Joseph Blanco White's 1814 work, A Sketch of the slave trade, was addressed to the people of Spain, in response to the decision of the Cortes in 1811 to continue the slave trade. It uses largely British abolitionist source material, arguing that this is "applicable to what other nations are doing" (2). It cites Wilberforce's 1807 Letter on the abolition of the slave trade, and Mungo Park's Travels in the Interior of Africa, and contains the famous plan of the Liverpool slave ship, the Brooks. The final three chapters set out moral, political and religious arguments against the slave trade.

The Spanish theologian and poet José Maria Blanco y Crespo was known as Joseph Blanco White in Britain, where he lived between 1810 and 1841.