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Britain, c1785–c1870: Democracy, Protest and Reform

Economic and financial factors in abolition

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1

Overview

Recall questions on Adam Smith's argument, the Williams thesis and Drescher's reply, the weakening West Indian interest, and the cost of compensation and suppression.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What is the Williams thesis?

Key term

What evidence is used against the Williams thesis?

Key term

How had the West Indian interest weakened by the 1820s?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was the economic argument against slavery associated with Adam Smith?

    Model answer

    That slave labour was more expensive than free labour because the slave had no incentive to work well, so slavery was inefficient as well as unjust.

  2. 2

    What is the Williams thesis?

    Model answer

    Eric Williams's argument that abolition followed the declining profitability of the West Indies and the rise of industrial capitalism, so economic interest rather than humanity drove it.

  3. 3

    What evidence is used against the Williams thesis?

    Model answer

    Seymour Drescher showed the British slave economy was expanding, not declining, when the trade was abolished, so Britain destroyed a profitable system.

  4. 4

    How had the West Indian interest weakened by the 1820s?

    Model answer

    Sugar prices fell, competition from Cuba and Brazil grew, absentee planters were heavily indebted, and the group's political weight in parliament declined.

  5. 5

    How did compensation shape the 1833 Act?

    Model answer

    £20 million, about 40 per cent of annual government expenditure, was paid to slave owners, and the apprenticeship system kept the freed working unpaid for years afterwards.

  6. 6

    How did free trade arguments affect the sugar colonies?

    Model answer

    The equalisation of sugar duties in 1846 exposed West Indian producers to competition from slave-grown Cuban and Brazilian sugar, which they had long resisted.

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