In 1830, there were more than 800,000 slaves in the British colonies, including 331,000 in Jamaica, 81,000 in Barbados, 76,000 in Mauritius, and 70,000 in Demerara .1 On vast sugar plantations, under the scorching sun or torrential rain for 18 hours a day, thousands of slaves, showered with blows from overseers, bent their backs on a handful of white planters. For example, on the island of Nevis, 10 thousand slaves accounted for 10 families of planters, on Tobago-13 thousand slaves for 15 families of slaveholders .2A researcher dealing with the problem of slavery in the English colonies of the first third of the nineteenth century is faced primarily with a paucity of sources. The British government was interested in concealing the real situation: many English magazines, distorting the facts, painted the paradise life of the population of the colonies, depicting slavery as a necessary condition for the prosperity of not only Great Britain, but also the colonies themselves .3 At the same time, the English abolitionists, united in 1823 in the "Society for the Abolition of Slavery", published magazines that published reports directly from the English colonies, articles on the situation of slaves, as well as numerous reports on parliamentary debates on slavery and the slave trade, speeches by prominent abolitionists in parliament, etc. These journals, in particular the collection stored in the Vorontsov Fund of the Scientific Library of Odessa University, covering the publications of 1823-1834, can be considered as an important source on the history of slavery and slavery. English abolitionists played a major role in the struggle for the abolition of slavery in the colonies of Great Britain. They appealed to public opinion. Abolitionists were divided into two camps, which gave different reasons for their struggle for the abolition of slavery. The first group included the so-called "saints": V. Ganberu, V. Wilberfors and others, who considered slavery as a phenomenon cont ... Read more