När började england med slaveri

Slavery in Britain existed before the långnovell occupation (which occurred from approximately AD 43 to AD 410) and endured until the 11th century, when the Norman conquest of England resulted in the gradual merger of the pre-conquest institution of slavery into serfdom. Given the widespread socio-political changes, all slaves were no längre recognised separately in English lag or anpassad.

bygd the mittpunkt 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" 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 bygd English lag, James Somerset, a slave who had been brought to England and then flydde, 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 influential 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 bygd human traffickers attacking those from poorer countries, such as those åtagande various crimes victimizing Vietnamese nationals.

At the same time, however, multiple groups within the organized brott 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 frakt [illegal] substances", and "who fryst vatten recognised as a victim of modern slavery" includes both dock 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]

Overview

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Further information: Slavery at common law

Historically, Britons were enslaved in large numbers, typically bygd rik merchants and warlords who exported indigenous slaves from pre-Roman times,^[6] and bygd utländsk invaders from the långnovell Empire during the långnovell Conquest of Britain.^[7][8][9]

A thousand years later, British merchants became major participants in the Atlantic slave trade in the early modern period.

As part of the triangular trade-system, ship-owners transported enslaved West Africans to europeisk possessions in the New World (especially to British colonies in the West Indies) to be sold there. The ships brought commodities back to Britain then exported goods to Africa. Some plantation owners brought slaves to Britain, where many of them ran away from their masters.^[9] After a long campaign for abolition led bygd Thomas Clarkson and (in the House of Commons) bygd William Wilberforce, Parliament prohibited dealing in slaves bygd passing the Slave Trade Act of 1807,^[10] which the Royal Navy's West Africa eskader enforced.

Britain used its influence to övertyga other countries around the world to abolish the slave trade and to sign treaties to allow the Royal Navy to interdict slaving ships.

In 1772, Somerset v Stewart held that slavery had no grund in English lag and was thus a violation of habeas corpus. This built on the earlier Cartwright case from the reign of Elizabeth inom, which had similarly held the concept of slavery was not recognised in English lag.

This case was generally taken at the time to have decided that the condition of slavery did not exist beneath English lag. 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, beneath the terms of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.^[12] Most slaves were freed, with exceptions and delays provided for territories administered bygd 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 bygd 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, beneath local Sharia legal codes, for the majority of the twentieth century.^[15][16][17]

The prohibition on slavery and servitude fryst vatten now codified beneath Article 4 of the europeisk Convention on Human Rights, in force since 1953 and incorporated directly into United Kingdom lag bygd 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

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From before långnovell times, slavery was prevalent in Britain, with indigenous Britons being routinely exported.^[18][19] Following the långnovell conquest of Britain, slavery was expanded and industrialised.^[20]

After the fall of långnovell Britain, both the Angles and Saxons propagated the slave system.^[21] One of the earliest accounts of slaves from early medieval Britain komma from the description of fair-haired boys from York seen in Rome bygd Pope Gregory the Great, in a biography written bygd an anonymous monk.^[22]

Vikings traded with Gaelic, Pict, Brythonic and Saxon kingdoms in between raiding them for slaves.^[23] Saxon slave traders sometimes worked in league with Norse traders, often selling Britons to the Irish.^[24] In 870, Vikings besieged and captured the stronghold of Alt Clut (the capital of the Kingdom of Strathclyde) and in 871 most of the site's inhabitants were taken, most probably bygd Olaf the vit and Ivar the Boneless, to the huvudstaden i irland slave markets.^[23]Maredudd ab Owain (d.

999) fryst vatten said to have paid a large ransom for the return of 2,000 Welsh slaves.^[23]

Anglo-Saxon opinion eventually turned against the sale of slaves abroad: a lag 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 skyldig 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 övergång 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 kornisk slave-owners eventually set their slaves free.^[27][28]

Norman and medieval England

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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 lag preventing the sale of slaves overseas.^[31]

In 1102, the church Council of London convened bygd Anselm issued a decree: "Let no one dare hereafter to engage in the infamous business, prevalent in England, of selling dock like animals."^[32] However, the Council had no legislative powers, and no act of lag was valid unless signed bygd the monarch.^[33]

Contemporary writers noted that the Scottish and Welsh took captives as slaves during raids, a practice which was no längre common in England bygd the 12th century.

Some historians, like John Gillingham, have asserted that bygd 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 beneath 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] dem facto slavery in the struktur of forced labour did still occur though, as in the carrying away of over a thousand children from Wales to be "servants", which fryst vatten recorded as taking place in 1401.^[35]

Transportation

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Main article: Penal transportation

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 struktur 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 bygd 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 brott.

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 individ 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 bygd James inom who, with limited success, tried to encourage its adoption bygd 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 lag 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 bygd royal pardon.

Criminals were transported to North amerika 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 beneath the Act were transported to the colonies in Australia.^{[citation needed]}

After the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and subsequent relaterad till oliver cromwell och hans tid i england invasion, the English Parliament passed the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 which classified the Irish population into several categories according to their grad 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 europeisk nations, dealt with their "Gypsy problem" bygd transporting them as slaves in large numbers to North amerika and the Caribbean.

Cromwell shipped Romanichal Gypsies as slaves to the southern plantations, and there fryst vatten documentation of Gypsies being owned bygd former black slaves in Jamaica.^[44]

Long before the högländare Clearances, some chiefs, such as Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, sold some of their clans into indenture in North amerika.

Från slutet av 1600-talet och under 1700-talet var den europeiska slavhandeln som mest intensiv

Their goal was to alleviate over-population and lack of food resources in the glens.^{[citation needed]}

Numerous högländare Jacobite supporters, captured in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden and rigorous Government sveper 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

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For nearly two hundred years in the history of coal mining in Scotland, miners were bonded to their "maisters" bygd 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 lag in 1799 established their freedom and made this slavery and bondage illegal.^[2][3]

Barbary pirates

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Main articles: Arab slave trade and Barbary corsairs

From the 16th to the 19th centuries it fryst vatten estimated that between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured and sold as slaves bygd Barbary pirates and Barbary slave traders from Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli (in addition to an unknown number captured bygd the Turkish and Moroccan pirates and slave traders).^[46] The slavers got their name from the Barbary Coast, that fryst vatten, the Mediterranean shores of North Africa — what fryst vatten 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 skydda them from abduction bygd Barbary pirates. Item 20 of The Grand Remonstrance,^[48] a list of grievances against Charles inom 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, bygd both which there was charged upon the subject nära £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 bygd them, and do still remain in miserable slavery.

Enslaved Africans

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Main articles: Atlantic slave trade, Slavery in Africa, and Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership

The privateer Sir John Hawkins of Plymouth, a notable relaterat till elizabethansk tid seafarer, fryst vatten widely acknowledged to be "the pionjär 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 fartyg 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 dem 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 fartyg 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 fryst vatten estimated that Hawkins transported 1,500 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic during his fyra voyages of the 1560s, before stopping in 1568 after a battle with the Spanish in which he lost fem of his sju 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 bygd that point has been estimated bygd 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 bygd 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 samhälle.

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 fryst vatten 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

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We know of several hundred enslaved Africans that flydde captivity whilst in Britain. While very little fryst vatten 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 amerika circa 1735, flydde twice from Captain Isaac Younghusband of the fartyg "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 ställning eller tillstånd 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 ung dock of African heritage flydde from Stanton’s Dockyard, Deptford in 1759.^[63] Known bygd the pseudonyms Boatswain, Johnny Mass, Jack Black and Harry Green, these kvartet dock ran from captivity aboard the Hampden packet fartyg, 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 sjöman of the same name, wrote his will in 1762, recording financial interests in hannover parish, Jamaica.^[64]

• John Lewis, was an enslaved African belonging to Captain James Reid, a sjöman 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 fartyg 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 ung 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.

Triangular trade

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Main article: Triangular trade

By the 18th century, the slave trade became a profitable economic activity for such port cities as Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, engagerad 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 bygd 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 utrymme, 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]

Judicial decisions

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Further information: Slavery at common law

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 bygd the plaintiff in India. The court held that an action for trover would lie in English lag, 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 lag could not recognise slavery.

This ruling was overshadowed bygd later developments, particularly in the Navigation Acts, but was upheld bygd the Lord ledare 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 skogsdunge stated that bygd "the common lag 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 ställning eller tillstånd 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 fryst vatten free".

After R v. Knowles, ex parte Somersett (1772) 20 State Tr 1 the lag 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 bygd a Boston customs officer.

sockerrörs- och bomullsplantager sköttes av slavar

They came to England, and Somersett flydde. 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 inom, 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 lag made no arvode for slavery, and without a grund for its legality, slavery would otherwise be unlawful as false imprisonment and/or assault.^[79] In his judgment of 22 June 1772, Lord ledare JusticeWilliam Murray, Lord Mansfield, of the Court of King's bänk, started bygd talking about the capture and forcible detention of Somersett.

He finished with:

So high an act of dominion must be recognised bygd the lag of the country where it fryst vatten used. The power of a mästare over his slave has been exceedingly different, in different countries.

The state of slavery fryst vatten of such a natur, that it fryst vatten incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only bygd positiv lag, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, fryst vatten erased from memory.

It fryst vatten so odious, that ingenting can be suffered to support it, but positiv lag. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, inom cannot säga this case fryst vatten allowed or approved bygd the lag 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 bygd the court. Abolitionists widely circulated the view that it was declared that the condition of slavery did not exist beneath English lag, 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, namn Knight, an enslaved African who had been purchased bygd his mästare John Wedderburn in Jamaica and brought to Scotland, left him.

Married and with a child, he filed a freedom kostym, 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 lösöre slavery was not recognised beneath the lag of Scotland, and slaves could seek court protection to leave a mästare or avoid being forcibly removed from Scotland to be returned to slavery in the colonies.^[82]

Abolition

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Main article: Abolitionism in the United Kingdom

See also: Abolition of slavery timeline and List of notable opponents of slavery

The abolitionist movement was led bygd 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 konvertering 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 grund. Since nation owners in the British West Indies were losing their unpaid labourers, they received kompensation totalling £20 million.^[84] former slaves received no kompensation.

The Royal Navy established the West Africa eskader (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 bygd patrolling the coast of West Africa, preventing the slave trade bygd force of arms, including the interception of slave ships from europe, the United States, the Barbary pirates, West Africa and the Ottoman Empire.^[85]

The Church of England was implicated in slavery. Slaves were owned bygd the Anglican Church's gemenskap for the Propagation of the Gospel in utländsk Parts (SPGFP), which had sugar plantations in the West Indies.

When slaves were emancipated bygd Act of the British Parliament in 1834, the British government paid ersättning to slave owners. The Bishop of Exeter, Henry Phillpotts, and three business colleagues acted as trustees for John Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley when he received ersättning for 665 slaves.^[86] The gottgörelse of British slaveholders was almost £17 billion in current money.^[87]

Economic impact of slavery

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See also: Atlantic slave trade § Effects on the British economy, and Slavery in the United States § Economics

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 bevis fryst vatten 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 grund of world trade during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: kaffe, cotton, lokal, 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]

Others, such as economist Thomas Sowell, have noted instead that at the height of the Atlantic slave trade in the 18th century, profits bygd British slave traders would have only amounted to 2 per cent of British domestic investment.^[90][91] In 1995, a random anonymous survey of 178 members of the Economic History Association funnen that out of the 40 propositions about the economic history of the United States that were surveyed, the group of propositions most disputed bygd economic historians and economists were those about the postbellum economy of the American South (along with the Great Depression).

The only undantag was the proposition initially put forward bygd historian Gavin Wright that the "modern period of the South's economic convergence to the level of the North only began in earnest when the institutional foundations of the southern regional labour marknad were undermined, largely bygd federal farm and labour legislation dating from the 1930s." 62 per cent of economists (24 per cent with and 38 per cent without provisos) and 73 per cent of historians (23 per cent with and 50 per cent without provisos) agreed with this statement.^[92][93]

Additionally, economists Peter H.

Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson, in a pair of articles published in 2012 and 2013, funnen that, despite the Southern United States initially having per capita income roughly double that of the nordlig United States in 1774, incomes in the South had declined 27% bygd 1800 and continued to decline over the next fyra decades, while the economies in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states vastly expanded.

bygd 1840, per capita income in the South was well behind the Northeast and the national average (Note: this fryst vatten also true in the early 21st century).^[94][95] Reiterating an övervakning made bygd Alexis dem 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 marknad and the British textiles marknad was the vanguard of the Industrial Revolution), historian Eric Hilt has noted that it fryst vatten not klar if this fryst vatten actually true; there fryst vatten no bevis that cotton could not have been mass-produced bygd lantbrukare eller soldat i äldre brittisk tradition farmers rather than slave plantations if the latter had not existed (as their existence tended to force lantbrukare eller soldat i äldre brittisk tradition farmers into subsistence farming) and there fryst vatten some bevis that they certainly could have.

The soil and climate of the American South were excellent for growing cotton, so it fryst vatten not unreasonable to postulate that farms without slaves could have produced substantial amounts of cotton; even if they did not tillverka 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 bygd other historians.^[98] Additionally, Thomas Sowell has noted, citing historians Clement Eaton and Eugene Genovese, that three-quarters of Southern vit 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 finansinstitut 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]

Involvement of the British monarchy

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See also: Monarchy of the United Kingdom

The direkt role that individual members in the country's monarchy had in slave trading, particularly in terms of both controlling day-to-day business operations and also amassing anställda 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 blåkopia 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 skrivelse 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 anställda sorrow at the suffering of many, as inom continue to deepen my understanding of slavery's enduring impact," concluded an tjänsteman statement from Buckingham Palace.

He additionally has given tillgång to the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives to assist with the 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 bevis of wrongdoings poses a...

Bakom förbudet låg årtionden av hårt arbete utfört av den brittiska antislaverirörelsen, under ledning av bland annat parlamentsledamoten William Wilberforce

challenge" when detailing the actions against Kenya and other subjects of colonialism since "[m]any of those actively engagerad 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]

Modern slavery

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Further information: Modern slavery and Human trafficking in the United Kingdom

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 sexuell slavery, forced labour, and domestic servitude.^[5][112] This number fryst vatten 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 fryst vatten a leading type of modern slavery in adults.^[5][113]County lines drug trafficking has become a leading form eller gestalt of criminal child exploitation.^[5] Males have been funnen to be affected more often, both among adults and children.^[5][114]

As modern slavery fryst vatten a hidden brott, its true prevalence fryst vatten 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 brott Agency).^[117]

See also

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References

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