Black and British: A Forgotten History, from the acclaimed historian and star of 'Celebrity Traitors'

by David Olusoga

In 1769, he published his book, A Representation of the Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery, or of Admitting the Least Claim of Private Property in the Persons of Men, in England. Arranged across four parts it weaved together case law with notions of natural law and Sharp’s deeply held Christian morality. In it he argued passionately against what he called the toleration of slavery, warning that, ‘If such a toleration would ever be generally admitted in England, (which God forbid!) we shall no longer deserve to be esteemed a civilized people’.16 Sharp predicted that any toleration of slavery in Britain would allow the cancer of unfreedom to spread and undermine the liberties of other groups, ‘when any part of the community, under the pretence of private property, is deprived of this common privilege [rights under the law], ’tis a violation of civil liberty, which is entirely inconsistent with the social principles of a free state. True liberty protects the labourer as well as his lord’.17