ABSTRACT
In June 1840, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) convened the first World Convention on Anti-Slavery at Exeter Hall, London. At the same time, parliament was considering the Bill proposed by the Whig government and endorsed by Colonial Secretary John Russell for lifting a ban it had imposed on indentured migration from India to Mauritius in 1838. Unabashedly suspicious of West Indian planters’ motives in seeking Indian indentured labourers, the BFASS mobilized colonial knowledge on India to oppose the migration to Mauritius and British Guiana in this period. A primary objective of the first World Anti-Slavery Convention was to develop strategies and resources for the ongoing campaign to eliminate slavery throughout the world, most particularly in Spanish and French colonies in the Americas, in the United States and Brazil. BFASS emerged in its members’ discussions as the active embodiment of civic virtue, the voice and conscience, the nerve-centre of civil society.
