"Bury the Chains" Chaper 8 Summary

Chapter 8 of Adam Hochschild's Bury the Chains is about Thomas Clarkson's journey to various cities in England, which began the abolition movement in England. First, he traveled from London to Bristol. On his way, he and John Ramsey experienced much discrimination because most people didn't want the slave trade to end, and knew they were abolitionists. Once in Bristol, he was told the tale of a free black sailor, John Dean, who was chained to the deck of the ship for days and had hot pitch poured on his back. The captain then made incisions with his hot tongs, and Dean's back was severely scarred. Since captains and sailors were unwilling to talk to him, Clarkson turned to doctors. He found two doctors, James Arnold and another unnamed doctor, who were going on a slave ship in a few days and were willing to record all that happened on the ship. Clarkson soon came in contact with another doctor, Alexander Falconbridge, who had been on four slave ship voyages, but never wanted to set foot on one again. Instead, Falconbridge agreed to tell Clarkson everything that he remembered that happened on the voyages he was on. From Bristol, he went to Liverpool, in search of records of slave ships. There, he bought handcuffs, lef shackles, thumbscrews and a speculum oris, used by doctors to treat lockjaw, because these were the instruments used on slave ships. From Liverpool, he went to Manchester, now England's second largest city, and also full of abolitionists. Here, Clarkson met Thomas Walker and Thomas Cooper, who had him give a sermon on the abolition movement. With the help of these two men, a petition was signed with more than ten thousand names and was sent to Parliament.