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Le More-Lack, ou Essai sur les moyens les plus doux & les plus équitables d'abolir la traite & l'esclavage des Nègres d'Afrique, en conservant aux Colonies tous les avantages d'une population agricole

Bibliothèque Nationale de France. British Library.

Essay Abolition Slave Trade Black Slavery Africa Colonies Agriculture French

Le More-Lack is a French essay, addressed to "the Philanthropic Societies and to all feeling souls" (i), which appeals for the reform of colonial slavery, and the abolition of the slave trade. Le More-Lack emphasises the complicity of European consumers in the cruelty of slavery: "one can't drink even a sole cup of coffee in Europe that does not contain a few drops of African blood" (vii). The anonymous narrator describes a chance encounter with a former slave (More-Lack) in Jersey, and re-tells his return voyage to Africa, in order to awaken anti-slavery feelings among French readers.

Includes an illustration, 'Celui qui Boit mon Sang, mes Sueurs, et mes Larmes, me refuse un morceau de Pain...' Anonymous, often attributed to Lecointe-Marsillac. Cites early British and French writings on Africa, including Adanson's Voyage to Senegal, the journal of the eighteenth-century colonial administrator André Brue and John Atkins's Voyage to Guinea, Brazil and the West Indies.