The “Slavery Abolition Act” was passed in 1833. This made slavery illegal and mandated that slaves would be freed (immediately for children under 6, while those over 6 would be part slave and part free for a further four years and be paid wages). Fortunately, Wilberforce lived to see this. He had become seriously ill with influenza when on 26 July 1833, he learned with much rejoicing that this act had passed the final reading in the House of Commons. Three days later, he died. One month after that, Parliament passed the act.

2007 was a historical bicentennial: on 25 March 1807, William Wilberforce’s long fight to end slavery resulted in the royal assent to ‘An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade’, which abolished the buying and selling of humans throughout the British Empire. This was after 20 years of struggle and repeated previous defeats of his anti-slavery bills in Parliament.

Even the usually anti-Christian Hollywood is commemorating this historic day with the film Amazing Grace (actually by Walden Media, which also produced the Narnia movie). Amazing Grace stars the Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd (pronounced ‘Griffith’) of Hornblower fame as Wilberforce, and Albert Finney as his mentor John Newton, the slaver-turned-abolitionist who composed the famous hymn after which the film is named. [Update: see our film review.]

With a plethora of books attacking Christianity, this anniversary is timely in reminding the world of the great good that it has achieved when truly followed. Slavery is one of the best examples—far from being a Western Christian invention, it was ubiquitous, and it was only the Christian west that abolished it. (See also Christianity’s real record (off site), showing that atheists frequently exaggerate atrocities by professing Christians, ignore the great good done by Christians practising their faith, and ignore the far greater atrocities of atheist regimes.)

Slavery throughout history

As conservative black economist Thomas Sowell points out in the Slavery chapter in Black Rednecks and White Liberals, slavery has been around all over the world for most of its history. And for most of this dismal history, it was not a racial issue. Most slaves did not differ racially from their masters.

For example, Europeans enslaved Europeans—indeed, it was a European people group, the Slavs, that was such a common victim of slavers that the very word comes from this group (although in the Slavonic languages, slava means glory). Also, Asians enslaved Asians, and Africans enslaved Africans—black slaves were usually first captured by other blacks because the Europeans were susceptible to African diseases if they ventured into the interior.

And in many cases, Caucasians were enslaved by non-Caucasians: the dark-skinned Muslim Moors enslaved ‘white’ Europeans during their occupation of the Iberian peninsula (what they called ‘al Andalus’) from 711 to 1492.

Later, from the 16th century, the Muslim Barbary States of North Africa encouraged pirates who had a flourishing white slave trade. In the first half of the 17th century, 20,000 captives were said to be imprisoned in Algiers alone. The Europeans paid blood money to these rogue states until US President Thomas Jefferson sent the American Navy to bomb the pirate ships and ports in 1805 (the US Marines’ taking of Tripoli in the Battle of Derne is the inspiration for the phrase ‘to the shores of Tripoli’ in the Marine Hymn).

Tragically, Muslims are still enslaving blacks today in Africa. African-American economist Dr Walter Williams of George Mason University writes in Black Slavery is Alive in 2001:

‘Slavery in the Sudan is in part a result of a 15-year war by the Muslim north against the black Christian and animist south. Arab militias, armed by the Khartoum government, raid villages, mostly those of the Dinka tribe. They shoot the men and enslave the women and children. Women and children are kept as personal property or they’re taken north and auctioned off.

…

‘American Anti-Slavery Group says, “Most distressing is the silence of the American media whose reports counted for so much in the battle to end apartheid in South Africa.” … In fact, it’s fairly safe to say that most of today’s most flagrant human rights abuses occur in Africa. But unfortunately they get little attention — maybe it’s because Africans instead of Europeans are the perpetrators; Europeans are held accountable to civilized standards of behavior, while Africans aren’t.’

Wilberforce and the anti-slavery society

Wilberforce and his anti-slavery fight were documented in a recent book Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves by Adam Hochschild (2005). Dr Sowell summarizes in a review:

‘The anti-slavery movement was spearheaded by people who would today be called “the religious right” and its organization was created by conservative businessmen. Moreover, what destroyed slavery in the non-Western world was Western imperialism.’ ‘Nothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today’s intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who together destroyed slavery around the world.’

Indeed, Hochschild documents that the world’s first anti-slavery movement began with a meeting of 12 ‘deeply religious’ men in London in 1787, including Wilberforce.

Wilberforce’s motivations are crystal clear from his own book A Practical View of Christianity (1797). This was a best seller in its time, going through five printings in six months and was translated into five foreign languages. John Piper writes:

‘What made Wilberforce tick was a profound Biblical allegiance to what he called the “peculiar doctrines” of Christianity. These, he said, give rise, in turn, to true affections—what we might call “passion” or “emotions”—for spiritual things, which, in turn, break the power of pride and greed and fear, and then lead to transformed morals which, in turn, lead to the political welfare of the nation. He said, “If … a principle of true Religion [i.e., true Christianity] should … gain ground, there is no estimating the effects on public morals, and the consequent influence on our political welfare.”’

Indeed, some of Wilberforce’s comments could easily have been written to describe today’s times, with a plethora of anti-Christian books, TV, films and laws:

‘The time is fast approaching when Christianity will be almost as openly disavowed in the language as in fact it is already supposed to have disappeared from the conduct of men: when infidelity will be held to be the necessary appendage of a man of fashion, and TO BELIEVE will be deemed the indication of a feeble mind.’

Indeed, Wilberforce had to struggle against not only repeated rejections, but also ill health. He had painful chronic ulcerative colitis (large bowel disease), for which he was prescribed laudanum (a sweetened solution of opium and alcohol), a strong painkiller for the time. It is now usually illegal because it is so addictive, and Wilberforce kicked the habit, but not before it had damaged his eyes. He also had a morose wife who was an unfortunate contrast to his cheerful disposition.

Yet not only did he lead the way to abolish slavery, he also promoted hospitals and prison reform, and advocated positive reform in India and other colonies. He also fought against cruelty to animals, founding what we know today as the ‘Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’. No wonder he was eventually called the ‘Conscience of Parliament.’

Wilberforce was not always a Christian. Indeed, he was born into the privileged class, and that culture, much like today’s Hollywood, loved gambling, fancy clothes, fast horses, drinking and gluttony. Furthermore, he had denounced the deity of Christ after attending an apostate church much like today’s liberal ones. But in a secular sense, he was succeeding very nicely, entering parliament at 21, and was a good friend of William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806), who would become the UK’s youngest ever Prime Minister at 24.

However, Wilberforce gave his life truly to Christ in 1775, then wanted to quit parliament because of the immorality and infighting. However, he visited John Newton (1725–1807), famous for the great hymn Amazing Grace (hence the name of the film). Newton in his earlier days had been a slave trader himself before his conversion to Christ. Newton was the one who convinced Wilberforce that he would do the most good by remaining in Parliament:

‘It is hoped and believed that the Lord has raised you up for the good of His church and for the good of the nation.’

After Newton’s conversion, he first insisted that slaves were to be treated humanely. But he soon came to see that since the slaves were also created in the image of God, the slave trade was wrong in itself, and could not be humanized. He left the trade, became friends with the great evangelists George Whitfield (1714–1770) and John Wesley (1703–1791) and his brother Charles (1707–1788), became a minister, and testified to King George III (1738–1820) about the atrocities of the slave trade.

John Wesley was instrumental in the conversion of Wilberforce himself. And Wesley’s last letter of his life of 24 February 1791 was to Wilberforce commending his abolitionist work, comparing this to the gallant struggle of Athanasius (c. 293–373) for the vital biblical doctrine of the full deity of Christ.

‘Unless the divine power has raised you up to be as Athanasius contra mundum [Athanasius against the world], I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.’

Another prominent anti-slavery activist in Britain was Granville Sharp (1735–1813), who was most responsible for a law that a slave became free from the moment he set foot on English territory, and founded a society for the abolition of slavery. He was also a joint founder of the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Society for the Conversion of the Jews. A noted Greek scholar, he published a detailed and accurate study, discovering a rule of grammar that’s accepted by the majority of Bible translators today and now bears his name.

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