ABSTRACT
Like other movements to bring about change in the same period antislavery had to find ways of attracting the attention and gaining the support of those who could advance the cause. Beginning with efforts to rid Britain herself of slaves, traversing the abolition and emancipation campaigns and the less dramatic struggle to suppress the international trade in slaves and assist liberation in foreign countries, British abolitionists had an exceptionally long history as reformers. They were compelled to consider the most appropriate forms of action in changing circumstances and practise a great variety of methods to engage the commitment of potential supporters and of both makers and executors of policy. There are several main questions which have shaped the analysis of antislavery activity in this chapter. To what extent were the forms of antislavery activity developed in struggle with the organisation and institutional structures of the West Indian interest; did the forms change according to changing objectives? What was the relationship between different reformers’ conceptions of how to bring about change and the methods adopted by the antislavery movement? How willing were abolitionists to challenge both the accepted ways of acting publicly and by whom the action should be undertaken? How best is the recurrent tension in the antislavery movement between what will be termed ‘agitation’ and ‘influence’ to be understood? Does the history of antislavery reflect the progressive adoption of more popular forms of social and political activity in accord with a changing balance of forces within the larger culture of nineteenth-century England? This last problem particularly requires discussion of the recent contention that antislavery petitioning demonstrated a recurrent popular mobilisation, a mass antislavery latent even in seemingly quiescent years which
spearheaded dramatic changes in the political culture and had a direct impact on legislature and executive.
