“Those damn women.” He slapped the paper down.
His colleague looked up, surprised.
“This report, sales of West India sugar have slumped. The campaign not to use our sugar, just because of slavery – ‘Am I not a woman and a sister’ indeed.”
“What can we do? We’ve tried everything, it’s not working.”
She sipped her tea, the sugar bowl labelled ‘Not made by slaves’. The report was wonderful news, the campaign was working.
In the newly reformed parliament, the MP’s had been told how to vote, across the tea tables of Britain the battle for freedom was fought – and won.
All true, one of the most remarkable events in the long fight against slavery in the British Empire was the sugar boycott. Mostly organised by women it spread the anti-slavery message widely among middle class families. After the great Reform Act of 1832, these were the people with political power, and they used it.