Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery

by Adam Hochschild

Eighteenth-century Britain was the world's leading centre for the slave trade. Profits soared and fortunes were made, but in 1788 things began to change. Bury The Chains tells the remarkable story of the men who sought to end slavery and brought the issue to the heart of British political life. 'Hochschild's marvellous book is a timely reminder of what a small group of determined people, with right on their side, can achieve. Carefully researched and elegantly written, with a pacy narrative that ranges from the coffee houses of London to the back-breaking sugar plantations of the West Indies, it charts the unlikely success of the first international human rights movement' Saul David, Literary Review 'Hochschild is such a gifted researcher and story-teller that he never fails to hold the reader's attention...For all its terrible theme, Hochschild's book is not in the least depressing, because it is suffused with admiration for the courage and enlightenment of the men and women who crusaded against this evil, and finally prevailed' Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph 'Thought-provoking, absorbing and well-written' Brendan Simms, Sunday Times 'Stirring and unforgettable' Economist

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Africa, Race, Politics, Social Justice, World History

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Hochschild was born in New York City. As a college student, he spent a summer working on an anti-government newspaper in South Africa and subsequently worked briefly as a civil rights worker in Mississippi in 1964. Both were politically pivotal experiences about which he would later write in his book Finding the Trapdoor. He later was part of the movement against the Vietnam War, and, after several years as a daily newspaper reporter, worked as a writer and editor for the leftwing Ramparts magazine. In the mid-1970s, he was one of the co-founders of Mother Jones.

Hochschild's first book was a memoir, Half the Way Home: a Memoir of Father and Son (1986), in which he described the difficult relationship he had with his father. His later books include The Mirror at Midnight: a South African Journey (1990; new edition, 2007), The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin (1994; new edition, 2003), Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels (1997), which collects his personal essays and reportage, and King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998; new edition, 2006), a history of the conquest and colonization of the Congo by Belgium's King Léopold II. His Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves, published in 2005, is about the antislavery movement in the British Empire.

Hochschild has also written for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The Nation. He was also a commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Hochschild's books have been translated into twelve languages.

A frequent lecturer at Harvard's annual Nieman Narrative Journalism Conference and similar venues, Hochschild lives in San Francisco and teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He is married to sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild.

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Hoc...

Reviews

[Beata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book by Mr Hochschild that is eye-opening and insightful. Superbly written account of how the Brits managed to abolish the slave trade even though it was a long and painful process. A lot of information to take in, most of which was totally new for me.
The involvement in the abolition process of the Quakers, former slave owners and incredible support on the part of the society paved the path to freedom across the British Empire. One of the bits that really surprised me was the campaign against using sugar as it was treated like 'blood sugar'. People across all walks of life refused to buy or sweeten tea or coffee after realizing how the white gold was obtained and that it cost human lives. Three hundred years ago!
I should like to have a print copy to reread this book at a certain point. This book does deserve it!
OverDrive, thank you!

[Georgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars might be a hair too much, but it was pretty close. I do not read much history but was intrigued by Thomas Clarkson and a friend recommended this book because he features prominently in it.

Hochschild's writing is lively, interesting, and informative through the whole book. He doesn't sugar coat the major players who helped end the British slave trade, which I appreciated, and which often happens in the Christian world concerning Clarkson and especially Wilberforce. Still, he lauds them plenty and I thought, appropriately.

Some parts of the book brought me to tears (as well as gritting my teeth at the mindset of those who supported slavery) with the descriptions of slave treatment as well as the fervor with which the abolitionists canvased the country, petitioned their government, and in general, fought for the cause of people thousands of miles and an ocean apart from them. Considering how prevalent human trafficking continues to be in our present day, I am inspired and hopeful that Clarksons and Wilberforces, who are driven by their faith, can still bring freedom to those in chains. I only hope I can be one of them.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting and, despite its grim subject matter, a very enjoyable book. Actually, insofar as the subject matter is the abolition, first of the British trans-Atlantic slave trade, and subsequently, of slavery in the British Empire, it is not grim, but uplifting. The author paints the movement as the prototype of contemporary activist causes. Petitions, graphic images, local committees, boycotts, speaking tours all were used - perhaps for the first time, or for the first time on such a scale - as part of this campaign.

There are two particular points of interest I'd like to mention. First, the author asks why in Britain, rather than anywhere else, such a strong momentum should have taken hold for abolition. There may, of course, be many different factors at work: the compactness of the country, coupled with a relatively good road/communication system, made it easy for people in one place to get their message to people in other places, and so on. But the author identifies one highly idiosyncratic factor at work: the pressgang. For at least a century or so, the people of Britain had been terrorized by the prospect of being snatched off the streets and pressed into naval service. The pressgangs were, unsurprisingly, widely feared and hated. The author conjectures that this personal taste of slavery created a level of empathy in the country for the plight of slaves everywhere.

A second point is this. One is forcefully struck by the role played here by figures who are either eccentric or morally equivocal. Of the first, the most notable is Granville Sharp. He was obsessed with the anglo-saxon political system of frankpledge. He assiduously tried to foist it on the colony of repatriated slaves in Sierra Leone. He also produced a steady stream of publications on such diverse topics as the election of Bishops, the use of the English alphabet, riparian culture, classical grammar, land-carriages and roads, how closely the description of Babylon in the Bible corresponds to Rome, etc. etc. etc. As I said, your average 18th century English eccentric. Yet among this scatter-shot range of interests, the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery loomed extremely large. One can imagine working with him, perhaps becoming irritated beyond endurance by his oddity. Perhaps even now, in our own varieties of activism, we know similar people. But history will certainly remember him kindly.

Among the morally equivocal I number William Wilberforce. To him often goes the lion's share of the credit for abolition of the slave trade. He was undoubtedly a stalwart in this regard (though the author clearly takes the main mover to be the much more sympathetic-to-modern-sensibilities Thomas Clarkson), and evidently he was a man of great heart and charity at a personal level. But he was vigorously opposed to all attempts to improve the lot of workers in England at this time, supporting draconian oppression of Luddites and other industrial freedom fighters; and he expected everyone (emancipated slaves included) to assume their pre-ordained (usually inferior) places in society with gratitude and resignation. It is hard (for me at least) not to feel a measure of anger at and repulsion for the man. And yet, in some way, he was a great hero.

This phenomenon - of those we greatly admire turning out, when taken in the round, to be much more equivocal than our admiration easily allows - is, of course, ubiquitous. But the story told in this book makes it especially evident, perhaps because it is both modern enough to allow such comparisons, but old enough to ensure that positions and sensibilities will not always align in a way that modern progressives will be happy about.

It was inspiring to learn about the role of women in the anti-slavery movement in Britain at this time. They were often much more radical than their male counterparts. In particular, Elizabeth Heyrick sounds like she really kicked ass. It's a shame that so little of her is preserved.

Of course, when emancipation came for the slaves of the British Empire, their lot did not greatly improve. They owned nothing; the means of production were still in the hands of the former slave owners (who were also generously compensated by the government for their loss) and real slavery was simply replaced by debt-slavery and wage-slavery. Still, the emancipation was a first, necessary step in a much longer fight for justice. So I close with a beautiful quotation from William Morris that the author gives, not made originally a propos of this case, but perfectly suited to it: "Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name."

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Margaret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." This book is the story of those thoughtful, committed citizens, beginning with twelve men who met in a bookshop in London in 1787 to form a society committed to abolishing the slave trade.

The story of that campaign is really quite astonishing. The slave trade's demise was helped by the incredible organisation of those original twelve men, who effectively invented almost every aspect of campaigning that we know today - petitions, lectures, boycotts, public pressure, advertising, puff pieces in newspapers, fliers, posters, books. In less than a single lifetime slavery went from an institution that no-one questioned, the economic bedrock of the British Empire, a system in which fortunes were made and increased, to being abolished. When you think about it, that's incredibly fast. Think about the issues that excite us today - sweatshops, poverty, sex trafficking. Can you imagine any of those being solved within our own lifetimes?

I couldn't put this book down. It moved me to tears on more than one occasion, particularly Hochschild's final conclusion: "...one of the first great flowerings of a very modern belief: that the way to stir men and women to action is not by biblical argument, but through the vivid, unforgettable description of acts of great injustice done to their fellow human beings. The abolitionists placed their hope not in sacred texts, but in human empathy. We live with that hope still."

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating history of the events that led to the abolition of slavery in Great Britain and its colonies. England profited from the sugar trade, which was dependent upon slaves to harvest and process it. Starting in the late 18th century, a group of twelve Englishmen, mostly of Anglican and Quaker background, determined that they must find a way to end this unjust and abhorrent practice.

I learned about people I had not known much about beforehand, such as Thomas Clarkson, who traveled to many places of the world gathering evidence to use in convincing people to eliminate slavery, as well as raising funds. We learn about the memoir of former slave, Olaudah Equiano, and its popularity among the British public. Equiano became a charismatic speaker for the anti-slavery movement. They convinced William Wilberforce to become their advocate to Parliament. Women played important roles even though they had no political power.

It explains the methods employed to bring attention to the abolitionist movement, many of which are still practiced today – boycotts of products (such as sugar), petitions, public gatherings, dissemination of information through many channels (books, posters, newspapers, speeches), and lobbying. The author writes in a chronological, straight-forward manner, and it is easy to follow. It is a portrayal of social justice in action.

[Colleen Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like his other books, Adam Hochschild hits a home run on this one. This is an area about which I was totally ignorant but having read this well-written book, I feel like I now have a decent grasp on the battle for abolition in Britain. It is tempting to compare the battle in the West Indies to the one in America and while there are some similarities, there are many differences. Unlike America where the population had to be dragged kicking and screaming in the battle against slavery, in Britain, the people strongly supported it-even though they realized that outlawing it could have very harsh repercussions economically.
In Britain, the resistance came primarily from Parliament where, at the time, the overwhelming majority of people had no say as they could not vote. Both houses of Parliament were filled with absentee landlords who owned huge numbers of slaves in places like Jamaica. Included in the ranks of the plantation owners was the Church of England who owned a sizable number of slaves and the father of the future prime minister Gladstone.
The book has a great deal of information about the two most dedicated abolitionists, Messrs Clarkston and Wilburforce.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of slavery in this country as it provides a good comparison of the two systems. One thing they had in common was the total disrespect of the people kidnapped and held in bondage for the remainder of their lives and the cruelty inflicted upon them.

[Abigail Hartman · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I'm fascinated by the British abolition movement of the 18th-19th centuries (I haven't read much about the American movement, which I need to correct), so as soon as I saw Hochschild's book I was eager to get my hands on it; unfortunately, I was rather disappointed -- and provoked. The information is great, and I especially appreciated that, rather than telling the story of Parliamentary machinations and/or Wilberforce again, Hochschild focuses on the broader abolition movement (restoring Thomas Clarkson to the limelight) and how it combined with slave rebellions in the British West Indies to bring about an end first to the slave trade and then to slavery in the British Empire.

I would have really enjoyed the book if it hadn't been for the tone. Empathy is the first tool of a historian, and Hochschild, in my opinion, lacks it. Of course this is a tough statement to make given that he's writing a history of a true atrocity -- the enslavement and brutalization of millions of people -- and it's hard now to feel any identification with the absentee landowners and very present managers and all those who profited from the slave trade and slavery. My problem with Hochschild's writing is that it's so full of the arrogance of modernity, to think that the human race has progressed so far that we now have the luxury of sneering at the men and women of the past. Yes, part of 'doing history' is making judgments about past actions! But that should be done as much as possible with a spirit of understanding, self-criticism, and humility. Of course your horror at the truly horrible realities of slavery is going to come through, but is it necessary to continually beat the dead horse of 'look how backwards these people were!!' in order to get readers to be on your side? I really don't think so. Instead, we might do better to consider the ways in which we today quite casually accept that some groups are 'less than human' and therefore disposable, while at the same time priding ourselves on our great enlightenment. (And yes, I do see strong similarities between 18th-19th-century abolitionists and the anti-abortion movement of today, though naturally abortion is not one of the contemporary evils Hochschild sees as needing to be challenged.)

Another thing that comes through is Hochschild's distaste for Christianity -- and his failure to understand it. I get his desire to show that the fervently Evangelical Wilberforce was not the lone engine of the abolition movement, and to show also that Wilberforce was not as 'progressive' (judged again by the standards of today!) as one might assume. However, belittling the Evangelical movement, mocking the Clapham 'Saints,' and taking every opportunity to point out alleged hypocrisy was not necessary to achieve that goal. In his eagerness to show that abolitionism wasn't the sole brainchild of the Great Awakening, he all but jettisons Evangelicalism/Methodism as AN explanatory factor, which I consider both biased and thoroughly foolish.

-- Side note: Hochschild complains that women's voices, though loud in calling for abolition and emancipation, were not respected and have since been largely written out of history. He has a fascinating section on Elizabeth Heyrick, who in the 1820s rejected 'gradual' emancipation and called instead for slavery to be ended immediately. But a striking omission is that he never once mentions Hannah More, a friend of Wilberforce and an anti-slavery activist in her own right. I can't imagine Hochschild researched his entire book without hearing of her, which leads me to the suspicion that she doesn't appear because she doesn't fit his narrative: she was herself an Evangelical and a Claphamite, whom Hochschild seems to want to write off as backwards-looking, hidebound, sin-obsessed men. In any case, complaining about the erasure of female abolitionists while simultaneously ignoring More strikes me as more than a little bizarre. / END SIDE NOTE

Hochschild is eager to show that abolitionists didn't get it all right, and that there was a lot of prejudice and paternalism in even their best efforts. This is totally fair! As a believer, I see this as yet another example of the truth that even mankind's 'goodness' is fatally flawed, that indeed our best efforts are so full of self-importance and wrong thinking that, viewed from the perspective of perfection, they don't even deserve to be called 'good.' That isn't, however, what H. concludes. With his apparent belief in the innate goodness or at least the innate improvability of humanity, what comes across is more modern arrogance and a certain whinyness about even the best-intentioned abolitionists -- as if to say that we of the 21st century could have done better.

Again, there is a lot of good information here in a pretty readable style (even if, in my opinion, weighted down by a superiority complex), and I learned so much. But I think the history not only could have been told, but should have been told with far more empathy and historical (and even spiritual) understanding.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good history about the development of fight to end slavery in the British empire. Really good companion to his King Leopald's Ghost.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the fascinating story of a process that began with twelve men meeting in a London print shop in 1787 and culminated first in abolishing Britain’s slave trade and ultimately, some fifty years later, abolishing slavery itself in that country. The series of events and the key players instrumental in this long and convoluted process were described by Alexis de Tocqueville as “absolutely without precedent…if you pore over the histories of all peoples, I doubt that you will find anything more extraordinary” (p. 1).

Wilberforce is the most predominant name associated with Britain’s abolition of the slave trade and he’s definitely given his due in the book. But there were many others whose involvement is perhaps less well known. First and foremost among these is Thomas Clarkson, whose dedicated campaigning on behalf of the antislavery movement took him on some 35,000 miles on horseback around England and Scotland as he gathered information, canvassed, received testimonials and collected petitions. And there were so many others, including a former slave ship captain and author of the hymn, Amazing Grace, an eccentric and talented pamphleteer and slave advocate, an eloquent freed slave who wrote a best selling biography that is still read today, to mention a few.

Given that at the time three-fourths of all people on the earth were in some kind of bondage and that so much of England’s economy was tied up in the slave trade and its products, the success of the abolition movement is astounding. And the fact that it was in large part a grassroots movement with people all over England signing petitions and boycotting sugar makes the story all the more extraordinary.


There is so much more in the book than can be conveyed in a brief review. It’s a very complete, well-documented and well-written history of the events. It contains first hand accounts of the unimaginable atrocities that were brought upon enslaved people both in the trans Atlantic crossing and on Caribbean sugar plantations. These make for heavy reading and a heavy heart. But ultimately the story is uplifting as a lesson on what can happen when individuals take action and persist even against seemingly insurmountable obstacles. 


[Jerome Otte · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written and captivating history of the early British antislavery movement. Hochschild’s narrative is thorough and readable. His rendition of the political and social background is vivid and clear, and you really get to know the people involved.

Hochschild begins by describing how the sugar industry in the Caribbean got started, how wealthy it made the plantation owners, and how brutal it was for African slaves there. He describes how quickly the abolition movement grew after the end of the American war and how a pro-slavery movement formed under the leadership of Banastre Tarleton (notorious for his service during the American war) and the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV). Hochschild discusses why the movement focused first on the slave trade and why the trade’s brutality made it a more practical target than slavery itself. He then describes how the slavery issue lost prominence when war with France broke out, how the wars distracted Pitt from the issue, how it led to the government curbing various civil liberties, and how this put many “revolutionaries” (such as antislavery figures) under suspicion.

Hochschild then describes the eventual abolition of the slave trade, how aggressively the Royal Navy enforced the ban, how British slaveowners adapted to the situation by finally providing basic medical care at plantations, how slavery was abolished in 1838, and how this event was celebrated by American slaves. He also describes how the story of abolition was told afterwards, with an emphasis on Wilberforce’s role and less on Clarkson, the role of slave revolts, and the impact of sugar boycotts.

A rich, well-researched and engaging work.

[Jakub · Rating 5 out of 5]

Similarly to "King Leopold's Ghost", this is haunting, insightful read. The book will be especially informative for readers not familiar with the history of the slave trade and/or from outside the UK. It's harrowing to read how slaves were treated and how this was normalised for the sake of income. This book is a perfect illustration of the old saying that most evil starts when we start treating others as objects. And of course, as far as I can judge by the extensive source list, this is also very well researched.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book very much could have made for grim reading. In fact, before sticking my head into it I would have suggested that had it not been a bit grim it would have been an insult to those who’d suffered. However, I’m now not so sure. Hochschild’s general cadence is instead one of upward progression, and Bury the Chains is, in truth, an oddly uplifting piece of writing. Its vision is of a world slowly mending itself under the influence of humanity’s tender self-love. It largely dwells on the positive lessons learnt from this dark period in human history far more than it does on our collective fallibility and sinfulness.

I don’t mean to downplay the often graphic horror of slavery as described by Hochschild. Not at all. This book certainly is graphic and grim when called for; but unlike a book like Ian Kershaw’s heavy-going Hitler biography, Hitler, which I read earlier this year (an astonishing book, but one which genuinely made me feel quite depressed for some time after finishing it), Hochschild instead writes about some of the worst things mankind has done to itself while occasionally still making his readers smile hopefully to themselves.

The story here, then, is less about the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and more about the work which was done by a few heroic individuals to bring it to an end. I was surprised to find that the focus is primarily on Thomas Clarkson (a name previously unfamiliar to me), instead of the more famous William Wilberforce. In Hochschild’s version of events, Clarkson was the strongest driving force behind the abolitionist movement. It was his efforts that pulled in powerful people — people such as Wilberforce himself. Part of the intent of Bury the Chains seems, therefore, to be restoring Clarkson’s name to its rightful historical place as the leader of “the greatest of all human rights movements”. As such, (and assuming you subscribe to Hochschild’s take) you could argue that, considering the mountains of human misery that millennia of worldwide bondage had previously sustained, Clarkson may well be one of the most important people who ever lived, and certainly one of the most important people of the 18th and 19th centuries (rivalling such historic titans as Napoleon and Darwin). Indeed, the moment when he jumped off his horse by the Wades Mill in Hertfordshire, looked across the fields, and made up his mind to “see these calamities to their end” is a major historical turning point that had repercussions for the whole world. I think it is a shame that the spot is now marked by such a modest monument.

Thinking about mankind’s history of slavery now, my sense is that there is something inherent in our nature which inevitably led to a hierarchical system which discriminated those at the bottom to the point where they would become considered something less than human. How else could you explain the practice’s ubiquitousness throughout history in almost all corners and cultures of the world? The convenience and the ease at which our species dehumanises outsiders is, at this point, documented beyond question and accounts for most of slavery’s unthinking evils.

I think it no coincidence that Western Europe took slavery to previously unimaginable heights of efficiency and scale at precisely the same point in time that the abolitionist movement gained pace in the minds of the people. I’m left to speculate that it was the extreme and unignorable scale of the Transatlantic Slave Trade which finally sparked a small degree of introspection. Only when the barbarism reached its most extreme peak was our consciousness finally awakened, an awakening which appears to have initially manifested only in an extremely small number of visionary people. One statistic Hochschild uses towards the beginning of Bury the Chains astonished me:

“At the end of the eighteenth century, well over three-quarters of all people alive were in bondage of one kind or another, not the captivity of striped prison uniforms, but of various systems of slavery or serfdom.”

It seems that even with this level of reliance on a plainly immoral system, it was only society’s most perceptive who ultimately saw the light. But just think about the above quote for a moment. It’s a terrifying thought, the thought that most people born were born into a lifetime of involuntary servitude. And setting aside the human tragedy of this, think about all the lost potential, all the great minds that never were, the geniuses who, throughout history, spent their lives not writing symphonies or solving problems in Newtonian physics, but who instead worked away their precious days and hours breaking their bodies for the convenience of some faceless land owner. In this sense, the losers from the global systems of slavery and serfdom were not just the poor souls who had to endure it, but all of the rest of us as well.

This book will continue to serve as a reminder to me that the things we unthinkingly take as normal in our daily lives should never be above question. Political activists can be annoying, but where would we be without them? — I guess I’d still have a far better lot than many, but I’d probably be picking potatoes right now nonetheless.



--



Musical Association:


Speaking of geniuses, while reading this book, I found that I kept coming back to Verdi’s most grand of grand operas, Aida, and specifically the unsurpassable George Solti recording with Jon Vickers (the second greatest singer who ever lived) and Leontyne Price (the first greatest singer who ever lived).

In Aida, Aida herself is an Ethiopian princess who has been captured and enslaved by the high priest of ancient Egypt, Ramfis. The following words of Price’s (who is generally considered to be the greatest performer of Aida that there has been) always stay with me:

“Aida may be my operatic legacy for many reasons, but I’m thrilled to say and happy that it is for the obvious. Because my skin was my costume. I was allowed freedoms with her because she was and still is very much me. It was the way I felt as a human being, the way I was as a person merged with me as a singer. I think that’s why she’s never presented a vocal problem for me, because of these mergings. And to be able to finally express, not just vocally, but with words that she was a princess, as was Amneris, never a slave.”

Price (now 97) is from Mississippi and grew up in a deeply racist and segregated society, yet she somehow managed to transcend all that. Holding no grudges, she rose to become one of the most important singers of the 20th century, conquering every major opera house from the late 1950’s onwards. She is magnificent and inspiring. What’s more, just listen to that voice (and look at those eyes). In her vocal prime she was sheer unbelievable perfection. Genius.

“O patria mia, mai più ti revedrò!
O cieli azzurri, o dolci aure native,
Dove sereno il nio mattin brillò,
O verdi colli, o profumate rive,
O patria mia, mai più ti revedrò!
O fresche valli, o queto asil beato,
Che un dì promesso dall'amor mi fu;
Or che d'amore il sogno è dileguato,
O patria mia, non ti vedrò mai più!”

“Oh my homeland, I shall never see you again!
Oh blue skies, oh soft native breezes,
where the light of my youth shone in tranquillity;
oh green hills, perfumed shores,
oh my homeland, I shall never see you again!
Oh cool valleys, oh blessed, tranquil refuge
which once was promised me by love;
now that the dream of love has faded,
oh my homeland, I shall never see you again!”

[Vance Christiaanse]

I was taught that slavery ended in the UK due to the ceaseless efforts of one devout evangelical Christian: William Wilberforce. This book was written to add some nuance to that simplistic story. Okay, a lot of nuance.

The history of the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of slaves in the UK becomes much richer and more complex when Adam Hochschild tells it. Motivations are multiple and luck plays a role. Unsolved mysteries remain.

The writing is so good you'll feel as though you were there yourself as events unfold. Sometimes that's disturbing because many of the events are quite unpleasant. A highly recommended corrective to the congratulatory story we tell ourselves about the end of slavery in the British Empire.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish upon a star to encounter more books like this one. It vividly illuminates a vital time in history. Carefully chosen details about characters and places add colour and flavour. Excerpts from journals, legal documents, and letters add a dimension.

I was swept across oceans and continents, often holding my breath, learning about the business of the slave trade and the mechanics of reform. The importance of being really prepared for the long haul, persistence, and resilience.

And then, you learn that -
"Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name" - William Morris.

This is something I am familiar with as a designer of systems - you never get the design right the first time. You mould it, shape it and release it into the world, and it crashes against realities you couldn't foresee or didn't take into account. So you keep moulding and shaping and convincing others until you get it right. The more multifaceted the problem is the more tangled the road towards the solution.

[Nikol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written - lots of great details and clearly well researched! Hochschild has missed the beauty of the gospel and its power as a motivating force for the abolitionists, however, the end of his book is hopeful which I appreciated.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bury the Chains is a character-rich, narrative history of the British abolition movement. Hochschild makes the story compelling and readable, and shows the relevance the abolition movement has for modern activists. The story includes such disparate elements as British Quakers, the Sierra Leonean freedmen colony, Carribean sugar plantations, the Hatian slave rebellion, and the Napoleonic wars.

Abolition in Britain was the struggle that pioneered the standard model of activist fights, which we are so saturated with these days. It was the first to use paid organizers; non-religious and unbiased reports (like those NGOs like Oxfam and Amnesty Int'l produce today); petitions and letter campaigns to politicians; letters to the editor in newspaper; local chapters working to mobilize communities; boycotts of relevant products; and legal action, among others. It also shared other elements now standard to a good activist fight: the industry responded, hiring lobbyists to win and pocket MPs; theatre and advertisements to sway public opinion with misinformation; and defaming the personal reputations of activists. It also ended the way most activist struggles have since: in a disappointing reform that didn't end the practice for another 60 years (slaves bred in captivity; freedmen rescued from smuggler ships by the Royal Navy pressed into service as Seaman, another form of forced servitude) and replaced it with something arguably even worse (wage slavery). As was often the case since, history was subsequently rewritten to cleanse the struggle of its revolutionary character and make the rulers seem enlightened on the issue all along.

The other really interesting point that compares this to all subsequent activist movements is its non-ideological roots. As Hochschild points out, "freedom, not slavery, has been the peculiar institution" historically. It bears explanation why abolition happened when it did, and that explanation ultimately suggests that it wasn't just because it finally occurred to people to be nice in the 1700s.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading about abolitionism in the United States, it was fascinating to learn about the effort to free the slaves in the British Empire. Lots of similarities. Both efforts had two phases, one starting about 1780 and lasting until both nations abolished the international slave trade in 1808, and the second phase beginning a decade or two later. Also, Quakers and other Protestant dissenters were leaders in the movement. Finally, slave revolts helped give impetus to the efforts of legislators and leaders.

But there were a couple main differences. The British succeeded at emancipating slaves over a gradual period from 1833-8, two decades before the Americans abolished southern slavery suddenly in 1865. Secondly, the British did it peacefully, through legislation that offered compensation to slave owners, while in America it took the Civil War with 700,000 dead and no compensation for enslavers.

Unfortunately, afterwards, both British Empire and American republic instituted Jim Crow-type laws to keep enslaved people down, in some cases, forcing them to work for their former masters in conditions only little better than slavery.

Yet, freedom reigned, people rejoiced, and the British West Indies were transformed from the worst place that an enslaved person from the American South could wind up sold, to a place of freedom to which southern slaves could physically escape and which abolitionists could hold up as a model for freeing their own land.

Here you'll meet great British abolitionists both white (William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Grenville Sharp) and black (Olaudah Equiano and others) as well as pro-slavery scoundrels such as Colonel Banastre Tarleton, infamous commander of British forces in the American Revolution turned member of Parliament.

[David Sexton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like with King Leopold's Ghost, Hochschild filled in a huge blank in my historical knowledge with this book. I shamefully knew very little about this campaign, aside from the story of William Wilberforce. The book has several fascinating characters running through it. Naval Commanders turned MP abolitionists, slave traders turned abolitionists, former slaves turned best selling authors, and the women abolitionist groups who were, of course, written out of most history books.... It's an incredible story about how a group of 12 people changed a nation's attitude towards slavery over half a century, many dying before seeing their work come to fruition. Doing so in a time when 4 out of 5 people didn't have the vote. So much of what we now consider to be political campaigning started here. Mass petitioning, consumer boycotts (300,000 people boycotted Caribbean sugar), political badges worn to show support (designed by Josiah Wedgewood - Charles Darwin's grandfather!). It's a timely reminder that every big idea always seems impossible right up until, all of a sudden, it doesn't.

[Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -- Margaret Mead

Bury the Chain is about the ending of the slave trade and of slavery itself in the nineteenth century, decades before it ended in much of the rest of the world, including the United States.

• As of 200 years ago, at the end of the 18th century, about three quarters of humanity lived in bondage of some kind – slavery, serfdom, indentured servitude.
• They key movers behind the abolition movement in England were clerics and businessmen, particularly Quaker businessmen.
• The parliamentary face of abolitionism was William Wilberforce, a great orator and a conservative member of the elite – who adopted the tactic of focusing on ending the slave trade rather than slavery itself. Wilberforce is today much better remembered than the cleric Thomas Clarkson, though it was Clarkson who was truly the driving organizational force of the abolitionist movement.
• By 1807 the slave trade was banned. Then things stood at a standstill with the escalation of hostilities during the Napoleonic Wars, to be resumed by Clarkson and others decades later, culminating in the Parliamentary vote of 1833 in the wake of the Reform Act of 1832 that enlarged the franchise and brought a flood of new MP’s.
• Why did slavery end in the British Empire but not until much later in other empires or in the US?
1) It is often said that the reason for the British ending slavery was that the slaves were not on their own soil but 1000’s of miles away. Yet the same was true of the French, Spanish, Portuguese and Belgians. What made Britain different was its traditions of rule of law and of democracy.
2) Britain had extraordinarily good communications, because of its road system and its multitude of newspapers, which were uncensored and distributed nationally. Made the force of public opinion much stronger, and contributed to making the slavery issue much more visible.
3) And what also made Britain so different from all others, including the US, was the fact that the British themselves were very familiar with being seized and thrown into de facto slavery, because of the voracious appetite of their merchant marine and Royal Navy for crews –which led to armed impressments of men who were vulnerable regardless of class or skin color. Virtually any man was fair game. The system was part and parcel of being the greatest maritime power on earth.
4) A final factor is that the British were willing to buy off the slave owners by paying them for their freed slaves. It worked out considerably better than the approach followed a generation later by the US, which required the deaths of 750,000 Americans to accomplish the end of slavery. The scars of the Civil War are still not entirely healed a century and a half later.
• An odd sidelight: the British used the anti-slavery weapon against the American revolutionaries, promising freedom to slaves who joined the British army. Several of the slaves of Washington, Madison and Patrick Henry fled to join the British. After the war, many of these were returned to their masters, which was part of the terms of the treaty of Paris. But the largest single number, 3000, were in New York City. The British commander, Gen. Carleton, met with Gen Washington whose first priority was regaining the slaves. Carleton refused, and instead sent the slaves to Nova Scotia and freedom. Washington was embittered by the perfidy of the British. The issue of compensation for the slaves lingered for decades, and was finally arbitrated by the Tsar of Russia who decreed the British were to pay the Americans half the market value of the slaves.
• The crowning anecdote of the book is this: Quakers distinguished themselves by refusing to doff their hats to any man, only to God while preaching or praying. At Clarkson’s funeral were many Quakers, who had fought at his side for so many years. They doffed their hats for him.

This is a wonderful, inspiring book. Highly recommended.

[Kate Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

This account of a group of British activists' campaign for the abolition of the slave trade--even while Britain was profiting mightily from it--is readable and inspiring. Not stopping when the importation of slaves into the colonies was ended, the activists persisted until complete emancipation of all slaves was achieved, despite much frustration and continued violence, throughout the British empire. It is an astonishing achievement, as stunning now as it was then. It was both uplifting (to see the activists' own commitment and their ability to mobilize others) and horrifying (that such everyday brutality to the slaves endured as long as it did, with the additional huge loss of life on both sides in wars that were fought to suppress slave rebellions).
I found this to be a magnificent and moving book that will serve as an encouragement to those working on social justice issues today.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an outstanding work of synthesis history by a journalist not an historian. I give it three stars only because for all its merit it adds absolutely to what has not been known for a long time about the British Abolitionist movement. Add two stars to my rating if you are either unfamiliar with the topic. As an introduction it is fabulous.

Adam Hochschild announces that that the British abolitionist were an extraordinary group of highly admirable people who launched the world's first grass-roots movement for social justice. In so doing they invented all the techniques that would be used by subsequent movements working for such diverse causes as the emancipation of woman or the battle for the environment. Essentially, this is exactly what I was taught forty years ago as undergraduate.

The abolitionist movement began in Britain just before the end of the French revolution. It would be followed by an American abolitionist movement, the suffragette movement and the temperance crusade. In the context of this great drive for social justice, the political elites of Europe decided to extend the voting franchise to all male citizens, to emancipate Catholics (those living in Protestant countries, to emancipate Protestants (those living in Catholic countries), to emancipate Jews (those living in either Catholic or Protestant countries), to abolish serfdom (in the Russian empire), and to grant workers the right to unionize.

Hochschild correctly states that it was the British abolitionist movement that started the great social justice movement by showing that forming mass movements, politicians could be moved to pass progressive laws. Moreover, the abolitionists showed how it could be done. They public distanced themselves from revolutionary or violent methods. They began by seeking a ban on the trade in slaves rather than the outright abolition of slavery which would have provoked greater resistance. They printed pamphlets, conducted direct mail fund raising campaigns and recruited politicians to propose laws for them.

For someone with an undergraduate degree in history, Hochschild has a an irritating habit of pointing of the similarities between the abolitionists and those who ran later crusades. For someone less familiar with the history of the nineteenth century, he is perhaps simply doing an effective job at reminding the reader of why he or she is reading the book. It is not about how slavery ended; it is about how a group of intelligent people learned how to conduct a campaign for social justice.

Similarly, Hochschild goes out of his way to explain how severely rights were limited at the time that the British Abolitionists began their campaign. Property requirements meant that only 5% of adult males in Great Britain had the right to vote. Women, Jews, Cathoics and dissenting protestants were excluded whether or not they owned the necessary property.

This is a great book about an historical movement of tremendous importance written specifically for those whose who have a limited knowledge of 19th Century history.

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's a book telling of the fascinating, stunning, troubled, and crucial story of the British abolitionist movement, from the end of the 18th century to the first half of the 19th century.

The author, of course, retells of the celebrity causes and other scandals which helped showing all the appalling horror of slavery (e.g. the Somersett case, the Zong massacre...). From Quobna Ottobah Cugoano to William Wilberforce, and from Thomas Clarkson to Granville Sharp, or, again, Olaudah Equiano, he also portrays the campaigners those optimism, bravery, and formidable tenacity allowed a first step towards the ending of such inhumane institution.

More than the mere linear history of a radical trend, though, and those repercussions would be incommensurable, Adam Hochschild has, above all, the talent to put such fight back into perspective, showing how, even today, it should speak to us all. Such an engagement, which will set a whole country ablaze while thrown into the stormy turbulence of major global events (the American and French Revolutions, the colony in Sierra Leone, revolts and insurrections in the Caribbean...) turns in fact to be indeed one of the first movements of citizens to defend Human Rights. Beyond the admirable aspect of its magnitude and success, and, the heritage of this handful of passionate idealists, their methods then completely new to put forth their ideas (investigative journalism, publishing of personal testimonies, boycotts, petitions, lobbying...) also became indeed the means to campaigns still used all over nowadays.

Here's a remarkable book, then, not only for the interest of its historical subject, but, also, for the power of its message, inferred by reading in-between the lines: respect for human dignity can prevail only if citizens, no matter how in a minority they may find themselves in, have the dedication and commitment it takes to overthrow injustice, even the most established and commonly accepted for granted. Isn't that inspiring?

[Bibliophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written, extraordinarily moving account of the late 18th-century battle to stop the slave trade within the British Empire. Hochschild rescues some activists like Thomas Clarkson from ill-deserved historical obscurity (I got all verklempt when I realized that the Quakers who came to Clarkson's funeral lifted their hats in respect - a measure that they refused to show even the King of England!) as well as talking about better-known figures such as William Wilberforce. Hochschild also makes a point of talking about the slave rebellions in Saint Domingue (today's Haiti) and Jamaica as turning points in the long grinding struggle to make slavery illegal. He's also a delightful writer, who makes vivid not just the terrible suffering of the slaves, but manages even to inject the occasional flash of humor into his grim story, for example when he's discussing the progress of the pro-slavery Duke of Clarence (later King William IV), who progressed through the West Indies: “Naval officers were always entertained lavishly by West Indian planters, and at countless dances and parties their daughters fluttered abou the young member of the royal family. He returned their attention, rashly strewing marriage proposals and cases of venereal disease in all directions …”

Hochschild's powerful narrative backs up his conclusion: that human empathy and the capacity to fight for a cause that may seem hopeless are universal traits, and that we are all obligated to fight against injustice, no matter how entrenched that injustice may seem.

[Bidisha Banerjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should be required reading for the global climate movement and I was often reminded of 350.org's efforts while reading it. Two centuries ago, three quarters of the world's population lived in various kinds of slavery or serfdom. This is a play by play account of how first the slave trade, and then, a few decades later, slavery itself, was abolished through the efforts of a committed group of individuals. Their inspired efforts form some of the earliest investigative journalism, activist graphic design, and road-tour based efforts to change hearts and minds. Today, the idea of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables seems unthinkable even though economists tell us it would be relatively cheap. Two centuries ago, slavery was considered essential to the world economy, and was, in fact, older than money or written language. Now, it is considered morally repugnant. Today, fossil fuels are considered the sine qua non of the global economy. Bury the Chains offers a terrific historical perspective on how we might change that. I do wish Hochschild had gone deeper into how the Quakers rejected slavery, which led to Evangelicals across England rejecting it too.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Atlantic slave trade, and the institution of slavery it fed, ended, as evil things do, because people fought to end it. There were a lot of vested interests that wanted it to continue, but a small band of people in Britain worked hard to raise public awareness and disapproval, using (and mostly inventing) the tools of modern progressive struggles to do it--boycotts, lobbying, letter-writing campaigns, petitions, fundraising, pamphlets, testimonials, demonstrations, images, press releases, speeches, legal challenges. And they kept it up for decades. If you want large-scale change to happen, you have to keep fighting even when it feels like you're getting nowhere, even if you know you won't live to see the change you've struggled for.

Of course, the people who fought hardest and paid the highest price were the enslaved people themselves, who resisted and struggled and sabotaged and fought for their own freedom and their own lives, in places like Haiti and Jamaica and Demerara.

This is a painful and necessary story.

[Silverblue · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book, very well researched and written. A must read for everyone. In fact, I think, this book should be a mandatory read in every high school and freshman classes!

I really loved this book. He asks direct and hard questions. He is very honest in how he details and educates his readers with factual narratives. A detail of a very sad/moving and unbelievably cruel account of slavery as well as the struggle to abolish this trade.

There is a special class of folks who are built to educate others and Prof Adam belongs firmly in that class. Thank you.

A real must read!!!

[Tom Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bury the Chains, while neither as detailed or impactful as Leopold's Ghost, is still good in its own right. Hochschild brings his trademark do-your-homework many-sided examination of an issue to the death of British slavery. It is marred somewhat, however, in my view by a snarky minimization of the religious motivation and roots of the movement and by a somewhat pedantic tone throughout. But he shines in describing Clarkson, less so in Wilberforce perhaps.

Good book. Not as good as it should have been.

[Vincent Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and written. The book gives a good insight into the first breakthrough in the abolition movement. Recommended to any study of history and politics

[Jarrett Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revelatory, deeply researched, and gripping, Hochschild’s “Bury the Chains” is a masterful history of Britain’s abolition movement. Reminding readers how revolutionary abolition was in a world where slavery was the norm (in the New World, Russia, Africa, and elsewhere), Hochschild shows how British reformers like Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp launched a first-of-its-kind mass movement throughout Britain by gathering testimony of the slave trade’s inhumanity from doctors and former slaves like Equiano, spreading it through speeches and pamphlets, developing a network of antislavery societies across the country, and working with more conservative parliamentary allies like Wilberforce. In the process, anti-slave trade activists set the example for human rights movements to come. “Each of these tools, from the poster to the political book tour, from the consumer boycott to investigative reporting designed to stir people to action, is part of what we take for granted in democracy.” Through their activism, and despite a turn against mass political mobilization during the French Revolution, antislavery advocates managed to pressure an undemocratic, elitist Parliament to abolish first the slave trade in 1807 and then slavery in 1833.

At the same time, Hochschild demonstrates the important role slave revolts played in this process, for slaves didn’t just receive their freedom but fought for it. For example, returning British soldiers from their failed and deadly campaign to put down the Haitian Revolution testified about the horrors of slavery and the determination of former slaves to never again be enslaved. Similarly, Hochschild explains how the 1832 Jamaican slave revolt served as further proof for antislavery campaigners (many of whom were women) and even conservative MPs that slavery was untenable.

While abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire did not end degrading and inhumane conditions for former slaves across the Empire, it did lay the groundwork for later advances, inspiring reformers in America, the British Isles, and across the world and demonstrating how human rights activists could mobilize empathy to bring about change.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

1st book of the year: DONE

This is the history of the abolition of British slavery.

It took me a little while to get through, as it's a 50-year history with a lot of detail. But it's exceptionally well-written and well-researched, and really easy to read given the subject matter.

I learned a lot - it's not a period of history I know anything about, really. He writes both factually and persuasively about how we should remember the movement that produced abolition. As I understand it, to the extent that this is remembered at all in British life, it's as William Wilberforce (MP) as the great liberator. And although Wilberforce does feature and plays an important role, that really underplays a whole range of equally important actors: Thomas Clarkson, British Quakers, slave uprisings in the West Indies, Elizabeth Heyrick, Equiano and many more.

Hochschild writes this part as objective history, and part as a historical lesson to modern-day activists about how to generate radical change. It's difficult to overstate just how big a step the abolition of slavery in the then-biggest empire in the world was. Slavery was a feature of so many societies, going back to the 'enlightened' period of ancient Athens and before. It was a part of life and had a ridiculous amount of vested interests (the number of West Indies plantation owners in the House of Commons in the early 1800s was quite alarming, for starters, and many British cities depended on slavery for their wealth).

So by highlighting the roles of a whole cast of characters - such as a slave (Equiano), victims (the slaves in now-Haiti), civil activist groups (Clarkson & the Quakers) - and their campaigning techniques, he looks to inspire a new generation of activists.

An excellent book, would recommend to anyone interested in either this specific history or in successful historical campaigns on a truly global scale. Hochschild argues this may be the only real parallel for the climate change activism necessary, and he might well be right.