The fact is that slavery was ended in England by Evangelical Christians, and in America by Republicans. Needless to say, this is simply unacceptable to the leftists, who cannot stomache the idea that progress is made by anyone by leftists, so they have simply written it out of history.
Instead, the British Empire and the Republicans are the designated villains, and Christianity is a menace to all right (i.e., left) thinking people.
One ironic result was that in the 60s blacks were persuaded that Christians were the oppressors, and so they turned to Islam--even though Islam did more than any other force to spread slavery through the post-classical world.
"Moreover, the story of abolition is also the story of the power of the gospel. The unseen background of Wilberforce’s work was the spiritual movement known as the Great Awakening. All throughout England and America the gospel was ablaze under the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield, and many thousands of people came to Christ in a generation. What we did not learn from the movie, is that when Wilberforce presented Commons with petitions from “the people,” a vast majority of these were Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, Dissenters and Anglican – many of whom had been touched by the Great Awakening. Had it not been for the Great Awakening there would have been no abolition—at least not in Wilberforce’s day."
from:
http://www.reformation21.org/Shelf_Life/Shelf_Life/309/vobId__5459/
I think the Great Awakening in the Anglo-American community, and the lack of anything comparable in the rest of Europe, is largely responsible for the fact that Britain, Canada, and Australia are our closest allies. Europe remained wallowing either in reactionary corruption or brutal radical movements, while the English-speaking world proceeded with liberal (in the true sense) reform.
'The fact is that slavery was ended in England by Evangelical Christians, and in America by Republicans.'
I fully agree with your sentiments, but I must point out a small fact that has not been mentioned yet in this thread - slavery has never been legal in England itself. It has always been illegal under English common law and was actually first written specifically into statute in 1102. Slaves brought into England could not be bought or sold and effectively had the status of indentured servants or employees until the case of James Somerset in 1772 who ran away from his 'master' who intended to send him to work on his Jamaican plantations. James didn't want to go and the Lord Chief Justice ruled that as slavery was illegal, he could not be made to. This technically freed between 10 and 14 thousand 'slaves' in England, though most carried on as they were, not considering themselves slaves, certainly their working conditions and rights were no worse than the indigenous population at that time.
So, good as Wilberforces work was, he only outlawed slavery in the semi-autonomous colonies, not in England.
Must admit I am looking forward to seeing the film!