author
James Ramsay
1733–1789
A Scottish surgeon-turned-clergyman, he became one of Britain's early and important voices against slavery after witnessing its cruelty firsthand in the Caribbean. His writing helped push the abolition debate into public view in the years before his death.
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About the author
Born in Fraserburgh, Scotland, in 1733, James Ramsay first trained in medicine and served as a naval surgeon. After an injury ended that part of his career, he entered the church and spent many years in St Kitts, where he worked as an Anglican priest.
His time in the West Indies changed him. Seeing the realities of slavery at close range led him to speak out against it, and after returning to Britain he wrote An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies in 1784. The book brought him praise from abolitionists and fierce attacks from defenders of the slave trade.
Ramsay died in 1789, before abolition was achieved, but his work helped shape the movement that followed. He is remembered as an early and courageous campaigner whose firsthand testimony gave moral force to the fight against the slave trade.