Slavery in Britain existed before the Roman occupation, which occurred from approximately AD 43 to AD 410, and the practice endured in various forms until the 11th century, during which the Norman conquest of England resulted in the gradual merger of the pre-conquest institution of slavery into serfdom in the midst of other economic upheavals. Given the widespread socio-political changes afterwards, all slaves were no longer recognised separately than other individuals in either English law or formal custom. By the middle of the 12th century, the institution of slavery as it had existed prior to the Norman conquest had fully disappeared, but other forms of unfree servitude continued for some centuries.
British merchants were a significant force behind the Atlantic slave trade (also known as the "transatlantic" slave trade) between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries,[1] but no legislation was ever passed in England that legalised slavery.[citation needed] In the Somerset case of 1772, Lord Mansfield ruled that, as slavery was not recognised by English law, James Somerset, a slave who had been brought to England and then escaped, could not be forcibly sent to Jamaica for sale, and he was set free. In Scotland, colliery (coal mine) slaves were still in use until 1799, when an act was passed which established their freedom and made slavery and bondage illegal.[2][3]
An abolitionist movement grew in Britain during the 18th and 19th century, until the Slave Trade Act of 1807 abolished the slave trade in the British Empire, but it was not until the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 that the institution of slavery was to be prohibited in directly administered, overseas, British territories.[4]
Despite being contrary to the laws of the U.K., practices described as "modern slavery" still exist in Britain and have often involved the effects created by human traffickers attacking those from poorer countries, such as those undertaking various crimes victimizing Vietnamese nationals. At the same time, however, multiple groups within the organized crime networks in the U.K. have frequently targeted British nationals. The country's government has, in a public statement, noted how "gangs exploit vulnerable individuals to transport [illegal] substances", and "who is recognised as a victim of modern slavery" includes both men and women as well as both adults and children. Specifically, in 2022, a full "12,727 potential victims of modern slavery were referred to the Home Office in 2021, representing a 20% increase compared to the preceding year".[5]
In 1772, Somerset v Stewart held that slavery had no basis in English law and was thus a violation of habeas corpus. This built on the earlier Cartwright case from the reign of Elizabeth I, which had similarly held the concept of slavery was not recognised in English law. This case was generally taken at the time to have decided that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law. Legally ("de jure") slave owners could not win in court, and abolitionists provided legal help for enslaved black people. However actual ("de facto") slavery continued in Britain with ten to fourteen thousand slaves in England and Wales, who were mostly domestic servants. When slaves were brought in from the colonies they had to sign waivers that made them indentured servants while in Britain. Most modern historians generally agree that slavery continued in Britain into the late 18th century, finally disappearing around 1800.[11]
Slavery elsewhere in the British Empire was not affected — indeed it grew rapidly especially in the Caribbean colonies. Slavery was abolished in the directly governed colonies, like Canada or Mauritius, through buying out the owners from 1834, under the terms of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.[12] Most slaves were freed, with exceptions and delays provided for territories administered by East India Company, in India, Ceylon, and Saint Helena. These East India company exceptions were eliminated in 1843, though slave holdings, within the indirectly ruled Indian Princely states, were still being captured by the 1891 Census of India.[13][14] While in indirectly ruled British Protectorates, incorporated after this date, like the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria (1914–1954), Sudan (1899–1956), Maldives, Trucial States (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, slavery remained legally permissible, under local Sharia legal codes, for the majority of the twentieth century.[15][16][17]
The prohibition on slavery and servitude is now codified under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in force since 1953 and incorporated directly into United Kingdom law by the Human Rights Act 1998. Article 4 of the Convention also bans forced or compulsory labour, with some exceptions such as a criminal penalty or military service.
Before 1066
From before Roman times, slavery was prevalent in Britain, with indigenous Britons being routinely exported.[18][19] Following the Roman conquest of Britain, slavery was expanded and industrialised.[20]
After the fall of Roman Britain, both the Angles and Saxons propagated the slave system.[21] One of the earliest accounts of slaves from early medieval Britain come from the description of fair-haired boys from York seen in Rome by Pope Gregory the Great, in a biography written by an anonymous monk.[22]
Anglo-Saxon opinion eventually turned against the sale of slaves abroad: a law of Ine of Wessex stated that anyone selling his own countryman, whether bond or free, across the sea, was to pay his own weregild in penalty, even when the man sold was guilty of a crime.[25] Nevertheless, legal penalties and economic pressures that led to default in payments maintained the supply of slaves, and in the 11th century there was still a slave trade operating out of Bristol, as a passage in the Vita Wulfstani makes clear.[8][26]
The Bodmin manumissions preserves the names and details of slaves freed in Bodmin (then the principal town of Cornwall) during the 9th and 10th centuries, indicating both that slavery existed in Cornwall at that time and that numerous Cornish slave-owners eventually set their slaves free.[27][28]
Norman and medieval England
According to the Domesday Book census, over 10% of England's population in 1086 were slaves.[29]
While there was no legislation against slavery,[30]William the Conqueror introduced a law preventing the sale of slaves overseas.[31]
In 1102, the church Council of London convened by Anselm issued a decree: "Let no one dare hereafter to engage in the infamous business, prevalent in England, of selling men like animals."[32] However, the Council had no legislative powers, and no act of law was valid unless signed by the monarch.[33]
Contemporary writers noted that the Scottish and Welsh took captives as slaves during raids, a practice which was no longer common in England by the 12th century. Some historians, like John Gillingham, have asserted that by about 1200, the institution of slavery was largely non-existent in the British Isles.[30]
Other academics such as Judith Spicksley, have argued that forms of slavery did in fact continue in England between the 12th and 17th centuries, but under other terms such as "serfs", "villein" and "bondsmen", however the serf or villein differed from the slave in that they could not be purchased as a moveable object who could be removed from his land; meaning that instead serfdom was closer to the purchasing of rental titles today than to true slavery.[34] De facto slavery in the form of forced labour did still occur though, as in the carrying away of over a thousand children from Wales to be "servants", which is recorded as taking place in 1401.[35]
Transportation to the colonies as a criminal or an indentured servant served as punishment for both great and petty crimes in England from the 17th century until well into the 19th century.[36] A sentence could be for life or for a specific period. The penal system required convicts to work on government projects such as road construction, building works and mining, or assigned them to free individuals as unpaid labour. Women were expected to work as domestic servants and farm labourers. Like slaves, indentured servants could be bought and sold, could not marry without the permission of their owner, were subject to physical punishment, and saw their obligation to labour enforced by the courts. However, they did retain certain heavily restricted rights; this contrasts with slaves who had none.[37]
A convict who had served part of his time might apply for a "ticket of leave", granting them some prescribed freedoms. This enabled some convicts to resume a more normal life, to marry and raise a family, and enabled a few to develop the colonies while removing them from the society.[38] Exile was an essential component, and was thought to be a major deterrent to crime. Transportation was also seen as a humane and productive alternative to execution, which would most likely have been the sentence for many if transportation had not been introduced.[citation needed]
The transportation of English subjects overseas can be traced back to the English Vagabonds Act 1597. During the reign of Henry VIII, an estimated 72,000 people were put to death for a variety of crimes.[39][failed verification] An alternative practice, borrowed from the Spanish, was to commute the death sentence and allow the use of convicts as a labour force for the colonies. One of the first references to a person being transported comes in 1607 when "an apprentice dyer was sent to Virginia from Bridewell for running away with his master's goods."[40] The Act was put to little use despite attempts by James I who, with limited success, tried to encourage its adoption by passing a series of Privy Council Orders in 1615, 1619 and 1620.[41]
Transportation was seldom used as a criminal sentence until the Piracy Act 1717, "An Act for the further preventing Robbery, Burglary, and other Felonies, and for the more effectual Transportation of Felons, and unlawful Exporters of Wool; and for declaring the Law upon some Points relating to Pirates", established a seven-year penal transportation as a possible punishment for those convicted of lesser felonies, or as a possible sentence to which capital punishment might be commuted by royal pardon. Criminals were transported to North America from 1718 to 1776. When the American revolution made transportation to the Thirteen Colonies unfeasible, those sentenced to it were typically punished with imprisonment or hard labour instead. From 1787 to 1868, criminals convicted and sentenced under the Act were transported to the colonies in Australia.[citation needed]
After the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and subsequent Cromwellian invasion, the English Parliament passed the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 which classified the Irish population into several categories according to their degree of involvement in the uprising and the subsequent war. Those who had participated in the uprising or assisted the rebels in any way were sentenced to be hanged and to have their property confiscated. Other categories were sentenced to banishment with whole or partial confiscation of their estates. While the majority of the resettlement took place within Ireland to the province of Connaught, perhaps as many as 50,000 were transported to the colonies in the West Indies and in North America.[42] Irish, Welsh and Scottish people were sent to work on sugar plantations in Barbados during the time of Cromwell.[43]
During the early colonial period, the Scots and the English, along with other western European nations, dealt with their "Gypsy problem" by transporting them as slaves in large numbers to North America and the Caribbean. Cromwell shipped Romanichal Gypsies as slaves to the southern plantations, and there is documentation of Gypsies being owned by former black slaves in Jamaica.[44]
Long before the Highland Clearances, some chiefs, such as Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, sold some of their clans into indenture in North America. Their goal was to alleviate over-population and lack of food resources in the glens.[citation needed]
Numerous Highland Jacobite supporters, captured in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden and rigorous Government sweeps of the Highlands, were imprisoned on ships on the River Thames. Some were sentenced to transportation to the Carolinas as indentured servants.[45]
Slavery and bondage in Scottish collieries
For nearly two hundred years in the history of coal mining in Scotland, miners were bonded to their "maisters" by a 1606 Act "Anent Coalyers and Salters". The Colliers and Salters (Scotland) Act 1775 stated that "many colliers and salters are in a state of slavery and bondage" and announced emancipation; those starting work after 1 July 1775 would not become slaves, while those already in a state of slavery could, after 7 or 10 years depending on their age, apply for a decree of the Sheriff Court granting their freedom. Few could afford this, until a further law in 1799 established their freedom and made this slavery and bondage illegal.[2][3]
Five Englishmen escaping slavery from Algiers, Barbary Coast, 1684
From the 16th to the 19th centuries it is estimated that between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured and sold as slaves by Barbary pirates and Barbary slave traders from Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli (in addition to an unknown number captured by the Turkish and Moroccan pirates and slave traders).[46] The slavers got their name from the Barbary Coast, that is, the Mediterranean shores of North Africa — what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. There are reports of Barbary slave raids across Western Europe, including France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, England and as far north as Iceland.[47]
Villagers along the south coast of England petitioned the king to protect them from abduction by Barbary pirates. Item 20 of The Grand Remonstrance,[48] a list of grievances against Charles I presented to him in 1641, contains the following complaint about Barbary pirates of the Ottoman Empire abducting English people into slavery:[49]
And although all this was taken upon pretense of guarding the seas, yet a new unheard-of tax of ship-money was devised, and upon the same pretense, by both which there was charged upon the subject near £700,000 some years, and yet the merchants have been left so naked to the violence of the Turkish pirates, that many great ships of value and thousands of His Majesty's subjects have been taken by them, and do still remain in miserable slavery.
Martins Bank building in Liverpool, showing two African boys, carrying money bags.
The privateer Sir John Hawkins of Plymouth, a notable Elizabethan seafarer, is widely acknowledged to be "the Pioneer of the English Slave Trade". In 1554, Hawkins formed a slave-trading syndicate, a group of merchants. He sailed with three ships for the Caribbean via Sierra Leone, hijacked a Portuguese slave ship and sold the 300 slaves from it in Santo Domingo. During a second voyage in 1564, his crew captured 400 Africans and sold them at Rio de la Hacha in present-day Colombia, making a 60% profit for his financiers.[50] A third voyage involved both buying slaves directly in Africa and capturing another Portuguese slave ship with its cargo; upon reaching the Caribbean, Hawkins sold all his slaves. On his return, he published a book entitled An Alliance to Raid for Slaves.[51] It is estimated that Hawkins transported 1,500 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic during his four voyages of the 1560s, before stopping in 1568 after a battle with the Spanish in which he lost five of his seven ships.[52] English involvement in the Atlantic slave trade only resumed in the 1640s after the country acquired an American colony (Virginia).[53]
By the mid-18th century, London had the largest African population in Britain. The number of black people living in Britain by that point has been estimated by historians to be roughly 10,000, though contemporary reports put that number as high as 20,000.[54] Some Africans living in Britain would run away from their masters, many of whom responded by placing advertisements in newspapers offering rewards for the returns.[55][56]
A number of former black slaves managed to achieve prominence in 18th-century British society. Ignatius Sancho (1729–1780), known as "The Extraordinary Negro", opened his own grocer's shop in Westminster.[57] He was famous for his poetry and music, and his friends included the novelist Laurence Sterne, David Garrick the actor and the Duke and Duchess of Montague. He is best known for his letters which were published after his death. Others, such as Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano were equally well known, and along with Ignatius Sancho were active in the British abolition campaign.[58]
Resistance
We know of several hundred enslaved Africans that escaped captivity whilst in Britain. While very little is known about most of the escapees, some insight can be gained into the lives of some, through 17th and 18th century newspaper adverts.[59]
James Williams, born into slavery in North America circa 1735, escaped twice from Captain Isaac Younghusband of the ship "Pleasant”.[60] After his first attempt, he spent several months as a free man in the British Army, as a drummer in Sir Robert Riche’s Dragoons.[61] His enslaved status was discovered and he was discharged and returned to Captain Younghusband.[62] Back on board the "Pleasant", James remained only a few days before successfully escaping again.
A group of young men of African heritage escaped from Stanton’s Dockyard, Deptford in 1759.[63] Known by the pseudonyms Boatswain, Johnny Mass, Jack Black and Harry Green, these four men ran from captivity aboard the Hampden packet ship, whilst she was being repaired. The ship’s commander, Richard Mackenzie, believed they had made their way to Gravesend intending to board another vessel. A mariner of the same name, wrote his will in 1762, recording financial interests in Hanover parish, Jamaica.[64]
John Lewis, was an enslaved African belonging to Captain James Reid, a mariner trading with Grenada who resided in East Lane, Rotherhithe.[65] In April 1768, John returned to London on board the Lord Holland, East Indiaman - a merchant ship trading with India and China, lost the following year en-route to Madras.[66] A few months later he absconded from the Reid house. An able seaman and servant, fluent in both English and French, he was highly valued. Captain Reid offered a significant reward of 5 guineas and expenses for his recapture and return, the equivalent of £500 today.
Not all enslaved individuals in Britain were African. The word 'black' was used in 17th and 18th century newspaper adverts to describe people from many different non-white cultures. In 1764, a young girl known as Henny or Henrietta, described as an ‘East India Black girl’ (possibly from Bengal) resided with Ebenezer Mussel and his 23 year old wife, Sarah in Aldgate House, Bethnal Green.[67][68][69] Ebenezer was well known as a Justice of the Peace, and was also an influential book collector.[70][71] Henny ran away from the Mussel's just moments before her baptism at St Matthews Church, Bethnal Green.
By the 18th century, the slave trade became a profitable economic activity for such port cities as Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, engaged in the so-called "Triangular trade". Merchant ships set out from Britain, loaded with trade goods which were exchanged on the West African shores for slaves captured by local rulers from deeper inland; the slaves were transported through the infamous "Middle Passage" across the Atlantic, and were sold at considerable profit for labour in plantations. The ships were loaded with export crops and commodities, the products of slave labour, such as cotton, sugar and rum, and returned to Britain to sell the items.[citation needed]
The Isle of Man was involved in the transatlantic African slave trade. Goods from the slave trade were bought and sold on the Isle of Man, and Manx merchants, seamen, and ships were involved in the trade.[72]
No legislation was ever passed in England that legalised slavery, unlike the Portuguese Ordenações Manuelinas (1481–1514), the Dutch East India Company Ordinances (1622), and France's Code Noir (1685), and this caused confusion when English people brought home slaves they had legally purchased in the colonies.[73][74] In Butts v. Penny (1677) 2 Lev 201, 3 Keb 785, an action was brought to recover the value of 10 slaves who had been held by the plaintiff in India. The court held that an action for trover would lie in English law, because the sale of non-Christians as slaves was common in India. However, no judgment was delivered in the case.[75][76]
An English court case of 1569 involving Cartwright who had bought a slave from Russia ruled that English law could not recognise slavery. This ruling was overshadowed by later developments, particularly in the Navigation Acts, but was upheld by the Lord Chief Justice in 1701 when he ruled that a slave became free as soon as he arrived in England. [77]
Agitation saw a series of judgments repulse the tide of slavery. In Smith v. Gould (1705–07) 2 Salk 666, John Holt stated that by "the common law no man can have a property in another". (See the "infidel rationale".)
In 1729, the Attorney General, Philip Yorke, and Solicitor General of England, Charles Talbot, issued the Yorke–Talbot slavery opinion, expressing their view that the legal status of any enslaved individual did not change once they set foot in Britain; i.e., they would not automatically become free. This was done in response to the concerns that Holt's decision in Smith v. Gould raised.[78] Slavery was also accepted in Britain's many colonies.
Lord Henley LC said in Shanley v. Harvey (1763) 2 Eden 126, 127 that as "soon as a man sets foot on English ground he is free".
After R v. Knowles, ex parte Somersett (1772) 20 State Tr 1 the law remained unsettled, although the decision was a significant advance for, at the least, preventing the forceable removal of anyone from England, whether or not a slave, against his will. A man named James Somersett was enslaved by a Boston customs officer. They came to England, and Somersett escaped. Captain Knowles captured him and took him on his boat bound for Jamaica. Three British abolitionists, saying they were his "godparents", applied for a writ of habeas corpus. One of Somersett's lawyers, Francis Hargrave, stated "In 1569, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a lawsuit was brought against a man for beating another man he had bought as a slave overseas. The record states, 'That in the 11th [year] of Elizabeth [1569], one Cartwright brought a slave from Russia and would scourge him; for which he was questioned; and it was resolved, that England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe in'." He argued that the court had ruled in Cartwright's case that English common law made no provision for slavery, and without a basis for its legality, slavery would otherwise be unlawful as false imprisonment and/or assault.[79] In his judgment of 22 June 1772, Lord Chief JusticeWilliam Murray, Lord Mansfield, of the Court of King's Bench, started by talking about the capture and forcible detention of Somersett. He finished with:
So high an act of dominion must be recognised by the law of the country where it is used. The power of a master over his slave has been exceedingly different, in different countries.
The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory.
It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.[80]
Several different reports of Mansfield's decision appeared. Most disagree as to what was said. The decision was only given orally; no formal written record of it was issued by the court. Abolitionists widely circulated the view that it was declared that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law, although Mansfield later said that all that he decided was that a slave could not be forcibly removed from England against his will.[81]
After reading about Somersett's Case, Joseph Knight, an enslaved African who had been purchased by his master John Wedderburn in Jamaica and brought to Scotland, left him. Married and with a child, he filed a freedom suit, on the grounds that he could not be held as a slave in Great Britain. In the case of Knight v. Wedderburn (1778), Wedderburn said that Knight owed him "perpetual servitude". The Court of Sessions of Scotland ruled against him, saying that chattel slavery was not recognised under the law of Scotland, and slaves could seek court protection to leave a master or avoid being forcibly removed from Scotland to be returned to slavery in the colonies.[82]
William Wilberforce (1759–1833), one of the leaders of the movement to abolish the trade of slaves, spearheaded legislation such as the Slave Trade Act 1807.
The abolitionist movement was led by Quakers and other Non-conformists, but the Test Act prevented them from becoming Members of Parliament. William Wilberforce, a member of the House of Commons as an independent, became the Parliamentary spokesman for the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. His conversion to Evangelical Christianity in 1784 played a key role in interesting him in this social reform.[83] William Wilberforce's Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished the slave trade in the British Empire. It was not until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 that the institution finally was abolished, but on a gradual basis. Since land owners in the British West Indies were losing their unpaid labourers, they received compensation totalling £20 million.[84] Former slaves received no compensation.
The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron (or Preventative Squadron) at substantial expense in 1808 after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act. The squadron's task was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa, preventing the slave trade by force of arms, including the interception of slave ships from Europe, the United States, the Barbary pirates, West Africa and the Ottoman Empire.[85]
"To the friends of Negro Emancipation", celebrating the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.
Historians and economists have debated the economic effects of slavery for Great Britain and the North American colonies. Some analysts, such as Eric Williams, suggest that it allowed the formation of capital that financed the Industrial Revolution,[88] although the evidence is inconclusive. Slave labour was integral to early settlement of the colonies, which needed more people for labour and other work. Also, slave labour produced the major consumer goods that were the basis of world trade during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: coffee, cotton, rum, sugar, and tobacco. Slavery was far more important to the profitability of plantations and the economy in the American South; and the slave trade and associated businesses were important to both New York and New England.[89]
Additionally, economists Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson, in a pair of articles published in 2012 and 2013, found that, despite the Southern United States initially having per capita income roughly double that of the Northern United States in 1774, incomes in the South had declined 27% by 1800 and continued to decline over the next four decades, while the economies in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states vastly expanded. By 1840, per capita income in the South was well behind the Northeast and the national average (Note: this is also true in the early 21st century).[94][95] Reiterating an observation made by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America,[96] Thomas Sowell also notes that like in Brazil, the states where slavery in the United States was concentrated ended up poorer and less populous at the end of the slavery than the states that had abolished slavery in the United States.[90]
While some historians have suggested slavery was necessary for the Industrial Revolution (on the grounds that American slave plantations produced most of the raw cotton for the British textiles market and the British textiles market was the vanguard of the Industrial Revolution), historian Eric Hilt has noted that it is not clear if this is actually true; there is no evidence that cotton could not have been mass-produced by yeoman farmers rather than slave plantations if the latter had not existed (as their existence tended to force yeoman farmers into subsistence farming) and there is some evidence that they certainly could have. The soil and climate of the American South were excellent for growing cotton, so it is not unreasonable to postulate that farms without slaves could have produced substantial amounts of cotton; even if they did not produce as much as the plantations did, it could still have been enough to serve the demand of British producers.[97] Similar arguments have been made by other historians.[98] Additionally, Thomas Sowell has noted, citing historians Clement Eaton and Eugene Genovese, that three-quarters of Southern white families owned no slaves at all.[99] Most slaveholders lived on farms rather than plantations,[100] and few plantations were as large as the fictional ones depicted in Gone with the Wind.[101]
In 2006, the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, expressed his deep sorrow over the slave trade, which he described as "profoundly shameful".[102] Some campaigners had demanded reparations from the former slave trading nations.[103]
In recent years, several institutions have begun to evaluate their own links with slavery. For instance, English Heritage produced a book on the extensive links between slavery and British country houses in 2013, Jesus College has a working group to examine the legacy of slavery within the college, and the Church of England, the Bank of England, Lloyd's of London and Greene King have all apologised for their historic links to slavery.[104][105][106][107][108]
University College London has developed a database examining the commercial, cultural, historical, imperial, physical and political legacies of slavery in Britain.[109]
King Charles III has opened up access to the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives with the aims of advancing scholarly research into British slavery.
The direct roles that individual members of the country's monarchy had in slave trading, particularly in terms of both controlling day-to-day business operations and also amassing personal profits, has resulted in specific criticism of the governing institution itself. The ruler Charles II, who reigned as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1660 to 1685, granted the charter of the Royal African Company (RAC) in 1663. That "document provided a blueprint for how Britain's slave trade was to be conducted", according to analysis from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The RAC transported nearly two hundred thousand enslaved people over a period of multiple decades. The then Duke of York, Charles II's brother James, received the position of running the company in the text of the charter; James later became King himself.[110]
The presently ruling King Charles III publicly expressed remorse for these actions in the context of his formal coronation in 2023. "I cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of many, as I continue to deepen my understanding of slavery's enduring impact," concluded an official statement from Buckingham Palace. He additionally has given access to the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives to assist with those conducting scholarly research into British slavery.[110]
A publication of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) on 9 November 2023, a think tank based out of that country, analyzed the King's widely reported state visit to Kenya and described its reconciling events as seeming "effusive in" their "repentance". The statement noted that "[c]ollecting the evidence of wrongdoings poses a... challenge" when detailing the actions against Kenya and other subjects of colonialism since "[m]any of those actively engaged in the slave trade were leaders or executives in the largest companies and institutions of the time." The fact that the "first British company to engage in the slave trade was the Royal African Company, in which the Royal family of the time had a financial interest", presents particular difficulties according to the think tank.[111]
Much modern slavery in the UK derives from the human trafficking of children and adults from parts of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere for purposes such as sexual slavery, forced labour, and domestic servitude.[5][112] This number is increasing annually, with 17,004 potential victims recorded in 2023, the highest annual number of referrals since the National Referral Mechanism began.[113] People living in the UK are commonly targeted.[5][113]British citizens accounted for 25% (4,299) of all recorded potential victims in 2023, when they represented the most frequently referred nationality.[113] Forced labour is a leading type of modern slavery in adults.[5][113]County lines drug trafficking has become a leading form of criminal child exploitation.[5] Males have been found to be affected more often, both among adults and children.[5][114]
As modern slavery is a hidden crime, its true prevalence is difficult to measure.[114] In 2018, the Global Slavery Index estimated that there were about 136 thousand victims in the UK (a prevalence of 2.1 persons per 1,000 population[115]).[114] Research published in 2015, following the announcement of the government's 'Modern Slavery Strategy',[116] had estimated the number of potential victims of modern slavery in the UK to be around 10–13 thousand,[114] of whom roughly 7–10 thousand were currently unrecorded (given that 2,744 confirmed cases were known to the National Crime Agency).[117]
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world.
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage. Europeans established a coastal slave trade in the 15th century and trade to the Americas began in the 16th century, lasting through the 19th century. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were from Central Africa and West Africa and had been sold by West African slave traders to European slave traders, while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids. European slave traders gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Some Portuguese and Europeans participated in slave raids. As the National Museums Liverpool explains: "European traders captured some Africans in raids along the coast, but bought most of them from local African or African-European dealers." Many European slave traders generally did not participate in slave raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade because of malaria that was endemic in the African continent. An article from PBS explains: "Malaria, dysentery, yellow fever, and other diseases reduced the few Europeans living and trading along the West African coast to a chronic state of ill health and earned Africa the name 'white man's grave.' In this environment, European merchants were rarely in a position to call the shots." The earliest known use of the phrase began in the 1830s, and the earliest written evidence was found in an 1836 published book by F. H. Rankin. Portuguese coastal raiders found that slave raiding was too costly and often ineffective and opted for established commercial relations.
The institution of slavery in the European colonies in North America, which eventually became part of the United States of America, developed due to a combination of factors. Primarily, the labor demands for establishing and maintaining European colonies resulted in the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery existed in every European colony in the Americas during the early modern period, and both Africans and indigenous peoples were targets of enslavement by Europeans during the era.
Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract called an "indenture", may be entered voluntarily for a prepaid lump sum, as payment for some good or service, purported eventual compensation, or debt repayment. An indenture may also be imposed involuntarily as a judicial punishment. The practice has been compared to the similar institution of slavery, although there are differences.
Slavery in Canada includes historical practices of enslavement practised by both the First Nations until the latter half of the 19th century, and by colonists during the period of European colonization.
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 automatically emancipate those enslaved at the time, it encouraged British action to press other nation states to abolish their own slave trades. It took effect on 1 May 1807, after 18 years of trying to pass an abolition bill.
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. Passed by Earl Grey's reforming administration, it 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 came into force on 1 August 1834, and was repealed in 1998 as a part of wider rationalisation of English statute law; however, later anti-slavery legislation remains in force.
Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.
Slavery in the Spanish American viceroyalties included indigenous peoples, enslaved people from Africa, and enslaved people from Asia. The economic and social institution of slavery existed throughout the Spanish Empire including Spain itself. Enslaved Africans were brought over to the continent for their labour, indigenous people were enslaved until the 1543 laws that prohibited it.
Slavery at common law in 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, untrammelled by the "paralysing hand of the Parliamentary draftsmen". Two attempts to pass a slave code via Parliament itself both failed, one in the 1660s and the other in 1674.
The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of slaves have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.
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."
Bristol, a port city in the South West of England, on the banks of the River Avon, has been an important location for maritime trade for centuries.
Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were once commonplace in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient and medieval world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Red Sea slave trade, Indian Ocean slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began, many of the pre-existing local African slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. Slavery in contemporary Africa is still practised in some parts despite it being illegal.
Slavery was practiced in Massachusetts bay by Native Americans before European settlement, and continued until its abolition in the 1700s. Although slavery in the United States is typically associated with the Caribbean and the Antebellum American South, enslaved people existed to a lesser extent in New England: historians estimate that between 1755 and 1764, the Massachusetts enslaved population was approximately 2.2 percent of the total population; the slave population was generally concentrated in the industrial and coastal towns. Unlike in the American South, enslaved people in Massachusetts had legal rights, including the ability to file legal suits in court.
Somerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499 is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on English soil not to be forcibly removed from the country and sent to Jamaica for sale. According to one reported version of the case, Lord Mansfield decided that:
The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.
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.
Slavery in Cuba was a portion of the larger Atlantic slave trade that primarily supported Spanish plantation owners engaged in the sugarcane trade. It was practiced on the island of Cuba from the 16th century until it was abolished by Spanish royal decree on October 7, 1886.
The planter class, also referred to as the planter aristocracy, was a racial and socioeconomic caste which emerged in the Americas during European colonization in the early modern period. Members of the caste, most of whom were settlers of European descent, consisted of individuals who owned or were financially connected to plantations, large-scale farms devoted to the production of cash crops in high demand across Euro-American markets. These plantations were operated by the forced labor of slaves and indentured servants and typically existed in subtropical, tropical, and somewhat more temperate climates, where the soil was fertile enough to handle the intensity of plantation agriculture. Cash crops produced on plantations owned by the planter class included tobacco, sugarcane, cotton, indigo, coffee, tea, cocoa, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, hemp, rubber trees, and fruits. In North America, the planter class formed part of the American gentry.
↑ Maitland, Frederic; Pollock, Frederick (1895), The History of the Laws of England Before the Time of Edward I, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.34.
1 2 David A. E. Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England: From the Reign of Alfred until the Twelfth Century (1995)
1 2 Gillingham, John (Summer 2014), "French chivalry in twelfth-century Britain?", The Historian, pp.8–9
↑ Hudson, John (2012). The Oxford History of the Laws of England. Vol.II (871–1216) (Firsted.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.424–425. ISBN9780191630033.
↑ See also Gelly v. Cleve (1694) 1 Ld Raym 147; later applying different reasoning Chamberlain v. Harvey (1697) 1 Ld Raym 146 and Smith v Gould (1705–07) 2 Salk 666
↑ Oldfield, John (17 February 2011). "British Anti-slavery". BBC History. BBC. Retrieved 2 January 2017. the new legislation called for the gradual abolition of slavery. Everyone over the age of six on August 1, 1834, when the law went into effect, was required to serve an apprenticeship of four years in the case of domestics and six years in the case of field hands
↑ David Olusaga. (11 July 2015). "The history of British slave ownership has been buried: now its scale can be revealed". The Guardian website Retrieved 31 May 2021.
↑ Barbara Solow and Stanley L. Engerman, eds., British capitalism and Caribbean slavery: The legacy of Eric Williams (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
↑ Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (19 June 2012). "Country Narratives: Countries N Through Z". Trafficking in Persons Report 2012. US Department of State. Retrieved 26 December 2012. UNITED KINGDOM (Tier 1) The United Kingdom (UK) is a destination country for men, women, and children primarily from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe who are subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor, including domestic servitude.
Anstey, Roger. The Atlantic slave trade and British abolition, 1760–1810 (1975)
Chakravarty, Urvashi (2022). Fictions of Consent. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN978-0-8122-9826-0.
Devine, Tom M. Recovering Scotland's Slavery Past. (Edinburgh U, 2015).
Drescher, Seymour. Econocide: British slavery in the era of abolition (U of North Carolina Press, 2010).
Drescher, Seymour. Abolition: a history of slavery and antislavery (Cambridge UP, 2009).
Dumas, Paula E. Proslavery Britain: Fighting for slavery in an era of abolition (Springer, 2016).
Eltis, David, and Stanley L. Engerman. "The importance of slavery and the slave trade to industrializing Britain." Journal of Economic History 60.1 (2000): 123-144. online
Guasco, Michael (2014). Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hudson, Nicholas. " 'Britons Never Will be Slaves': National Myth, Conservatism, and the Beginnings of British Antislavery." Eighteenth-Century Studies 34.4 (2001): 559-576. online
Kern, Holger Lutz. "Strategies of legal change: Great Britain, international law, and the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade." Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'histoire du droit international 6.2 (2004): 233-258. online
Midgley, Clare. Women against slavery: the British campaigns, 1780-1870 (Routledge, 2004).
Morgan, Kenneth. Slavery and the British empire: from Africa to America (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Page, Anthony. "Rational dissent, Enlightenment, and abolition of the British slave trade." Historical Journal 54.3 (2011): 741-772. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X11000227
Pelteret, David A. E. (1995). Slavery in Early Mediaeval England: From the Reign of Alfred until the Twelfth Century. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press. ISBN978-0-85115-829-7.
Scanlan, Padraic X. Slave empire: How slavery built modern Britain (Hachette UK, 2020).
Sussman, Charlotte. Consuming Anxieties: Consumer Protest, Gender & British Slavery, 1713-1833 (Stanford University Press, 2000).
Swingen, Abigail Leslie. Competing Visions of Empire: Labor, slavery, and the origins of the British Atlantic empire (Yale University Press, 2015).
Taylor, Michael. "The British West India interest and its allies, 1823–1833." English Historical Review 133.565 (2018): 1478-1511. https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cey336
Walvin, James, ed. England, Slaves and Freedom, 1776–1838 (Springer, 1986) essays by experts; online
Whyte, Iain. Scotland and the abolition of black slavery, 1756-1838 (Edinburgh University Press, 2006) online.
Wiecekt, William M. "Somerset: Lord Mansfield and the legitimacy of slavery in the Anglo-American world." Constitutional Law (Routledge, 2018) pp.77–138. online
Zoellner, Tom. Island on Fire: The Revolt That Ended Slavery in the British Empire (Harvard University Press, 2020).
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.
