BOOK REVIEW: William Wilberforce: A Biography by Stephen Tomkins

Switching gears, I read William Wilberforce: A Biography by Stephen Tomkins. This is an older biography (from 2007, which isn’t really that old) and is relatively short. It gives a good overview of the man and his times, though given the length, it was relatively superficial.

Each chapter opens with an excerpt from a slave narrative or a snippet of a song from the times that illustrates the horrors of slavery and the slave trade.

The book then takes us through Wilberforce’s life. Born in 1759, Wilberforce lived through tumultuous times. Britain’s colonialism was at its height, but the edges of its empire were fraying. One of the sources of its wealth (although the economics of it were hotly debated) was the slave trade. Men and women were purchased in Africa, transported under horrifically inhumane conditions to the sugar plantations of the West Indies, and sold to the planters. There, they were treated as beasts of burden. The life expectancy was less than seven years. 

Wilberforce was exposed to evangelical Christianity early in life. (At the time, this meant Methodism.) However, in his young adult life, his mother did her best to eradicate that influence and have him adopt the more lukewarm religion of his peers. He did, for a while. Then he entered politics. He inherited money. He involved himself in charitable endeavors. And then, he discovered the abolitionist cause. He returned to Methodism (hesitantly and secretly at first, before throwing himself into it wholeheartedly.) Then he made it his life’s work to abolish slavery. The first step was to stop the slave trade.

I had always believed that England had a more enlightened view of enslavement than did the U.S., but this is not at all true. Wilberforce (and others) tried for many years to get an Act through Parliament to prohibit slave trading. The biography recounts the bitter struggle, the ongoing political wrangling, and the heartbreaking defeats. The most difficult part of the book is reading the justifications of the practice offered up by Englishmen with commercial interests in the trade. (These echo or foreshadow the arguments of Southern plantation owners in the U.S.) Truly appalling inhumanity. 

It took until 1807 before the Act of Parliament banning the slave trade was finally passed. Even then, it did not banish slavery in the colonies. And other, smaller scale operations by other countries continued for years. But the first necessary step was doggedly pursued by William Wilberforce. 

For those interested in the life and times of this extraordinary man, this biography is a good place to start.