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

by David Olusoga

By 1804 Wilberforce had come to fear that the momentum that had been built up behind the movement in the 1790s had been lost. Nevertheless he introduced yet another abolition bill to Parliament which this time passed through the House of Commons only to be rejected by the House of Lords. In 1805 yet another bill was defeated in the Commons by a narrow margin but that year the political mood began to shift. Decisive victory over the French at Trafalgar strengthened Britain’s military and economic position in the world. Parliament had changed too. Many of the pro-slavery members who had thwarted attempts to prohibit the trade had retired or passed away and the election of 1806 changed the complexion of Parliament. A new, younger generation of parliamentarians took up their places on the benches of the House of Commons and Wilberforce, with the encouragement of the Prime Minister, Lord Grenville, seized the opportunity. After so many parliamentary failures and after years of opposition from the Lords, Wilberforce’s final abolition bill was presented before a Parliament far more sympathetic to his ambitions than any that had been called previously. The bill passed through both houses, receiving the Royal Assent from George III on 25 March 1807, and came into force on 1 January 1808. The British slave trade, begun in the 1660s under King Charles II, had, by this act, been ‘utterly abolished, prohibited and declared to be unlawful’.21 It has been estimated that between 1789 and ...