William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce was a person who wanted slavery to be gone. He was against it all. William was a politician and a leader to end the slave trade. The slave trade was made in a way so that people can transport and trade their slaves easily. They also had a triangular route that they strictly went by in order for the plan to work. England at the time was in fact the greatest shipper of slaves and helped provide the other countries with slaves like, the Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and British.

William even became a member in Parliament. Another change he made was converting to Christianity as well in 1785. A couple years later a group that was against slavery encouraged William to join the fight against the slave trade. This group was later known as the Testonites. Of course, some people supported what they were fighting against, and some did not support it. The group was even having some problems with Parliament. Since William converted to Christianity, that kind of kept him motivated to continue the fight.

Another man that had an influence on William was Olaudah Equiano. He was captured as a child and brought to the New World to serve as a slave. He did though, learn how to read and write and even worked very hard to save up to buy his freedom. But still being free, he was being mistreated. Later on he was captured again to be a slave but luckily, he was able to escape. Olaudah even wrote an autobiography about the ups and downs in his life. It became a bestseller and got translated in many different languages. So, when Olaudah met with William Wilberforce he was one of the people who encouraged him to continue the fight against slavery since he knows firsthand what it’s like.

The group first met in 1787, but William only officially joined it in 1791. But overall, the group was very successful in raising awareness for the cause they were fighting. Later on, one of William’s friends William Pitt became Prime Minister in Parliament and was able to introduce an anti-slavery act. It did become noticed but then it kind failed. William Pitt died in 1806 and unfortunately that movement did not get passed.

At this point William Wilberforce had been fighting this cause for a very long time now and even had thoughts of giving up. But, instead of giving up, William thought of another way to attack the problem but not directly. So he wanted to create a Foreign Slave Trade Bill. Instead of going after the Slave Trade, they decided to support British Nationalism. They decided this because since the British Slave Traders were traveling with American colors, they were going to make a bill saying whoever was traveling with American colors was treated as an adversary. Luckily this bill was passed in 1806. So, when they went against the slave trade indirectly, the Parliament liked the idea better.

Later on their was another bill passed that also helped abolish the cause and Slave Trade Act ended on March 25^th 1807, which also ended slavery in Britain.