1770s–1800s: (The Abolition Debate and the Objectification of Africa: Enlightenment Humanism Meets Evangelical Outrage, Brissot in Revolutionary France, Gran…

1770s–1800s: (The Abolition Debate and the Objectification of Africa: Enlightenment Humanism Meets Evangelical Outrage, Brissot in Revolutionary France, Granville Sharp and Wilberforce’s 1787–88 Campaign in Britain, Wedgwood’s Medallion — Am I Not a Man and a Brother, Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative of the 1790s, the African Association Founded in the 1780s to Wean the Continent off the Slave Trade, and Both Abolitionists and Apologists Sharing a Common Belief in African Backwardness): In the late eighteenth century, forces in Europe were gaining momentum for the abolition of the slave trade. Between the 1770s and 1800s, a curious alliance of Enlightenment humanism and evangelical outrage served to publicize the unacceptable brutality of the trade itself — European intellectuals and church societies united in the belief in the universal right of all human beings to freedom and equality. In Britain the leading figures included Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce, the latter leading a massive public campaign in 1787–1788, and industrial philanthropists such as Josiah Wedgwood, who produced the memorable medallion depicting a slave in irons. The humanitarian argument was forcefully expounded by Jacques Pierre Brissot in revolutionary France, while a handful of Africans also participated in the humanitarian movement — the writings and public speeches of Olaudah Equiano, a former slave who had purchased his own freedom and was educated in England, were influential in the 1790s. The African Association was founded in London at the same time, with one of its stated aims being to wean the continent off the slave trade and diversify commerce. Yet one of the enduring outcomes of the slave-trade argument was the objectification of Africa — an imagined entity lying at the feet of the debaters with little to say for itself, an object to exercise the great philanthropic and political minds of the day. Both abolitionists and apologists shared a common belief in African backwardness, their differences a matter of interpretation: the apologists argued that Africa was a living hell from which the slave trade provided blessed release, while the abolitionists argued that Africa needed European intervention in the form of Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization. It was the abolitionist position which prevailed — and by the end of the century, the argument held sway that only through European rule would Africa ever develop.