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

power of individual choice and morality, which opened a space for women’s involvement
in the abolitionist movement. Though Fox lacked a distinctly gendered argument, he
created the opportunity for subsequent abstention writers to appeal specifically to women
to support abolition of the slave trade.
Gender, Consumption, and the Sugar Boycott, 1791-1792
In the months following publication of Fox’s Address, abstainers appealed to
women’s compassion. This rhetoric drew on cultural ideas about women’s inherent
ability to sympathize with the oppressed. Pamphleteer William Allen, for example,
described Englishwomen as “MODELS of every just and virtuous sentiment.” 41 As one of
the most popular sites for consumption of sugar, the tea table made visible the established
triumvirate of women, tea, and sugar. The tea ritual brought out the civilizing quality of
English womanhood; yet, the same ritual also encouraged women to consume goods and
gossip. When abstainers shifted the site of the slave trade debate to the tea table, they
were forced to confront competing cultural ideas about women and the tea ritual.
The ideological association of women and tea emerged in the eighteenth century.
Woman’s place at the tea table was naturalized by established cultural patterns that
characterized areas for food preparation and service as feminine. Eighteenth-century
poets affirmed the feminine character of the tea table. Peter Motteux, for example,
41 [William Allen], The Duty of Abstaining from the Use of West India Produce, a Speech
Delivered at Coach-Maker’s Hall, Jan. 2, 1792 (London: T.W. Hawkins, 1792), 23.
16