(Re)mapping abolitionist discourse during the 1790s: The case of Benjamin flower and the Cambridge intelligencer

In recent years we have become accustomed to thinking of abolition, and specifically the campaign against the transatlantic slave trade, as a grass roots movement. Narrating the history of the early abolitionist movement from below is problematic, however. Ideally, one would want the story to end in 1792 when the House of Commons resolved to abolish the British slave trade, albeit gradually, following a massive petitioning campaign throughout the length and breadth of the British Isles. But, as we know, 1792 proved something of a false dawn. Instead of following the Commons’ lead, the House of Lords insisted on hearing its own evidence for and against the slave trade, a delaying measure that left abolitionists playing a dangerous waiting game. Success finally came in 1807 in the shape of the Abolition Act, which outlawed the British transatlantic slave trade tout court. The intervening years are generally seen as a period of retrenchment, even retreat, on the part of British abolitionists. Thomas Clarkson’s retirement in 1796 is one element of this, but so too is the climate of fear generated by the French Revolutionary wars and the successful prosecution of radicals like Thomas Walker of Manchester, who had been key figures in galvanising popular support for abolition between 1787 and 1792