Abolitionist Movement History. Parliamentary Testimony Against the Slave Trade Reissued for American Anti Slavery Advocacy, 1855.

U K. Parliament

Book

An Abstract of the Evidence Delivered Before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1790 and 1791 compiled the testimony presented to the British Parliament during the campaign to abolish the transatlantic slave trade and circulated again in the United States in 1855 as abolitionist literature. The work gathers statements from ship captains, merchants, observers, and others who described the capture, transportation, and forced labor of enslaved Africans. By republishing this parliamentary investigation during the antebellum period, American reformers drew direct attention to the brutality of the Atlantic slave system at a moment when slavery remained firmly entrenched in the United States. The text presents detailed witness testimony describing the violence of slave procurement, the conditions aboard slave ships during the Middle Passage, and the coercive labor regimes imposed upon enslaved people in the Atlantic world.

Clarkson, Thomas. An Abstract of the Evidence Delivered Before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, In the Years 1790 and 1791, on the Part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Cincinnati: American Reform Tract & Book Society, 1855. The volume reprints testimony originally gathered for the British parliamentary inquiry into the slave trade, including statements describing the capture of Africans through raids and kidnappings along the West African coast. One witness reports that “kidnapping took place in the neighborhood of Goree…spoken of as a common practice.” Other testimony describes the conditions endured by enslaved people aboard ships and in plantation labor systems. Witnesses recount that enslaved individuals were “without exception, under the whip of drivers,” while another description records that field laborers “are called out by day light to their work…if they are not there in time, they are flogged.” Particularly stark passages describe punishment methods in which enslaved individuals were tied “to the hooks of the crane, and weights of fifty six pounds applied to their feet” before being beaten. The text also documents food deprivation and desperation among enslaved people, noting testimony that some individuals resorted to eating “the putrid carcasses of animals…through want.” Other witnesses challenge prevailing racial theories by asserting that African communities demonstrated hospitality, honesty, and strong familial bonds.

Publication of this American edition occurred at a moment when abolitionists sought documentary evidence demonstrating the moral and human consequences of the slave system. The volume includes the well known folding diagram of a slave ship illustrating the tightly packed arrangement of enslaved people during Atlantic voyages, an image widely circulated in abolitionist literature to expose the conditions of the Middle Passage. By republishing the parliamentary investigation for American readers, reform organizations attempted to connect the British abolition campaign with contemporary debates over slavery in the United States. 12mo volume in original gilt stamped cloth. Folding plate depicting the slave ship plan present. Ownership inscription on front free endpaper. Cloth shows wear with fraying at the spine and edges; interior pages show foxing and toning, particularly in the preliminary leaves; folding plate intact with light wear along folds. Overall good condition. The volume preserves one of the most widely cited documentary sources used by abolitionists to expose the realities of the transatlantic slave trade.

Item #21522

Price: $1,305.00