the British position on slavery

[Andre Buys & Nicole Slagter]

davemarc wrote:

>The British position on slavery seems to have been that
>it was fine for the colonies but intolerable on home turf.  I recently read
>a slave narrative from 1831 that describes how slaves brought to England by
>their masters were "free" upon touching its soil.  Of course, slaves who
>liberated themselves didn't necessarily have any resources.  And they were
>subject to re-enslavement if they returned to the colonies....

I, too, have recently been reading a slave narrative: Olaudah Equiano's _The 
Interesting Narrative_. He lived from 1735-1797, and was enslaved at age ten; 
he spent the rest of his life in Britain and its various colonies. He was able 
to purchase his own freedom in 1766. He was a contemporary of Mason and Dixon,
then, and took part in some of the events also mentioned in M & D: the Seven 
Years War, for instance. At this time slavery was legal in Britain as well: 
Equiano's narrative was published as part of the effort to abolish it. The 
introduction (it's a Penguin Classics edition I've got) notes that the
African slave trade was officially abolished only in 1807. However, the intro 
also mentions the Mansfield decision of 1772, which was an important step 
towards abolition. The decision determined that `a slave could not be legally 
compelled by a master to return to the colonies from England. Although the 
ruling was narrowly restricted to the question of forcing the return of a slave,
in practice it was widely perceived to have declared slavery illegal on English 
soil.' This development, then, took place within the timespan covered by M & D. 
As young men, Mason and Dixon themselves could have encountered slaves in
Britain, though no doubt in nothing near the numbers there were in the
colonies. For the 
rest: Equiano is no great stylist, but the facts of his life are riveting
enough 
to make his life story compulsory reading.

best wishes, 

Nicole Slagter