Who were the real heroes of abolition?

The trade in enslaved Africans resulted in millions of people being kidnapped from Africa and sent to the Americas. Their children were then born into slavery.
In 1807 the slave trade was banned by the British Parliament but it took many years for it finally to end.
In 1833 slavery was abolished all over the British Empire. The owners received money in compensation but the former slaves received nothing.

FLO - a poster, poem, essay (or any other format) on 'My abolition heroes'

In your opinion, who were the heroes or heroines of abolition?

Were they the former enslaved people who wrote down and told their stories to people in Britain?
People like Mary Prince, Olaudah Equiano, Ottobah Cuguano, Ignatius Sancho and Phyllis Wheatley.

Were they the enslaved people who resisted, rebelled, ran away and fought back against their 'owners'?
People like Samuel Sharpe, Bussa, Quamina, and Nanny of the Maroons and those who rebelled on  the slave ships.

Were they the men and women who led the campaign to change the law and end the slave trade and later slavery itself?
People like Thomas Clarkson, Robert Wedderburn, Elizabeth Heyrick, William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, Josiah Wedgewood and James Ramsay.

Were they the masses of ordinary British people who took action in solidarity with the struggle of enslaved Africans?
People like the Quakers, the women's groups linked to the Anti-Slavery Society and the thousands of ordinary workers who signed peitions and resfused to buy suagr grown on slave plantations.


Find out about resistance and abolition. Decide who you think were the most important people in the struggle for freedom and dedicate your work to them.

Here are two good sites to start you off:

The Abolition Project - check all their different sections (scroll down for the full list).

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