Thomas Clarkson and Ottobah Cugoano

"Mary-Antoinette Smith provides here the complete texts of two important and eloquent early arguments against slavery, along with key selections from other works of the same era on both sides of that great debate. With its helpful introduction, annotations, and chronology, this collection is indispensable for all who wish to understand the long, hard fight for abolition." Paul K. Alkon, Bing Professor Emeritus of English and American Literature, University of Southern Califormia

"Mary-Antoinette Smith has placed together two important texts of the British abolitionist movement and made them accessible to general reader. In particular, she has done a superb job of bringing to life the dense classical and biblical allusion that is the hallmark of Clarkson's and Cugoano's writing, In Smith's hands, we can once again understand the urgency and vibrancy of their work and its importance in hastening the end of the Atlantic slave trade." Brycchan Carey, Kingston University

When abolitionists Thomas Clarkson and Ottobah Cugoano published their essays on slavery in the late eighteenth century, they became key participants in one of the most important human rights campaigns in history. British abolitionism sought to expose the realities of transatlantic slavery in addition to asking politicians to help dehumanized Africans in the New World, and this edition brings together two major essays of the 1780s that were influential in the spread of the early abolitionist movement; Clarkson's Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species.

A critical introduction and extensive historical appendices on British and American slavery and abolitionism, feturing contemporary arguments for and against slavery, are also included.