The “Anti-Slavery Reporter” containing Extracts From Clarkson’s Thoughts on the Practicability, The Safety, And The Advantage To All Parties Concerned of the EMANCIPATION OF THE SLAVES, &c. &c., Vol. 1, No. 3 August 1833 was part of a monthly series of anti-slavery booklets. This copy was printed in and distributed from New York, but it probably used the same textual material as the British publication of the same name.


The booklet, which measures approximately 5 ½ x 8 ¾ inches, contains 16 pages in total, of which the textual material is on pages numbered 35 to 48. The pages of the booklet are lightly tanned with scattered brown foxing spots on several of the pages. The booklet was string bound, but no cover other than a title page is present. The outside edges of the pages have been trimmed, resulting in the loss of a few letters at the ends of the lines of type nearest to the outer edges of the booklet. Even with this letter loss, the text remains clear and understandable. There are two horizontal light crease marks on the booklet, indicating where the booklet may have once been folded. Taking into account the age of the document, as well as its physical shortcomings, the booklet’s overall condition can be considered good.


The primary article in this issue is the Extracts from Clarkson’s Thoughts, written by Thomas Clarkson, which spans pages 35 to 46. The article reviews the British programs that resettled slaves into new settlements, located in places such as Nova Scotia, Trinidad, Jamaica, Sierra Leone, and others, where they would work, live and be educated in an environment where they were paid workers, rather than slaves, and would eventually evolve into a free man community. The short, newsy articles in the remaining pages deal with things like Colonial Slavery, The Slave Ship, West India Emancipation, and the traffic of alcoholic beverages in Liberia.


The illustrations accompanying this description are the Title page, the first page of text, and a typical 2-page spread of text.


Thomas Clarkson (28 March 1760 – 26 September 1846) was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (also known as the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade) and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which ended British trade in slaves. In his later years, Clarkson campaigned for the abolition of slavery worldwide; it was then concentrated in the Americas. In 1840, he was the key speaker at the Anti-Slavery Society’s (today known as Anti-Slavery International) first conference in London, England which campaigned to end slavery in other countries. [Wikipedia]