In his day, the 19th-century fugitive from slavery Moses Roper was a well-known public figure who toured Britain and Ireland telling gripped and shocked audiences about his horrific experiences in Florida.
Today he is largely overlooked but, two Newcastle University academics argue, the important story of this fascinating man represents a “lost opportunity” for the British abolition movement to have helped end slavery in the US earlier.
Bruce Baker, a reader in American history, said it was surprising how little attention had been paid to Roper, given he was a pioneer. “Historians haven’t really paid a lot of attention to Roper, even though he was the first fugitive slave to lecture in the cause of abolition in Britain and Ireland.”
Baker and his colleague Fionnghuala Sweeney, a reader in American and Black Atlantic Literatures, have now published a paper in an academic journal and are working on a full biography of Roper. They aim to rescue him from obscurity, painting a picture of a radical, driven man ruined by the British abolition movement that turned against him.
Roper fled enslavement in Florida in 1834 and, fearing for his safety, made his way to Britain, where he was supported by churchmen and abolitionists. They helped fund his education and in 1837 he published the first edition of his Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper from American Slavery.
He gave his first solo public lecture at Howard Street Chapel in Sheffield in April 1838. Later that year in Leicester, he told his audience: “You have heard the slave-holders’ story 250 years ago. Now, I think, it is time for the slaves to speak.”
He lectured in villages, towns and cities across Britain and Ireland and was generally well received. But not always.
The Hampshire Advertiser accused him of exaggerating the violence he suffered for effect saying no one could have inflicted as many lashes as Roper said he received. Roper, bristling, “offered to prove, on the person of the editor … that he could inflict 500 lashes … without resting”. Baker and Sweeney say: “There is no evidence that Roper’s offer was taken up.”
By 1839 Roper had updated his Narrative three times, had married a British woman, and appeared to be in a good place.
Baker said: “This should have been a prime moment for the British abolitionist movement to refocus its attention on ending slavery in America, with the testimony of someone who had actually experienced slavery to help push this forward, but for various reasons this does not happen.”
The main reason was a falling out with a London pastor called Thomas Price, who had expected Roper to become a missionary and teach children in Africa. Price was not impressed by Roper’s career as an author and lecturer, condemning it in one published letter as a “permanent system of genteel begging”.
The row had ruinous consequences for Roper, who was pushed to the margins at a critical time. It represented, said Baker, a lost opportunity for the abolition movement.
“It does seem that had Roper been supported by the abolition movement in an organised way, there might have been more political pressure to do something about slavery, especially with the power of the British empire behind it.
“The few years that are lost are an important time, because events are under way in North America that then, in some ways, overtake the abolition movement.” There could have been “different political opportunities had there been more of a welcome, more of a platform for black abolitionists”.
Until Price’s letter, Roper had been earning a sizeable amount from book sales. Suddenly he began to lose money and feared going to prison.
The Roper family moved from London to Wales and later emigrated to Canada, before returning to Wales. He died, back in the US, in 1891.
‘I Am Not a Beggar’: Moses Roper, Black Witness and the Lost Opportunity of British Abolitionism is published in the journal Slavery and Abolition.
