Bury the Chains Chapters 7 and 8

In chapter seven the American Revolution is brought up. During this war between Britain and the American colonies Britain tried to cause trouble to the Americans by promising any slave who deserted a rebel master and joined the British Army would be given freedom after the war. This promise had a tremendous turnout and caused the masters of these slaves to be furious. When the war ended some of these rebellioius slaves were recaptured by their masters yet others were given the freedom they were promised. Britian located these three thousand ex-slaves in Nova Scotia. "They were now the largest community of free blacks in one spot anywhere in British territory in the Americas." Although Sharp had managed to free a slave or two here and there, Britian had never before freed such a great number of slaves. This event was huge. But what must also be taken into consideration is that these were no longer Britain's slaves. They were the American's slaves, who had just broken free from Britian. On the other hand Britian could have decided to use these slaves for themselves, but they did not. They kept their word and freed these slaves locating them in Nova Scotia.
In chapter eight an issue was brought up to the freeing of slaves that I had not even considered to be relevant. In England property rights were deeply sanctified by tradition and law. Many feared that emancipation would be seen, Clarkson said, as "meddling with teh property of teh planters". Not only would England we outlawing slavery, but in the eyes of some they would actually be stealing peoples property. This is absurd. I don't understand how anyone could consider another human being a peice of their property. And to imagine that some people would actually be offended by their slaves being taken away from them.
At the very end of chapter eight Hochschild states, "When Clarkson's new Manchester friends sent their petition off to Parliament some weeks later, it contained more than ten thousand names, one out of ever five people in the city. A movement was under way." I thought these numbers to be outstanding. I would have never expected from Hochschild's previous descriptions of England's stance on slavery that such a great number of people would openly petition against it. Especially when he describes the danger that many people were in from speaking out against it. But he was deffinately correct when he said a movement was under way. Though one fifth of the population is still not enough to make a change, it is deffinatley a step in the right dirrection.