Petition by the people of Bakewell in support of the abolition of slavery

On the other side of the raging political debate about slavery were the abolitionists, who were at the head of widespread protest. This petition, from the electors of Bakewell in Derbyshire (newly enfranchised by the 1832 reforms) is a late example. The mention of a “safe and satisfactory plan” is a reference to parliamentary debates in February 1833. The abolitionist Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845) had asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer for action to end slavery and was told that the government would soon bring forward a measure “at once safe and satisfactory”. By August, the Act had been passed.
 
There is a parallel between progress towards democracy in Britain and emancipation in the colonies: in both cases, reforms enacted with tremendous reluctance under the greatest of pressures were later depicted as magnanimous gestures of goodwill. In Britain, one of the great drivers for electoral reform in 1832 was a fear among the political class of violent unrest (indeed, the French revolution was still within living memory); and a rebellion among enslaved people in Jamaica in the preceding year, known as the Baptist War, can only have added weight to calls for total abolition.