In 1807, thanks to the work of MP William Wilberforce, Britain became the first country in the world to abolish the slave trade and, thanks to the Royal Navy, managed to capture the slave ships of other nations - such as Denmark, the United States and France - and force them to cease the trade. The trade was completely abolished worldwide by 1834.
In 2007, Britain will hold a number of ceremonies to celebrate the 200th anniversary of when we stopped trading slaves.
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London's slave port past revealed
The records kept an account of the slaves and their condition - this is a "List of Negroes" dated 1st June 1777
Rare 18th Century documents from a sugar producer have given a clearer picture of London's role in slaving.
The working papers of West India Merchants and Plantation went on display at the Museum in Docklands in east London.
The records, belonging to Thomas Mills, give detailed accounts of slaves who worked on the family's sugar plantations on Caribbean islands.
The British Government abolished the lucrative slave trade in 1834.
'Slave port'
The documents include a plantation journal, dating back to 1776, which describes the duties and the lives of the slaves on the islands of St Kitts and Nevis.
An estimated 24,962 African slaves were carried by 77 British ships which sailed from West India Quay between 1802 and 1807.
A plantation journal gives details about the slaves' duties
The slaves were taken to the Americas and sold to plantation owners.
Some 3,136 slaves did not survive the trans-Atlantic journey.
The museum's director, David Spence, said the papers are "a window into London's history as a slave port".
"This is not a history that has been widely told, and yet it is vital to the understanding and appreciation of London's identity today," he said.
'Lost history'
The letters, inventories and invoices list the names given to the slaves and show how they were treated.
The records show how the plantation managers calculated the days' work and determined the slaves' allowances.
The company was paid a compensation of £872 by the government when slavery was abolished, a paper revealed.
Actor Burt Caesar, who was born on St Kitts, said: "For all British citizens of West Indian origin the Mills papers are vital documents in the often hidden or lost history of slavery in the islands." Next year a series of events will mark 200 years of the abolition of slavery by the British.
news.bbc.co.uk
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WILLIAM WILBERFORCE
Thanks to MP William Wilberforce the British became the first people in the world to abolish the slave trade in 1807
Having little interest in returning to be involved in the family business, while still at university Wilberforce made the decision to seek election to Parliament. Accordingly, in September 1780, at the age of twenty-one, he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Hull. As an independent Tory, he took part in debates regarding naval shipbuilding and smuggling, and renewed his friendship with future Prime Minister William Pitt the younger and with Edward Eliot, another contemporary from Cambridge. In autumn 1783 Pitt, Wilberforce and Eliot travelled to France together.
Pitt became prime minister in December 1783 and Wilberforce became a key supporter of his minority government. When Parliament was dissolved in spring 1784, Wilberforce was soon recognised as a Pitt supporter and candidate for the 1784 General Election and, on 6 April, when the Whigs were defeated, he was returned as MP for Yorkshire at the age of twenty-four.
In 1785 Wilberforce underwent a spiritual encounter which he described as a conversion experience. He resolved to commit his future life and work wholly in the service of God, and one of the people he received advice from was John Newton, the leading evangelical Anglican clergyman. All those he sought advice from, including Pitt, counselled him to remain in politics.
In 1787 Wilberforce was introduced to Thomas Clarkson and the growing group campaigning against the slave trade by Sir Charles Middleton and Lady Middleton (née Albinia Townshend, elder sister of Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney), at their house in Teston, Kent, and was persuaded to become leader of the parliamentary campaign.
After months of planning, on 12 May 1789 he made his first major speech on the subject of abolition in the House of Commons, in which he reasoned that the trade was morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice. Drawing on Clarkson’s evidence, he described in detail the appalling conditions in which slaves travelled from Africa in the middle passage, and argued that abolishing the trade would also bring an improvement to the conditions of existing slaves in the West Indies. He put forward twelve propositions for abolition, largely based upon Clarkson's Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade, which had been printed in large numbers and widely circulated.
In January 1790 he succeeded in gaining approval for a Parliamentary select committee to consider the slave trade and to examine the vast quantity of evidence which he put forward.
In April 1791 Wilberforce introduced the first Parliamentary Bill to abolish the slave trade, which was easily defeated by 163 votes to 88. As Wilberforce continued to bring the issue of the slave trade before parliament, Clarkson continued to travel and write. Between them, Clarkson and Wilberforce were responsible for generating and sustaining a national movement which mobilised public opinion as never before.
This was the beginning of a protracted parliamentary campaign, during which Wilberforce introduced a motion in favour of abolition during every session of parliament. He took every possible opportunity to bring the subject of the slave trade before the Commons, and moved bills for its abolition again in April 1792 and February 1793. Parliament, however, refused to pass the bill.
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/
The final phase
Wilberforce began to collaborate more with the Whigs and the abolitionists within that party and gave general support to the Grenville-Fox administration of February 1806 after the death of Pitt. Wilberforce and Charles Fox thus led the campaign in the House of Commons, with Lord Grenville seeking to persuade the House of Lords to support the measure.
A change of tactics was advised by maritime lawyer James Stephen, at whose suggestion in early 1806 he supported a bill to ban British subjects from aiding or participating in the slave trade to the French colonies. It was a smart move, as the majority of the ships were, in fact, now flying under American flags and were manned by British crews, sailing out of Liverpool. The new Foreign Slave Trade Act, which was quickly passed, and the tactic was successful, as the new legislation effectively also prohibited two-thirds of the British slave trade.
The death of Fox in September 1806 was a further blow for the abolitionists. Wilberforce was again re-elected for Yorkshire after Grenville called a general election and spent the latter part of the year writing A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, an apologetic essay in which he summarised the huge volume of evidence against the trade that he and Clarkson had accumulated over two decades. It was published on 31 January 1807, and formed the basis for the final phase of the campaign.
Lord Grenville had introduced an Abolition Bill in the House of Lords, and made an impassioned speech, during which he criticised fellow members for "not having abolished the trade long ago," and argued that the trade was "contrary to the principles of justice, humanity and sound policy." When a final vote was taken the bill was passed in the House of Lords by the unexpectedly large margin of 41 votes to 20. Sensing that this was at last the breakthrough that had been long anticipated, Charles Grey (now Viscount Howick) moved its second reading in the Commons on 23 February. As tributes were made to Wilberforce, who had laboured for the cause during the preceding twenty years, the bill was carried by 283 votes to 16 and the Slave Trade Act received the royal assent on 25 March, 1807.
wikipedia.org
In 2007, Britain will hold a number of ceremonies to celebrate the 200th anniversary of when we stopped trading slaves.
---------------------------------------
London's slave port past revealed
The records kept an account of the slaves and their condition - this is a "List of Negroes" dated 1st June 1777
Rare 18th Century documents from a sugar producer have given a clearer picture of London's role in slaving.
The working papers of West India Merchants and Plantation went on display at the Museum in Docklands in east London.
The records, belonging to Thomas Mills, give detailed accounts of slaves who worked on the family's sugar plantations on Caribbean islands.
The British Government abolished the lucrative slave trade in 1834.
'Slave port'
The documents include a plantation journal, dating back to 1776, which describes the duties and the lives of the slaves on the islands of St Kitts and Nevis.
An estimated 24,962 African slaves were carried by 77 British ships which sailed from West India Quay between 1802 and 1807.
A plantation journal gives details about the slaves' duties
The slaves were taken to the Americas and sold to plantation owners.
Some 3,136 slaves did not survive the trans-Atlantic journey.
The museum's director, David Spence, said the papers are "a window into London's history as a slave port".
"This is not a history that has been widely told, and yet it is vital to the understanding and appreciation of London's identity today," he said.
'Lost history'
The letters, inventories and invoices list the names given to the slaves and show how they were treated.
The records show how the plantation managers calculated the days' work and determined the slaves' allowances.
The company was paid a compensation of £872 by the government when slavery was abolished, a paper revealed.
Actor Burt Caesar, who was born on St Kitts, said: "For all British citizens of West Indian origin the Mills papers are vital documents in the often hidden or lost history of slavery in the islands." Next year a series of events will mark 200 years of the abolition of slavery by the British.
news.bbc.co.uk
********************************************************
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE
Thanks to MP William Wilberforce the British became the first people in the world to abolish the slave trade in 1807
Having little interest in returning to be involved in the family business, while still at university Wilberforce made the decision to seek election to Parliament. Accordingly, in September 1780, at the age of twenty-one, he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Hull. As an independent Tory, he took part in debates regarding naval shipbuilding and smuggling, and renewed his friendship with future Prime Minister William Pitt the younger and with Edward Eliot, another contemporary from Cambridge. In autumn 1783 Pitt, Wilberforce and Eliot travelled to France together.
Pitt became prime minister in December 1783 and Wilberforce became a key supporter of his minority government. When Parliament was dissolved in spring 1784, Wilberforce was soon recognised as a Pitt supporter and candidate for the 1784 General Election and, on 6 April, when the Whigs were defeated, he was returned as MP for Yorkshire at the age of twenty-four.
In 1785 Wilberforce underwent a spiritual encounter which he described as a conversion experience. He resolved to commit his future life and work wholly in the service of God, and one of the people he received advice from was John Newton, the leading evangelical Anglican clergyman. All those he sought advice from, including Pitt, counselled him to remain in politics.
In 1787 Wilberforce was introduced to Thomas Clarkson and the growing group campaigning against the slave trade by Sir Charles Middleton and Lady Middleton (née Albinia Townshend, elder sister of Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney), at their house in Teston, Kent, and was persuaded to become leader of the parliamentary campaign.
After months of planning, on 12 May 1789 he made his first major speech on the subject of abolition in the House of Commons, in which he reasoned that the trade was morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice. Drawing on Clarkson’s evidence, he described in detail the appalling conditions in which slaves travelled from Africa in the middle passage, and argued that abolishing the trade would also bring an improvement to the conditions of existing slaves in the West Indies. He put forward twelve propositions for abolition, largely based upon Clarkson's Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade, which had been printed in large numbers and widely circulated.
In January 1790 he succeeded in gaining approval for a Parliamentary select committee to consider the slave trade and to examine the vast quantity of evidence which he put forward.
In April 1791 Wilberforce introduced the first Parliamentary Bill to abolish the slave trade, which was easily defeated by 163 votes to 88. As Wilberforce continued to bring the issue of the slave trade before parliament, Clarkson continued to travel and write. Between them, Clarkson and Wilberforce were responsible for generating and sustaining a national movement which mobilised public opinion as never before.
This was the beginning of a protracted parliamentary campaign, during which Wilberforce introduced a motion in favour of abolition during every session of parliament. He took every possible opportunity to bring the subject of the slave trade before the Commons, and moved bills for its abolition again in April 1792 and February 1793. Parliament, however, refused to pass the bill.
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/
The final phase
Wilberforce began to collaborate more with the Whigs and the abolitionists within that party and gave general support to the Grenville-Fox administration of February 1806 after the death of Pitt. Wilberforce and Charles Fox thus led the campaign in the House of Commons, with Lord Grenville seeking to persuade the House of Lords to support the measure.
A change of tactics was advised by maritime lawyer James Stephen, at whose suggestion in early 1806 he supported a bill to ban British subjects from aiding or participating in the slave trade to the French colonies. It was a smart move, as the majority of the ships were, in fact, now flying under American flags and were manned by British crews, sailing out of Liverpool. The new Foreign Slave Trade Act, which was quickly passed, and the tactic was successful, as the new legislation effectively also prohibited two-thirds of the British slave trade.
The death of Fox in September 1806 was a further blow for the abolitionists. Wilberforce was again re-elected for Yorkshire after Grenville called a general election and spent the latter part of the year writing A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, an apologetic essay in which he summarised the huge volume of evidence against the trade that he and Clarkson had accumulated over two decades. It was published on 31 January 1807, and formed the basis for the final phase of the campaign.
Lord Grenville had introduced an Abolition Bill in the House of Lords, and made an impassioned speech, during which he criticised fellow members for "not having abolished the trade long ago," and argued that the trade was "contrary to the principles of justice, humanity and sound policy." When a final vote was taken the bill was passed in the House of Lords by the unexpectedly large margin of 41 votes to 20. Sensing that this was at last the breakthrough that had been long anticipated, Charles Grey (now Viscount Howick) moved its second reading in the Commons on 23 February. As tributes were made to Wilberforce, who had laboured for the cause during the preceding twenty years, the bill was carried by 283 votes to 16 and the Slave Trade Act received the royal assent on 25 March, 1807.
wikipedia.org
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