Poems Concerning the Slave Trade

Robert Southey, a future Poet Laureate, was born in Bristol, one of the principal ports in England for the slave trade. He wrote these poems to try to raise awareness of the brutal reality of the trade in a generally apathetic populace. Lord Grenville, who is addressed in the final poem, was British Prime Minister in 1807 when the slave trade was abolished throughout the British Empire. (Summary by Alan Mapstone)