The slave trade was key to British wealth through the early empirical days. However as social stereotypes improved and it became safer to express your own views the anti-slavery movement began to put pressure on the government.
Supporters of this took advantage of the new, literate emerging middle class and published pamphlets to shock them by including the inhuman conditions suffered by trafficked black African slaves. This was the way the movement gained public sympathy and awareness.
The leader of this movement was Pitt’s close friend William Wilberforce. His group the Claphamites took advantage of the new printing to launch a propaganda campaign aimed at the middle and upper classes. This movement had support early-on from characters such as Pitt, Fox, Grey, Grenville and Canning.
In 1807 the first breakthrough came with the Slavery Act 1807 which formally ended the trading in slaves however failed to help those already enslaved in the Empire.
The movement continued to press and in 1823 Wilberforce and Thomas Buxton created the Anti-Slavery Society which organised the wider campaign to outlaw slavery throughout the British colonies. In 1825 Buxton took over the campaign trying to fight for those born to slaves to be born free.
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