Scholar-activist Dr Nathaniel Adam Tobias C̶o̶l̶e̶m̶a̶n̶ delivered a powerful and extensively-researched talk on Britain and the abolition of enslavement, at the @homertonchangemakers #TuesdayConversations last night.
He contrasted the concepts of abolition and amelioration, arguing that Britain's two best-known abolitionists - both Cambridge alums - William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, were in the latter category.
Dr C̶o̶l̶e̶m̶a̶n̶ added that the pair are celebrated precisely because they were less radical than other abolitionists at the time who were also racialised as white.
Wilberforce, credited with driving the 1807 Act through parliament which banned the transportation of captured African people but not the practice of slavery, was in favour of "stop the boats, start the breeding" so that enslaved Africans would be less likely to rebel against their treatment.
Dr C̶o̶l̶e̶m̶a̶n̶ said: "Wilberforce, in 1807, declared that "importations of slaves from Africa would be rendered perfectly unnecessary by the natural increase of their domestic stock." The British movement was less an abolitionist movement to end slavery, no, it was an ameliorationist movement to make slavery 'better.'
"White British men planned to make slavery 'better' again by stopping the boats so that they could start the breeding, from Black women's wombs."
On 2022, Cambridge University published the report Legacies of Enslavement. On 26 February this year, a consultative meeting, held at the Fitzwilliam Museum, discussed how to enact selected recommendations from this report.
The discussion coincided with the start of an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam, entitled 'Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition', which runs until 1 June 2025.
