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July 24th, 2018, Ethical Consumption
One of the earliest ethical consumption movements was over sugar, slavery and sugar to be precise.
Britons had developed a sugar habit stoked by cheap Caribbean sugar made possible by slaves.
| Around 1828, a handful of British publications contained a very unusual advertisement. A certain B. Henderson wanted to inform the “Friends of Africa” that her china warehouse in England was selling assorted basins for sugar. These basins came emblazoned with bright golden letters, which read “East India sugar not made by slaves.” |
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Slavery had made sugar products widely affordable for the first time in history. By the late 18th century, it was Britain’s largest import. But for some Britons, the harsh reality behind their cheap sugar was unconscionable. Starting in the late 18th century, abolitionists called for sugar boycotts to undercut slavery. The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade led the charge for decades. In 1787, the same year the association was founded, the potter Josiah Wedgwood released a famous design that would appear on cameos (a type of jewelry), medallions, and abolitionist china: a kneeling slave pleading for freedom, often accompanied with the phrase “Am I Not A Man and a Brother?” |
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In 1788, William Cowper, Britain’s most famous poet at the time, sniped at those who stayed neutral, writing: I own I am shock’d at the purchase of slaves, And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves; What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and groans, Is almost enough to draw pity from stones. I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, For how could we do without sugar and rum? By 1791, hundreds of thousands had signed anti-slavery petitions, and when an abolition bill brought to Parliament failed, activists kickstarted a massive sugar boycott. It was one of the earliest economic boycotts in history. By 1792, some 400,000 Britons were either abstaining from sugar or sourcing it from India. (Many consumers believed that East Indian sugar, while still produced in grim conditions, was preferable to sugar produced under slavery.) James Wright, a Quaker shopkeeper, advertised that he would no longer sell sugar, “till I can procure it through channels less contaminated, more unconnected with slavery, less polluted with human blood.” Pro-slavery politicians soon complained that the popular press was against them. |
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