“Out of the Land of Bondage”: The English Revolution and the Atlantic Origins of Abolition

Abstract

FIGURE 1: In 1637, the antinomian wine cooper Thomas Venner migrated to New England, where he served in the Bay Colony militia. Inspired by the prospect of thoroughgoing reformation in revolutionary England, he returned to London in 1651 and entered the radical republican underground. By 1654, he had joined the millenarian Fifth Monarchist movement, which opposed the Protectorate regime of Oliver Cromwell as another form of kingly government. In January 1661, Venner led his London Fifth Monarchist cell in a four-day rebellion to overthrow the newly restored king, Charles II. In the course of the fighting, Venner's forces attacked the Comptor Prison in Wood Street and attempted to free the prisoners to rescue them from potential transportation to the colonies to work as "bond slaves." In tracts written before the rising, the rebels condemned the trade "in the slaves and souls of men" and prophesied the doom of those who engaged in this traffic. Shortly after their capture on the fourth day of battle, Venner and ten of his followers were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Prints such as this quickly followed, depicting Venner as a traitorous fanatic. He would not be the last abolitionist to be vilified in such terms. Engraving by unknown artist, 1861.