ABSTRACT
Parliament’s decision to embrace abolition materialized from a long and varied confluence of social, political, economic, and cultural forces. The emphasis on abstract and sometimes speculative imperial economic systems reflected, in part, the ascendancy of a discourse formalized by Adam Smith and his devotees. Anthony Benezet predicted that an end to African slavery would strengthen an African middle class, since easy access to slave labor had long retarded the economic opportunities for tradesmen. The political economic critique of the colonial system held significant purchase in the 1780s, given the depressed financial returns on West Indian investments during that decade. The depressed economic context, however, was short-lived, as the destruction of the Saint-Domingue sugar economy led to extraordinarily high European sugar prices. Roger Anstey suggests that the economic attack on the foreign slave trade found in Stephen’s work helped build the momentum and supplied the economic logic for the foreign abolition bill, passed in 1806.
