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Speaker 1: Also media.

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Speaker 2: We're back. Yeah, welcome to Behind the Bastards, a podcast

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Speaker 2: that is this week not about bad things. It's about

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Speaker 2: good things. Well kind of, it's still about bad things,

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Speaker 2: but it's about how good things were done to fight

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Speaker 2: a bad thing. Anyway, we're talking about the end of

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Speaker 2: the slave trade with our guest James Stout. Author James Stout, author,

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Speaker 2: doctor James Stout. That's right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I am both of those things. I have written

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Speaker 3: and recently written a book, written two books. Actually, the

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Speaker 3: first one you should get your library. You shouldn't pay

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Speaker 3: for it, it's far too expensive. But the second one,

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Speaker 3: I would love it if you pre ordered. It's called

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Speaker 3: Against the State. It's about anarchists and comrades at war

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Speaker 3: in Spain, memr and Rojava. And it contains many of

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Speaker 3: the things I have learned well, being fortunate enough to

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Speaker 3: share small parts of these two revolutions and study the

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Speaker 3: other in an academic fashion. I think that's a lot

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Speaker 3: you can learn if if you're not particularly interested in

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Speaker 3: conflict and war. And I hope that people will pre

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Speaker 3: order it from ak Press.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, pre order that from ak Press and you'll be

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Speaker 2: a hero too, although you know, not quite as much

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Speaker 2: of a hero as the people were talking about today

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Speaker 2: because they ended the slave trade, and you know, that's

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Speaker 2: pretty good. So it's pretty good. That's the thing to

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Speaker 2: do in your life.

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Speaker 3: Pretty high bar.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, when we left off here, there's just been

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Speaker 2: we had that case and then we had Gregson guilt,

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Speaker 2: Like they revisited it to see like, should we you know,

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Speaker 2: retry Gregs and b Gilbert and they decide yeah, probably,

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Speaker 2: and then Gregson was like, actually, no, I know, I'm

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Speaker 2: at a loss. So I'm just kind of bouncing. And

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Speaker 2: so the Abolious Movement is left with We've had this

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Speaker 2: big win, but it didn't really change anything. But now

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Speaker 2: we've got a group of people who are kind of

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Speaker 2: like increasingly motivated and angry to fight against slavery. And

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Speaker 2: the head of the group is Granville Sharp right, And

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Speaker 2: Granville's like, well, in the wake of this case, since

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Speaker 2: we're not going to continue it, my priority is I

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Speaker 2: need to document every single horrific detail about what happened

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Speaker 2: on the Zorg and in general, everything I can get

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Speaker 2: about how common some of these other awful things that

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Speaker 2: happen are just in the slave trade as a whole.

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Speaker 2: And I need to publicize that so as many people

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Speaker 2: can read it as possible in order to build support

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Speaker 2: for an end to the whole institution. So he has

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Speaker 2: the notes from the court case transcribed, he can Ducks

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Speaker 2: a further interview with Robert Stubbs and another crew member

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Speaker 2: as part of his attempt to secure murder charges against them.

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Speaker 2: It's I don't think they have to sit down for this.

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Speaker 2: So it's weird that Stubbs and kelsall do stub stuff.

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Speaker 3: Missus a chance to fuck himself, a.

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Speaker 2: Chance to fuck himself over every wrong step he can take. Oh, Stubbs,

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Speaker 2: He's gonna take. On June second, seventeen eighty three, Sharp

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Speaker 2: sends one hundred and eighty something page document to the

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Speaker 2: lords of the Admiralty demanding murdered chargers and quote an

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Speaker 2: entire stop to the slave trade, which he argued would

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Speaker 2: damn the entire country and unquestionably mark it with the

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Speaker 2: avenging hand of God, who is promised to destroy the

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Speaker 2: destroyers of the earth. This doesn't work somehow, they don't

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Speaker 2: take this seriously like you respect. But yeah, I'm not

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Speaker 2: surprised that they see like he send us like two

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Speaker 2: hundred pages and he says that God's going to kill

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Speaker 2: us if we don't shut down the money funnel. Ah,

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Speaker 2: let's just keep getting rich.

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Speaker 3: Right, it's one in a manifesto bucket.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, classic Lords of the Admiralty behavior. So his

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Speaker 2: letter to them is ignored, but he doesn't stop pushing forward.

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Speaker 2: He sends the info he was gathering to the Prime

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Speaker 2: Minister and to other public figures, warning them that God

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Speaker 2: would might the whole empire if they keep doing this shit.

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Speaker 2: Most of these letters were ignored, but one of the

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Speaker 2: letters he sent to prominent members of the Anglican community

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Speaker 2: did provoke a response from a reverend named Peter Peckard,

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Speaker 2: who had which is I we'll just move past that name.

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Speaker 2: But wait's silly, right, Peter Peckard. It's silly. It's a

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Speaker 2: silly name. But he's a good guy, so whatever, we'll

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Speaker 2: give him a pass.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 2: Peckard had been paying attention to gregs and V. Gilbert,

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Speaker 2: and he had concluded from the information in the case

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Speaker 2: that the slave trade was a crime against humanity. The

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Speaker 2: two became friends and their correspondence influenced Peckard when a

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Speaker 2: year or so later he was made vice chancellor of

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Speaker 2: Cambridge University. So this guy gets kind of radicalized by

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Speaker 2: this case and by his friendship with Sharp. He reads

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Speaker 2: what Sharp collected and he gets increasingly horrified. And then

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Speaker 2: he gets a really prominent position at Cambridge, and one

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Speaker 2: of his duties at this position is to organize the

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Speaker 2: annual Latin essay contest, and so in seventeen eighty five

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Speaker 2: he picks this topic or the contest. Is it lawful

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Speaker 2: to make slaves of others against their will? Now? Putting

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Speaker 2: aside for a moment the question of how might you

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Speaker 2: make a person a slave not against their will? This

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Speaker 2: topic was Yeah, I mean there are there was like Greek,

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Speaker 2: some Greek people would sell themselves into slavery doing the

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Speaker 2: Roman Empire and work is like basically household tutors to

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Speaker 2: rich folks and stuff. But still making someone a slave

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Speaker 2: implies against their will, I would argue. Anyway. The topic

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Speaker 2: provokes a high degree of involvement from divinity students at Cambridge,

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Speaker 2: one of whom is a young man named Thomas Clarkson,

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Speaker 2: and he's the next hero we're going to learn about

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Speaker 2: in detail. Born in March twenty eighth, seventeen sixty and

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Speaker 2: the Isle of Eli, he was the oldest son of

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Speaker 2: a reverend and a headmaster. His mother, I assume, was

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Speaker 2: a very nice person. We have basically no details on

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Speaker 2: his childhood or early life, but he comes from what

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Speaker 2: you might call an upper middle class background and enjoyed

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Speaker 2: a good education and as much stability as anyone got

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Speaker 2: to have back in those days. Right, So this is

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Speaker 2: a he's a child of privilege, like for certain you know,

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Speaker 2: not like crazy rich, but very comfortable. Clarkson is an

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Speaker 2: excellent student and he was admitted to Saint John's College

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Speaker 2: at Cambridge in seventeen seventy nine. He gets his BA

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Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty three, and he continues at Cambridge with

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Speaker 2: a plan of following in his father's career as a reverend. Right,

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Speaker 2: so he's continue his education to become like a religious

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Speaker 2: studies expert or whatever, so he can be a reverend.

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Speaker 2: He's ordained in seventeen eighty three as a deacon, but

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Speaker 2: his original plans for a life spent serving the church

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Speaker 2: are derailed by a Greater Cause in seventeen eighty five

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Speaker 2: as a result of that essay contest. So when that

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Speaker 2: contest is announced, he is still planning. I'm going to

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Speaker 2: be you know, I'm gonna spend my life in the

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Speaker 2: church like my dad did, right, And then he starts

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Speaker 2: working on this essay to try to win this contest.

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Speaker 2: And this is maybe the single best historic example of

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Speaker 2: how one good teacher can change the world, because Clarkson's

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Speaker 2: whole life and the lives of millions of people turn

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Speaker 2: in part as a result of this essay. Per the

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Speaker 2: Zorg by Sidharth Kara, a towering figure with reddish hair

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Speaker 2: and a compassionate gaze, Clarkson confessed he was wholly ignorant

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Speaker 2: of the slave trade when he first began his research

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Speaker 2: for the contest. He read everything he could find on

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Speaker 2: the subject, and was most impacted by a pioneering abolitionist

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Speaker 2: tract authored by an American Quaker, Anthony Benezet. Quakers were

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Speaker 2: among the first communities to advocate against slavery, believing it

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Speaker 2: was necessary for every lover of God and man to

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Speaker 2: use their best endeavors that a stop may be put

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Speaker 2: to this unnatural and barbarous traffic. Following the Summerset case,

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Speaker 2: Benize became a staunch ally of Granville Sharp. The two

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Speaker 2: abolitionists collaborated in seventeen seventy two on a petition to

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Speaker 2: King George the Third against the toleration of slavery in

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Speaker 2: the Colonies. In seventeen seventy five, Benize founded the Society

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Speaker 2: for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage,

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Speaker 2: the first anti slavery organization in America. One of its

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Speaker 2: earliest presidents was Benjamin Franklin. Right, So, Benize really influential

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Speaker 2: guy and a partner with sharp and he writes this

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Speaker 2: book that Clarkson reads prepping for this essay, called Some

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Speaker 2: Historical Account of Guinea, its situation, produce, and the general

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Speaker 2: disposition of its inhabitants, with an inquiry into the rise

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Speaker 2: and progress of the slave trade. Again, we didn't know

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Speaker 2: how to write titles back then. There hadn't been a

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Speaker 2: good one. Now the first good title is Moby Dick.

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Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I like he just calls it an interesting narrative,

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Speaker 3: and then you know what you're gonna get.

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Speaker 2: But it's gonna be interesting. It is interesting. How fucking crazy? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you're right. Equiano knew how to had to title a

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Speaker 2: fucking book, but none of these other guys do. That said,

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Speaker 2: the quality of the book is good, even if the

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Speaker 2: title is kind of unwieldy, and Clarkson devours it. He

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Speaker 2: is horrified by each new fact he learns, and he

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Speaker 2: finds himself obsessively driven to read and learn more. He

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Speaker 2: writes later, it was but one gloomy subject from morning

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Speaker 2: to night. In the daytime I was uneasy, and the

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Speaker 2: night I had little rest. I sometimes never closed my

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Speaker 2: eyelids for grief, which is a relatable way to feel

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Speaker 2: about reading too much about the realities of the Atlantic

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Speaker 2: slave trade and plantation systems. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of

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Speaker 2: a an ending nightmare. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think anyone who spends the period of time studying

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Speaker 2: this is like, yeah, kind of is just consuming for

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Speaker 2: a while. It's really bad.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's one of the worst things that humans

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Speaker 3: haven't done to each other.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, very upsetting stuff. So that summer, Clarkson finishes and

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Speaker 2: submits his essay for the essay contest. He cites Granville

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Speaker 2: Sharp in it and the court case against the Gregson

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Speaker 2: Syndicate two years previously in his introduction, and he describes

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Speaker 2: the massacre of enslaved prisoners aboard the Zorg as a

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Speaker 2: deed unparalleled in the history of man, and one he

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Speaker 2: was worried that future generations wouldn't believe that. Like, if

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Speaker 2: we don't document this well enough, they won't believe anyone

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Speaker 2: did anything this bad. It's so crazy evil right now,

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Speaker 2: The essay itself is a banger. It is anime by

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Speaker 2: the kind of incolate rage that academics rarely allow themselves

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Speaker 2: to express. Clarkson gave voice to the kind of repellent

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Speaker 2: nausea any decent person ought to feel upon investigating the

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Speaker 2: slave trade. He wrote, in a section directed to slave traders,

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Speaker 2: you have no right to touch even the hair on

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Speaker 2: their heads without their own consent. It is not your

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Speaker 2: money that can invest you with a right. Human liberty

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Speaker 2: can either be bought nor sold. How wicked must be

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Speaker 2: that servitude which cannot be carried on without the continual

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Speaker 2: murder of so many innocent persons. No custom established among

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Speaker 2: men was ever more impious, since it is contrary to reason, justice, nature,

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Speaker 2: the principles of law and government, the whole doctrine in

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Speaker 2: short of natural religion and the revealed voice of God.

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Speaker 2: Pretty good stuff. Yes, that's it. Kind of a banger. Yeah, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I like the Yeah, you have no right to touch

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Speaker 2: even a hair on their heads. If they don't say

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Speaker 2: you can't. How dare you think otherwise? That's nuts? He wins, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: God hates you for what you're doing, and he wins

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Speaker 2: first prize. It's a good essay, and because he wins

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Speaker 2: first prize, he gets to read his whole essay in

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Speaker 2: Latin to the Senate House at Cambridge. Again it's a

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Speaker 2: Latin contest. The abolitionist cause is at this point not

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Speaker 2: yet a mass movement in England, but it's becoming one.

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Speaker 2: And Clarkson's success here is evidence that even in the

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Speaker 2: halls of power, something had started to change. When you're

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Speaker 2: winning this essay contest at Cambridge, this is not like

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Speaker 2: a fringe radical thing entirely anymore, right now, something had

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Speaker 2: started to change within Clarkson too. On paper, he's still

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Speaker 2: following the path that he would need to take in

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Speaker 2: order to become a reverend. But as he rides a

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Speaker 2: horse from Cambridge back to London right when he's kind

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Speaker 2: of and I think he's heading to London to continue

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Speaker 2: the process of becoming a reverend. And in the middle

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Speaker 2: of that journey he has an awakening. And here's how

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Speaker 2: he describes it. I mean, came at times very seriously

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Speaker 2: affected while upon the road. I stopped my horse occasionally

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Speaker 2: and dismounted and walked. I frequently tried to persuade myself

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Speaker 2: in these intervals that the contents of my essay could

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Speaker 2: not be true. The more, however, I reflected upon them,

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Speaker 2: or rather upon the authorities on which they were founded,

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Speaker 2: the more I gave them credit. Coming inside of Wades

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Speaker 2: Mill in Hertfordshire, I sat down, disconsolate on the turf

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Speaker 2: by the roadside and held my horse. Here a thought

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Speaker 2: came into my mind that if the contents of the

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Speaker 2: essay were true, it was time some person should see

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Speaker 2: those calamities to their end. Which is such an interesting

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Speaker 2: way for that to go. Where he's like, I couldn't

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Speaker 2: have been writing about real stuff, right, it's too fucked up.

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Speaker 2: It's too fucked up, and has he's just yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: he's just like none that's happening.

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Speaker 3: I think there is a difference right between like these

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Speaker 3: like colonial metropoles that were somewhat removed from the violence

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Speaker 3: and the experienced saying positive Southern United States, where like

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Speaker 3: the violence of shattle slavery was right there right like

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Speaker 3: it was visible to everyone, and it's it's remarkable. I

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Speaker 3: guess that like the people who come to first I mean,

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Speaker 3: not that they weren't anti slavery people in the United States,

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Speaker 3: there were, including presumably all of the enslaved people, but

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Speaker 3: like the fact that they the people who come to

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Speaker 3: this realization that jos is fucked up and organize are

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Speaker 3: the ones removed from it at.

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Speaker 2: First, Like it's yeah, and that's I think you would

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Speaker 2: find similar sentiments of like this can't be real from

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Speaker 2: a lot of people in the North during the worst

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Speaker 2: of the period leading of the Civil War, right, Like

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Speaker 2: you run into that a lot. I think it's like

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Speaker 2: it's this is just too fucked up. It could can't

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Speaker 2: be this bad, right, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Right, Like I think especially at a time when you

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Speaker 3: know all you had to trust was a text, right,

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Speaker 3: Like it's not that you can see a video, right,

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Speaker 3: it can't be that bad. No one would do that

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Speaker 3: that humans wouldn't do that to each other.

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Speaker 2: And the one for people in this position, right is

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Speaker 2: to like convince themselves, I'll just forget about it, right,

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Speaker 2: And it says a lot about his moral character that

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Speaker 2: he he goes through this day long period of like

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Speaker 2: walking back through the sources in his head and being

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Speaker 2: like no, these are really solid sources, and so if

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Speaker 2: this is true, the only step I can take forward

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Speaker 2: is to dedicate my entire life to destroying this slavery. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Like there's no other option at this point, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And it makes sense from looking back, but like for him,

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Speaker 3: that's a remarkable choice to make.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, Yeah, it's a really significant leap that he

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Speaker 2: goes on there. So now that he's set on this

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Speaker 2: new path, Clarkson starts meeting with Quaker anti slavery activists,

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Speaker 2: including one who owned a printing shop and had already

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Speaker 2: been publishing pamphlets and tracts. The next year, his essay

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Speaker 2: was published as one of these tracks, and it starts

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Speaker 2: to circulate widely among educated Englishmen. This helps Clarkson get

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Speaker 2: into contact with other seasoned veterans of the fight, including

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Speaker 2: Granville Sharp, who he meets in mid seventeen eighty six.

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Speaker 2: The two hit it off famously, and I kind of

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Speaker 2: think Sharp picks this kid right away as the air

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Speaker 2: pair to his own efforts to fight slavery, where he's like,

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Speaker 2: this is going to be the guy who like keeps

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Speaker 2: the fight going after I am gone, right, just kind

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Speaker 2: of get that feeling and While public support for the

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Speaker 2: cause is the highest it's ever been, there's still not

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Speaker 2: a unified anti slavery movement, nor even an agreement as

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Speaker 2: to how one should look Again, a lot of people

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Speaker 2: just want to ban the Atlantic trade but leave slavery intact. Otherwise,

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Speaker 2: I think for most of these people it's just pragmatism,

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Speaker 2: where they're like, well, we just were never going to

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Speaker 2: get that done, but we can at least stop the

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Speaker 2: worst part of the system. I'm sure some people are like, well,

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Speaker 2: slavery wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for this

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Speaker 2: other part. Right, those are definitely some.

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Speaker 3: People, you know, this type of guy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, there are other divisions. Quakers, as I've repeatedly noted,

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Speaker 2: have been central to the anti slavery cause from the beginning,

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Speaker 2: but because of their niche religious views, there are also

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Speaker 2: opponents of a bunch of other stuff, like being in

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Speaker 2: the military, or paying taxes, or following the Anglican Church,

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Speaker 2: and so a lot of people who might be open

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Speaker 2: to the broader cause are like, well, I don't want

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Speaker 2: anything to do with Quakers, right, They're nuts. You know,

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Speaker 2: That's how I got a Quaker listeners. I'm not shit

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Speaker 2: talking here. That's how a lot of people feel at

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Speaker 2: the time, right, who were otherwise and maybe down for

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Speaker 2: the cause.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the idea of being teetotal is not comprehensible.

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Speaker 3: Person were to kill people, well, what did they do

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Speaker 3: a weekend?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Look, I'm fine with getting rid of slavery, but

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Speaker 2: I draw the line at not drinking and shooting Frenchmen.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: So it was clear to Sharp and to Clarkson that

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Speaker 2: and their fellows that the cause needed a central organizing

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Speaker 2: hub that lacked any of this baggage and could act

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Speaker 2: as a big tent. So they formed a committee and

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Speaker 2: they all met together to hash things out. Here's how

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Speaker 2: Mike k described what happened next. Clarkson and Sharp brought

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Speaker 2: more than their individual skills to the community. They were

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Speaker 2: important figureheads who could forge alliances with people the Quakers

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Speaker 2: could not reach. They were instrumental in bringing the movement

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Speaker 2: into the mainstream by forming partnerships with people like William Wilberforce,

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Speaker 2: a member of Parliament who later became the movement's parliamentary spokesperson.

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Speaker 2: We're not going to talking about Wilberforce in these episodes,

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Speaker 2: but he's also a big hero here. The committee agreed

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Speaker 2: to focus on the slave trade as a first step

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Speaker 2: towards total emancipation, and called themselves the Society for Affecting

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Speaker 2: the Abolition of the Slave Trade. This society had a

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Speaker 2: clear objective, access to a printing press and a distribution network,

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Speaker 2: and a growing number of influential allies. What they needed

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Speaker 2: was evidence to prove that what they said about the

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Speaker 2: slave trade was true. Right, So this is going to

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Speaker 2: send Clarkson on a personal quest. He's going to be

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Speaker 2: the member of the Society who goes out into the

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Speaker 2: world to gather this information and bring it back right,

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Speaker 2: so that they can prove to everyone that this is

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Speaker 2: not just the Zorg wasn't a one off. This is

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Speaker 2: just how bad things always are in the slave trade.

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Speaker 2: And we'll return to Clarkson a bit later. He's heading

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Speaker 2: off right now to go find a bunch of dirt

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Speaker 2: on the slave business. Right. And while the Society is

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Speaker 2: getting itself up off the ground, other activists who are

347
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Speaker 2: not a part of this group are heard at work

348
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Speaker 2: providing firsthand documentation of the hideous evils of the slave trade.

349
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Speaker 2: And this brings us back to our friend Equiano, right,

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Speaker 2: and another guy. Because the next year, seventeen eighty seven.

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Speaker 2: The same year Robert Stubbs dies, a former slave named

352
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Speaker 2: Ottoba Kuguano publishes his autobiography. He'd been kidnapped at age

353
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Speaker 2: thirteen and trafficked to England in seventeen seventy two. Kuguano

354
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Speaker 2: is a close friend of Olata Equiano, and his example

355
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Speaker 2: likely helps to convince Equiano to write the autobiography that

356
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Speaker 2: I quoted from earlier in the last episode. It was

357
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Speaker 2: published two years later, and both books become best sellers

358
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Speaker 2: in their time and are reprinted in multiple languages. They're

359
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Speaker 2: very influential, right, and these books have a huge influence

360
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Speaker 2: on the course of the abolitionist movement. Previously, most ideological

361
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Speaker 2: bystanders in England had passively accepted the claims made by

362
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Speaker 2: pro slavery advocates that Africans were happy being forced labors

363
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Speaker 2: and that life on plantations was an improvement from their

364
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Speaker 2: situation back home. Equiano and Guguano's books blast did those

365
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Speaker 2: myths apart. Right, You can no longer believe that when

366
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Speaker 2: you're reading these guys being about like, here was my

367
00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:11,680
Speaker 2: life before I got enslaved, you know, as Mike k wrote,

368
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Speaker 2: it was difficult for those who read the book not

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Speaker 2: to associate themselves with the African hero who was courageous, resourceful, literate, cultured,

370
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Speaker 2: and Christian, all qualities, right, Like, you can no longer

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Speaker 2: view these people as somewhere less than you when you've

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Speaker 2: read the whole book. One of them wrote about his

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Speaker 2: incredible life, right yeah, it makes you start yeah, yeah, like.

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Speaker 3: This guy's done things that most most people in Britain,

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Speaker 3: even wealthy people, wouldn't have dreamed of doing, right, Like,

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Speaker 3: very hard to see him as a less human being.

377
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Speaker 2: No, and then once you start being like, wow, this

378
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Speaker 2: this one guy was really incredible in a way, they said,

379
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Speaker 2: none of these people are Is it possible that they're

380
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Speaker 2: all just people? And that what we're doing is one

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Speaker 2: of the greatest crimes in human history. I'm gonna have

382
00:19:55,040 --> 00:19:56,840
Speaker 2: to think on that before I get back to my

383
00:19:56,960 --> 00:20:00,040
Speaker 2: job dying of the Black Lung, which is what I

384
00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:02,639
Speaker 2: assume most English people are doing at the time, or

385
00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:04,760
Speaker 2: on boats, you.

386
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Speaker 3: Know, invY and black Line, Scurvian Blacklockstone, the economy.

387
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Speaker 2: So Equiano organizes a group of formally enslaved black men

388
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Speaker 2: together called the Sons of Africa, and together they begin

389
00:20:19,119 --> 00:20:22,760
Speaker 2: campaigning independently of white allies like Sharp, in order to

390
00:20:22,840 --> 00:20:25,560
Speaker 2: spread public disgust at the institution of slavery. And this

391
00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:28,520
Speaker 2: is a really important fact, right, Equiano and his fellow

392
00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:30,879
Speaker 2: freedmen have no political power, and they start from a

393
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Speaker 2: position of basically zero cultural influence. And they aren't just

394
00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:36,720
Speaker 2: being like, oh, thank god, I met a nice white

395
00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,080
Speaker 2: person who was able to take the fight for me.

396
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Speaker 2: They never do that. Equianto, not like he and Guguano

397
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Speaker 2: publish books that give them cultural influence because they're so popular,

398
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Speaker 2: and then they start organizing other freedmen to become a

399
00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:54,439
Speaker 2: political lobby in their own right and start writing letters

400
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Speaker 2: and having meetings with members of the government and people

401
00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:00,840
Speaker 2: of cultural influence in order to push out abolitionist sentiment.

402
00:21:00,840 --> 00:21:04,359
Speaker 2: They are very much active and strategic participants in the

403
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:10,159
Speaker 2: abolitionist cause. Right, That's really important. So Equiano orchestrates a

404
00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:14,119
Speaker 2: nuanced and elaborate pr campaign, augmenting the work Grenville Sharp

405
00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:16,719
Speaker 2: and the other folks on that side of things are

406
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Speaker 2: putting together. The Sons of Africa do these letter writing

407
00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:24,760
Speaker 2: campaigns and they succeed in you know, it's an uneven progress, right,

408
00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:28,320
Speaker 2: because the society right around this time, gets hearings before

409
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Speaker 2: the Privy Council on the abuses of the slave trade,

410
00:21:31,119 --> 00:21:33,280
Speaker 2: and none of the sons are called to testify. So

411
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:36,399
Speaker 2: Equiano writes directly to the chair of the Council and

412
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Speaker 2: then publishes the letter he wrote that guy in a

413
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Speaker 2: prominent newspaper so that no one could ignore it, right

414
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:42,800
Speaker 2: to be like, and I sent this to this guy.

415
00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 2: If he ignores it, he has it, you know. By

416
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Speaker 2: seventeen eighty eight, Equiano is considered one of the leading

417
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:52,119
Speaker 2: abolitionists in the country. A newspaper at the time described

418
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:54,119
Speaker 2: him as well known in England as the champion and

419
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:57,520
Speaker 2: advocate for procuring a suppression of the slave trade. He

420
00:21:57,560 --> 00:22:00,359
Speaker 2: and Couguano spent years touring the country with their books,

421
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:03,800
Speaker 2: bringing hundreds of new activists into the cause every single year.

422
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:06,440
Speaker 2: Right they're showing up in their meeting face to face

423
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Speaker 2: with people and basically radicalizing folks one on one to

424
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Speaker 2: get involved. You know, that's like a big part of

425
00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:18,080
Speaker 2: their conscious effort. Here, cool guys you know who also

426
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:19,640
Speaker 2: radicalized people.

427
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Speaker 1: The products and services that support the show.

428
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Speaker 2: That's right, they radicalized me to advertise for them. And

429
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Speaker 2: we're back. So By seventeen eighty nine, the lobbying of

430
00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:42,560
Speaker 2: the society, and in particular Member of Parliament Sir William Wilberforce,

431
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:46,320
Speaker 2: had brought another William into the fold. Sir William Dolben.

432
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 2: Williams are pretty load bearing for this part of the

433
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:52,960
Speaker 2: anti slavery campaign. He proposed a bill Dolbin did, known

434
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 2: as the Dolbin Act, that he described as the first

435
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:58,439
Speaker 2: bill to put fetters upon the barbarous and destructive monster

436
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:01,680
Speaker 2: that was the slave trade. This is the definition of

437
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:05,639
Speaker 2: an incrementalist solution. It is not banning anything, it is

438
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 2: not saying these people aren't property. But it requires slave

439
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:11,720
Speaker 2: ships to hold no more than two slaves per ton

440
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 2: for the first hundred tons of weight of the vessel,

441
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:15,560
Speaker 2: and no more than one slave per ton after that.

442
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:18,160
Speaker 2: This is directly inspired by the Zorc, which had held

443
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 2: roughly four slaves per ton for most of its journey.

444
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:23,880
Speaker 2: The Act also reforms some of the language around insurance

445
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:27,359
Speaker 2: policies to make sure someone like this Gregson Syndicate doesn't

446
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:30,399
Speaker 2: try another similar gambit again. And while the bill is

447
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 2: being pushed forward, Equiano leads a delegation of free black

448
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:36,199
Speaker 2: men to the House of Commons. There they meet with

449
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:38,600
Speaker 2: the Prime Minister as well as Dolbin and several other

450
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:42,240
Speaker 2: members of Parliament, right, which is a really important moment.

451
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:44,640
Speaker 2: These guys have gone from nobody who don't even get

452
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 2: called to talk to the Privy Council too. They're meeting

453
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,760
Speaker 2: with the Prime Minister and a bunch of nps about

454
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:52,720
Speaker 2: the passage of an act regulating the slave trade. That's

455
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:55,919
Speaker 2: a big deal, you know, just in the history of

456
00:23:56,280 --> 00:24:01,920
Speaker 2: English democracy, Right, Yeah, dudes meeting with the Prime Minister

457
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:04,679
Speaker 2: at that point in time doesn't seem like it had

458
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:07,879
Speaker 2: happened a lot, right, And their testimonies, the fact that

459
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 2: these guys are all talking about what happened to them

460
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 2: don't stand alone. Right, So in the Dobin Act is

461
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 2: not just like, it's not just kind of the testimonies

462
00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:19,879
Speaker 2: of the form of these freedmen that is influencing how

463
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,560
Speaker 2: people think at the time. One of the most influential

464
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 2: first hand accounts of the slave trade that comes out

465
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty eight, which helped spur support for the

466
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:31,119
Speaker 2: abolitionist cause, is written by a former slave ship captain,

467
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 2: a guy we talked about in our first episode, John Newton.

468
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:37,520
Speaker 2: Newton published his book Thoughts upon the African slave Trade

469
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:41,159
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty eight, he'd been born and he's you know,

470
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 2: I don't know if we call him a hero, but

471
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:48,199
Speaker 2: he's on the right side by the end of his life.

472
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,639
Speaker 2: This is a complicated man, right that we're going to

473
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:55,480
Speaker 2: talk about here, but let's get it. He's a fascinating

474
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 2: guy too. His story says a lot about why people

475
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 2: became slave ship atens, like who got into that business?

476
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 3: Right yeah?

477
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 2: Was born in seventeen twenty five to a father who

478
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,119
Speaker 2: captained merchant vessels in the Mediterranean and a mother who

479
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:13,320
Speaker 2: was a Protestant nonconformist. I don't understand this super well,

480
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:15,400
Speaker 2: but I think from what I can gather, it means

481
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:18,399
Speaker 2: she rejected the legitimacy of the Church of England but

482
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 2: was still super religious, right yeah, yeah yeah. Biographer John

483
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 2: Dunn writes that the boy, as a child Newton quote

484
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 2: feared his father and dreaded the times when the old

485
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 2: sailor was home from the sea, and from what we

486
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 2: can tell, when his dad's home, he spends most of

487
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:36,639
Speaker 2: his time drinking. One of John's earliest memories is his

488
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 2: father heading off to the bar and his mother, using

489
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 2: the opportunity to have him memorize essays and tracts written

490
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 2: by religious scholars she admired. Missus Newton wanted her son

491
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 2: to become a reverend, but she died two weeks before

492
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 2: his seventh birthday. I think it was tuberculosis, you know,

493
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 2: probably a little bit of guestimating, just based on the symptoms.

494
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 2: But yeah, after this point, none of the adults in

495
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:03,120
Speaker 2: John's life really about his religious instruction or him. He

496
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 2: prays alone sometimes, but he drifts further and further from

497
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:09,399
Speaker 2: belief as his childhood gets steadily worse. His father forces

498
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 2: him to attend a boarding school for two years with

499
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 2: an incredibly cruel headmaster who's very abusive, and by the

500
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 2: time John leaves the school at age ten or eleven,

501
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 2: he is no longer religious. He's just not interested at all.

502
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:24,679
Speaker 2: His dad is by this point gotten hitched to a

503
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 2: new wife, but at age eleven, he takes his son

504
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 2: to see for the first time. Now, the upside of

505
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 2: this is that because his dad is the captain, John

506
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:36,199
Speaker 2: gets to stay in the spacious captain's quarters. The downside

507
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:38,240
Speaker 2: is that his dad is his dad, which means he's

508
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:41,680
Speaker 2: trapped in a fairly small room with an incredibly abusive father.

509
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: Right.

510
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 2: Newton later wrote, I was with him in a state

511
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 2: of fear and bondage. Is this is a very unpleasant childhood.

512
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 2: He and his dad go on six voyages together. John

513
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 2: has two near death experiences at sea during this time,

514
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 2: at age twelve and then at age fifteen, and he

515
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 2: becomes very anxious about dying unst saved. So periodically he'll

516
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 2: work himself up into a ladder about this, and he'll

517
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,199
Speaker 2: try to get back to being faithful. He'll try to

518
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 2: get into the rhythm of praying regularly and attending services,

519
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 2: but he keeps falling out of it. Nothing seems to take.

520
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:16,719
Speaker 2: He would later write, I saw the necessity of religion

521
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 2: as a means of escaping hell. But I loved sin

522
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 2: and was unwilling to forsake it just a funny way.

523
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 3: I just what a universal human sentiment.

524
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 1: M M God.

525
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:32,680
Speaker 2: I don't want to go to hell, but sin is awesome.

526
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 2: I enjoy sinning. What are you gonna do? Yeah?

527
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 3: What perfect? He wrote that as well. Yeah, no shame

528
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 3: of no, shame of that?

529
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 2: It okay. The elder Newton gets his son an apprenticeship

530
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 2: on a different ship, but teenage John is too rebellious.

531
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 2: Done describes him as switching between fits of aggressive rage

532
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 2: and nonconformity, followed by days of obsessive meditation and prayer,

533
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 2: begging God to forgive him for his sins. He would

534
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 2: fast for days at a time, which was also not

535
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 2: conducive to his career. In seventeen yeah, it's just not

536
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 2: great working at a boat while starving. Although a lot

537
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:12,959
Speaker 2: of sailors are starving a lot of the time anyway,

538
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:15,679
Speaker 2: so it's not that weird either, Saling.

539
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 3: It's good if you could the points when you don't

540
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 3: have to be starving. If you cannot be starving, it's

541
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 3: probably better for your longevity if you don't.

542
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you really want to eat when there is food, Yeah,

543
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,360
Speaker 2: because you're on a boat. Yeah.

544
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 3: Yeah.

545
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 2: In seventeen forty two, his dad retires. John is now seventeen,

546
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 2: and his father tries to secure him another job. This

547
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 2: one is the overseer on a Jamaican plantation. One of

548
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 2: his friends owned, right, and he's like, look, it's a

549
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 2: great job. You'll make money. It's safe. You know, you

550
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 2: can get rich and then come home with money. Right.

551
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 2: John doesn't flake because he doesn't want to be a

552
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 2: slave overseer. He flakes because he falls in love with

553
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 2: a fifteen year old, right, and he really wants to

554
00:28:56,320 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 2: marry this teenage Yeah, that's.

555
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 3: Not the kind of saying I'd been hoping he was into.

556
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 2: To be honest. To be fair, he's not a lot

557
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 2: older than her, right, I think she's actually like thirteen

558
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 2: or so. But when they fall in love, so it

559
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 2: is a little weird. But he's not that like he's

560
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 2: a teenager too. I think when they start he starts, okay,

561
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 2: flirting with her. Yeah, but yeah, it's not good. It's

562
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 2: no great. He feels like things are settling into place

563
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 2: in his life. He gets another job, he's working on

564
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 2: a boat. He feels like he's definitely going to marry

565
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 2: this girl. He gets over the worst of his religious

566
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 2: anxieties and becomes basically an atheist, right, which he writes

567
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 2: about some and it's kind of it's fairly interesting if

568
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 2: you do read his book, him talking about how he

569
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 2: kind of comes to that conclusion. And then in seventeen

570
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 2: forty four, while hanging out with some friends one night,

571
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 2: Newton gets press ganged and forced to serve in the

572
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 2: Royal navy. Right, this is how a lot of boat

573
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 2: stuff worked at the time, you know, both the Navy

574
00:29:57,320 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 2: and also a lot of slave ships. By the way,

575
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 2: even a lot of the guys running slave ships in

576
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 2: the early period of the slave trade are not there

577
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 2: of their own free will. They were picked up drunk

578
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 2: one night and made to work on a boat. Yeah enough,

579
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 2: this is something the Navy's going to crack down on

580
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 2: around a little later. But yeah, not by the time.

581
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 2: When he's a teenager. That said, his dad is a

582
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 2: man of influence within the say, within the boat world,

583
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 2: and he finds out his son's been kidnapped, and he's

584
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 2: able to basically like, hey, I think he needs a job,

585
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 2: so keep him on the boat, but you got to

586
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 2: promote him to midshipman. You know, you gotta, you can't.

587
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 2: You got to give him a better gig. So Jack

588
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 2: gets promoted and he actually likes his new job. Things

589
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 2: are going well until his boat, the har which announces

590
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 2: their next mission is going to take five years. And

591
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 2: again he's pretty sure he's going to marry this this kid,

592
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 2: right who is by this point he's a little older enough,

593
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 2: she's fifteen now, and he goes to her parents, and

594
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 2: they're like, never come here again, right.

595
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:00,719
Speaker 3: When you get married to leave for haaf decade. It's

596
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 3: probably not best pitch.

597
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 2: It's not a good pitch. So John goes kind of

598
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 2: crazy and he tries to desert from the harwitch. He

599
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 2: gets caught, and he gets punished, And here's done describing

600
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 2: what happens to him after he gets caught trying to

601
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 2: go a wall. All three hundred and fifty of the

602
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 2: crew were assembled on deck to witness Newton's court martial

603
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 2: and flogging. The captain was determined to make an example

604
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 2: of him and so discourage any other malcontents from thoughts

605
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,719
Speaker 2: of desertion. He was stripped and lashed to a grating

606
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 2: give him the first dozen The catannine tail swung repeatedly,

607
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 2: lashing his bare back until his white skin was red

608
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 2: with lacerated flesh. His audience watched in sickened silence. One

609
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 2: young marine fainted. Lash after lash pounded his torn back

610
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 2: eight dozen strokes in all, Stripped of rank and degraded

611
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 2: to his original position. His former comrades now dared not

612
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 2: even acknowledge that they had ever known him, and were

613
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 2: forbidden by the captain to have any communication with him.

614
00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 2: So this fucks him up, This leaves something, This does

615
00:31:54,360 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 2: some damage to our right I can imagine? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

616
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 2: And that's a lot of lashes.

617
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, rightly, that's like a potentially dying from loss of

618
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 3: blood amount of lashes.

619
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's because he's trying to make an example

620
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 2: of him, right. So Newton's not happy after this. He

621
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 2: makes plans to murder the captain and then kill himself,

622
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 2: but he never goes through with it. Instead, he manages

623
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 2: to use his clout to transfer to his dad's cloud

624
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 2: to transfer to a different boat, the Pegasus, which is

625
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 2: a slave ship working the you know, the doing the

626
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 2: slave trade thing, right, So this is how he starts

627
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 2: working on a slave boat, but he doesn't like it immediately.

628
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 2: It proves a worse fit than the Harwitch at first,

629
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 2: because Newton is by this point an angry atheist and

630
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 2: his main hobby when they're not working is making fun

631
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 2: of everyone else's religion and then trying to commit convince

632
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 2: them to commit sins. Right, and this does not make

633
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 2: him popular with the crew. Yeah, people don't like it

634
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 2: when you're stuck on a boat together and you keep

635
00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 2: calling him stupid for believing in whatever they believe in. Yeah,

636
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 2: so he gets left in West Africa. It's a little

637
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 2: unclear do they fully strand him or there is partly

638
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 2: It seems to have been somewhat mutual. Dunn's book suggests

639
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 2: Newton makes a There's a passenger on board is a

640
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 2: slave dealer named Amos Klow, and Newton's like, shit, being

641
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 2: a slave dealer, I could just get rich, you know,

642
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 2: and then I could go home and I can marry

643
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 2: that teenager. Right, you just do some slave dealing for

644
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 2: a few years and then marry that teenage Carol. I like, yeah,

645
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 2: perfect plan. So Amos is like, well, I I'm heading

646
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 2: back home and hang out at home for a while.

647
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 2: I live on this island off the coast to Africa.

648
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 2: You want to come, like, chill with me. I'll teach

649
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 2: you the ropes, right, And I think Klow sort of

650
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 2: cons Newton, right, because when they get dropped off at

651
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 2: this island, the only people there are Chlo his mistress

652
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 2: slash wife, who's apparently a princess in a local tribe.

653
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 2: I don't know if they're telling the truth about this.

654
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 2: I don't know Newton's telling the truth about this. He's

655
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 2: not a perfectly reliable narrator, but basically he's on an

656
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:08,839
Speaker 2: island with a slave dealer, his wife, and their household right,

657
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 2: and his wife does not like Newton. She immediately hates

658
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 2: this guy as dun rights. Klow immediately set him to

659
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 2: work building a house, though he refused to pay Newton

660
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:22,919
Speaker 2: any wage at all for his hard work. Klow's lady

661
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 2: had no liking for Newton and viewed him with suspicion

662
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 2: and hostility. The combination of climate and hard manual labor

663
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 2: soon took its toll. In the nineteen year old succumbed

664
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 2: to fever. Newton was too ill to accompany Klow on

665
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 2: his next trip and was left in his wife's care.

666
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 2: Far from looking after him, she virtually left him to die.

667
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 2: I had sometimes not a little difficulty to procure a

668
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:44,840
Speaker 2: draft of water when burning with fever. My bed was

669
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:47,319
Speaker 2: a mat spread upon a board or chest, and a

670
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:50,240
Speaker 2: log of wood for my pillow. She lived in plenty herself,

671
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 2: but hardly allowed me sufficient to sustain life, except now

672
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 2: and then, when in the highest good humor, she would

673
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 2: send me victuals in her own plate after she had

674
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 2: dined again. I don't know if he's lying because he

675
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 2: just didn't like this lady. I don't know if this

676
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 2: is true the way he describes it. He's basically made

677
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 2: into a forced laborer for a period of time by

678
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 2: a black woman primarily, so again I don't know. But

679
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 2: also she's the wife of a slave dealer, and I

680
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 2: could totally believe a slave deal would be like, yeah, man,

681
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 2: i'll teach you the ropes, but first you got to

682
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 2: build a house for free and then just leave. Right.

683
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: That also doesn't seem possible. So yeah, I don't know.

684
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 2: One's a good person here, right, Yeah, unclear to me

685
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:34,959
Speaker 2: what the truth is here, but this is his story, right,

686
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 2: And if this is true, you might think the experience

687
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 2: would have made him more sympathetic to people who were enslaved,

688
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 2: but it does not, at least not immediately after he's rescued,

689
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 2: because his dad sends a rescue when he finds out

690
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 2: what's happened. He had saved in seventeen forty eight and

691
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 2: kind of on the journey back to England, his boat

692
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 2: encounters a storm or something is another near death experience,

693
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 2: and he converts back to Christianity. Right, So he lands

694
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 2: in Liverpool and As soon as he's back, he immediately

695
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 2: gets a job on a different slave ship. He becomes

696
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 2: first mate due to nepotism. His dad's influence is apparently

697
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 2: pretty far reaching, and starts his career right in seventeen fifty.

698
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 2: After just two years, he's made captain and he leads

699
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 2: three successful voyages before having a stroke in seventeen fifty four,

700
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 2: which forces him to quit captaining slave ships, but he

701
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 2: starts just taking the money he hasn't investing in slave

702
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 2: ships now, right, and that's how he makes his money

703
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 2: for a while, right, Okay, So his life goes on

704
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 2: at this point. He's guilty, not because of the slaving initially,

705
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 2: but because of his years as a non believer, and

706
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 2: this eventually pushes him to become a reverend and fulfill

707
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:44,919
Speaker 2: his mother's hopes for him that he would you get

708
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 2: into the clergy and make a religion his life. And

709
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 2: over the course of years he starts to rethink a

710
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,399
Speaker 2: lot of the things that he'd accepted as a younger man.

711
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 2: I don't know when he becomes an abolitionist exactly. I

712
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:02,719
Speaker 2: think it's the kind of thing that happened in stages, right,

713
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 2: But by the late seventeen eighties, he had fully rejected

714
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 2: his past life, describing it as an unhappy and disgraceful

715
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 2: trade that stood against the feelings of humanity and was

716
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 2: ashamed of the entire country. Right, he writes pretty like

717
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 2: clearly about like, it was a terrible thing I did.

718
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:23,320
Speaker 2: It's a terrible thing that still exists. I can't believe

719
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 2: I did it. It's completely contrary to my current beliefs. Right, Like.

720
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 2: That's essentially his line from this point forward.

721
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:29,399
Speaker 1: Right.

722
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 2: And Newton, by the time that he comes out against slavery,

723
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,879
Speaker 2: is a fairly prominent religious leader. He's kind of controversial

724
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 2: for reasons I don't fully understand very Anglican stuff. But

725
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 2: he's also fairly prominent and a lot of people respect him.

726
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 2: And one of the people who respects him is a

727
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 2: young politician, William Wilberforce, who comes to meet with him

728
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty five, right, not about slavery, just because

729
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 2: he needs advice, and Newton becomes his mentor.

730
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: Right.

731
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 2: But this is a two way street, and as Wilberforce

732
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:00,279
Speaker 2: grows more involved in the fight against slavery, seems to

733
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 2: have influenced Newton to write an account of his own

734
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 2: experience as a captain in the slave trade, which hit

735
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 2: at a perfect time to shock and horrify Britons. Newton

736
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 2: wrote unsparingly about how most slave ship captains governed through ferociousness,

737
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 2: both against their crews and the chained humans kept below decks.

738
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 2: So much money was at stake, and insurrection was such

739
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 2: a constant terror that cruelty was seen as pragmatic. He

740
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 2: described how sailors were whipped bloody and had their wounds

741
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,719
Speaker 2: rubbed with pickle spices. He discussed how an obsession with

742
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 2: maximizing profit led captains to cram their boats with every

743
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 2: kind of merchandise they could find, further cramping the already

744
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:36,840
Speaker 2: pestilential confines of the slavehold, and leading many captains to

745
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 2: bring insufficient amounts of food and water, working their crews

746
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 2: and keeping their slaves at the brink of famine. He

747
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 2: described how women were loaded onto slave ships naked, trembling, terrified,

748
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 2: perhaps almost exhausted with cold, fatigue, and hunger as they

749
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 2: were forced below decks. These women were exposed to the

750
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 2: wanton rudeness of white savages. And he's, you know, he's

751
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:00,640
Speaker 2: talking about the sexual violence that occurs here right in

752
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 2: a way that's palatable for this audience, But that's what

753
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 2: he's talking.

754
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 3: Yeah.

755
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:08,240
Speaker 2: Newton expressed revulsion that I was once an active instrument

756
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:11,799
Speaker 2: in a business which at which my heart now shudders. So,

757
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:14,919
Speaker 2: while the Sons of Africa are lobbying and Newton's book

758
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 2: is starting to like fly off the shelves, Clarkson is

759
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 2: spending several years engaged in deep on the ground investigation,

760
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 2: traveling to Liverpool and other key ports for the slave trade,

761
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:28,280
Speaker 2: where he would sneak aboard to document living conditions, conduct

762
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:31,399
Speaker 2: interviews with sailors and auctioneers, and generally gather as much

763
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 2: documentation as he could about the ongoing crime against humanity.

764
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 2: And he's in a lot of danger doing this. He

765
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 2: has to have a bodyguard with him. After a certain

766
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,799
Speaker 2: point he was like armed, right, because people want to

767
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:44,360
Speaker 2: kill him for what he's doing. He's talking with the money.

768
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he's fucking with the bag. That's what a

769
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 3: remarkable transformation.

770
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, from like a kid who wanted to be

771
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 2: a reverend to he's now doing like dangerous investigative journalism,

772
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 2: trying to like blow the lid on the most evil

773
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 2: industry of the day. Right, that's really a lot of

774
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 2: what's going on here, you know.

775
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, remarkable, Yeah.

776
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 2: Per that article in antislavery dot Org, Clarkson himself had

777
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 2: carried out interviews with sailors in London, Bristol and Liverpool

778
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 2: to document the conditions and treatment African slaves were forced

779
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 2: to endure. In Liverpool, Clarkson bought shackles, thumbscrews, and a

780
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,800
Speaker 2: device for force feeding slaves who went on hunger strike

781
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 2: to provide physical evidence which confirmed the testimonies he collected.

782
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 2: Clarkson and a friend, Richard Phillips, also went through official

783
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 2: records which allowed them to document exactly what happened to

784
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 2: British sailors on slave ships. On average, twenty percent of

785
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:38,040
Speaker 2: each ship's crew died from disease or ill treatment before

786
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 2: the ship returned. Of the five thousand sailors engaged in

787
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 2: the British slave trade in seventeen eighty six, two thousand,

788
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 2: three hundred and twenty came home, eleven hundred and thirty died,

789
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:50,720
Speaker 2: eighty were discharged in Africa and unaccounted for, and fourteen

790
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,359
Speaker 2: hundred seventy were discharged or deserted in the West Indies like.

791
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,920
Speaker 3: Which is it's a pretty remarkable attrition rate, right, You're

792
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 3: getting less than hoff them back.

793
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's nuts. Like, that's a crazy rate of death.

794
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 2: And again, I know, like the instinct is not when

795
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:09,799
Speaker 2: we're talking about slavery to feel bad for the poor

796
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 2: slave ship crews. But again, a lot of these guys

797
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:14,439
Speaker 2: are forced to work. They're pres gagged, right, they don't

798
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 2: have much of a choice here r either, and they're being

799
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 2: worked to death in a nightmare right, Like this is

800
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:25,720
Speaker 2: a pretty bad situation all around here. It's also important,

801
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:30,240
Speaker 2: Like this matters in part because of how they're talking,

802
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:33,760
Speaker 2: how the pro slavery side of things is talking about

803
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 2: what the slave trey does for British sailors. Right, Britain

804
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 2: is a naval power. The navy is what keeps Britain

805
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 2: free and what keeps it influential. And one of the

806
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 2: arguments the pro slavery side will make is that like, well,

807
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 2: these slave ships are a great training ground for British sailors. Right,

808
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 2: this is actually important to national defense because all of

809
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 2: these guys are learning the ropes of how to work

810
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 2: in very difficult conditions that can then come and fill

811
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 2: our navy with skilled sailors and that makes all of

812
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 2: us safer, right, And Clarkson's research proves that's a lie,

813
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 2: because it's like, no, man, they're all fucking dying, like

814
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:05,320
Speaker 2: they're being forced to work. They don't want to be sailors,

815
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 2: and you're killing half of them. This is not making

816
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 2: the navy stronger. You're fucking crazy, Like, yeah, no one's

817
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:15,400
Speaker 2: gonna want to be a fucking sailor. Off to haffa

818
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:19,399
Speaker 2: friends die. But again, this is a career for me. Yeah,

819
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 2: you know, I want to do again. Get on another

820
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:26,320
Speaker 2: death boat, this one with guns, so that you add

821
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 2: fighting to that, it's not gonna get better. Yeah, boy,

822
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:30,959
Speaker 2: if you the only thing could have made that trip

823
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:32,879
Speaker 2: that killed all my friends better is if we'd fought

824
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 2: the French at some point. So Clarkson also be friends

825
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:40,240
Speaker 2: some of his sources. One of them is a sailor

826
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 2: named James Stanfield who'd worked on slave ships, and he

827
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 2: convinces Stanfield to publish an account of his experiences in

828
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 2: the slave trade, which also comes out in seventeen eighty eight.

829
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 2: So alongside Newton's account, you've got this kind of barrage

830
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,399
Speaker 2: of both the Sons of Africa's accounts of what it's

831
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 2: like being enslaved and being a victim of this system.

832
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 2: And then on the other side the people actual working

833
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 2: the ships who are also being no, no, no, this is

834
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 2: as bad as they're saying. And I used to run

835
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 2: the boats like that. All matters. It matters that it

836
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:10,839
Speaker 2: comes out this way like that makes this a lot

837
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 2: more convincing. Clarkson inspires another writer, Alexander Falconbridge, to investigate

838
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 2: and publish an account of the slave trade that was

839
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 2: also released that year. Educated Britons were thus deluged and

840
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 2: detailed reputable accounts about the evils of the system. William Wilberforce,

841
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,520
Speaker 2: the Member of Parliament that is like the major act

842
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 2: like activist in Parliament, is inspired that year by Clarkson's

843
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:35,720
Speaker 2: essay to sponsor a bill in the House of Commons

844
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 2: to ban the slave trade. This led to the first

845
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:41,879
Speaker 2: parliamentary investigation into the Atlantic slave trade, which in turn

846
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 2: inspired the slave syndicates and their agents in the West

847
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 2: India Committee, an organization that still exists today but was

848
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 2: founded to provoke trade with the Caribbean to strike back.

849
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 2: It's still around, but at this point it's just how

850
00:43:55,120 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 2: slave owners like do their propaganda. It's amazing. What does

851
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 2: it do now? I think it's just about promoting trade

852
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 2: with the Caribbean.

853
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 3: I guess okay, But if they didn't see any need

854
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 3: to like shut that one down.

855
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 2: One yeah, imagine getting onboarded there and being like, so, yeah,

856
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 2: how did this start? Well started in seventeen thirty five?

857
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, doing what well? He needs to talk about that? Yeah,

858
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 2: I don't really think about it.

859
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 3: They don't have the old photos on the walls as

860
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:30,879
Speaker 3: you go in, you know, they pick up a bit later.

861
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, wild, Well, you know what else picks up a

862
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 2: little later, the products and services that support the show. Hymns.

863
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:51,320
Speaker 2: That's right, yep, hymns. So we're talking about the the

864
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:55,239
Speaker 2: pro slavery lobby striking back via the West India Committee.

865
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 2: The committee brings witnesses before Parliament who make claims that,

866
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 2: like one of their big claims is that slave ships

867
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:02,799
Speaker 2: are actually really nice. Like, I don't know what you

868
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 2: guys are talking about. I would love to be in

869
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 2: a slave ship, honestly. They just won't let me on,

870
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 2: right because I'm not a slave. So they bring on

871
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 2: They bring out a captain who says the space between

872
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 2: the decks is sufficiently large to contain the number of

873
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 2: people loaded on board, and the slaves in general do

874
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 2: not show any great concern on their first coming on board.

875
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 2: They're comfortably lodged in rooms fitting for them. When they

876
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:26,960
Speaker 2: come on deck, there are two minut attending with cloths

877
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 2: to rub them perfectly dry, in another to give them

878
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:32,800
Speaker 2: a little cordial. They are amused with instruments of music

879
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 2: peculiar to their own country, and when tired of music

880
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:38,280
Speaker 2: and dancing, they go to games of chance. It's basically

881
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:40,799
Speaker 2: a cruise. You give them a little drink. Yeah, they

882
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:44,799
Speaker 2: still getting out a cruise. Yeah, what a fucking insane

883
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 2: thing to say. Yeah, and they have they also bring

884
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 2: on like plantation owners who are like they love working

885
00:45:51,160 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 2: on plantations. They barely even work. They're dancing all the time, dancing. Yeah.

886
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:03,360
Speaker 2: So the society and its allies fight back with skilled

887
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 2: propaganda of their own, as well as factual legal arguments.

888
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 2: Josiah Wedgwood, an anti slavery activist, hires a woodworker to

889
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,840
Speaker 2: make a seal for the movement, which features an African

890
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 2: man kneeling and raising his chained hands above the slogan

891
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 2: am I not a man? And a brother. This becomes

892
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:22,800
Speaker 2: the logo of the movement, and it goes like really

893
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 2: eighteenth century viral. It is printed on flyers and books

894
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 2: and sold and medallions will show you a picture of

895
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:31,960
Speaker 2: like it's like a medallion some of the merch that

896
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 2: they had for this. But like, you know, it's a

897
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 2: very effective piece of visual advertising art. I mean, it's yeah,

898
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:42,840
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly what you want to categorize it,

899
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 2: but yeah, perhaps the most influential image in the whole

900
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 2: campaign is a diagram of a slave ship sent to

901
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 2: Clarkson by an abolitionist group in Plymouth, Massachusetts. And one

902
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:56,120
Speaker 2: thing you're seeing here is the abolisious movement in the

903
00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 2: States is much less advanced, but they're starting to not

904
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:02,879
Speaker 2: just get things organized, but they're also connecting from an

905
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 2: early point directly across the sea. This is a from

906
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:11,439
Speaker 2: fairly early point an international cause, right among these abolitionists, right,

907
00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 2: And so these these folks in Plymouth send a diagram

908
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 2: of like a slave ship's slave quarters in and it

909
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 2: becomes one of the most important pieces of like propaganda

910
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:26,760
Speaker 2: that they the anti slavery cause uses. Per the website

911
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,080
Speaker 2: antislavery dot org, they sent clarkson a plate or diagram

912
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 2: of a slave ship the Brooks, which showed sections of

913
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 2: the ship from different angles and graphically illustrated how inhumane

914
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 2: the conditions were for the slaves. Clark's and another abolitionists

915
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 2: reworked the diagram to show the books loaded with four

916
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:43,839
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty two slaves. The ship had carried over

917
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:45,759
Speaker 2: six hundred slaves in the past, but they did not

918
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 2: want to be accused of exaggeration. In seventeen eighty nine

919
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:51,279
Speaker 2: they printed seven thousand posters of the slave ship, and

920
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 2: soon the shocking and iconic image was appearing everywhere. And

921
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:57,840
Speaker 2: I mean you can see in the image there, particularly

922
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 2: the bottom right corner, it's the the bottom of this

923
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 2: vessel is almost black with the number of people drawn

924
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,920
Speaker 2: in just because like they're covering every available and there's

925
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 2: no room in this thing whatsoever.

926
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 3: No, Like they're actually like sardines in account of sardines, right, they're.

927
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 2: Like, and this isn't the fullest yeah yeah yeah, front

928
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 2: to head, Yeah.

929
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 3: I had fifty percent more people than this.

930
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah at times, yeah.

931
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's there. Yeah, they're geometrically max like that. They'll

932
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:29,839
Speaker 3: try and at the top there it's it's wild think

933
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 3: of packing human beings.

934
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:32,360
Speaker 1: And like that.

935
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you can see why people are getting pissed

936
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:38,880
Speaker 2: and why this starts to have an effect. By the

937
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 2: start of seventeen eighty nine, nearly two hundred petitions had

938
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 2: been sent to Parliament, with tens of thousands of cumulative signatures.

939
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:48,799
Speaker 2: Popular momentum is clearly with the cause of abolition, but

940
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 2: the society's progress was interrupted by a constitutional crisis over

941
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 2: whether or not King George was crazy. So we're not

942
00:48:56,040 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 2: going to get into that. But it does, it does, degree,

943
00:48:58,680 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 2: it does.

944
00:48:59,120 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 1: Uh.

945
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 2: It puts a stafford of things for a little while, right,

946
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 2: great city, and the answer is yeah, yeah, they're all

947
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 2: kind of crazy. Exp's all kind of crazy, centuries, all

948
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 2: mad King George. So things grind to a halt for

949
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 2: a little while until in late seventeen ninety one, the

950
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:21,959
Speaker 2: Haitian Rebellion launches in Sanda Mang right, and two months later,

951
00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 2: former slaves are in charge of much of the island.

952
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 2: Thousands of white slavers are dead, more than a thousand

953
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 2: plantations have been looted, and white people who are pro

954
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 2: slavery are kind of freaking out about this. Right, Parliament

955
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 2: doggedly refuses to consider outlawing slavery. But the success I

956
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 2: was surprised to hear this. The success of the rebellion,

957
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 2: its primary influence on like in England, is to fuel

958
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 2: abolitionist sentiment, because a lot of people instead of being like,

959
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 2: oh my god, it's so scary look at like this

960
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:50,320
Speaker 2: uprising and what they did, they're like, wait, it's the

961
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:52,799
Speaker 2: only way we can keep these people slaved is by

962
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 2: like holding guns at them at all times? Is this evil?

963
00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:59,879
Speaker 2: Is this bad? They don't see them happy over there?

964
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:03,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think they're really all going on a cruise.

965
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:07,840
Speaker 2: They burned a lot of plantations. If they like plantations,

966
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 2: I don't know why they do that, if they're fans

967
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 2: of them. She just seems like they weren't having a

968
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:16,799
Speaker 2: nice time. Yeah. That same year, seventeen ninety one, a

969
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:20,360
Speaker 2: series of popular pamphlets incite a boycott of sugar produced

970
00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:23,560
Speaker 2: on slave plantations, and incredibly, some three hundred thousand people

971
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:26,440
Speaker 2: get on board. This is like a big deal. William

972
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 2: Wilberforce cat Yeah, which is like, yeah, good thing to

973
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:33,439
Speaker 2: be boycotting. Yep, yeah, go for it.

974
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:37,160
Speaker 3: But it's very early for that kind of humor activism

975
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:39,239
Speaker 3: to be. Yeah, you know, it's so so effective.

976
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:41,880
Speaker 2: This is pretty foundational in a lot of ways. And

977
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:46,279
Speaker 2: just like the history of Western activism. William Wilberforce capitalized

978
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:48,960
Speaker 2: on the new found momentum in seventeen ninety two, introducing

979
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 2: a new bill to abolish the slave trade. This time,

980
00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 2: public support was so strong that parliamentarians actually feared opposing

981
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 2: the bill. They didn't want to pass it because again, money,

982
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 2: but they were scared to piss people while off right,

983
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:04,160
Speaker 2: which is an important sea change. It passes the House

984
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:07,760
Speaker 2: of Commons in a compromised form, right, and the version

985
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:11,960
Speaker 2: that passes has an amendment that says will gradually abolish slavery. Right,

986
00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:14,000
Speaker 2: We're not going to do it all at once, right. Yeah,

987
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:16,960
Speaker 2: But it doesn't get through anyway because the lord, the

988
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 2: House of Lords, has a say and they block the

989
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:20,880
Speaker 2: bill because they're the House of Lords.

990
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:21,439
Speaker 1: Right.

991
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 2: It's it's them all the assholes in it. Yeah, but

992
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 2: that's not fair. You're right, you're right, it has a

993
00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:34,239
Speaker 2: higher portion of assholes in it.

994
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 3: Right.

995
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:39,240
Speaker 2: In seventeen ninety three, war with France interrupts the anti

996
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 2: slavery cause. Again. The whole you know, that Napoleon stuff

997
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 2: is getting going, and it makes it hard to want

998
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 2: to do things that might upset the economics of the

999
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:52,680
Speaker 2: entire empire, like when they're now fighting a series of wars,

1000
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:54,839
Speaker 2: and now, you know, because the war is on, there's

1001
00:51:54,840 --> 00:51:58,239
Speaker 2: anti sedition laws that makes it difficult to organize during

1002
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:01,200
Speaker 2: the war years. So this is it again and another

1003
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:04,279
Speaker 2: kind of like period of time in which things get

1004
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:08,080
Speaker 2: delayed and off track in terms of the abolitionist cause.

1005
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 2: But history keeps happening, and during the war years there's

1006
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:14,040
Speaker 2: a series of slave rebellions in the Caribbean.

1007
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:14,399
Speaker 3: Right.

1008
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 2: They're not as successful as the Haitian one, but they

1009
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:20,160
Speaker 2: keep the human and financial cost of forcing slavery on

1010
00:52:20,200 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 2: Africans in the public consciousness. People are constantly hearing, oh,

1011
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 2: a bunch more people died in this horrible slave uprising. Right,

1012
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:31,440
Speaker 2: they really don't seem happy, you know. By eighteen oh six,

1013
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 2: it's time for things to move forward again. And finally

1014
00:52:35,719 --> 00:52:38,400
Speaker 2: the Abolition of Slave of the Slave Trade Act is

1015
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,319
Speaker 2: passed on March twenty fifth in eighteen oh seven, which

1016
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:44,480
Speaker 2: brings an immediate band to the Atlantic slave trade. The

1017
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 2: Royal Navy is now pressed into service searching for slave vessels. Right,

1018
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 2: So this is the culmination of Sharp and Clarkson and

1019
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 2: Equiano and Newton and all of these people's efforts. Is

1020
00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 2: they ban the slave the Atlantics the slave trade right

1021
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:03,760
Speaker 2: in teen oh seven within the empire, right, you cannot

1022
00:53:04,040 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 2: British ships are no longer supposed to be taking slaves

1023
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:09,440
Speaker 2: and they're not supposed to be importing them to British colonies.

1024
00:53:09,480 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 1: Right.

1025
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:13,880
Speaker 2: This is again not enough. You know, this is not

1026
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 2: at all an end of slavery. There's still slavery in

1027
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:19,560
Speaker 2: the empire, but it's the beginning of the end for

1028
00:53:19,640 --> 00:53:22,239
Speaker 2: slavery within the empire, and it's the end of the

1029
00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 2: beginning for the abolitionist fight.

1030
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 1: Now.

1031
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 2: There is one of the downsides is because this is

1032
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:31,200
Speaker 2: a big victory, there's a loss of momentum within the cause,

1033
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 2: right because people are like, well, isn't that enough? A

1034
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:36,959
Speaker 2: sizeable chunk of people are Sharp is not, Clarkson isn't.

1035
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 2: But a lot of people are like, I feel like

1036
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:44,200
Speaker 2: we did okay, you know, move on to something else. Yeah.

1037
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 2: So there's a loss of momentum. But abolitionists, the most

1038
00:53:47,040 --> 00:53:49,799
Speaker 2: dedicated ones do continue to mobilize and fight well, the

1039
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:53,480
Speaker 2: British government uses its power to pressure other European states

1040
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 2: to pass laws prohibiting the slave trade. And this is

1041
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:56,439
Speaker 2: happening at the time.

1042
00:53:56,520 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 1: Right.

1043
00:53:56,920 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 2: It starts with just being a British thing, but they

1044
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 2: are a to get other European states to sign on

1045
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:04,759
Speaker 2: to basically saying yeah, we're not going to participate in

1046
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:07,600
Speaker 2: this anymore. Right, And that is an important step too

1047
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 2: towards full abolition. It's going to take until eighteen thirty

1048
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 2: three for slavery to be abolished in the British Empire.

1049
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:16,239
Speaker 2: And that is another story that we're not because is

1050
00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:21,800
Speaker 2: again about the slave trade being ended. But that fact,

1051
00:54:21,800 --> 00:54:23,799
Speaker 2: the fact that they do abolish slavery in eighteen thirty

1052
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:27,399
Speaker 2: three is directly tied to the abolition of the slave trade. Right.

1053
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:30,760
Speaker 2: And even this act is imperfect. You know, when slavery's abolished,

1054
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:34,160
Speaker 2: slave owners are compensated financially for the slaves they don't

1055
00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 2: have anymore, which is not great, but it's better than

1056
00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:42,160
Speaker 2: the situation that it existed previously, and it provides a

1057
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 2: shot in the arm to the abolitionist cause in the

1058
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 2: United States. And in fact, everything we've talked about in

1059
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:49,839
Speaker 2: these episodes helps to form and inspire the abolitionists who

1060
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:53,359
Speaker 2: fought to end slavery in the US. Granville Sharp, our

1061
00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:56,360
Speaker 2: Goat never lives to see full abolition, but he plays

1062
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 2: a major role in the eighteen oh seven abolition of

1063
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:01,400
Speaker 2: the slave trade, and he lived to see that it

1064
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:04,000
Speaker 2: comes at the end of forty two years of ceaseless

1065
00:55:04,040 --> 00:55:06,239
Speaker 2: work on his behalf. By the end of his life,

1066
00:55:06,320 --> 00:55:08,680
Speaker 2: Sharp was one of the most admired men in the world.

1067
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:11,880
Speaker 2: John Adams wrote that he quote merited the esteem and

1068
00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:14,960
Speaker 2: respect of all men among whom liberty and humanity are

1069
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:19,920
Speaker 2: not disregarded. He dies in eighteen thirteen, aged seventy seven.

1070
00:55:20,239 --> 00:55:24,200
Speaker 2: His protege, Thomas Clarkson, continued the fight and saw it

1071
00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:27,360
Speaker 2: through to the general abolition of slavery in the Empire.

1072
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,959
Speaker 2: After that was done, he devoted himself seamlessly to ending

1073
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:33,680
Speaker 2: slavery in the Americas. Clarkson's like, okay, we got that done.

1074
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:35,799
Speaker 2: Time to get over to the States. Like that's the

1075
00:55:35,840 --> 00:55:39,319
Speaker 2: next fight, right, what a chain? Yeah yeah, what a

1076
00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:43,719
Speaker 2: cool guy? Are really forty dude? Yeah yeah? Oh glad

1077
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:46,160
Speaker 2: he went for that horse ride. The note we end

1078
00:55:46,160 --> 00:55:48,200
Speaker 2: on is so fucking cool. I can't wait to read

1079
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:51,320
Speaker 2: it to you here, but yeah. So in eighteen forty,

1080
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 2: the first World Anti Slavery Convention is held in London.

1081
00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 2: To commemorate the event, a painting is commissioned by one

1082
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 2: of the best known British artists of the day, JMW.

1083
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:03,239
Speaker 2: Turn Inspired by Clarkson's writing and the horrible case of

1084
00:56:03,239 --> 00:56:07,680
Speaker 2: the Zorg, Turner made a painting called Slavers Throwing Overboard

1085
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:10,239
Speaker 2: the Dead and Dying, which Sophie's going to show you.

1086
00:56:10,239 --> 00:56:12,799
Speaker 2: It's a very affecting piece and it's yes, I mean

1087
00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:15,360
Speaker 2: it's not directly named after the Zorg, but it's people

1088
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:18,279
Speaker 2: being throwed. It's enslave people pink thrown overboard to die

1089
00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:21,960
Speaker 2: in the ocean. Right, And this is kind of like

1090
00:56:22,080 --> 00:56:25,320
Speaker 2: the the head image of the conference, right to remind

1091
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 2: people again, they're hearkening back to the Zorg. To remind

1092
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:30,319
Speaker 2: people of the inhumanity of what they're fighting for. Because

1093
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 2: it is such a difficult fight and a painful fight,

1094
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:36,760
Speaker 2: you need to do that, right. Clarkson gives the keynote

1095
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:39,760
Speaker 2: speech at this conference and he urges his American allies

1096
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:42,160
Speaker 2: to continue their fight against the planters in the South

1097
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 2: and persevere to the last. In their quest to abolish slavery.

1098
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:49,120
Speaker 2: Six years later, at another abolition movement gathering near the

1099
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:52,520
Speaker 2: very end of his life, Clarkson meets with Frederick Douglas

1100
00:56:52,520 --> 00:56:56,240
Speaker 2: and William Lloyd Garrison. Douglas viewed Clarkson as a hero,

1101
00:56:56,440 --> 00:56:59,280
Speaker 2: and he wrote later about the moment that he met Clarkson,

1102
00:56:59,320 --> 00:57:01,800
Speaker 2: and this is the most affecting things I have ever read.

1103
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:06,239
Speaker 2: This is Frederick Douglas talking about meeting Clarkson. He took

1104
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:08,319
Speaker 2: one of my hands with both of his, and in

1105
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:11,960
Speaker 2: a tremulous voice, said, God bless you, Frederick Douglas. I

1106
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:14,480
Speaker 2: have given sixty years of my life to the emancipation

1107
00:57:14,560 --> 00:57:16,880
Speaker 2: of your people, and if I had sixty years more,

1108
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:21,160
Speaker 2: they should all be given to the same cause. Yeah

1109
00:57:21,680 --> 00:57:24,400
Speaker 2: uh wow. And he dies a couple of weeks after this,

1110
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:25,920
Speaker 2: at the age of eighty six.

1111
00:57:26,120 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 3: Geez yeah wow, yeah wow. I want to hear.

1112
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, cool guy, some cool guys in the story.

1113
00:57:36,080 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 1: Yeah nice, you picked, you picked a good story.

1114
00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:42,840
Speaker 2: Uh huh yeah, that last bit gets me.

1115
00:57:43,440 --> 00:57:47,720
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, so that's the wild to think like.

1116
00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:49,960
Speaker 3: And then they did direct link.

1117
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 2: Straight to hand to hand. Yeah yeah, yeah.

1118
00:57:54,160 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 3: For Frederick Douglas too. You know that goes to women's

1119
00:57:57,000 --> 00:57:59,200
Speaker 3: suffraging the civil rights women in the United States, and

1120
00:57:59,240 --> 00:58:02,120
Speaker 3: like things happened in the last two hundred years.

1121
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:06,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all because a lot some a number of people,

1122
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:10,240
Speaker 2: you know, Equiano and Sharp and Clarkson and you know

1123
00:58:10,320 --> 00:58:13,560
Speaker 2: all of their allies. Wilberforce got the ball rolling and

1124
00:58:13,640 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 2: spent years fighting for very little at a time. It

1125
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:19,160
Speaker 2: would have seemed like that constantly, that like, well we

1126
00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:22,280
Speaker 2: got fucking this was years of effort and what did

1127
00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:22,960
Speaker 2: we get, you.

1128
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:26,600
Speaker 3: Know, so much human suffering. In the meantime. It would

1129
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:27,520
Speaker 3: have been so easy.

1130
00:58:27,280 --> 00:58:30,760
Speaker 2: To give up nightmare continuing and just be like it's impotant.

1131
00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:34,320
Speaker 2: Things are just fucked forever. You can't fix any of this.

1132
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 2: But they didn't. Again, Clarkson was fighting sixty years.

1133
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like an entire lifetime of struggle. Yeah, inspiring,

1134
00:58:46,960 --> 00:58:47,600
Speaker 3: very inspiring.

1135
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 1: Sorry, Truman's yelling at me because I'm carrying her sister, not.

1136
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:58,400
Speaker 2: Her, but yep, double dog carry.

1137
00:58:58,520 --> 00:59:01,280
Speaker 1: So this is the last episode of the year. I

1138
00:59:01,280 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: thought the audience deserved and Anderson.

1139
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 2: That's right, you're getting one for me too. I'm tired.

1140
00:59:09,240 --> 00:59:11,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been a long year friends.

1141
00:59:12,080 --> 00:59:12,320
Speaker 2: Yep.

1142
00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:15,280
Speaker 3: Hopefully the next one is better.

1143
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, be the Clarkson you want to see in

1144
00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:26,200
Speaker 2: the world or second Dog Second or someone hit the

1145
00:59:26,280 --> 00:59:28,640
Speaker 2: podcast A second Dog is hit the podcast.

1146
00:59:31,840 --> 00:59:33,520
Speaker 1: James, you want to plug your book one more time?

1147
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:35,400
Speaker 2: I would love to plug my book. Yeah.

1148
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:37,400
Speaker 3: If you want to read more about people who are

1149
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:40,280
Speaker 3: struggling to make the world better, you can buy my book.

1150
00:59:40,280 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 3: You can pre order it now ak press ak Press

1151
00:59:44,600 --> 00:59:46,560
Speaker 3: to org. Slash Against the State will have a link

1152
00:59:46,600 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 3: for you. Book is called Against the State looks at

1153
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 3: the revolutionary struggles in mem Java and in Spain. If

1154
00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:56,240
Speaker 3: you know what roy Java is. You can also listen

1155
00:59:56,280 --> 01:00:00,200
Speaker 3: to Roberts excellent podcast, The Women's War. But I hope

1156
01:00:00,240 --> 01:00:02,200
Speaker 3: that just like this podcast, but book leaves you feeling

1157
01:00:02,320 --> 01:00:06,520
Speaker 3: a little hopeful, and certainly like the time that Robert

1158
01:00:06,520 --> 01:00:09,360
Speaker 3: and I have spent talking to young people fighting fore

1159
01:00:09,360 --> 01:00:11,880
Speaker 3: libration and Mema is one of the things that I

1160
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 3: go back to when I need a little hope these days.

1161
01:00:15,520 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 3: So I hope the book can share some of that

1162
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:18,320
Speaker 3: with all of you.

1163
01:00:19,680 --> 01:00:23,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope that too, And I hope you all

1164
01:00:23,240 --> 01:00:26,720
Speaker 2: have a good whatever you celebrate or don't celebrate, or

1165
01:00:26,800 --> 01:00:30,000
Speaker 2: just a good into December or a good Christmas or

1166
01:00:30,160 --> 01:00:33,960
Speaker 2: if I assume there's other holidays this time of the year, years, whatever.

1167
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:36,760
Speaker 2: Have fun. Yeah, if you don't have to work. That's nice,

1168
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:37,120
Speaker 2: isn't it.

1169
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:39,960
Speaker 1: We'll be back, well, we'll be back with some new

1170
01:00:40,000 --> 01:00:42,280
Speaker 1: episodes in twenty twenty six.

1171
01:00:42,800 --> 01:00:43,480
Speaker 2: Yes, we will.

1172
01:00:43,760 --> 01:00:48,360
Speaker 3: So many new episodes, so many episodes. Bye bye, bye bye.

1173
01:00:51,880 --> 01:00:54,600
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1174
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1175
01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:01,640
Speaker 1: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1176
01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:04,840
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

1177
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:08,960
Speaker 1: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

1178
01:01:09,040 --> 01:01:12,680
Speaker 1: and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash

1179
01:01:12,880 --> 01:01:14,360
Speaker 1: at Behind the Bastards