Sheffield and the Slave Trade

In light of recent events which led to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Sheffield and across the globe last weekend, much focus has now been turned on statues with links to slavery and plantation owners.

Poster against shipping of slaves to Cuba, 1862
(Sheffield Archives: MD2024)

For over 250 years Britain was involved in the slave trade - the enforced capture and removal of Africans from their homes and transported by ship across the Atlantic to the West Indies and the Americas. This brutal system was sustained for such a great length of time, mainly because it guaranteed the prosperity of the nation. Goods manufactured in England were shipped to Africa where they were used to buy slaves, not only with European traders, but with native African traders too. Slaves were shipped across the sea in what was known as the ’Middle Passage’ after which they were sold to work on plantations and farms. The money raised was used to buy products such as sugar, coffee and tobacco which were increasingly popular in Europe. The well-being of many an Englishman or woman was directly tied to the suffering of Black Africans thousands of miles away. By the late 18th century there were calls for the slave trade to be abolished and Sheffield played a leading role in the struggle to end slavery in the 19th century.

Card appealing to the people of Sheffield to
boycott West India sugar, 19th cent.
(Sheffield Local Studies Library: MP151S)

Plantation hoes sold
by Joseph Smith of
Sheffield, 1816
(SLSL: 672 SSTQ)

One of the earliest documentary references in Sheffield’s collections to attempts to abolish the slave trade is a pamphlet written by William Fox in 1791, entitled An address to the people of Great Britain on the utility of refraining from the use of West-India sugar and rum. Such early examples of efforts to bring economic pressure to bear on the campaign to end slavery were fairly common. The Sheffield Female Anti-Slavery Society campaigned for a boycott of sugar and coffee which had been produced in the West Indies - most likely by slaves. They switched to buying East Indian produce. As well as products such as sugar arriving back in Sheffield from the West Indies where they had been produced by slaves, Sheffield’s merchants exported goods to be used on plantations.

Election handbills, 1807
(Sheffield Archives: WWM/E221)

In 1806-1807 abolition of the slave trade was an important political issue, not least in Yorkshire where William Wilberforce, the famous anti-slavery campaigner was a Member of Parliament. In the run-up to the general election of 1807 slavery was referred to in many handbills and flyers.  Slavery was not the only issue on which the election was fought, but pro-slavery candidates were unsuccessful and two anti-slavery candidates were returned to Parliament - William Wilberforce and Charles Wentworth-FitzWilliam, later 5th Earl FitzWilliam [Viscount Milton].

Sheffield Ladies Anti-Slavery,
Society, 1830 (Sheffield Local
Studies Library)

In the 1820s a national anti-slavery society was established calling for gradual abolition; however some groups, notably a group of women in Birmingham called for immediate abolition. A Sheffield Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society soon followed the establishment of the one in Birmingham. Its literature states it was engaged in the cause of 'light, of liberty, of knowledge, of mercy, of truth and love'. The society was dissolved following emancipation in 1833, but it was later re-established to continue campaigning against slavery in other parts of the world.

There were many campaigners against the slave trade and slavery. On the slave plantations themselves there were regular uprisings and insurrections against slave owners and the slave system. Many of these attempts at freedom were brutally crushed, but they were never eliminated. A well-known anti-slavery campaigner was Olaudah Equiano. Born in what is now Nigeria, Equiano was sold into slavery in childhood. He was eventually sold to a Quaker Merchant and gradually saved enough money to buy his freedom. He went on to write his autobiography - The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African (1789) as part of the anti-slavery campaign. Equiano travelled the country speaking at abolitionist meetings. In 1790 he came to Sheffield and addressed a large gathering.

Letter from William Wilberforce to Samuel Roberts
in Sheffield, 1824 (Sheffield Archives: RP/46)

The most well known campaigner against the slave trade and slavery was the Member of Parliament for Yorkshire, William Wilberforce. Wilberforce wrote many letters to his acquaintance in Sheffield, Samuel Roberts of Park Grange. The letters refer to anti-slavery meetings and petitions, abolition and emancipation etc. In the example shown here, Roberts had asked Wilberforce about what to do next. Wilberforce replies that a general meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society is about to take place in London and that some county meetings also are about to be convened.

Mary Anne Rawson(Picture Sheffield: y06413)

Locally, a famous campaigner against slave trading and slavery was Mary Anne Rawson. She was born in 1801 at Green Lane, Sheffield into a committed non-conformist family. She married William Bacon Rawson at Ecclesfield parish church in Feb 1828, though William died only 18 months later. Mary became actively involved in a number of philanthropic campaigns - better conditions for chimney sweep boys and better education for the poor etc. She was actively involved in the abolition movement, and continued to campaign for complete freedom after 1833. In 1837 she formed the Sheffield Ladies’ Association for the Universal Abolition of Slavery. She was still campaigning for the rights of fugitive slaves as late as 1875. Mary Anne died in August 1887.

James Montgomery, local reformer,
poet and journalist who wrote to
Mary Anne Rawson about slavery
(Picture Sheffield: s08135)

Even after the Act of Emancipation in 1833 campaigning continued. Twenty million pounds compensation was set aside for slave owners. No compensation was offered to the slaves themselves, who had to remain in apprenticeships for a further four years. This ‘continued oppression’ was highlighted in a handbill from 1837. A petition from over 18,000 Sheffield residents had failed to persuade enough Members of Parliament to vote in favour of their cause for complete freedom. Further pressure was requested to bear on Parliament to help those who were ‘in a worse position than when they were called slaves’. Later reformers carried on the campaign against slavery as other countries continued to trade in slaves and use slave labour.

For more information on Sheffield, the Slave Trade and the Anti-Slave Trade Movement, see our Study Guide: https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/home/libraries-archives/access-archives-local-studies-library/research-guides/slavery-abolition