He tied the cause of enslaved people to the rights of British workers.
Robert Wedderburn was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1762, to Rosanna, an enslaved woman, and James Wedderburn, the Scottish plantation owner who enslaved her.
He came to England and built a life of words and agitation, running a radical chapel in Soho where he preached against slavery and for the rights of working people. In 1824 he published The Horrors of Slavery, an autobiographical account that set out the brutality of the system in plain, first-hand terms.
He was jailed for blasphemy for his preaching, and moved in the ultra-radical circles of the Spencean Philanthropists. His writing drew a direct line between the bondage of enslaved people and the exploitation of British labourers, insisting the two struggles were one.
He carried that argument from the Caribbean of his birth into the heart of London’s radical politics, and he left it on the page.
His record is in his published pamphlets, including The Horrors of Slavery (1824). His card is in the deck.
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Timeline
- 1762Born in Kingston, Jamaica, to Rosanna, an enslaved woman, and James Wedderburn, her Scottish enslaver.
- 1778Came to England, possibly as a sailor.
- 1820Arrested and tried for blasphemy following radical preaching at his Soho chapel.
- 1824Published The Horrors of Slavery, an autobiographical account of slavery’s brutality.
0 salutes
I salute Robert Wedderburn, who bound the freedom of the enslaved to the rights of the working poor.
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