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Hugely influential in the growing anti-slavery movement, Ramsay did not live to see the fruition of the campaign. He died in July 1789 and was buried at Teston. James Watt has argued: "His enemies acknowledged his exemplary qualities, while deploring the intemperate language of his books; and the
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He strongly criticised the cruel treatment and punishment meted out to enslaved people, and became more convinced of the need to improve their conditions. This led him into involvement in local government, but he was the target of much antagonism and personal attack from the planters, who resented
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Ramsay set out by welcoming both black and white parishioners into his church, with the aim of converting enslaved people to
Christianity. As well as pastoring the members of his church he practised medicine and surgery, providing a free service to the poor of the community. Having been appointed
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and, on boarding the vessel, Ramsay found over 100 enslaved people living in the most inhumane conditions. Such was the scene of filth and degradation he witnessed, that this incident was to have a lasting effect on Ramsay. While serving at sea he fell and fractured his thigh bone, and was
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Again he was severely challenged by the plantation owners in
England who were threatened by his anti-slavery works and who attempted to refute his allegations, in many cases with vitriolic attacks on Ramsay's reputation and character, leading to a pamphlet war between the parties.
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and Lady
Middleton. He was persuaded by Lady Middleton, Sir Charles Middleton, and others to publish his account of the horrors of the slave trade. This was the first time that the British public had read an anti-slavery work by a mainstream
209:, having caught the disease from his father, who had been volunteering on a ship that had that disease on board "and had carried home the infection in his clothes". One of their daughters, Margaret, (1766 –
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abolition of the
British slave trade in 1807 probably owed more to James Ramsay's personal integrity, ethical arguments, and constructive proposals than to any other influence."
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James Ramsay married
Rebecca Akers, the daughter of Edmund Akers, a plantation owner on St Kitts, in 1763. They had one son and three daughters. Their son died young of
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He briefly rejoined the navy in April 1778, accepting a chaplaincy in the West Indies with
Admiral Barrington, where he was engaged in intelligence gathering against the
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in 1777, exhausted by the continuing conflict with influential planters and businessmen. He returned to
Britain and briefly lived with Sir Charles Middleton at
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his interference, because of his measures to ameliorate the conditions of enslaved people. His letters to the bishop of London illustrate the attitudes of the
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331:, as well as bringing to public notice the debate about the slave trade. Ramsay contributed several further publications to the campaign, including
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in 1786 that encouraged the latter in his tireless efforts to obtain first-hand evidence of the trade, and indirectly led to the formation of the
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on the island, he was able to see firsthand the conditions under which the enslaved people laboured and the brutality of many of the planters.
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An
Inquiry Into the Effects of Putting a Stop to the African Slave Trade: And of Granting Liberty to the Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies
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in 1783 and played a significant part in the establishment of the campaign against the slave trade. It was Ramsay's meeting with
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writer who had witnessed the suffering of enslaved people on the West-Indian plantations.
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An Essay on the
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An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies
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In July 1761 Ramsay left the navy to take holy orders. He was ordained into the
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An Inquiry into the Effects of Putting a Stop to the African Slave Trade
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During the following three years Ramsay worked on his most significant
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where Lady Middleton joined the cause of the campaign against the
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degree in 1753 and went on to continue his surgical training in
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Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
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Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery
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from Brycchan Carey's listing of British abolitionists
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291:and as his personal secretary. He was installed as
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323:and later
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369:Anglican
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221:in the
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402:Legacy
382:, the
360:Teston
297:Rector
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411:Works
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219:Major
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