Not that it makes a difference, but to those saying owned 80 th slaves, No he was onvolved in the trade/ movement of 80th slaves that's not actually the same thing. Not that it matters.
The slaves were owned by him/his company until they were sold to their new owners so, yes, he did own 84,000 slaves over the course of his career. And this isn't counting the slaves bought/sold by SSC with whom he was a major investor.
84000 black slaves were transported & at least 19000 died en route
The 84000 included children as young as six and roughly 1 in 4 children died during the crossing.
it’s impossible for us to comprehend the slave trade, it’s was completely barbaric but was judged against a different back drop where hardship was common place and extreme for 99% of people.
Many groups opposed slavery and campaigned for abolition in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Notably, the Quakers were opposed to slavery and Colstin gave a lot of money to groups who stood against the Quakers and other minority religious groups different to his own predominantly for this reason. It wasn't until 1783 that the Quakers and other groups began petitioning Parliament but the abhorrence was there long before that and it was a contentious moral subject. There were rulings going back to the 16th century that stated any man who set foot in English soil was a free man and that slavery was against the rights of man. It may have been legal but that doesn't mean that everyone agreed with it.