The Amelioration Act 1798[1] (sometimes referred to as the Melioration Act or the Slavery Amelioration Act) was a statute passed by the Leeward Islands to improve the conditions of slaves in the British Caribbean colonies.
It introduced financial compensation for slaves, and therefore penalties for owners, for instances of cruelty or serious neglect. The Act prohibited marriages between slaves according to Christian religious ceremony. The Act was effectively repealed by the Slave Trade Act 1807, which made it illegal to trade in slaves in any British territory. The Act applied in all of the British Leeward Island colonies in the Caribbean until its implied repeal by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. The Act is most often noted for its provisions for financial penalties for inflicting cruel and unusual punishments on slaves. It also made provisions for basic entitlements of slaves to clothes, food and rudimentary education. However, the Act was somewhat eclectic in effect; it also prohibited marriages between slaves being sanctified by religious ceremony. Ultimately, the act would lead to abolitionism.
The Act is sometimes portrayed as an example of extending basic human rights to slaves. Whilst that may be correct, it is also probable that the Act had considerably less altruistic purposes. Agitation amongst slaves was increasing in the region at the time, and slave rebellions were becoming increasingly frequent. Trying to moderate the conduct of the worst slave owners was partly a measure to control these outbreaks of violence. It suggested that the Act served an economic function; anticipating the abolition of the slave trade (which in fact subsequently happened pursuant to the Slave Trade Act 1807). It has been argued that the Act sought to preserve the well-being and encourage the breeding of existing slave populations to preserve the labour basis upon which the Caribbean's plantation economies were based.
It does not appear that the provisions which prohibited cruel and unusual punishments were widely enforced. However, in at least one notable instance, the trial of Arthur Hodge for the murder of one of his slaves, the Act was cited obliquely. Hodge's counsel, at the bail hearing, had argued that "A Negro being property, it was no greater offense for his master to kill him than it would be to kill his dog," a submission that was ridiculed by the prosecution, but, being unable to cite authority to refute it, made reference to the Act and averred that it was completely inconsistent with being entitled to kill slaves.
↑ Leeward Islands Act No. 36, vol. 1., The Laws of the Island of Antigua Consisting of the Acts of the Leeward Islands, 1690–1798, and Acts of Antigua, 1668–1845 (London: Samuel Bagster, 1805–46)
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, was the movement to end slavery. This term can be used both formally and informally. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and set slaves free.
The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 is a United States federal law that provided that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution.
The Slave Trade Act 1807, officially An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire. Although it did not abolish the practice of slavery, it did encourage British action to press other nation states to abolish their own slave trades.
Slave Codes are the subset of laws regarding slavery and enslaved people, specifically regarding the Transatlantic Slave Trade and chattel slavery in the Americas.
The Barbados Slave Code of 1661 was a law passed by the colonial English legislature to provide a legal basis for slavery in the Caribbean island of Barbados. The code's preamble, which stated that the law's purpose was to "protect them [slaves] as we do men's other goods and Chattels", established that black slaves would be treated as chattel property in the island's court.
Slavery was abolished in the British West Indies with passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. The British did not immediately shift to free labor. A system of apprenticeship was implemented alongside emancipation in Britain's Caribbean possessions that required slaves to continue laboring for their former masters for a period of four to six years in exchange for provisions. Apprenticeship was abolished by each of the colonial assemblies in 1838.
The coastwise slave trade existed along the eastern coastal areas of the United States in the antebellum years prior to 1861. Shiploads and boatloads of slaves in the domestic trade were transported from place to place on the waterways. Hundreds of vessels of various sizes and capacities were used to transport the slaves, generally from markets of the Upper South, where there was a surplus of slaves, to the Deep South, where the development of new cotton plantations created high demand for labor.
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery in parts of the British Empire. This Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807 and made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire, with the exception of "the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company", Ceylon, and Saint Helena. The Act was repealed in 1997 as a part of wider rationalisation of English statute law; however, later anti-slavery legislation remains in force.
Antigua, also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the native population, is an island in the West Indies. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Barbuda became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on 1 November 1981.
Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.
The term British West Indies refers to the former English and British colonies and the present-day overseas territories of the United Kingdom in the Caribbean.
Slavery at common law in former colonies of the British Empire developed slowly over centuries, and was characterised by inconsistent decisions and varying rationales for the treatment of slavery, the slave trade, and the rights of slaves and slave owners. Unlike in its colonies, within the home islands of Britain, until 1807, except for statutes facilitating and taxing the international slave trade, there was virtually no legislative intervention in relation to slaves as property, and accordingly the common law had something of a "free hand" to develop, untrammeled by the "paralysing hand of the Parliamentary draftsmen".
The Reverend James Ramsay was a ship's surgeon, Anglican priest, and leading abolitionist.
This article describes the history of West Indies cricket to 1918.
Arthur William Hodge (1763–1811) was a plantation farmer, member of the Executive Council and Legislative Assembly, and slave owner in the British Virgin Islands, who was hanged on 8 May 1811, for the murder of one of his slaves.
Slave Trade Act is a stock short title used for legislation in the United Kingdom and the United States that relates to the slave trade.
In common with most Caribbean countries, slavery in the British Virgin Islands forms a major part of the history of the Territory. One commentator has gone so far as to say: "One of the most important aspects of the History of the British Virgin Islands is slavery."
Slavery in Great Britain existed and was recognised from before the Roman occupation until the 12th century, when chattel slavery disappeared, at least for a time, after the Norman Conquest. Former slaves merged into the larger body of serfs in Britain and no longer were recognized separately in law or custom.
Slavery in Southern Africa existed until the abolition of slavery in the Cape Colony on 1 January 1834.
Abolitionism in the United Kingdom was the movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to end the practice of slavery, whether formal or informal, in the United Kingdom, the British Empire and the world, including ending the Atlantic slave trade. It was part of a wider abolitionism movement in Western Europe and the Americas.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
