yr9_James_Ramsay

__My name is James Ramsay, the "unsung hero of the slave trade abolition".__

__Here are some key details about my life...__

I was born in 1733. I was an anglican minister (a key member of the church) and a leading abolitionist. My father, William Ramsay, was a ship's carpenter and my mother was called Margaret Ogilvie. I was a surgeon's apprentice before studying at King's College, Aberdeen between 1750-1755. I gained my experiences about the horrors of slavery by working as a doctor on a slave ship on one occasion while serving in the Royal Navy. The horrible things I saw there led me to quit my job and start life in the church and working against the slave trade. Unfortunately, I died long before the abolition took place. I died in 1789 at the young age of 55 and was buried in Teston.

__I helped to get the slave trade abolished in the following sort of ways...__

In 1959, a slave ship in West Indian seas approached a number of Royal Navy vessels ascking for help. A dysentry epidemic had emerged on their ship and they needed a doctor urgently. I was the only doctor on board. I entered the ship and treated over a hundred passengers. I was disgusted by the conditions there (men and women were drenched in sewage and blood) and as soon as I returned to England I spent the rest of my life dedicated to stopping the slave trade. I wrote a very famous essay called //Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies.// I also wrote another essay confronting what would happen if we stopped the slave trade, one of the hardest areas to argue over for abolitionists.  I strongly influenced other abolitioners such as William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson by sharing my experiences on a slave ship with them after meeting them numerous times. I also wrote one of the first major anti-slavery essays and I have been named as one of the most influential figures in the abolition. My arguments have been stated as the some of the most powerful against the slave trade. __I think my contributions were particularly important because...__ Without me prominent figures such as William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson would not have evidence to back up some of their claims, therefore they could not have acheived much without me. My arguments were quoted and borrowed by other abolitionists to help back up their causes. I was the source of the great arguments and experiences that abolitionists used to end the slave trade years after I had died. My essays were read and shared amongst fellow abolitioners and I have excellent experience of the horrors of the slave trade. As I mentioned above, I was the "unsung hero of the slave trade" by Adam Hochschild, an expert on the slave abolition.

__Sources:__ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ramsay_%28abolitionist%29[|http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/]