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People on pedestals disappoint. Consider the epic and esteemed leaders in the fight against the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce. Statues and monuments revering these leaders for their persistence and coalition building to end the slave trade in the United Kingdom in 1807 dot the landscape. Books, documentaries, and movies tell the story of the slave trade’s abolition, and the accolades are well deserved. What they and their Clapham friends accomplished was brilliant.
Today, Clarkson and Wilberforce hold nearly saint-like status and history has rendered them largely unassailable, but that was not true in real-time. The Anti-Slavery Society they led quickly divided into two factions following the 1807 triumph. Clarkson and Wilberforce believed that once the slave trade ended, the institution of slavery itself would fall in under its own weight over time. Because of this belief, they did not urgently press for the freedom of those still trapped in slavery in the British colonies around the world, thereby earning the term “gradualists” in their fight to end the institution of slavery. Calling someone a “gradualist” is rarely a compliment.
The gradualists’ critics demanded the immediate emancipation of the slaves. They wanted to continue the vigorous campaigning and strategic pressure that ended the slave trade and direct it toward emancipation. Chief among them was a young Quaker widow, Elizabeth Heyrick (born December 4, 1769). She criticized Clarkson and Wilberforce for being too “polite” and “accommodating” of the government and the traffickers. Seventeen years after the abolition of the trade, she penned a persuasive pamphlet, “Immediate, not Gradual Abolition; or, An Inquiry into the shortest, safest, and most effectual means of getting rid of West Indian Slavery.” She defiantly protested and organized for a boycott of slave-produced sugar. She reasoned:
The perpetuation of slavery in our West India colonies, is not an abstract question, to be settled between the Government and planters, — it is a question in which we are all implicated; — we are all guilty, — (with shame and compunction, let us admit the opprobrious truth) of supporting and perpetuating slavery. The West Indian planter and the people of this country stand in the same moral relation to each other, as the thief and the receiver of stolen goods. The planter refuses to set his wretched captive at liberty, — treats him as a beast of burden, — compels his reluctant unremunerated labour under the lash of the cart whip, why? Because we furnish the stimulant to all this injustice, rapacity, and cruelty by purchasing its produce.
Heyrick brought the bright light of moral clarity to the consequences of the British demand for sugar. As her message caught traction, she quickly became a thorn in Wilberforce’s side. She hurled charges that Wilberforce, Clarkson, and the other “gradualists” were too slow and cautious. Annoyed, Wilberforce called for abolitionists to ignore Heyrick.
Despite this, Heyrick’s arguments not only inspired action in the United Kingdom, but also later inspired William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass in the United States. She published many other essays and was a relentless campaigner. Within the Anti-Slavery Society, Heyrick won the day, and the group shifted from a posture of gradualism to immediatism by 1830. Elizabeth Heyrick died on October 18, 1831, and never saw the emancipation of slaves in the United Kingdom in 1833. Yet, it is unlikely the 1833 emancipation would have come when it did without her advocacy.
Clearly, the end of slavery was a relay race, and Clarkson and Wilberforce ran their lap. Without them, Elizabeth Heyrick’s arguments for immediate emancipation would have no foundation. Movements require passing the baton from one set of status-quo-challenging pioneers to the next. History should not place Wilberforce, Clarkson, or Heyrick on a pedestal. They are far too interesting, textured, inspired, and flawed to caricature. Yet, Heyrick deserves her due for running her lap of the race for freedom with a keen intellect and a tenacious work ethic.
Heyrick’s admonitions still sting today as one considers how gradualism with injustice remains present. The world continues to purchase products that the Chinese government forces Uyghur workers to make in Xinxiang, even though there are bipartisan laws prohibiting their importation into the United States. There are countless reports about forced labor in chocolate production, but little consumer demand for legal accountability in the chocolate industry. Sex traffickers’ profits continue to rise despite soaring political rhetoric, in large part because governments fail to hold traffickers and sex buyers accountable. These are not questions to be settled between governments and industries — they are questions “in which we are all implicated.”
Like Heyrick, communities today should reject gradualism and demand increased enforcement of the laws to stop traffickers, care for survivors, and hold companies benefiting from human trafficking responsible. Patience with injustice is no virtue.
By John Richmond
Atlas Free’s Chief Impact Officer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Combat Trafficking
Original article published in Providence Magazine.
