Bury the Chains Chapters 18 19 20 and 21

In the begining of chapter eighteen Hochschild describes a slave revolt that took place in the Caribbean. The scenes he described were very graphic of burning down houses, smashing machinery, murdering white men and raping their wives atop their corpses. They even tied a man to two planks and sawed him in half. The images I read in this short segment made me cringe. This was not the right move on teh slaves part to become free men. These actions sent horror throughout Europe, and set back the antislavery movement profoundly. This slave revolt killed thousands of people. These slaves were certainly not the men and women depicted in the antislavery symbol. They were coming so close to freedom, I couldnt' believe when I read this part that they took such a risk at losing that.
In chapter nineteen when the British were finally able to get the final guerrillas surrenderded after more than a year of fighting they only did so on the terms that they would never be slaves again. Previously the British attempted to get them to surrender by offering them better slave conditions. Once again this is more proof that the freedom was only given to slaves either when it beneffitted the government in some way or they had no other choice. In this case Britain had no other choice but to give these slaves freedom. They would not have stopped fighting in any other way.
In chapter twenty Hochschild makes it very clear that the antislavery movement took many blows from recent events. "No one knew if people still felt the abhorrence of slavery they had once shown". When things looked like they couldn't get any worse the abolitionists aquired a new member their team, a lawyer, James Stephen. James Stephen set the gears back into motion by proposing the Foreign Slave Trade Act. This Act seemed harmless but secretly would cut two thirds of the British slave trade. And surprisingly the bill passed. The antislavery movement had deffinately been set back a few steps but with what seemingly was the snap of a finger took a giant step forward.