THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

Heyrick and other British women linked the abolition of slavery to working-class
reforms. In 1827, the Female Society for Birmingham claimed that increased
consumption of free labor goods would provide vital relief to the British working class.
Describing the trade in slave-labor goods and slaves as “favoured but unrighteous
commerce,” the women called on consumers to reject all “luxuries” and “conveniences”
tainted by the “flagrant system of blood-guiltiness and oppression.” 101 In the Third
Report, the Birmingham women once again linked the plight of the working class to the
perpetuation of slavery, suggesting that if duties favoring slave-labor goods were
removed, “the starving freemen of Ireland would speedily find employment.” 102
Appeals to the working class suggested the radical potential of abstention. First,
such appeals tied abstention to the radicalism of working-class politics and linked the
plight of the slave and the poor laborer. More significantly, however, such appeals
subverted traditional class and gender divides. Petitioning, a tactic used by laborers and
women, to appeal to Parliament on behalf of the poor laborer and the slave, were appeals
by those without political power to those with political power. As such petitioning
reinforced class and gender divides. Abstention, however, bypassed Parliament
altogether and called for popular support for both movements. Boycotting the products
of slave labor would increase the market for free labor goods, which would in theory at
least, raise the wages of the British laborer.
101 Second Report of the Female Society of Birmingham, 14-16.
102 Third Report of the Female Society of Birmingham, 20-21.
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