Bristol Abolitionist Poetry: Hannah More and Ann Yearsley

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INDEX 
Chapter One: English Empire and Slavery 
 
1.1 The Origin of the Slave Trade ………………………………………………...4 
1.2 Colonial and economic relationship between Europeans and Africans.………9 
1.3 The rise of the Abolitionist Movement in England…………………………..15 
 
Chapter Two: Women Abolitionist Discourse                         
 
2.1 Historical and literary context in England…………………………………...21                                    
2.2 The Abolitionist Poetry and Women’s poetic voice…………………………27 
2.3 The case of Hannah More and Ann Yearsley..................................................34 
 
Chapter Three: Two Bristol Women Poets 
 
3.1 Ann Yearsley, A poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave Trade……………….43 
3.2 Hannah More, Slavery: A Poem…………………………………………..…49
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Introduction 
 
 The establishment of slavery and the resulting transatlantic slave trade between 
Europe and the Americas required a variegated attack from those who viewed 
freedom and human beings of greater value and importance than property and 
commerce. Abolitionists aimed to reveal the  moral mistake of slavery through 
literature and political efforts. A shared network of antislavery language 
supported and connected abolitionists and writers of diverse backgrounds and 
sociohistorical contexts. Antislavery poets incorporated this language into 
emotional verse in order to convince readers of the immorality of slavery through 
a particular rhetoric and themes. The sufferings felt as a result of the slave trade 
and the wickedness of the enslavement process featured particularly in antislavery 
poetry. Also women poets reacted to the immorality of slavery and, through their 
poetic voice, they were not only involved in the abolitionist cause but they were 
asking for a renewed social role both as women and poets.  
How did abolitionist poetry intersect with the law and connect to this shared 
language? And what role did women have in the abolitionist movement and in 
poetry in a problematic context like that of the late seventeenth to the late 
eighteenth centuries?  
In order to answer these questions I have chosen two women poets who illustrate 
the aims of this shared language. Hannah More and Ann Yearsley contributed to 
creating an antislavery poetry across their social differences, which also affected 
some dynamics of gender, laws, education and race. Their poetry and experiences 
represent part of the body of antislavery literature as well as the diverse 
interactions between abolitionists and society and, as such, they are the object of 
my study.
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CHAPTER ONE 
 
1.1 The Origin of the Slave Trade  
 For every scholar of English language and culture it is right and proper to know 
and examine in depth the story of the eighteenth century and its relation to the 
origin of the slave trade because it is not only belonging to each English citizen, 
but to the entire community. It is the century in which the slave trade reached its 
height, an event that slowly and inexorably was to modify the overall worldwide 
and national structure, from an economic and cultural perspective. There are many 
authors or, better, individuals who contributed to the birth of a literature about 
slavery, ranging in different fields: theatre,  poetry, essays and pamphlets or 
analyzing the most diverse historical and economic aspects. Not to speak of the 
individuals who spent almost their entire lives struggling against slavery with 
perseverance and strength.  
 The first question which probably everybody would ask is when and why slavery 
began. A book that would answer this question is Hugh Thomas’ The Story of the 
Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440- 1870  in which he gives us a comprehensive account 
of the Atlantic slave trade. Quoting Aristotle’s Politics in which he states that 
humanity is divided into two: the masters and the slaves, Thomas begins to trace 
the origin of slavery condition stating that it had already existed in ancient time. 
“Most settled societies at one time or another have employed forced labor; and 
most peoples, even the proud French, the effective Germans, the noble English, 
the dauntless Spaniards and perhaps, above all, the poetical Russians, have 
experienced years of servitude” and that “slavery was a major institution in 
antiquity”
1
. In Greece and Rome for example, slaves were employed as domestic 
servants in public works, in mines, in commerce and in many others tasks, 
managing and serving brothels as well as in trading organizations and workshops. 
Those individuals, from the first century BC to the early third century AD, even 
though captives and considered someone’s property, contributed to the creation of 
                                                             
1
 Hugh Thomas, The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 
1997, p. 25.
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prosperity of a nation. Obviously a slave who worked in a gang in the fields or as 
a shepherds had a different life from one who acted as a doctor or lawyer or as a 
majordomo to noblemen. An interesting reflection made by the English historian 
is about the discussion and the explanation of the institution of slavery from 
Aristotle’s point of view. When Aristotle declares that humanity is divided into 
two he makes a distinction between the Greeks and the Barbarians. Thomas writes 
that this “seemed to imply that, to an Athenian, everyone who was not Greek 
could be captured and enslaved – even should be, thus he accepted slavery as an 
institution”
2
. It was in accordance by the law of the time and the distinction 
between a master and a slave existed only by law but, at the same time, Aristotle 
considered a slave with a soul and the property of a master to a slave as something 
unjust and unnatural. From a philosophical point of view, reflections and 
considerations about who was a slave and what were his functions in a society 
began to circulate, ambiguous propositions which would have importance in the 
sixteenth century. 
 The beginning of the slave trade can be seen as a long process, which evolved 
together with the changes occurred in the world over his story. It is therefore 
necessary to consider that this process changed and radically transformed an 
already existing practice, that is the exploitation of human beings for economic 
purpose. The English historian Hugh Thomas, on the basis of a deep, and almost 
archeological historical work of the sources and events, argues that the first 
commercial exchanges of goods (so even of slaves) between West and North 
Africa, probably  began already from 1000 BC in the trans-Saharan desert, “when 
the desert was crossed by oxen and carts drawn by horses, a commerce 
encouraged by both the Carthaginians and the Romans”
3
.At the beginning, the 
voyages were limited because of the weather which made it impossible to cross 
the desert, due to sandstorms in the summer and changes of temperature from day 
to night. Among the commodities carried, gold was fated to become more and 
more relevant, after “first the Muslim countries of the Mediterranean, and then 
several European ones adopted that metal as their currency”
4
. 
                                                             
2
Ivi, p. 28. 
3
Ivi, p. 44. 
4
Ivi, p. 45.
6 
 
 The African continent appeared even then as a flourishing land, also rich in 
natural resources. Since gold was limited to a very small areas of Africa as far as 
Europeans were then aware, the principal export was human beings. West 
Africans would become the main gold suppliers. Arab merchants were included 
within the commerce with no less influence and importance. They contributed to 
the expansion of the slave trade as well the transformation of the economy from  
subsistence to one based on production and commercial exchange. An interesting 
detail is that Muslim-Arab merchants began to buy slaves and according to the 
historian Hugh Thomas this meant little more than that they let others to do 
stealing for them: they began to participate actively in the marketing of slaves. 
Even Patricia M. Muhammad, in her article about the transatlantic slave trade 
argues that “the Arabs’ conquest of North Africa in order to spread the religion of 
Islam, as well as the development of caravan routes, also supported the Trans-
Saharan slave trade, which extended from the northeastern portion of Africa and 
continued westward to trade points in Nigeria”
5
. The fact that the voyages went 
onto coastal regions opened the way to those who would be the future explorers of 
the continent, that is Spanish, Portuguese, Italians and English. Among the most 
popular explorers we cannot forget the name of Christopher Columbus who, 
“discovering” the New Word probably was unaware of the great changes that, as 
the concentric waves created by a stone fallen in the water, would affect not only 
the whole Europe but also the continents of Africa as well as the Americas. But 
many other men before him set out on overseas expedition; for example in 1291 
already two Italian explorers  Ugolino and Vadino Vivaldi, set out with their ships 
in order to reach India through West Africa
6
. 
 While Columbus was going to set out with his fleet, around him the International 
rivalry over colonial possessions, especially between Spain and Portugal, was 
high, so that the Pope intervention was necessary, with a papal bull which 
                                                             
5
Muhammad, Esq., Patricia M., The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Forgotten Crime Against 
Humanity as Defined by International Law, American University International Law Review 19, no. 
4 (2003), p. 891. 
6
See Thomas, The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 50 (describing that their declared aim was 
to outmaneuver the Venetians, who had secured control over trade through Egypt from the east. 
They thus established the agenda, so to say, of nautical ambition for the next 200 years).
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assigned the East colonial possessions to Portugal and the West to Spain. Eric 
Williams’ Capitalism and Slavery explains this particular circumstance: 
  
the partition failed to satisfy Portuguese aspirations and in the subsequent year the 
contending parties reached a more satisfactory compromise in the Treaty of 
Tordesillas, which rectified the papal judgment to permit Portuguese ownership of 
Brazil. Neither the papal arbitration nor the formal treaty was intended to binding 
on other powers, and both were in fact repudiated. Cabot’s voyage to North 
America in 1497 was England’s immediate reply to the partition.
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 European maritime trade with western African had been already initiated by the 
Portuguese from the 1440’s, opening up the entire coast of Africa, rounded the 
Cape of Good Hope and began the penetration of the Indian Ocean. 
Europeans begun to set out in search of gold of which, mentioned before, Africa 
was highly supplied, so that at least until the late seventeenth century they were 
interested more in goods as pepper, ivory, gum, tobacco, sugar, rice rather than 
slaves. Also England joined the search. 
 A very exhaustive anthology of sources and cultural study about the English 
slave trade is Kenneth Morgan’s multivolume The British Transatlantic Slave 
Trade. Together with the other volumes editors and through the analysis of some 
original texts related to specific slaving voyages, Morgan shows us how the 
expeditions were organized. One of these texts reports the expedition of Sir John 
Hawkins, who represents “the first known example of English slave trading in 
Africa in the middle of the sixteenth century who led a raid on west African 
territories”
8
. The perfection which the commercial network of slave trade was 
constructing is testified by the establishment  of the Royal African Company 
(successive to the first establishment of the Royal Adventurers in Africa) in 1672. 
All these enterprises were run as joint-stock organizations, so that capital could be 
raised effectively for risky, long-distance trade from numerous investors.
9
 The 
                                                             
7
 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, the William Byrd Press, 1994, pp. 3-4. 
8
 K. Morgan, “General Introduction”, The British Transatlantic Slave Trade: Volume 1, London, 
eds. R.Law, K.Morgan, J. Oldfield, D. Ryden, Pickering & Chatto 2003, p. xvi. 
9
 K. G. Davies, The Royal African Company, London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1957, pp. 38-44, 
57-63.
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commercial network was so strong that “it could count among its shareholders a 
number of  well-connected men in public life, including the philosopher John 
Locke; Sir George Carteret, the Lord Proprietor of Carolina; Sir Edmund Andros, 
the Bristol philanthropist, and others.”
10
 As the competition to the searching of 
gold between European countries was extremely intense, the Company 
contributed to the fortification of castles, factories or lodges along the Gold Coast 
(which correspond with the actual Ghana) in order to protect their goods from 
enemy attack. It is not by chance that Ghana was called the Gold Coast due to its 
great amount of gold. Later, these castles were used as the ultimate stop of slaves 
and commodities before crossing the ocean towards North and South America. 
The company had its own statutory with its rules, but private merchants, whom 
we can define as “interlopers”, sometimes acted with voyages often illegal and so 
not authorized. They officially entered in the slave trade only when the Company 
lost its monopoly due to Williams III’s parliamentary decision which did not 
consider the trading monopolies a good way for the commercial needs of the 
empire, so “it was now widely accepted that free trade should prevail to Africa”
11
. 
Indeed, as the commerce was growing, cities such as London, Liverpool and 
Bristol were going to become the main trading ports for slaves and goods. 
Particularly the city of Liverpool became the major slaving port in Europe, due to 
its well designed docks which could contain larger ships, while  Bristol was a 
huge social and cultural melting pot where among the prominent figure who were 
acting in those years, there were also the figures of Hannah More and Ann 
Yearsley. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                             
10
  See K. MORGAN supra note 8, at p. xiii. 
11
 See K. MORGAN supra note 8, at p. xv.