The biggest campaign in history

Historian Jessica Vine fills us in on some of the history of slavery, and builds on Sophie Haydock's article to explain how we can be inspired by one of history's greatest campaigns.

25 March 2007 marks two hundred years since the official end to British involvement in the slave trade. Josiah Wedgewood’s renowned image of a chained man asking for his freedom. ''We can also put political pressure on those who continue to sell, traffic and illegally imprison fellow human beings, in the hope that one day slavery, in all its hidden forms, will finally cease to exist.''

25 March 2007 marks 200 years since the official end to British involvement in the slave trade. Yet, as Sophie Haydock, pointed out 1807 was just one step - it was just the beginning of a long campaign that is still not over.

The Atlantic slave trading system began in the late sixteenth century when Europeans were looking for labourers to work on plantations in the Americas. Slavery thus took on a global character at a time when European nations were expanding and colonising overseas regions. So in a way the slave trade was just one part of a system of global exploitation that arguably still exists today.

By the late eighteenth century the triangular trade that was conducted across the Atlantic Ocean had ensured great wealth for many. In Britain it was not just merchants who profited, but entire communities. For us today it seems obvious that the transportation and enslavement of millions of people is immoral and disgraceful. Yet at the time campaigners faced the problem of addressing a society whose wealth and prestige rested on such a system.

The campaign began in 1787 with the foundation of The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and quickly gathered pace. What made the campaign so successful was the spirit of popular participation. Petitions were signed, marches and rallies were attended, and Josiah Wedgewood's renowned image of a chained man asking for his freedom was worn on broaches and pendants and engraved on snuffboxes. Moreover, a mass boycott of sugar and other plantation-farmed goods had great impact.

This is not to forget the actions of enslaved peoples themselves, who whether through writing or rioting, added their voices to the great debate. The campaign became a moral issue that both men and women, rich and poor, black and white, participated in.

Despite this great achievement, and the following acts that have made slavery itself illegal across the globe, the world is still not free from the horrors of human trafficking, of enslavement, or of economic exploitation. In February 2007 a shocking report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimated that in Britain alone there are currently over 5,000 child sex slaves.

Yet we should still be encouraged by the examples of all those who campaigned to end slavery 200 years ago. Despite all the obstacles, people came together to push for what they saw as right.

Today, with the fair trade movement we can use our consumer influence to fight economic exploitation, just as consumers used their influence to boycott slave-produced goods in the past. We can also join together as a global society to put political pressure on those who continue to sell, traffic and illegally imprison fellow human beings, in the hope that one day slavery, in all its hidden forms, will finally cease to exist.