It's Only Wilberforce
We watched the movie Amazing Grace Saturday night. It is about William Wilberforce and the effort in Britain to end the slave trade. It reminded me of reading Adam Hochschild's book, Bury the Chains, a few years ago. I liked Amazing Grace, but I thought it was limited. It focused on Wilberforce so much that it seemed to gloss over the big picture of the British abolition movement. Instead it was this one member of Parliament, a friend of Prime Minister William Pitt, and his story of bringing this abolition bill back year after year until, after a bout of exhaustion and colitis, he finally got it passed.
Hochschild, on the other hand, was much more interested in the grassroots movement than the parliamentary debates. So he focuses on Thomas Clarkson, the "itinerant preacher" who rode about the English countryside tirelessly campaigning for the cause of abolition. And Olaudah Equiano, the freed slave whose memoir helped drive the cause. In the movie, Clarkson and Equiano are minor characters.
Read also:
Hochschild, on the other hand, was much more interested in the grassroots movement than the parliamentary debates. So he focuses on Thomas Clarkson, the "itinerant preacher" who rode about the English countryside tirelessly campaigning for the cause of abolition. And Olaudah Equiano, the freed slave whose memoir helped drive the cause. In the movie, Clarkson and Equiano are minor characters.
Read also: