Spain Agrees to End Slave Trade
On September 23, 1817, Spain took a significant step towards the abolition of the slave trade by entering into a treaty with Great Britain, agreeing to cease its participation in the international slave trade. This agreement came during a period when European nations had established extensive trading networks that forcibly transported millions of Africans to the New World, where slavery was integral to the plantation economies. By the late 18th century, growing public sentiment against slavery began to shift policies, leading to a compromise where the capture of new slaves was prohibited, yet existing enslaved individuals remained unfreed. Great Britain, with its naval power, became the enforcer of this policy, and the United States had already joined the ban in 1808. The 1817 treaty was crucial as Spain, holding vast colonial territories, was pressured to join this movement during the Congress of Vienna in 1815. However, the treaty had significant loopholes and enforcement was weak, especially in Cuba, where slavery persisted until 1886. While the treaty marked a notable advance in the long campaign against slavery, the path to its full abolition remained complex and lengthy.
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Spain Agrees to End Slave Trade
Spain Agrees to End Slave Trade
A major step forward in the slowly evolving effort to abolish slavery took place on September 23, 1817, when Spain entered into a treaty with Great Britain to end its participation in the international slave trade.
The slave trade between West Africa and the New World had once been a thriving business. Many European nations established trading posts and forts along the African coastline and, often with the assistance of local tribal chieftains, forcibly abducted millions of African men and women for export to colonies in the New World. The British and their colonists in what became the United States came to dominate this trade in the 18th century, but toward the end of that century popular opinion was turning against slavery, and support for the abolition of this inhumane institution was increasing. Because slavery had become vital to the plantation economies of many European colonies and was important within the southern United States as well, by the early 19th century the general approach had become to effect a compromise: the capture and transportation of new slaves from Africa would be prohibited, but for the time being existing slaves in the New World would not be emancipated, nor would the institution of slavery be abolished within those lands where it already existed.
Great Britain, which had the world's most powerful navy and extensive possessions in West Africa, became the de facto enforcer of this new policy to ban the international slave trade. It was supported by the United States, which joined the ban in 1808. During the Congress of Vienna of 1815, the British pressured many nations, including Spain to join the ban as well. Spain was one of the most important such nations, since it held a vast colonial empire throughout the Americas. Therefore, on September 23, 1817, the Spanish government entered into a treaty with Britain whereby the Spanish agreed that they would no longer participate in the international slave trade and that Spanish vessels suspected of violating the treaty could be boarded by British warships. However, this agreement contained many loopholes and at first was effective only with respect to slave trading north of the equator. Spanish enforcement was lax, particularly in the prized colony of Cuba, where slavery would not be abolished until 1886 and illegal slave-traders reaped fortunes by providing new laborers for the lucrative sugar plantations. Nevertheless, although it took decades to secure the benefits, the treaty of 1817 represented significant progress in the 19th-century effort to abolish slavery.