James Stephen (1758 1832) was a British lawyer and slavery abolitionist. After qualifying for the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1782 Stephen sailed for St Kitts in 1783. The atrocities committed against slaves which he witnessed in the West Indies converted him to the abolitionist cause, and after his return to England in 1794 he campaigned on behalf of the abolition movement. This volume, first published in 1804, contains Stephen's discussion of Britain's political choices following the successful Haitian Revolution (1791 1804). Before the Revolution, Haiti was one of the wealthiest colonies in...

John Candler (1787 1869), a Quaker Abolitionist, visited the West Indies between 1839 and 1841, to study the situation of ex-slaves since they had obtained their freedom. He spent three months in Haiti, and appears to have been generally impressed by what he found. The former slaves had become smallholders, growing crops on small plots of land, though they were not interested in producing more than they needed for their basic livelihood. The export of coffee, cotton and tobacco had declined since the end of slavery, and the sugar trade had ended. Whites were barred from owning land, or from...

A detailed description of Cuban society and the impact of slavery on Cuba's economy, first published in 1821.

Moncure Conway (1832 1907) was born on his family's plantation in Virginia, but became a committed abolitionist soon after he left college. He joined abolitionist rallies and moved from Methodism to the Unitarian ministry, eventually becoming a freethinker. Conway became increasingly isolated from his family as a result of his abolitionist activism, his marriage to an abolitionist, and the resettling of a group of his father's escaped slaves in Ohio during the civil war. This book was published in 1865, soon after he settled in Britain, where he lived for over 30 years, became a supporter of...

Joseph Marryat (1757 1824) was an M.P., chairman of Lloyd's and colonial agent for Grenada. This volume contains three of his pamphlets - Thoughts on the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1816), More Thoughts (1816) and More Thoughts Still (1818) which replied to his critics. The first pamphlet was very controversial, running to four editions in the year of publication. It vigorously attacks the policies and influence of the African Institution, whose arguments regarding the operation of slavery since the Abolition Act of 1807 he proves, by using evidence from official British and colonial...

A two-year struggle to suppress the slave trade and rescue prospective slaves on the African coast in 1849-1850.