Granville Sharp helped former slaves who were going to be sent to the west Indies as slaves to stay in Britain, as there was no real law about the freedom of slaves in Britain, therefore different judges decided differently on what was to become of the slaves. He also raised British public opinion against slavery.
William Wilberforce fought against slavery by trying government to pass a new law to abolish slavery. He made petitions signed by hundreds of thousands people. He finally succeeded in 1807 after fighting for years.
Black men, often returning from slavery, fought as hard as they could to have slavery abolished. They often knew what slaves had to go through because they themselves had been slaves. Many black people fought for other black people in court, to make sure they would not return to slavery.
Oloudah Equiano was a slave who had fortunately bought his freedom, and returned to Britain. He wrote his famous autobiography about his terrible life, that made people even more aware of the harsh facts of slavery.
In 1791 there was a slave revolt in Haiti. Slave owners were killed, as the slaves had the opportunity to take revenge. Slave owners around the world became worried about they’re slaves doing the same thing. People also said that this was an example of what would happen if slaves were freed, and that slaves had no responsibility and therefore shouldn’t be treated as normal white men.
Britain had made incredible amounts of money out of slaves – trading them and using them. But soon they found out that it was not making any profit on trading and using slaves. As the slaves were not getting paid, they weren’t working very hard. Other countries were producing the same things that the slaves were making, but at a cheaper price. For example, sugar cane could be found in Cuba and Brazil at much lower prices.
