The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament
Thomas Clarkson’s account of the campaign against the British slave trade, from its forerunners to the Act of 1807, written by a member of the London committee who collected evidence for it. It prints petitions, minutes and summaries of the debates.
Thomas Clarkson published the History in 1808, the year after the Act passed. He had been a member of the London committee from its first meeting in 1787, so that much of the book is the report of a participant. It prints documents in full, among them the Quaker petition of 1783, and it summarises the debates in both Houses year by year.
It is a partisan’s book. Clarkson writes to honour the cause and those who served it, and he says little good of its opponents. For dates, votes and the texts he reproduces it is a primary source; for motives, his own and other people’s, it is one man’s testimony.
Cited in
- 25 March 1807, firm date