Abolition! Anti-Slavery Campaigning in Central London

This walk reveals where many key London events took place in British campaigns against slavery and slave-trading between the mid-1700s and mid-1800s. Fugitive and former slaves, white lawyers, activists and orators along with black activists, authors and musicians come alive in a walk from Chancery Lane to Fleet Street, Lincoln’s Inn and Covent Garden, ending at Embankment Gardens. The capture in London of escaped slaves led to legal cases campaigners loudly supported. Slaves were given as gifts by West Indies slave-owners to wealthy Londoners who considered them fashion-accessories. There were small communities of free blacks, many working as servants. Blacks made free by fighting on the British side during wars thronged to London, some becoming beggars but others getting by and even moving into the middle class. On the walk you meet Olaudah Equiano, James Somerset, Granville Sharp, Sarah Parker Remond, Thomas Clarkson, Mary Prince, Ottobah Cuguano, Elizabeth Heyrick, Samuel Johnson, Hannah More, the Fisk Jubilee Singers and more names now usually forgotten.

The Naked Anthropologist is Laura's longtime blog, focusing now on London history walks with Gender, Sex and Class.