THE WORLD SINCE 1492

Address to Trinidadian School Children on
the Centennial of the Abolition of Slavery in the West Indies

    Now, children, more than 100 years ago people in England gave serious thought to the question of slavery. They asked themselves--'Is it right? Is it Christian?'

     Wilberforce and his friends took up the question and they told all England that this must stop.

. . . On August 1, 1834 . . . [s]omething happened . . . right through the British Empire which set the way through the Christian countries all over the world to remove the blot of slavery from our civilisation."

     --The British Governor of Trinidad speaking to 5,000 schoolchildren on 1 August 1934, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of slavery in Trinidad"