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Slave Trade Act 1807

An act of the British Parliament, which received royal assent on 25 March 1807, banned the slave trade in the British Empire from 1 May 1807. Slavery itself continued in the British colonies until 1833.

Date
25 March 1807exact date
Place
Londontoday: London, United Kingdom · Western and Central Europe
Participants
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, William Wilberforce
Threads
The world in the Age of Revolution

The act was the outcome of a twenty-year abolitionist campaign led in Parliament by William Wilberforce; at its second reading in the House of Commons it passed by 283 votes to 16. Britain then began pressing other powers to ban the slave trade.

Almost at the same time, on 2 March 1807, the United States also banned the importation of slaves.

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Connections

Related events

  • Mungo Park’s first expedition to the Niger2 December 1795 – 10 June 1797 · AfricaPark described the internal African slave trade in detail and sailed home on a slave ship; his book came out at the height of the British debate on abolishing the slave trade
  • Jihad of Usman dan Fodio21 February 1804 – 1808 · Africathe British ban and the jihad changed slavery in West Africa in different ways: the export of captives overseas declined, while in the Sokoto Caliphate slave labor became the basis of the economy
  • Congress of ViennaSeptember 1814 – 9 June 1815 · Western and Central Europeat Britain’s insistence, the Congress of Vienna condemned the slave trade

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Eastern Europe

Balkans and Anatolia

Africa

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The same period

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Slave Trade Act 1807
  2. Wikipedia (Russian): Акт о запрете работорговли (1807)
  3. Anstey R. The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760–1810. — London: Macmillan, 1975.
  4. Wikidata: Q770832