At times when official coins were in short supply, people used tokens as small change. Most were made in Birmingham. Often the tokens carried an advertisement for a local shop, but many carried a political message. Abolition supporters issued tokens with the image from the seal of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The token showed a kneeling, enslaved African. The reverse or 'tail' of one here has a pair of clasped hands and the words 'May slavery and oppression cease throughout the world'. The reverse usually had a quotation from the Bible, from Matthew Chapter 7 verse 12: 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them'.