1807, Act on the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire

The Act on the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire was an 1807 law passed by the British Parliament that officially ended the trade of enslaved persons in the British Empire. Prior to its passage, Britian was one of the largest transporters of enslaved people in the world. The law was passed after years of effort by British abolitionists, who began pushing for an end to the trade in the 1770s. While the 1807 law officially ended Britian’s involvement in the transportation and trade of enslaved people, it did not end slavery in the British Empire. The practice continued in the British colonies until the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

Background

Human slavery dates back thousands of years to the first civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The practice was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans and later spread throughout the kingdoms of Europe during the Middle Ages. Slavery was common in the Muslim world as well, with the great West African kingdoms of the tenth through fifteenth centuries growing wealthy by trading enslaved peoples with the Islamic empires in northern Africa.

In the 1440s, explorers from Portugal began sailing along the West African coast, marking the beginning of sustained European contact with the region. By the 1460s, the Portuguese had established trading posts in the region and begun the first European trade network of enslaved Africans. Many of those enslaved were transported to Portuguese colonies in the Cape Verde Islands and Brazil in South America.

For most of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands were the predominant European colonial powers and also the main participants in the trade of enslaved people. In the early seventeenth century, Great Britian stepped up its colonization efforts and established itself as the world’s great colonial power by century’s end.

Overview

In 1663, the Parliament of Great Britian officially granted permission for the nation to enter into the trade of enslaved people. Britian soon became the most powerful slave-trading nation in the world. From 1699 to 1807, British ships conducted more than twelve thousand voyages transporting enslaved Africans. Most of this trade involved transporting Africans to British colonies in the Caribbean and North America, a deadly voyage known as the middle passage in the transatlantic slave trade. People were jammed onto slaving ships and forced to live in horrendous conditions, with many dying along the way. From 1662 to 1807, more than 3.4 million Africans were transported to the British colonies aboard transatlantic slaving ships. About 2.9 million survived the journey.

Opposition to slavery began in Great Britian soon after the nation began trading enslaved people. A Protestant religious group known as the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, began campaigning against the practice as early as 1688. The Quakers saw the enslaved Africans as fellow human beings and believed that slavery was inhumane. Quaker groups in both Great Britain and the British American colonies continued their opposition of slavery into the eighteenth century.

Slavery had been practiced in Great Britian itself, although it was much more common in its colonies. In 1769, an American colonist arrived in Great Britian with his enslaved servant, James Somerset, who escaped and was baptized a Christian but was later recaptured. In 1772, his baptismal sponsors sued for his release, claiming that he was free once he set foot on British soil. In a landmark case, the judge found that English common law had never officially authorized slavery within its borders. Somerset was freed, and slavery was technically made illegal in England and Wales, although the practice continued in some form until about 1800.

The ruling, combined with popular narratives written by former enslaved people Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano, increased calls for the abolition of slavery in Great Britian. In 1787, Britian’s first abolitionist society, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (SEAST), was formed and began the organized political effort to bring about the end of slavery. Members of the society led a nationwide public relations campaign, advertising in newspapers, holding public meetings, writing letters, and distributing anti-slavery books and pamphlets.

The effort succeeded in producing several petitions to the British Parliament calling for the end of the trade of enslaved people. In 1792, the House of Commons voted to gradually end the practice, but its decision was reversed by the House of Lords. In the House of Commons, William Wilberforce served as the leading voice of the abolitionist movement. Wilberforce continually brought up the issue of abolishing the trade of enslaved people but had achieved only modest success when events in the British colonies changed the political climate in London.

Rebellions by enslaved persons in the French Caribbean colonies of Saint Domingue and Haiti in the 1790s convinced many in Parliament that it would be in Britain’s best interest to end the trade of enslaved people. In 1806, Wilberforce helped push the Foreign Slave Trade Act through Parliament. The law banned British slaving ships from operating in waters under the jurisdiction of foreign powers.

In February 1807, Parliament passed the Act on the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire, which officially ended the nation’s involvement in the trade of enslaved peoples. The law passed by a vote of 283–16 and became official by royal decree on March 25. The act required that ship captains caught transporting enslaved people to be fined and gave the Royal Navy the power to seize ships believed to be defying the law.

While the law did not outright abolish slavery in the British colonies, Wilberforce and other abolitionists hoped it would bring about a gradual end to the practice. When this did not happen, members of the movement began the push for a complete end to slavery through the British Empire. That goal was achieved in 1833 with the passage of the Act on the Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire. Forms of slavery remained in effect in some British colonies for a number of years afterward, but by 1838, it was effectively ended throughout the empire.

Bibliography

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“How Did The Slave Trade End in Britain?” Royal Museums Greenwich, www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/how-did-slave-trade-end-britain. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Mintz, Steven. “Historical Context: Facts About the Slave Trade and Slavery.” Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2023, www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-resources/historical-context-facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Oldfield, John. “Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slavery in Britain.” British Library, 4 Feb. 2021, www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/abolition-of-the-slave-trade-and-slavery-in-britain. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Richardson, David. Principles and Agents: The British Slave Trade and Its Abolition. Yale University Press, 2022.

“Slavery and the British Transatlantic Slave Trade.” The National Archives, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-transatlantic-slave-trade-records/. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Tomes, Luke. “7 Reasons Why Britain Abolished Slavery.” History Hit, 16 Oct. 2020, www.historyhit.com/reasons-why-britain-abolished-slavery/. Accessed 13 June 2023.