Tactics of the campaign

Publicising the campaign

One of the most important ways of publicising the anti-slave trade campaign was by public meetings. Many accounts of the trade were brought into public awareness this way. One of these was the case of the slave ship Zong in 1781, when Captain Collingwood threw overboard more than 131 slaves to claim insurance on the loss of his cargo.

Many Britons were keen to attend meetings organised by the abolitionists. John Newton, the captain of a slave ship before he became an Anglican minister, was a key speaker at many of these meetings. Other noted speakers included abolitionists such as Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp, and the former slave Olaudah Equiano.

Arguments against the trade

The Society produced many arguments against the slave trade, such as:

• the fact that many British sailors died on the Middle Passage
• sugar could be produced more cheaply by free labour in Bengal, in British India
• the slave trade brutalised everyone who took part in it

Society members wrote pamphlets and books, printed posters, wrote newspaper articles, spoke at school assemblies and organised petitions that were sent to the royal family and Parliament.

Josiah Wedgwood, an innovative designer and pottery manufacturer whose brand and company exists to this day, reproduced the Society’s seal, depicting a slave in chains with the words "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?”, as a design on a cameo and gave hundreds of these to the Society for distribution. These cameos became a popular fashion accessory and wealthy ladies wore them on bracelets and in their hair, helping to advertise the Society’s campaign to end the slave trade. Some abolitionists were MPs and they tried to persuade their fellow MPs to end ‘this horrid trade’.