FRANCAISAnti-Slavery International - History
1850-1869
-From 1850, United Kingdom: considering that the fight against the transatlantic slave trade is by then very repressed, the BFASS starts to denounce less well known forms of exploitation, such as the importation in the West Indies of workers bonded in India. The organisation, which promotes the boycott of goods grown in countries which haven’t yet abolished slavery, has to overcome a certain decline amidst the working classes, more concerned with improving their own living conditions now that slave trade is abolished in the United Kingdom. The BFASS’s membership and finances decrease in consequence.
-1861, United States: the BFASS does not take position on the civil war which begins between the abolitionist North and the South, who refuses to free its Black slaves. Many activists are pacifists and find it hard to support any war, while some British humanitarians are sympathetic to the South’s claim that it is fighting for independence against an imperial North.
-1865, United States: the end of the civil war and the victory of the North, who had freed its Black slaves, place the BFASS in an awkward situation because it had been in favour of a cease-fire which would have advantaged the Confederates of the South, fervent advocates of slavery. Generally speaking, the organisation’s pacifism is often paradoxical; for instance when it leads to criticising the British government, whose Navy precisely sees to enforcing the international treaties banning the slave trade.
-1867, France: the BFASS takes part in a new anti-slavery convention in Paris, which, through the tales of the British explorer David Livingstone, raises the public awareness of the slave trade between East Africa and the Muslim world. During the 1870s, the organisation puts pressure on the British government to force the Khedive of Egypt, the Ottoman Sultan and the Shah of Persia to put an end to slavery in their respective countries.
