Henry Smeathman, the Fly-Catching Abolitionist

Abstract

In his landmark study, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (1975), David Brion Davis linked the first two decades of the anti-slavery movement to increasing domestic concern in Britain about the problems of under-employment, labour discipline, and labour management. Scrutinizing the writings of many leading abolitionists, including prominent Quakers, Davis argues that they were less concerned with how emancipated slaves might express their capacity for freedom than with devising substitute schemes for the labour discipline of slavery.1 This essay examines the imperial dream, popular with some abolitionists, of making the transatlantic slave trade redundant by setting u..