Home
Introduction
The Docks
Power
Wealth
Trade
Campaigns
Legacy
Activities
Links
Trail Map

Campaigns

Resisting and fighting the slave trade began in Africa when Africans who were attacked by slavers fought back.

Many Africans resisted their capture during the journey to the coast and their mistreatment on board the ships. Some refused to eat, some committed suicide, others tried open rebellion. All these forms of resistance were violently and cruelly treated. Once on the plantations, many slaves continued to resist-some ran away (maroons) , some plotted violent uprisings. Others resisted less openly, by avoiding work, by secretly poisoning their masters' food, by stealing from their masters. Some women even killed their babies rather than have them being born into slavery.

In Europe resistance to the trade was slow to develop. The first stories of what Africa was like said the animals were exotic and the people barbaric savages. The fact that they were not Christians upset many Europeans. It was a long time before Europeans began to realise how varied and complex African culture was and even today a lot of false views are believed about Africa.

This section is about the attitudes towards slavery in Bristol in the eighteenth century and looks at how the battle to abolish slavery was helped by some important individuals before the campaign became more widespread.

Most people felt they could do little to change the system of slavery, many were hostile or indifferent to Africans. In Bristol two religious groups were important in influencing public opinion against the slave trade: the Quakers and the Methodists. When the campaign began one of the main arguments was that the sailors were suffering, although later there was more of an emphasis on the conditions in which enslaved people were kept and made to work.
There were also several cases where black people who had been brought to Britain escaped from masters or mistresses who were abusing them, and were helped by sympathetic people, often Quakers.

Few ordinary British people in the 1700's had money, education or political power, so their first concern was for their own survival. But we have evidence that some working people formed friendships with and even married Africans they met in ports like Bristol.

Dinah's Story, adapted from Hannah More's letters to Horace Walpole (1790)