://www.thenortheast.fsnet.co.uk/page68.htm.

“ William Wilberforce.” English Romanticism. Ed. Elizabeth Whitney. 2000. 31 Jan. 2006. http://www.uh.edu/engines/romanticism/.

Paul Marchbanks
marchban@email.unc.edu