The year 2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade by the British Parliament. The campaign for abolition was spearheaded by devout Christians, and it stands to this day as perhaps the finest political achievement of what would now be called faith-based activism. But who were the abolitionists, and how did their Christianity motivate them to campaign against the slave trade? This paper examines the Christian mind of the abolitionists, and ponders the lessons for today.
Dr John Coffey trained as a historian at Cambridge University. His research is on religion, politics and ideas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He is the author of several books, including Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689 (Longman, 2000). He is a Reader in Early Modern History at the University of Leicester.
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