Transatlantic Abolition

The article Transatlantic Abolition deals with the rise of the anti-slavery movements beginning in the 1780's in both the fledgling US and across the Atlantic ocean, primarily in Great Britain. According to the article, a major contributing factor to the anti-slavery movement was the involvement of the Quaker religious sects present in both Great Britain, as well as in the American state of Pennsylvania, whose ideals and value systems held strong convictions regarding the equality of Man. So strong were such convictions that a petition of 273 British Quaker religious members petitioned Great Britain's Parliament to end slavery in 1783, eventually joining other religious sects in the formation of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade just five years later. Such efforts by British Quakers were mirrored in the US by Pennsylvanian counterparts whose Quaker members petitioned the US Congress to immediately end slavery in 1791. Though initially powered by Quaker sentiment, over the next thirty years the anti-slavery movement would gain strength through a growing number of non-Quaker advocates as well as a strong number of women supporters whose aims were to end both the international slave trade as well as slavery itself. Due to the overwhelming number of petitioners (1.3 million) British Parliament passed the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1833. The abolition of slavery in Great Britain prompted American Abolitionist delegates, as well as delegates from France and the West Indies to convene in London to discuss and strategize ways in which to finally end slavery in the rest of Europe and across the Atlantic in America.


Question 1. Even though the Declaration of Independence states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" why do you feel that it was primarily only the Quakers, that initially applied such an ideology to slaves?

Question 2. In your opinion, why did it take only a massive, yet non-violent petition for Britain's Parliament to abolish slavery and an extremely bloody and costly Civil War for America to finally put an end to slavery?