Peter Williams, Jr.: “Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade”

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

At the start of his oration, Williams exhorts his audience to be joyful that the day has come that the Atlantic slave trade—“this inhuman branch of commerce”—has ended and to be grateful to God and to all those who had worked to help it happen, along with those who would continue to work on behalf of black Americans. He also paints a picture of what Africans experienced when ripped from their homes and families and how societies within Africa had changed because of the slave trade. By juxtaposing the joyous news with the mournful and oppressive conditions of those who had been victims of the international slave trade, Williams highlights the gratitude and joy of those who can now celebrate its end.

In the first three paragraphs, Williams introduces the theme of happiness, which “must be extremely consonant to every philanthropic heart.” He states that “to us, Africans, and descendants of Africans, this period is deeply interesting.” “We are the ones,” he goes on, “who have really borne the oppression of the slave trade on our backs; we have been the victims.” For this, he notes, African Americans “owe a debt of gratitude to those who have steadily worked for the end of the Atlantic slave trade.”

Next Williams describes the history of the slave trade, beginning with a depiction of the Africans before the intrusion of the Europeans on the western coast of Africa: simple, honest, hospitable, affectionate, happy, and close to nature, in a sort of paradise. This depiction may reflect a certain amount of naïveté on the part of Williams, since Africans had practiced slavery in one form or another for centuries, namely, in the form of debt slavery and slavery as a consequence of war. Or the depiction may simply serve to provide a more dramatic contrast between the earlier West Africa, which practiced a relatively tame form of slavery, and the later West Africa, which seemed to cater to European desires upon its introduction of the economically driven overseas slave trade.

Starting with Christopher Columbus, he traces the history of “civilized man” in Europe and the way in which greed led people to cross the ocean and put the Native Americans to work for them in the mines. In this they “violated the sacred injunctions of the gospel.” When these first settlers found the Native Americans unsuited for such heavy labor, they sought some other way to carry on the mining and other work. The means was found in the African slave trade.

Begun on a regular basis by the Genoese in 1517, according to Williams (following William Robertson’s History of America, 1777), the slave trade “has increased to an astonishing, and almost incredible degree.” The Africans to be sold were obtained at first by surprising and overwhelming coastal towns. Once the coastal towns realized what was happening, the people moved inland, joining with their fellows to defend their whole society. The intruders knew that if they could not separate the Africans, they could not capture any more slaves. So, feigning “a friendly countenance,” they offered the people gifts and “gaudy trifles.” By giving such gifts, they also gave them a spirit of avarice. Avarice, Williams laments in elaborate rhetoric, was the downfall of Greece, of Rome, and now of Africa.

Because of the spread of greed, the Africans started to turn on each other, make war on each other, and enforce stricter laws, since, according to the deal struck with the Europeans, they could keep getting their trifles in return for prisoners of war and convicts. As bad as this system already was—in that Africa had always had slaves as the result of debts and wars—it was made worse by the greed that encouraged the African people to engage in gratuitous wars with one another, to kidnap and sell one another to the slave traders.

Here Williams tells how the best rulers in Africa were made into tyrants, raiding the villages of their own allies in search of people to sell to the traders. Using rich imagery of the “shrieks of the women; the cries of the children,” he conjures up an image of a town ravaged by war—a war started with a neighbor by a ruler who used to be a friend. He describes the different people affected by the battle, the fire that would settle upon the town in order to force them out. Whoever did not fall would go with the ally-turned-enemy as a captive to be sold to the slave traders. Aware that most people with any sort of heart would react with sympathy to the evocative emotional scenes he conjures up, Williams writes that he knows that those with the “adamantine heart of avarice, dead to every sensation of pity” would not be moved at all. Avarice made these scenes, and avarice would continue to harden and make cold the hearts of those who benefit.

Moving on to the trader’s ship, he vividly describes what the people in the slave ships must have felt as they, “with aching hearts, bid adieu, to every prospect of joy and comfort.” And here, on this journey, they know that “though defeated in the contest for liberty, their magnanimous souls scorn the gross indignity, and choose death in preference to slavery.” They would rather die than become slaves. Williams turns to those in the audience who had come from Africa themselves, saying that they are even better qualified to describe the scenes of wretched parting than he. They know what it is like. But for those who are descendants of Africans, he begins to portray, so they can imagine, the picture of their misery on the slave ship and the forced parting of families once they had arrived at their destination: “See the parting tear, rolling down their fallen cheeks: hear the parting sigh, die on their quivering lips.”

By ending the section on slavery with this image of the separation of families, Williams brings the audience back into the present. Although he does not say so specifically, the image is one that could be applied to arrival at port after bringing slaves to America or to the auction block in any town that deals in the internal slave trade. This type of separation would still happen as long as there was buying and selling of slaves in the United States. But this day, at least, they could celebrate one step in the right direction. With this image, Williams brings the audience back to the joyful occasion without letting them forget the work that was still ahead.

“Rejoice, Oh! Africans! … Rejoice, Oh, ye descendants of Africans!” Williams proclaims. There no longer would be blood shed on African soil for the sake of the avarice of Americans. With eloquent repetition of the phrases “Rejoice!” and “No longer shall,” Williams enumerates the atrocities committed by those engaged in the international slave trade—atrocities that would “no longer” happen on African soil. For that, Africans and anyone with “the smallest drop of African blood” should rejoice!

Since there is cause to rejoice, there is also cause to express gratitude. First, Williams prays in thanks to God for hearing the anguished voices of the Africans and for calling those forward who would help stop the slave trade. He thanks God for those who fought in the Revolutionary War and espoused the words of the Declaration of Independence (slightly misquoted) “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He thanks God for listening “when the bleeding African, lifting his fetters, exclaimed, and sending help his way.

Here Williams starts to name some of the warriors against avarice—“they dared to despise the emoluments of ill gotten wealth, and to sacrifice much of their temporal interests at the shrine of benevolence”—and against slavery. The benefactors he names are John Woolman, Anthony Benezet, and William Wilberforce. John Woolman (1720–1772) was a Quaker abolitionist who traveled over America, exhorting “the denomination of friends” to give up slavery and to rally against it, which they eventually did. Anthony Benezet (1713–1774) believed that all people truly were equal, and because of this belief he founded the first school for African Americans in Philadelphia. A French-born Quaker, he was also an abolitionist as well as the founder of the first public girls’ school in America. William Wilberforce (1759–1833), an abolitionist member of the British Parliament, helped put into effect the British Abolition Act, which became law on March 25, 1807. This act, like the law passed in the United States earlier that same month, prohibited the carrying of slaves for trade on British ships, effectively limiting if not completely ending the Atlantic slave trade for the British and their colonies.

These are not the only benefactors of the African Americans, Williams asserts. “I have given but a few specimens of a countless number, and no more than the rude outlines of the beneficence of these.” Here, the published version (accessible via the University of Nebraska Web site) appends a note naming also the Reverend Mr. Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846), an English abolitionist and Anglican deacon who was a great influence on Wilberforce. Williams begins to speak of the particular endeavors of the benefactors of the African American, both slave and free, basically stating that they had left no legal action untried or avenue untraveled. They had set up schools, worked to end slavery in several states, and helped former slaves make their way in the world with good virtues.

For all this, for the day “which we now celebrate,” Williams points out that Africans and descendants of Africans owe these benefactors their utmost gratitude: They should “return to them from the altars of our hearts, the fragrant incense of incessant gratitude.” This phrase recalls Psalm 141, verse 2—“let my prayer rise before you as incense”—used in the Episcopal liturgy, showing the influence of the church on Williams’s oratory.

Williams closes with an exhortation to his fellow African Americans to learn as much as they can, to follow the laws of their country, and to “form an invulnerable bulwark against the shafts of malice” that others can use to hurt them. This is particularly important in order to keep their benefactors from criticism by their opponents. If anything African Americans do gives any fuel to the “opposers,” it would be a poor thanks for all the help the benefactors have given them.

The printed version appends an explanation from Peter Williams that he understands there are some people who would not believe that a young African American had written this oration himself, so he would add here the certifications of four different white men, including Bishop Benjamin Moore, to vouch for his authorship. All four attest to the authenticity of the publication and to its author.