100924 | GREAT BRITAIN. Middlesex. Lutwyche's copper Halfpenny Token.

100924 | GREAT BRITAIN. Middlesex. Lutwyche's copper Halfpenny Token. Issued circa 1795. Political and Social series: Anti-slavery (27mm, 10.08 g, 6h).

 

AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER, chained male slave kneeling right / + MAY SLAVERY & OPPRESSION CEASE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, clasped hands. Edge: • + PAYABLE IN DUBLIN OR LONDON +.

 

D&H 1038a. Choice Very Fine. Deep brown surfaces, with a slightly glossy nature; a few scattered marks. Popular abolitionist type.

 

The kneeling slave motif used on this piece and others was initially designed by William Hackwood for Josiah Wedgewood and was immediately popular with the many abolition movements in both Great Britain and the United States. Though results were not immediate at the time this token was issued in 1795, it did aid (in Great Britain) in the passing of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, banning the trading of slaves within the British Empire, and the Reform Act of 1833, banning the practice outright, while (in the United States) in the passing of the Act of 1807, banning the importation of slaves [though not the domestic trade], and the Emancipation Proclamation (1863)/Thirteenth Amendment (1865), ultimately banning the practice outright.

 

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