Bury the Chains - Chapter 6 and 7 (summary)

In chapter 6 of Bury the Chains, Hochschild introduces another player in the British abolition movement. Using Thomas Clarkson experiences as examples, Hochschild explores in depth the degree to which slavery was ingrained in the minds of people living during the time period, even the ones who felt compassion towards the plight of Africans. Hochschild explores Clarksons exploration into the abolition movement. Drawing on Clarksons personal notes, Hochschild is able to demonstrate the personal struggles that took place in Clarksons mind as he thought about slavery, a struggle in which Clarkson is conflicted between the culture he is surrounded by and the horrors of slavery that he has learned. Clarkson eventually comes to the conclusion that he is the one who should begin to destroy the institution of slavery.

In chapter 6 I really like Hochschild's comparison of the abolition of slavey to our present day situation with automobiles. While it may be said that due to all the harmful environmental effects that automobiles have on the earth cars should be banned from the earth, you dont see people calling for a global ban on automobiles. The same feeling existed in the eighteenth century. While people may have known the horrors of slavery, people were not ready or willing to call for abolition because it was so ingrained in their everyday life (as cars are in our lives). Even many of the enlightenment philosophers, with their revolutionary thinking on the topic of human rights, were involved in slavery to some degree.

In Chapter 7, Hochschild examines the question that the abolitionists faced; whether or not it was even possible to build a free black community in the midst of a slavery gripped world. To discuss the question, Hochschild recounts the story of the slaves Britain promised to free for running away from their masters and fighting for them during the Revolutionary War. He explains that even though the Treaty of Paris stipulated that all property taken by the British should be returned to the colonists, the British General in NYC refused to return the slaves under his watch to George Washington. The general reasoned that because the British Crown had freed the slaves when they came to fight for them, they were no longer property and therefore did not have to be returned. He felt that the the only honorable thing to do was to honor the word of the crown and deliver freedom to those slaves that had joined his ranks. The slaves, some 3,000 in all, were sent to Nova Scotia where they became the largest community of free blacks living anywhere in the British Empire.