The Abolition Of Slavery In The 18th Century

Due to an evangelical revival of Britain and the rise of the middle class with their meritocratic values in the 18th century, debates over slavery’s compatibility with morality, Christian and British values were established. Within this essay I am going to discuss and explore the key ways in which debates over the morality and potential abolition of slavery have been historically fundamental to the British Empire; including debates over the nature of race, the techniques of campaigning, and finally the role of women in the antislavery movement.
Nature of race
Debates over the preservation or abolition of the slave trade were fundamental in establishing discussions on the nature of race. The majority of modern scholars agree that “race” is a

Influenced by the anti-slavery debate Wollstonecraft repeatedly compared the control over women by men to that of the planters’ domination of slaves, which potentially influenced women to join the abolition movement as well as raising interest in first wave feminism. Women set up their own societies and expressed their abolitionist stance in a variety of activities including being involved massively in the organisation and carrying out of the sugar boycotts of the 1790s, the boycott was upheld by more than 300,000 people who bought sugar produced in the East Indies by free labour. Other activities the women’s groups did consisted of producing physical propaganda for example workbags and tapestries. There were also 206 female members of the Abolition society however they were not regarded as officers and weren’t invited to sign the petitions that the society

Hannah More saw women as holding distinctive qualities through their maternal instincts such as compassion and sympathy, this therefore, she believed, inevitably put women into positions of moral guardians. This provided a clear difference between egalitarian feminist who advocated strongly for rights and those women who were carrying out their maternal duties. Numerous Women chose to not include women’s rights while championing the abolition movement, seeing those talking of women’s rights, especially in the public realm as lacking decency and reputability. Women’s rights were seen by some as unsuitable to maintaining a stable society, and would lead to confused gender roles where women were no longer required to be home keepers and care givers to the family. Women in the Quaker faith often argued that their involvement in the antislavery movement was “consistent with needful attention to other duties” (Mary Caroline Braithwaite), therefore they maintain their commitment to their assigned gender roles. These gender roles were seen by men and a large number of women as biologically given and that the division of labour was the natural and scientific way society is formed. The belief that woman had sufficient representation by the husbands and fathers was expressed by Anne