1787: Ottobah Cugoano published Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species in London.

1787: Ottobah Cugoano published Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species in London. This work is widely considered the first published attack on the slave trade written by a black author in Great Britain. Cugoano, a formerly enslaved African, used moral and religious arguments to call for the total abolition of slavery and the slave trade. His writing added a powerful and authentic voice to the nascent abolitionist movement, challenging the intellectual justifications for human bondage. The publication of this text marked a critical moment in the development of black political thought in the Atlantic world.