“To Soften the Extreme Rigor of Their Bondage”: James Stephen's Attempt to Reform the Criminal Slave Laws of the West Indies, 1813–1833

Abstract

In 1813, James Stephen, Jr., a twenty-four-year-old lawyer, was appointed part-time by the British Colonial Office to write legal opinions on the validity of colonial laws. In 1825, he began working full-time as legal advisor to the Colonial Office and held this position until 1836 when he was promoted to the top-ranking post of permanent under-secretary of the Colonial Office, which he held until 1847. During these years, Stephen frequently played a key role in influencing the direction taken by policies and reforms initiated through the Colonial Office. In particular, his important role in shaping Colonial Office “native policy” after the mid-1830s has been documented by several historians, and much has been written about his connection—through his anti-slavery father, Stephen, Sr., and his uncle William Wilberforce—to the famous Evangelical “Clapham Sect” that took a leading role in promoting a number of different humanitarian and social reform causes in the first half of the nineteenth century.

An ‘Injurious’ Population

“…Stephen was and is renowned for his opposition to slavery and his hostility to the Caribbean plantocracy. 52 In his view, enslaved people were degraded, but this degradation resulted from their enslavement not their race. Yet to him it was self-evident that 'Negroes' should not be sent to Australia.…”