The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament, by Thomas Clarkson, 1808

TitleThe History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament, by Thomas Clarkson, 1808

ObjectBook in Two Volumes

Dimensions8 ¾ x 5 ½ in.

Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) was a tireless abolitionist in the British Empire. He helped form the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787. In 1789, Clarkson promoted the Committee’s cause by encouraging the sale of the recently published autobiography by the African Olaudah Equiano. Equiano’s first-hand account of the slave trade captured the public consciousness. The diagram shows in dramatic detail the virtual torture that prevailed aboard slave trade ships.