Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
British Religious Faith and the End of the Slave Trade
British Religious Faith and the End of the Slave Trade
Mar 18, 2025 10:58 AM

We as Americans are very proud of our history. We admire our forefathers who took a stand for liberty to found this great nation, but it would be unwise, as her former colonists, for Americans to overlook the British contribution to human freedom following the events of 1776. Doing so will allow us to understand more fully the role of religion and freedom in our own society.

The beginning of the 19th century was a tumultuous time for those who love liberty. Embroiled in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1793-1815, Great Britain fought and bested every sea power in Europe. With her naval supremacy assured by the victory at Trafalgar in 1805, Britain undertook a new moral enterprise in 1807—the end of the slave trade in the Atlantic.

While Great Britain was the only country with a navy capable of pursuing this endeavor, an underlying question remains unanswered. Why would the British attempt this? Britain was the foremost slave trading power in the two decades preceding the Slave Trade Act of 1807, and her government made tremendous profits by transporting human cargo to the New World. Furthermore, the embattled mitted 13 percent of her navy to a newly formed, “West Africa Squadron” in order to suppress the illicit industry. The squadron would operate until the 1860s and more than 25 percent of its sailors would die, mostly from malaria and yellow fever. Despite these figures, the Royal Navy freed 150,000 Africans from bondage, captured 1,600 slave ships, and burned slave trading depots from the Cape of Good Hope to Morocco, which effectively ended the trans-Atlantic slave trade by 1866.

Many historians look at the end of the slave trade as a form of geopolitical strife, but it seems clear that Britain struggled valiantly for little gain. The cost of maintaining the squadron in waters far from home was immense, and the termination of the trade hurt many merchants as well as the economies of towns such as Liverpool and Bristol.

Militarily, the British government could barely afford to send the squadron in 1807. The Royal Navy was simultaneously blockading all of Napoleon’s possessions in Europe. Plus, the king would call on its Navy to fight the Americans again in 1812, while British merchants consistently required escorts to defend their convoys from enemy warships and privateers. Diplomatically, Britain risked upsetting her fragile alliances with countries like Portugal and Spain (after 1808), who depended on slave labor in their own colonies.

So, what then was their motive if not economic, martial, or diplomatic? The real cause came from mitment to freedom found in religious faith. In looking at the major characters in the movement to end the slave trade, it es very clear that religion played a primary role. Christianity posits that slavery is wrong. It is incongruous with Judeo-Christian principles to own someone made in the image of God, and British abolitionists recognized this.

The Acton Institute diligently portrayed the conduct of British abolitionists like William Wilberforce in its 2008 documentary, The Birth of Freedom, but there is another abolitionist worth mentioning with regard to the slave trade—John Newton. John Newton is probably best known for penning the words to the hymn “Amazing Grace,” but he also captained a slave ship before accepting the tenets of Christianity.

Born in 1725, John Newton spent much of his early life at sea both in the Navy and as a slave trader. After suffering a stroke which confined him to land, he embraced religion and saw the true error of his ways. Newton applied to the Anglican seminary in 1757, and became a priest in 1764. Now totally reformed in his thoughts on slavery, Rev. Newton joined the campaign to end the institution in the British Empire. Working alongside William Wilberforce, Newton produced an anti-slavery tract entitled “Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade” in 1787, and he spent the next twenty years preaching the evils of slavery from a religious prospective. He died six months after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807. From that point forward, trading in human flesh became illegal, and anyone caught engaging in this trade was subject to the gallows or broadsides from His Majesty’s cruisers.

While Americans find pride in their historic break with Britain, they would be wise to learn from Britons like Rev. John Newton and William Wilberforce. A stand for both religion and liberty against a government bent on trampling individual rights and human freedom is stand for all of humanity. The position taken by Newton and Wilberforce caused Parliament to engage in a policy that, while difficult and disadvantageous in the short run, granted freedom to millions around the world. Religious Americans concerned about freedom can, and should, do the same.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Catholicism’s tension with the Enlightenment
In a recent article for The Stream, Acton’s Director of Research, Samuel Gregg asks the question, “Is Catholicism Compatible with the American Experiment?” Gregg cites an article by political philosopher Patrick Deneen who suggested that “the main argument among American Catholics will concern the relationship of modern liberal democracies–and, at a deeper level, the American Founding–with Catholicism.” Gregg doesn’t necessarily disagree with this assertion, but argues that it “reaches further back to the early modern period often called the Enlightenment.”...
Court Rules March for Life Qualifies for Abortifacient Mandate Exemption Based on Moral, Not Just Religious, Objections
Imagine if the government were to tell an organization dedicated to veganism that, because of a new mandate, they must purchase a meat platter to serve at their monthly meetings and that the chair cushions in their conference room must be made of leather. Appalled by this governmental intrusion, the vegans ask to be excluded from the mandate since none of their members wish to eat bologna while sitting on dead cow skin. They also point out that a group...
Subsidizing Subsidiarity: How Conservatives Failed New Orleans
This week marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall on the Gulf Coast. As always happens when remembering suchignominious events, we look back in hindsight to attempt to learn what could have been done differently. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we conservatives will admit that we share some of the blame for the disaster—just not in the way many of us realize. The colossal failures in leadership in the wake of Hurricane Katrina proved once again that,...
Creation Care and Catholic Social Teaching
Pope Francis recently declared September 1 as the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, an annual day of prayer begun by the Orthodox Church in 1989. In conjunction with the event, Catholic Relief Services and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have released “Care for God’s Creation,” the first of a seven-part video series on Catholic social teaching. (Via: Crux) ...
Acton Institute Selected as Templeton Freedom Award Finalist for Poverty Inc. Documentary
The Acton Institute has been named as one of six finalists for this year’s $100,000 Templeton Freedom Award for its documentary film, Poverty, Inc. The announcement of the finalists was made Monday by the Atlas Network, a Washington-based organization that advances the work of market-oriented public policy organizations all over the world. The winner will be selected Nov. 12 in New York. Atlas’ description of Poverty, Inc. says the documentary “provides prehensive perspective on the issue, giving voice to charity...
Video: Wayne Grudem And Barry Asmus On A Solution To The Poverty Of Nations
So far, 2015 has given us our busiest Acton Lecture Series ever, and we’re pleased to share more of it with you today on the PowerBlog. Back on April 16, Acton had the privilegeof hosting Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus, who spoke on the topic of the book they jointly authored,The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution. First, the bios: Wayne Grudem is Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary; he is the author or co-author of...
Can Capitalism Save the Arts?
Capitalism is routinely castigated as an enemy of the arts, with much of the finger-pointing bent toward monsters of profit and efficiency. Other critiques take aim at more systemic features, fearing that the type of industrialization that markets sometimes tend toward will inevitably detach artists from healthy social contexts, sucking dry any potential for flourishing as a result. But what if the opposite is true? I offer the argument over at The Federalist. Free economies introduce their own unique challenges...
The Moral Dimension of Work
“The world is not a parsimonious place, in spite of the dogmas of the ecologists,” says James V. Schall in this week’s Acton Commentary. Our most unsettling economic problems are actually not economic but moral—moral ones that cannot be simply passed on from generation to generation. They need to be chosen and internalized by each person in each generation at the risk of deflecting material goods from their proper purposes. Work likewise is not exclusively for its own sake. Rather...
Psalm 19 and Human Flourishing
The mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles. We seek to articulate a vision of society that is both free and virtuous, the end of which is human flourishing. That phrase—“human flourishing”—has e such a buzzword, though, that it’s in danger of losing any real meaning. As Scott Swain says, “Due to its widespread usage across our culture, its susceptibility to multiple meanings, and its...
Rev. Sirico on Francis’ ‘Year of Mercy’
Pope Francis recently announced a “year of mercy,” making it easier for the Catholic Church to forgive women for having abortions. Acton’s President and Co-founder Robert Sirico went on WSJ Live to discuss this. Watch below: ...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved