The abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire freed more than 800,000 slaves and contributed significantly to the worldwide abolition movement.
The abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire was the culmination of the great antislavery movement in Great Britain. The first planned British effort to eradicate slavery began as early as 1765, when Granville Sharp, a civil servant, sought to gain the freedom of Jonathan Strong, a runaway slave who had incurred a severe beating from his owner. Although Sharp’s attempt failed, he remained committed to the abolition of slavery in England. The initial legislation that served as a precursor to the eventual abolition of slavery in Great Britain and the British colonies occurred in 1807. Specifically, the abolition of the British slave trade on March 25, 1807, was the first stage in the struggle that continued until the institution of slavery was finally eradicated throughout the empire.
Opponents of the British slave trade calculated that their victory would gradually lead to the end of slavery and that the condition of existing slaves would improve when slave owners could no longer replenish their supplies of unpaid labor and would have to increase their paid labor forces. It was hoped that such amelioration of the slaves’ condition would eventually lead to emancipation.
By 1823, however, the hopes of the humanitarians, and others, were at a low point. Aside from moral and ethical prohibitions against slavery, there was a growing disaffection with slavery by those who asserted that the British economy was undergoing transition as steam power was gradually replacing human power. Consequently, these critics of slavery emphasized that the institution of slavery was detrimental to the British economy as there were an increasing number of industries that had a need for raw materials from foreign markets rather than slaves. Thus, slaves had lost their value as they were replaced by industrialization in England. For example, when the British slave trade was abolished in 1807, the reaction in Liverpool—which had thrived on the slave trade—was characterized by terror, because residents expected a major decline in their standard of living.
Despite the ban on the slave trade in the colonies, illicit importation continued. One reason illegal slave trading continued was the fact that penalties for violating the trading ban were only monetary fines. The slave trade was so profitable that slave traders could easily pay the fines. Even after slave trading became a felony offense, British slave traders developed new means of circumventing the law. The slave trade thus continued, and the condition of the slaves did not show marked improvements. Attempts at change had been disregarded or resisted by slave owners and colonial legislatures, especially in areas such as the West Indies where plantation agriculture was performed primarily by black slaves. In reaction to the continued existence of these problems, abolitionists decided to attack the institution of slavery itself, hoping that the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire would set a pattern for other countries.
There were, however, critics—particularly from other countries—who believed that the British were hypocritical and selective in their quest to abolish slavery. The British had derived innumerable benefits from their domination of the slave trade for many years, and they had also financed the Industrial Revolution from the unpaid labor of black slaves. Critics also maintained that the British campaign to eradicate slavery in the West Indies
In January, 1823, the Society for the Gradual Mitigation and Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions—better known as the Anti-Slavery Society—was formed. The leadership of the society was impressive. The duke of Gloucester
The Anti-Slavery Society was to be the parent organization to numerous societies. By means of its monthly journal, the Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter edited by Zachary Macaulay
The abolition campaign in Parliament began on May 5, 1823, when Thomas Buxton
George Canning
These resolutions, providing for the amelioration and eventual abolition of slavery, formed the basis of government policy almost up to the time of the Emancipation Act of 1833. Numerous orders in council that gradually became more specific were founded upon them. The object of the orders in council was to improve the slaves’ position by altering slave codes in the colonies. The use of the whip and the flogging of women were prohibited; evidence presented by slaves, under certain regulations, was allowed in law courts; facilities for manumission were to be established; and facilities for the moral and religious instruction of slaves were to be encouraged.
During the seven years following the Canning
By 1830, it was apparent that the gradual emancipation policy of the government would never work. Despite the fact that the Anti-Slavery Society enthusiastically approved a motion for the immediate abolition of slavery in the British colonies in May, 1830, political events in Great Britain once again pushed the question of slavery to the side. In 1831, voters expressed dissatisfaction with the more conservative policies of the duke of Wellington’s ministry by returning a Whig government under the leadership of Charles Grey
Parliamentary reform nevertheless remained the question of the hour, even under the sympathetic Whig government. One attempt was made to resurrect the policy of amelioration. A strict order in council, designed to reform slave codes in the Crown Colonies, was enacted, accompanied by the promise of lower duties on sugar to encourage the colonial legislatures to enforce the order. Even this order in council was resisted by the planters, who anticipated that the Whig
The case against slavery, meanwhile, was being argued more extensively than ever before. Agitation was sharpened in June, 1831, with the formation of the Agency Committee by younger and more zealous abolitionists such as George Stephens and Joseph Sturge. Believing that nothing effectual would be accomplished in Parliament without first increasing the “pressure from without,” younger abolitionists decided to inform the public mind by means of antislavery lectures given throughout the country by agents of the committee who were independent of the parent society.
Events moved rapidly in the reformed Parliament that met in February, 1833. Disturbed by the omission of the slavery issue from King William IV’s
Noting that previous parliamentary pressures had had no effect on the colonial legislatures, Stanley proposed a plan that would free not only future generations of slaves but also the current generation, while it would at the same time prevent any possible dangers from immediate emancipation. The plan included two key provisions. First, all children who were born after the act, or who were under the age of six, would be free. Second, existing slaves would be placed in an intermediate stage of apprenticeship, which would last no longer than twelve years. Apprentices would be cared for by their former masters and would devote three-fourths of their labor to their former masters, the last fourth being contracted out as a free labor system with part of the proceeds used as compensation to the planters. Compensation to the slave owners was to be in the form of a fifteen-million-pound loan to the West Indian
When the motions appeared before Parliament as a bill, several changes were introduced as the proposals passed through the House of Commons. The alterations were necessary to achieve both abolitionist support and West Indian planter acceptance. The apprentice period was reduced from twelve to six years for agricultural workers and from six to four years for nonagricultural workers. This alteration was demanded by the abolitionists who were repelled by the apprenticeship concept. To secure the acceptance of slave owners, the loan was changed to a twenty-million-pound gift as compensation for property loss. The revised bill subsequently passed the House of Commons and was sent to the House of Lords, where a few nonsubstantive changes were made. The bill received the royal assent on August 28, 1833, and thus became law.
The emancipation of some 800,000 slaves in the British Empire was a remarkable triumph for the abolitionists. It was also a triumph that would give impetus to the case of slave emancipation throughout the world, particularly in the United States, where emancipation was finally achieved with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.
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Barclay, Alexander. A Practical View of the Present State of Slavery in the West Indies. Reprint. Miami, Fla.: Mnemosyne, 1969. Originally published in 1828, this work contains a detailed discussion of slave labor in the West Indies and the British slave trade to these islands during the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. -
Barclay, Oliver. Thomas Fowell Buxton and the Liberation of Slaves. York, England: Sessions, 2001. Biography of Buxton that emphasizes his seminal role in Great Britain’s abolition movement. -
Coupland, Reginald. The British Anti-Slavery Movement. London: Frank Cass, 1964. This book presents a classic statement of the humanitarian perspective in the antislavery movement by an authority on empire history. -
Drescher, Seymour. The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor Versus Slavery in British Emancipation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Examination of the British debates over emancipation that argues that neither abolitionists nor proslavery advocates sincerely believed that free labor would ultimately be more economically profitable than slavery. -
Mathieson, William Law. British Slave Emancipation, 1838-1849. New York: Octagon Books, 1967. Originally published in 1932, this complement to Mathieson’s book on abolition (below) represents a further statement on the antislavery campaign and its aftermath. -
_______. British Slavery and Its Abolition, 1823-1838. New York: Octagon Books, 1967. Originally published in 1926, this book surveys the first part of the antislavery campaign along the lines of Coupland’s school of thought, which emphasizes the humanitarian aspect of the movement. -
Mellor, George R. British Imperial Trusteeship, 1783-1850. London: Faber & Faber, 1951. This work contains a succinct treatment of the antislavery movement in its survey of British relations with dependent peoples, including Indians, Africans, the Maoris, and Australian Aborigines. -
Sheridan, Richard. Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies. Kingston, Jamaica: University of West Indies Press, 2000. Detailed history of the important role that slavery played in the sugar industry, which provided the mainstay of the economies of Britain’s Caribbean colonies.
Congress Bans Importation of African Slaves
Social Reform Movement
Turner Launches Slave Insurrection
American Anti-Slavery Society Is Founded
Liberia Proclaims Its Independence
Emancipation of Russian Serfs
Slave Traders Begin Ravaging Easter Island
Lincoln Issues the Emancipation Proclamation
Morant Bay Rebellion
Thirteenth Amendment Is Ratified
Zanzibar Outlaws Slavery
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton; George Canning; Samuel Ajayi Crowther; Charles Grey.