1789-May-12: During a significant speech to the British Parliament, abolitionist William Wilberforce described the transit of captives across the Atlantic as…

1789-May-12: During a significant speech to the British Parliament, abolitionist William Wilberforce described the transit of captives across the Atlantic as the most wretched aspect of slavery. He argued that the extreme misery condensed into such confined spaces exceeded anything the human imagination had previously conceived. Wilberforce challenged the portrayals of the trade provided by interested delegates, emphasizing the horror of six or seven hundred individuals being chained in pairs in nauseous conditions. His address aimed to penetrate the indifference of his colleagues by highlighting the individual suffering that aggregate commercial statistics often obscured.