ABSTRACT
In 1823 the attention of British campaigners switched from the slave trade to slavery itself. The campaign against British colonial slavery was launched in response to the realisation that, contrary to activists’ hopes, the abolition of the British slave trade had not led to improvements in the treatment of slaves or to progress towards their emancipation in the British West Indies. A new national society was formed: the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions, known popularly as the Anti-Slavery Society. It campaigned initially for the amelioration and eventual abolition of slavery, and then from 1830-31, in conjunction with the Agency Committee, for immediate and entire emancipation. Campaigners witnessed the partial achievement of their aims with the passage of the Emancipation Act in 1833.1 The Society was revived in 1837 when, together with the more radical Birmingham-based Central Negro Emancipation Committee, it launched a campaign for the immediate abolition of the apprenticeship system which had been introduced by the Government as a transitional stage between slavery and full emancipation. This campaign ended successfully when colonial legislatures abolished all forms of apprenticeship in the five months leading up to 1 August 1838, the date set by the British Parliament for the complete freeing of non-agricultural labourers.
