Premium
Abolishing Cruelty: The Concurrent Growth of Anti‐Slavery and Animal Welfare Sentiment in British and Colonial Literature
Author(s) -
Carey Brycchan
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12686
Subject(s) - cruelty , ethos , sympathy , colonialism , welfare , legislation , history , sociology , law , political science , criminology , psychology , social psychology
This article argues that anti‐slavery and animal welfare writers actively and concurrently extended the boundaries of sympathy to promote an anti‐cruelty ethos that encompassed both suffering animals and suffering people and demanded that this shift in sensibilities be enshrined in legislation. It charts this from the 1680s to the 1770s in pamphlets and novels by Thomas Tryon, Sarah Scott, Humphrey Primatt and Laurence Sterne, before exploring parallel early nineteenth‐century debates over bull‐baiting and the abolition of slavery in texts by Thomas Day, Percival Stockdale and Elizabeth Heyrick.