Chapter 21 through 23 summaries

In Chapter 21 of Adam Hochschild’s book, Bury the Chains, hard work finally pays off for the British abolitionists. At the beginning of the chapter, slave traffic is at a high yet the key players are still not willing to give up. James Stephen joins Clarkson, the Quakers, Wilberforce, and Granville Sharp as a prominent lawyer motivated from seeing slavery directly. Together, Wilberforce and Granville Sharp draft “The Foreign Slave Trade Act” aiming to eliminate 2/3 of the British slave trade. Despite some hesitation from The House of Lords, the bill eventually passed thanks to thousands of signatures from Clarkson’s network of supporters. That year, slavery was actually an election issue persuading followers for or against certain candidates. There was an unimaginable amount of abolitionist support in Parliament. Finally in 1807, a bill was passed to abolish the British slave trade and soon after it became a law. Regardless, blacks in the British Caribbean were still slaves.

In Chapter 22 of the book, Bury the Chains, Adam Hochschild describes the role of women in the antislavery movement. We are introduced to Elizabeth Heyrick, a Quaker who strongly believes that the male abolitionists of her time were too polite. She campaigned a sugar boycott, and with other females she demanded immediate emancipation. Women’s societies kept antislavery alive. More rebellions occurred, and despite many dead a wounded slaves, Parliament still would not end slavery.

In Chapter 23 of the book, Bury the Chains, author Adam Hochschild describes Britain’s ineffective electoral system and undemocratically chosen Parliament which lead to talk of a reform. “The growing pressure for Reform reignited the antislavery movement.” Antislavery supporters were looking for change fast and this lead to the formation of the Agency Antislavery Committee. The fate of slavery depended on a more democratically chosen Parliament passing the Reform bill. After even more extreme slave uprisings, it became clear that freeing slaves was the only option to avoid war. In the summer of 1833, this dream finally came true and 800,000 slaves were freed in the British Empire. The revolutionary men and women whom refused to give up will forever be remembered in history.