In 1838, British anti-slavery stood at a crossroads. Having succeeded in bringing slavery in the British West Indies to an end, British activists might have been forgiven for disbanding. Instead, they set out on a new venture, this time aimed at internationalizing abolition, or “universal emancipation.” Their chosen vehicle was the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, or BFASS, organized in 1839, which was to prove the most enduring of all British anti-slavery organizations; indeed, it survives to this day in the shape of Anti-Slavery International. Despite its obvious importance, especially to those interested in the history of humanitarianism, very little scholarly attention has been paid to the BFASS. Howard Temperley tackled its early history in his 1972 monograph, British Anti-Slavery, 1833–1870, but little has been published since. Now, in what is a landmark study, James Heartfield has produced a new history of the organization that is impressive in its scale and ambition.
Heartfield begins The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1838–1956: A History with an account of the origins of the BFASS, followed by chapters on slave trade diplomacy, the fate of post-emancipation societies in the British West Indies, and efforts to abolish slavery in the United States and Cuba—concerns that preoccupied the society through the middle decades of the nineteenth century, really up to 1870. In part two he shifts his attention, as the BFASS did, to Africa and the Middle East, setting the society's campaigning, especially its suppression of the East African slave trade, within the wider context of the “scramble for Africa.” Then, in part three, “The Colonial Labour Question,” Heartfield takes the story up to 1956, when the BFASS scaled back its operations, discussing along the way the society's somewhat conflicted position over King Leopold's Congo Free State, as well as its role in helping to sell the Native Land Act in South Africa, which many regard as the foundation of apartheid. As these few details suggest, Heartfield does not spare the BFASS's blushes; on the contrary, one of the great strengths of his book is his determination to unpack the society's entangled history, while at the same time allowing activists to “speak in their own voices about the things that concerned them” (viii). Understandably, notions of empire loom large in this story, but so, too, do economic interests, the prospect of legitimate trade with Africa and, in the case of the American Civil War, rampant anti-Americanism.
Specialists will be familiar with many aspects of Heartfield's narrative. Nevertheless, his synoptic approach pays dividends, not least in allowing us to see how the BFASS evolved from an “out-of-doors” organization into “an incorporated part of policy formation” (viii). There is much to admire here. Heartfield's case studies are thoughtful and compelling. His detailed analysis of the BFASS's position during the American Civil War, when the society opposed the Union war effort, explicitly supporting the demand for secession of the Southern states, is a model of clarity. Equally compelling is his discussion of the role of Charles Harris Allen, secretary of the BFASS from 1879 to 1898, in reorganizing the society and reorienting it towards East Africa, a shift that brought it into much closer contact with the Colonial Office and with the crown. Heartfield's judgements are shrewd and insightful. He also makes excellent use of biographical method, in the process highlighting the importance of religious and social networks, particularly within the BFASS's central (London) committee. Only occasionally does his analysis falter, most notably in his chapter on the two world wars, where he tends to gloss over important changes at an international level in the definition and meaning of slavery. It also has to be said that many modern anti-slavery activists might take issue with his bold assertion that “slavery has today largely been abolished” (425).
While impressive in its grasp of detail, Heartfield's book is essentially an institutional history, based largely on the BFASS's annual (published) reports and its official organ, the Anti-Slavery Reporter. By his own admission, Heartfield has not consulted the society's manuscript minutes or its voluminous correspondence, both readily accessible in the Weston Library in Oxford. This might be thought not to matter a great deal, but it means that we get little sense how the BFASS interacted with its supporters, or how it operated as an organization that at its peak had more than two hundred regional and local auxiliaries. Neither do we get much sense how the BFASS was perceived by others, including the press, or how it was able to sustain itself in the competitive humanitarian market. (This last point is all the more pertinent, given the BFASS's inconsistent and sometimes controversial positions on subjects as diverse as West Indian sugar duties and Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation). Nevertheless, Heartfield's thoughtful and illuminating study will be of obvious interest to students and scholars alike. Readable and accessible, The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1838–1956 is an important book that is likely to become the standard history of what is rightly regarded as the first international human rights organization in the world.
