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Abolitionist behind a Revolutionary War slogan
Sharp never finished school. He taught himself the law, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and he wrote pamphlets, which were how people of his day spread an idea. His pamphlet to Franklin argued that the colonies should not be taxed without a representative in Parliament, and that argument became the slogan No taxation without representation, the rallying cry of the American Revolutionary War.
He was a man of deep faith who could not stand that a Christian nation took part in slavery, and he was the first white person to devote his life to abolishing it. Few people know his name, though he is called the grandfather of the abolition of slavery. For two decades he worked on building a legal case against slavery, and when the Zorg letter reached him he saw it as the case that could blow the whole thing open.
What was the Stamp Act that angered colonists?
The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first direct tax Parliament placed on the American colonies, and it applied to printed materials such as newspapers, legal documents, and playing cards. Colonial assemblies passed resolutions against it, and merchants organized boycotts of British goods. Parliament repealed the act in 1766. On the same day it passed the Declaratory Act, asserting the power to legislate for the colonies in all cases.
How did Sharp's first slavery case begin?
In 1765 Sharp met Jonathan Strong, a young enslaved man who had been badly beaten by his owner, and helped him recover. Two years later the owner had Strong seized to be sold, and Sharp won his release at a hearing before the Lord Mayor of London. The owner then threatened a lawsuit, which pushed Sharp to study English law in depth. His research became a 1769 tract arguing that slavery had no standing in English law.
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