Exit, Pursued by a Bear

Am I not a Man, and a Brother?

Wonderful article in the online version of Mother Jones by Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost, about the campaign to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire - "the first human rights campaign" - and how, with direct-mail fundraising letters, publicity stunts, product boycotts, and newsletters designed to rally supporters, it set the pattern for those that followed. (It was also founded on the first systematic exercise in investigative journalism.)

The slave lobby's response reads like an eighteenth-century version of Toxic Sludge is Good For You:

The slave interests were piqued. In the biggest slave port, the editor of the Liverpool General Advertiser bemoaned the "infatuation of our country, running headlong into ruin." Pro-slavery forces now launched counterattacks. They bought copies of a pro-slavery book for distribution "particularly at Cambridge" (college towns leaned left even then) and printed 8,000 copies of a pamphlet about how each happy slave family had "a snug little house and garden, and plenty of pigs and poultry." They sponsored a London musical, The Benevolent Planters, in which two black lovers, separated in Africa, end up living on adjoining plantations in the West Indies and are reunited by their kindly owners. But Britons dependent on the slave economy were worried. Some doggerel made the rounds in Liverpool: If our slave trade had gone, there's an end to our lives / Beggars all we must be, our children and wives / No ships from our ports, their proud sails e'er would spread / And our streets grown with grass where the cows might be fed.

The slave interests' tactics bore a fascinating resemblance to the way industries under assault try to defend themselves today. When, for instance, there were moves in Parliament to try to regulate the treatment of slaves, the planters hastily drew up a lofty-sounding code of conduct of their own and insisted no government interference was necessary. They considered other P.R. techniques as well. "The vulgar are influenced by names and titles," suggested one pro-slavery writer in 1789. "Instead of SLAVES, let the Negroes be called ASSISTANT-PLANTERS; and we shall not then hear such violent outcries against the slave-trade."

In Parliament, slavery's most colorful spokesman was the Duke of Clarence, one of the many dissolute sons of King George III. As a teenager, he had entered the Royal Navy and gone to the West Indies, where he was wined and dined enthusiastically by the plantation owners. He showered marriage proposals and cases of venereal disease on their daughters and thoroughly imbibed their attitudes. In his maiden speech before fellow members of the House of Lords in their red and ermine robes, he called himself "an attentive observer of the state of the negroes," who found them well cared for and "in a state of humble happiness." On another occasion, he warned that Britain's abolishing the trade would mean the slaves would be transported by foreigners, "who would not use them with such tenderness and care."

But before Parliament could act, there were lengthy hearings. Witnesses like James Penny, a former captain, made the slaves on the middle passage sound almost like cruise passengers: "If the Weather is sultry, and there appears the least Perspiration upon their Skins, when they come upon Deck, there are Two Men attending with Cloths to rub them perfectly dry, and another to give them a little Cordial.... They are then supplied with Pipes and Tobacco.... They are amused with Instruments of Music peculiar to their own country...and when tired of Music and Dancing, they then go to Games of Chance."

Rounding up eyewitnesses willing to speak against the trade was as difficult as finding military or corporate whistleblowers today. For a seaman or ship's officer to testify critically meant he could never find work on slave ships again. At one point Clarkson rode 1,600 miles in two months, scouring the country for more witnesses. Often, he complained, "when I took out my pen and ink to put down the information, which a person was giving me, he became...embarrassed and frightened."

Full article

Posted by Patrick at February 4, 2004 11:02 PM