Dominick Chilcott

Remembering William Wilberforce

Two slim, elderly ladies pulled the sheet off the frame to unveil the artwork. More than 47,000 tiny squares of brightly coloured glass, like the pixels of a digital image, made up a strikingly realistic picture of a young, modern, confident black woman whose hair-style was cut into the shape of a backwards facing slave's profile. Someone boldly suggested that it might have been George Washington and I could see what they meant. I secretly hoped the artist, Jorge Burtin from California, had made the likeness deliberately. For this was a work of art commissioned by the Black Women United for Action as part of their annual commemorations of the slaves buried at Washington's home at Mount Vernon and the unveiling was taking place at a reception organised by the British Embassy.

The story of Britain's involvement in the slave trade contains much to make modern Britons feel deeply uncomfortable and ashamed. As the world's greatest industrial and maritime power in the 18th century, British merchants profited hugely from the transatlantic slave trade. Although figures are hard to validate, approximately a quarter of the 12 million or so Africans, shipped across the Atlantic as slaves, were destined for North America or British Caribbean territories. The vast majority of these enslaved people would have travelled in British ships. It's an horrendous record of human misery, and a shameful episode in British history. 

Britain also led the way in abolishing slavery. Last year marked the bicentennial of Parliament passing the Slave Trade Act, which made the slave trade unlawful throughout the British Empire. We, in Britain, spent 2007 remembering, and celebrating, the work of all who fought for the abolitionist cause and, in particular, William Wilberforce.

Wilberforce is now a name honoured around the world. Abraham Lincoln invoked his memory during his efforts to abolish slavery in the United States. The eminent 20th century British novelist, E M Forster, compared him to Gandhi. Nelson Mandela, the inspiration of post-apartheid South African, has called Britain "the land of William Wilberforce", describing him as the man who "dared to stand up to demand that the slaves in our country should be freed". Wilberforce's fame will have spread even more widely as a result of the recent movie, 'Amazing Grace', that dramatised his struggle against slavery.

Abolishing the slave trade was not the same thing as abolishing slavery itself. As it happens, possessing slaves had been illegal in England since a landmark judgement in 1772 had led to the emancipation of all the 10,000 or so slaves in the country at the time. But in the rest of the British Empire and in foreign countries, slavery, if not the international slave trade, continued after 1807. It wasn't until 1833 that slavery was finally abolished throughout the British Empire. Sadly, Wilberforce died a month before the Act passed into law. So he never saw the crowning achievement of his campaigning work.

Nor did he see the work of the West Africa squadron of the Royal Navy, which literally took the law into their own hands and seized ships of any and all countries carrying slaves. When Parliament passed a law declaring that carrying slaves on the high seas was equivalent to piracy, the Royal Navy effectively wiped out the slave trade around the world. It was a breathtakingly bold example of humanitarian intervention, dramatically so as the actions of Britain's navy were contrary to international law at the time.

It is more than 200 years since Wilberforce's struggle began to change the British Empire and the world. It is even longer ago that the slaves buried at Mount Vernon worked on George Washington's plantation. But the scourge of slavery has not been eradicated. Human trafficking, the exploitation of illegal migrants and the trade in women for the sex industry are modern versions of the slave trade.

According to a broad definition of slavery used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves (FTS), an advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there are 27 million people in slavery today, spread all over the world. According to Free The Slaves, these slaves represent at once both the largest number of people that has ever been in slavery at any point in world history and the smallest percentage of the total human population that has ever been enslaved. Whatever you make of these statistics, the world cannot doubt that it needs a new Wilberforce.

This year, Black Women United for Action are remembering Wilberforce in their commemorations at Mount Vernon. Hence their association with the British Embassy this week. In 1807, when the Slave Trade Act passed, the then British prime minister said that Wilberforce's memory would be blessed by millions yet unborn. I bet that the young, independent, black woman, depicted in those thousands of squares of coloured glass, would agree.

Posted at 16:12 29 September 2008 by Dominick Chilcott  |  Comments[0]