First published in Philadelphia in 1771, this edition was published after Benezet’s death in 1784, with the 4pp. “advertisement” before the introduction serving as a brief biography of the author. One of a series of pamphlets produced by Benezet explicating the horrors of slavery with a view to abolition.
This title was intended specifically as an “impartial enquiry” to assess the oft-cited pro-slave trade justification that “the slavery of the Negroes took its rise from a desire, in the purchasers, to save the lives of such of them as were taken captives in war, who would otherwise have been sacrificed to the implacable revenge of their conquerors”. By examining a variety of first-hand accounts of trade and exploration on the African continent, Benezet sets out to fully discredit this assertion. He does this through outlining the influence of European factors and trading posts on local conflict, in particular emphasising the corrupting influence that tax on slave ships had on local rulers. Alongside this, the frank descriptions of African society, government, agricultural and religious practices is designed to give a humanising portrait of African people in their native land. This is then vehemently contrasted with accounts of the conditions of slavery, the circumstances of transportation and the treatment of enslaved people in the colonies.
Ragatz writes that along with John Wollman, Benezet was one of the “ chief early anti-slave trade agitators in the new world … Benezet carried on universal propaganda and was in very close touch with the British Abolitionists. This work gave young Thomas Clarkson most of the information he used in writing the Cambridge Latin prize essay which resulted in his dedicating his life to the abolition movement.“
cf. Evans, 11985 (first edition); Ragatz, p.479; Sabin, 4689.
