Open AccessWhite Women Poets: The Fight Towards the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Author(s) -
Miria Pelletier
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the general brock university undergraduate journal of history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2371-8048
DOI - 10.26522/tg.v6i1.2637
Subject(s) - poetry , parliament , boycott , white (mutation) , atlantic slave trade , christianity , law , history , gender studies , political science , sociology , religious studies , art , literature , politics , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
The British Parliament passed the act to abolish the slave trade in 1807. Many historians focus on the powerful men that challenged Parliament such as Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, but rarely do they acknowledge the active role that British white women played in the abolition campaign. Women raised awareness of the slave trade by supporting abolition societies, promoting the boycott of slave-grown sugar, and creating anti-slavery writing. Poetry, in particular, was the most common type of anti-slavery writing done by white women. This paper explores the use of poetry as a tool to promote the abolition of the slave trade by examining Mary Birkett Card’s A Poem on the African Slave Trade, Hannah More’s Slavery, A Poem and Sorrows of Yamba, and Ann Yearsley’s A Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade. These poems highlight three key themes including the separation of family, Christianity, and the luxuries the British possessed at the expense of the Africans suffering.