Description

The lawyer and leading abolitionist James Stephen (1758-1832) published this two-volume work between 1824 and 1830, exposing the cruel and oppressive legal system of slavery in the British West Indies. Volume 1 explores the origin of nineteenth-century colonial slave laws, the legal status and the situation between slaves and their masters, and the policing and governance of slave populations. Volume 2 investigates the living conditions and the brutal practices involved in forcing labour, building the case for the abolition of slavery. Stephen had been the legal mastermind of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which abolished the slave trade in the British Empire. This important work was influential in directing public opinion against slavery and helped lead towards the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act. It is a key text of the nineteenth-century abolitionist movement and is vital for understanding the arguments and debates that led to abolition.