slave-merchants

Updated: June 17, 2025

To which it was added, that few persons would go to these places, except they were handsomely rewarded for their trouble; but this reward would lessen the value of their evidence, as it would afford a handle to the planters and slave-merchants to say that they had been bribed.

Thomas Clarkson - The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839)

Had a wise plan been proposed at first, it might have been half-cured by this time. The present resolution would do no good. It was vague, indefinite, and unintelligible. Such resolutions were only the Slave-merchants' harvests. They would go for more slaves than usual in the interim.

Thomas Clarkson - The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808): Volume II

We all met at the time appointed, and I determined to sit as near to the mayor as I could get. The hall was unusually crowded. One or two slave-merchants, and two or three others, who were largely concerned in the West India trade, were upon the bench. For I had informed the mayor the day before of my intention, and he, it appeared, had informed them.

Thomas Clarkson - The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume I

But we were so far from doing this, that we encouraged wars for the sake of taking, not men's goods and possessions, but men themselves; and it was not the war which was the cause of the Slave Trade, but the Slave Trade which was the cause of the war. It was the practice of the slave-merchants to try to intoxicate the African kings in order to turn them to their purpose.

Thomas Clarkson - The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839)

The slave-merchants of London, Liverpool, and Bristol, immediately presented petitions against it, as they had done in the lower house. They prayed that counsel might open their case; and though they had been driven from the commons, on account of their evidence, with disgrace, they had the effrontery to ask that they might call witnesses here also.

Thomas Clarkson - The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume I

Not deeming it safe, according to the advice of the sultan of Zeg Zeg, to pursue his homeward way by the route of Funda, he chose the Youriba road; and, after serious delays, he reached Badagry on the 21st November 1827; but here he was nearly losing his life, owing to the vindictive jealousy of the Portuguese slave-merchants, who denounced him to the king as a spy sent by the English government.

Robert Huish - Lander's Travels: The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa

We all met at the time appointed, and I determined to sit as near to the mayor as I could get. The hall was unusually crowded. One or two slave-merchants, and two or three others, who were largely concerned in the West India trade, were upon the bench; for I had informed the mayor the day before of my intention, and he, it appeared, had informed them.

Thomas Clarkson - The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839)

It would have been an easy matter for Great Britain long since to have crushed out every vestige of the slave-trade, even without adding one item to her expenditure. What can be more absurd than the payment of 300,000 pounds to Portuguese slave-merchants to induce them to abandon the traffic in slaves?

Mayne Reid - Ran Away to Sea