Timeline Tuesday 12 May 1789

Events on Tuesday 12 May 1789 1

• 1789 Wilberforce delivers his first anti-slave-trade speech in Parliament Abolition campaign formally begins in the House of Commons William Wilberforce delivered a lengthy speech to the House of Commons detailing the cruelties of the transatlantic slave trade and calling for its abolition. Though his motion was deferred, the speech launched a parliamentary campaign that would continue for nearly two decades. It marked the beginning of organized abolitionist politics in Britain.