The lesson
British merchants and ships took part in the transatlantic slave trade, forcibly transporting African people to work on plantations. The trade generated wealth but depended on violence and the denial of freedom to enslaved people.
Parliament abolished the British slave trade in 1807. Slavery continued until the 1833 Emancipation Act ended it across most of the .
Abolitionists campaigned against the trade and against slavery. William Wilberforce was a leading parliamentary campaigner. Olaudah Equiano, who had been enslaved, described his experiences and argued for abolition. The campaign involved many people, including enslaved and formerly enslaved people themselves.
The 1807 law prohibited the British slave trade; the 1833 law legislated for emancipation in most British colonies. Britain had profited from slavery, and its economic and social consequences continued after legal abolition.
Quakers formed early anti-slavery groups in the late eighteenth century and petitioned Parliament. William Wilberforce helped lead the parliamentary campaign. After abolition, Royal Navy patrols intercepted slave ships and freed enslaved people. Indian and Chinese workers were later recruited for plantations, mines and railways across the Empire, often under harsh conditions.
British participation in transatlantic slavery linked commerce in Britain, Africa and the Americas. Enslaved Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic and made to work on plantations producing crops such as cotton, sugar and tobacco. Conditions were brutal. Describing these connections as trade must not hide the violence, coercion and denial of freedom on which the system depended.
Dates to keep separate
Slave trade abolished in 1807; slavery in 1833.
Memory tip: 1807 → trade. 1833 → slavery in most of the British Empire.