Slavery in Britain existed even before theRoman period from AD 43 to AD 410, and the practice endured in various forms in Britain until the 18th century. English merchants, especially from the ports ofLiverpool,London andBristol, were a significant part of theTransatlantic slave trade, until theSlave Trade Act 1807 prohibited the Atlantic slave trade in theBritish Empire. After the act was passed Britain interdicted the international transatlantic slave trade both diplomatically and with theRoyal Navy'sWest Africa Squadron, established in 1808. After the ending of theNapoleonic Wars in 1815, theRoyal Navy had the ships available to back up diplomatic efforts to end slavery, by both increasing resources for the West Africa Squadron from 1818 and, when diplomatic pressure on theBarbary corsairs proved insufficient, bybombarding Algiers in 1816 in a ferocious engagement.
In England theNorman conquest of England resulted in the gradual merger of the pre-conquest institution of slavery intoserfdom in the midst of othereconomic upheavals. Given the widespread socio-political changes afterwards, slaves were no longer treated differently from 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.
English merchants were a significant force behind theAtlantic slave trade between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries,[1] but no legislation was passed to either formally legalize or abolishchattel slavery in the Home Islands.[citation needed] African slavery was thereforede facto upheld to some extent in London and other regions until thelegal precedent against the practice was established bySomerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499. In Scotland, colliery (coal mine) slaves (in practice serfs rather than chattel slaves) were still in use until 1799, when an act was passed which established their freedom, and made slavery and bondage illegal.[2][3]
Anabolitionist movement grew in Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries, until theSlave Trade Act 1807 prohibited the slave trade in theBritish Empire. However it was not until 1937 that the trade of slaves was made illegal throughout the British Empire, withslavery in Nigeria andslavery in Bahrain being the last to be abolished in the British territories.[4][5][6][7]
Despite being contrary to the laws of the UK, practices described as "modern slavery" still exist in Britain and have often involved the effects created byhuman traffickers attacking those from poorer countries, such as those undertaking various crimes victimisingVietnamese nationals. At the same time, multiple groups within theorganised crime networks in the UK 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 bothmen andwomen as well asadults andchildren. 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".[8]
Historically,Britons were enslaved in large numbers, typically by rich merchants andwarlords who exported indigenous slaves from pre-Roman times,[9] and by foreign invaders from theRoman Empire during theRoman Conquest of Britain.[10][11][12]
The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 accelerated the decline of outright slavery, a practice present in Anglo-Saxon England, by replacing it with a more structured manorial system of serfdom. While not abolishing the existing status oftheows (slaves), the Normans' administrative focus, exemplified by the Domesday Book (1086), which meticulously recorded them as property, inadvertently contributed to their gradual absorption into the unfree peasant class. Modern scholarship suggests this shift was driven less by moral imperative and more by economic and administrative efficiency, as serfdom (villeinage) provided a more stable and controllable labour force for the new Norman aristocracy.[13][14][15]
In the 17th century English merchants began to take part in theAtlantic slave trade. As part of thetriangular trade-system, ship-owners transported enslaved West Africans toEuropean possessions in the New World (especially toBritish colonies in theWest 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.[12] After a long campaign forabolition led byThomas Clarkson and (in theHouse of Commons) byWilliam Wilberforce,Parliament prohibited dealing in slaves by passing theSlave Trade Act 1807,[16] which theRoyal Navy'sWest Africa Squadron enforced. Britain used its influence to persuade 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 basis in English law and was thus a violation ofhabeas corpus. This built on the earlierCartwright 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 underEnglish 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.[17]
Slavery elsewhere in theBritish Empire was not affected — indeed it grew rapidly especially in the Caribbean colonies. Slavery was abolished in the directly governed colonies, likeCanada orMauritius, through buying out the owners from 1834, under the terms of theSlavery Abolition Act 1833.[18] Most slaves were freed, with exceptions and delays provided for territories administered byEast India Company, inIndia,Ceylon, andSaint Helena. These East India Company exceptions were eliminated in 1843, though slave holdings, within the indirectly ruledIndian Princely states, were still being captured by the 1891 Census of India.[19][20] While in indirectly ruled British Protectorates, incorporated after this date, like theColony and Protectorate of Nigeria (1914–1954),Sudan (1899–1956),Maldives,Trucial States (UAE),Qatar,Bahrain andKuwait, slavery remained legally permissible, under localSharia legal codes, for the majority of the twentieth century.[21][22][23]
The prohibition on slavery and servitude is now codified under Article 4 of theEuropean Convention on Human Rights, in force since 1953 and incorporated directly into United Kingdom law by theHuman 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.
From before Roman times, slavery was prevalent in Britain, with indigenous Britons being routinely exported.[24][25] Following theRoman conquest of Britain, slavery was expanded and industrialised.[26]
After the fall of Roman Britain, both theAngles andSaxons propagated the slave system.[27] One of the earliest accounts of slaves fromearly medieval Britain come from the description of fair-haired boys fromYork seen inRome byPope Gregory the Great, in a biography written by an anonymous monk.[28] Pagan Angles and Saxons were known to be exported from the British Isles over the English channel to Arras and Tournai and then across France to the Mediterranian via the great slave port of Marseilles.[29] It is known that the Frisian slave dealers visited Anglo-Saxon London during the 7th and 8th centuries to purchase slaves, which they then sold along the river ways to the German cities and Southward to Paris.[29]
Vikings traded withGaelic,Pict,Brythonic and Saxon kingdoms in between raiding them for slaves.[30] Saxon slave traders sometimes worked in league withNorse traders, often selling Britons to the Irish.[31] In 870, Vikings besieged and captured the stronghold ofAlt Clut (the capital of theKingdom of Strathclyde) and in 871 most of the site's inhabitants were taken, most probably byOlaf the White andIvar the Boneless, to theDublin slave markets.[30]Maredudd ab Owain (d. 999) is said to have paid a large ransom for the return of 2,000 Welsh slaves.[30]
England and the British Isles were also used as a slave supply source by the Vikings, who were one of the main suppliers ofsaqaliba slaves toIslamic Spain. People taken captive during the Viking raids in the British Isles, such as the Ireland, could be sold toMoorish Spain via theDublin slave trade.[32]
Anglo-Saxon opinion eventually turned against the sale of slaves abroad: alaw of Ine of Wessex stated that anyone selling his own countryman, whether bond or free, across the sea, was to pay his ownweregild in penalty, even when the man sold was guilty of a crime.[33] 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 ofBristol, as a passage in theVita Wulfstani makes clear.[11][34]
TheBodmin manumissions preserves the names and details of slaves freed inBodmin (then the principal town ofCornwall) 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.[35][36]
According to theDomesday Book census, over 10% of England's population in 1086 were slaves.[37]
While there was no legislation against slavery,[38]William the Conqueror introduced a law preventing the sale of slaves overseas.[39]
In 1102, the churchCouncil of London convened byAnselm issued a decree: "Let no one dare hereafter to engage in the infamous business, prevalent in England, of selling men like animals."[40] However, the Council had no legislative powers, and no act of law was valid unless signed by the monarch.[41]
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, likeJohn Gillingham, have asserted that by about 1200, the institution of slavery was largely non-existent in the British Isles.[38]
The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 had a significant, though not immediate, impact on the institution of slavery in Britain. While often credited with its abolition, modern scholarship suggests the process was more complex and economically driven than a simple royal decree. William the Conqueror and his successors did not outright ban the practice, which was already in decline due to economic inefficiency and opposition from the Church. Instead, the Normans accelerated a pre-existing trend by implementing their manorial system and feudal law, which absorbed many former slaves into the new class of serfs orvilleins. This transition from 'chattel slavery' to 'serfdom' was a change in legal status rather than an end to unfree labour; serfs were tied to the land and their lord, but they were not movable property that could be sold independently of the estate. The Domesday Book (1086), a Norman administrative document, meticulously recorded these various classes of labour, providing a crucial snapshot of this social and economic transformation in progress, showing thatservi (slaves) still existed but were rapidly being replaced byvillani andbordarii (villeins and smallholders).[42]
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.[43] 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.[44]
Transportation to the colonies as a criminal or anindentured servant served as punishment for both great and petty crimes in England from the 17th century until well into the 19th century.[45] 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.[46]
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.[47] 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 toexecution, 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 EnglishVagabonds Act 1597. During the reign ofHenry VIII, an estimated 72,000 people were put to death for a variety of crimes.[48][failed verification] An alternative practice, borrowed from theSpanish, was tocommute 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 fromBridewell for running away with his master's goods."[49] The Act was put to little use despite attempts byJames I who, with limited success, tried to encourage its adoption by passing a series of Privy Council Orders in 1615, 1619 and 1620.[50]
Transportation was seldom used as a criminal sentence until thePiracy 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 theIrish Rebellion of 1641 and subsequent Cromwellian invasion, the English Parliament passed theAct 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 ofConnaught, perhaps as many as 50,000 were transported to the colonies in the West Indies and in North America.[51] Irish, Welsh and Scottish people were sent to work on sugar plantations inBarbados during the time of Cromwell.[52]
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 shippedRomanichal Gypsies as slaves to the southern plantations, and there is documentation of Gypsies being owned by former black slaves in Jamaica.[53]
Long before theHighland Clearances, some chiefs, such asEwen 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 HighlandJacobite supporters, captured in the aftermath of theBattle of Culloden and rigorous Government sweeps of the Highlands, were imprisoned on ships on theRiver Thames. Some were sentenced to transportation to the Carolinas as indentured servants.[54]
For nearly two hundred years in thehistory of coal mining in Scotland, miners were bonded to their "maisters" by a 1606 Act "Anent Coalyers and Salters". While this was loosely referred to as "slavery", this was not actual chattel slavery, in which people could be legally bought, owned and sold, but rather a form of forced labor and serfdom. TheColliers 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]
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 byBarbary pirates andBarbary slave traders from Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli (in addition to an unknown number captured by the Turkish and Moroccan pirates and slave traders).[55] The slavers got their name from theBarbary 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.[56]
Villagers along the south coast of England petitioned the king to protect them from abduction by Barbary pirates. Item 20 of TheGrand Remonstrance,[57] a list of grievances againstCharles I presented to him in 1641, contains the following complaint about Barbary pirates of the Ottoman Empire abducting English people into slavery:[58]
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.
The privateerSir John Hawkins ofPlymouth, a notableElizabethan 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 viaSierra Leone, hijacked a Portugueseslave ship and sold the 300 slaves from it inSanto Domingo. During a second voyage in 1564, his crew captured 400 Africans and sold them atRio de la Hacha in present-day Colombia, making a 60% profit for his financiers.[59] 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 entitledAn Alliance to Raid for Slaves.[60] 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.[61] English involvement in theAtlantic slave trade only resumed in the 1640s after the country acquired an American colony (Virginia).[62]
Slavery was informally recognized on British soil, though slaveowners lacked some of the explicit property rights afforded overseas. 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.[63] 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.[64][65]
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.[66] He was famous for his poetry and music, and his friends included the novelistLaurence Sterne,David Garrick the actor and theDuke andDuchess of Montague. He is best known for his letters which were published after his death. Others, such asOlaudah Equiano andOttobah Cugoano were equally well known, and along with Ignatius Sancho were active in theBritish abolition campaign.[67]
We know of several hundred enslaved Africans that escaped captivity while 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.[68]
By the eighteenth century, the "triangular trade" became a profitable economic activity for port cities includingBristol,Liverpool andGlasgow. 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 ascotton,sugar andrum, and returned to Britain to sell the items.[citation needed]
TheIsle of Man was also involved in the transatlantic African slave trade.[87]
Although the enslavement of Africans formed the largest and most documented aspect of slavery connected with Britain,Indians also experienced forms of coerced labour under British rule.[88][89] Colonial authorities often used “Indian” to describe allSouth Asians, while modern historians sometimes prefer “South Asian” for precision.[90] Indian men, women, and children were transported in smaller numbers to Britain and to colonial possessions through capture, debt, or coercion.[88] Recent scholarship distinguishes these cases from laterindentured migration, emphasising that in some contexts they amounted to slavery in legal and social terms.[89][90]
From the seventeenth century onwards, East India Company officials and private traders brought Indian attendants and servants to Britain.[91] Household records sometimes described them as chattels, and newspaper advertisements occasionally listed "East Indian" slaves for sale in London and other port cities.[91] Their numbers were much smaller than those of African slaves, but the evidence shows that Indian presence in Britain was not confined to voluntary migration.[88] According to Kale, categories such as "servant" or "slave" were often applied interchangeably, making the scale difficult to measure yet revealing that conditions could approximate slavery.[89]
Court proceedings also reference disputes involving Indian slaves. Anderson points to manumission documents for "East Indian" individuals in the eighteenth century that suggest some were purchased in Asian ports and brought to Britain as household property.[90] These instances overlapped with the legal uncertainty following theSomerset ruling of 1772, which was framed around African slaves but raised broader questions about the status of non-European servants from Asia.[91]
In the wider Indian Ocean world, Indians were trafficked under both British and rival colonial regimes. Vink records that tens of thousands of Indians, together with smaller numbers of Africans, were carried as slaves byDutch and British traders to the East Indies during the seventeenth century.[92] Carter has demonstrated that enslaved Indians, including women and children, were present on islands such asMauritius before the nineteenth-century shift to indentured labour.[93] Such findings complicate the narrative that Indians were introduced only as indentured workers after 1834.[89]
InSouth Africa, Vahed and Desai document the arrival of Indian slaves at the Cape from the seventeenth century, often brought viaMadagascar or directly from India.[94] Their numbers were fewer than those of African captives, but they nonetheless formed part of the early colonial labour force.[94] Allen underscores that the Indian Ocean slave trade connectedEast Africa, South Asia, andSoutheast Asia, with Indian captives entering Dutch,French, and British colonies.[95]
British authorities frequently denied that Indians were slaves, preferring labels such as "servants," "dependents," or "apprentices," which obscuredcoercion.[88] Scholars note that theseeuphemisms masked realities of bondage, including limits on mobility,corporal punishment, and absence oflegal personhood.[90] Anderson interprets Indian enslavement as part of a spectrum of unfree labour regimes that also included penal transportation and military impressment.[90] Kale and Chatterjee further argue that the distinction between slavery and indenture was often ideological, serving to legitimise British labour practices in colonial contexts.[89][88]
Although the number of enslaved Indians linked to Britain was small compared with the African slave trade, historians emphasise that these cases reveal the broader scope of coerced labour under British rule.[96][97] Indian slaves were present in Britain, South Africa, the Indian Ocean islands, and Southeast Asia, showing that systems of bondage extended across the empire and were not confined to the Atlantic world.[98][99]
No legislation was ever passed in England that legalised slavery, unlike the PortugueseOrdenações Manuelinas (1481–1514), the DutchEast India Company Ordinances (1622), and France'sCode Noir (1685), and this caused confusion when English people brought home slaves they had legally purchased in the colonies.[100][101] InButts 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 inIndia. The court held that an action fortrover would lie in English law, because the sale of non-Christians as slaves was common in India. However, no judgement was delivered in the case.[102][103]
An English court case of 1569 involving Cartwright who had bought aslave from Russia ruled that English law could not recognise slavery. This ruling was overshadowed by later developments, particularly in theNavigation 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.[104]
Agitation saw a series of judgements repulse the tide of slavery. InSmith v. Gould (1705–07) 2 Salk 666,John Holt stated that by "the common law no man can have a property in another". (Seethe "infidel rationale".)
In 1729, the Attorney General,Philip Yorke, and Solicitor General of England,Charles Talbot, issued theYorke–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 inSmith v. Gould raised.[105] Slavery was also accepted in Britain's many colonies.
Lord Henley LC said inShanley v. Harvey (1763) 2 Eden 126, 127 that as "soon as a man sets foot on English ground he is free".
AfterR 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 ofhabeas corpus. One of Somersett's lawyers,Francis Hargrave, stated "In 1569, during the reign ofQueen 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 thatEnglish 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.[106] In his judgement of 22 June 1772,Lord Chief JusticeWilliam Murray, Lord Mansfield, of theCourt 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.[107]
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 underEnglish law, although Mansfield later said that all that he decided was that a slave could not be forcibly removed from England against his will.[108]
In Scotland, theCourt of Session had ruled in the"Tumbling Lassie" case of 1687 that slavery did not exist inScots law, but the case was not well-known and appeared to have been forgotten in later years. Cases were brought to the court in 1752 and 1769 by escaped slaves, but both ended before a ruling due to the death of one of the parties.[109]
After reading about Somersett's Case,Joseph Knight, an enslaved African who had been purchased by his masterJohn Wedderburn in Jamaica and brought to Scotland, left him. Married and with a child, he filed afreedom suit, on the grounds that he could not be held as a slave inGreat Britain. In the case ofKnight v. Wedderburn (1778), Wedderburn said that Knight owed him "perpetual servitude". The Court of Session ruled against him, saying thatchattel slavery was not recognised under thelaw 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.[110]
The abolitionist movement was led byQuakers and otherNon-conformists, but theTest Act prevented them from becomingMembers 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.[111] William Wilberforce'sSlave Trade Act 1807 prohibited the slave trade in the British Empire. It was not until theSlavery Abolition Act 1833 that the institution was finally abolished, but on a gradual basis. Since land owners in theBritish West Indies were losing their unpaid labourers, they received compensation totalling £20 million.[112] Former slaves received no compensation.
TheRoyal Navy established theWest Africa Squadron (or Preventative Squadron) at substantial expense in 1808 after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act. The squadron's task was to suppress theAtlantic 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, theBarbary pirates, West Africa and theOttoman Empire.[113]
TheChurch of England was implicated in slavery. Slaves were owned by theAnglican Church'sSociety for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPGFP), which hadsugar plantations in theWest Indies. When slaves wereemancipated byAct of theBritish Parliament in 1834, the British government paid compensation to slave owners. TheBishop of Exeter,Henry Phillpotts, and three business colleagues acted as trustees forJohn Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley when he received compensation for 665 slaves.[114] The compensation of British slaveholders was almost £17 billion in current money.[115]
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 theIndustrial Revolution,[116] 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, andtobacco. Slavery was far more important to the profitability ofplantations and the economy in the American South; and the slave trade and associated businesses were important to both New York and New England.[117]
Others, such as economistThomas Sowell, have noted instead that at theheight of the Atlantic slave trade in the 18th century, profits by British slave traders would have only amounted to 2 per cent of Britishdomestic investment.[118][119] In 1995, a random anonymous survey of 178 members of theEconomic History Association found that out of the 40 propositions about theeconomic history of the United States that were surveyed, the group of propositions most disputed by economic historians and economists were those about thepostbellum economy of the American South (along with theGreat Depression). The only exception was the proposition initially put forward by historianGavin Wright that the "modern period of theSouth's economic convergence to the level of theNorth only began in earnest when the institutional foundations of the southern regional labour market were undermined, largely byfederal 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.[120][121]
Additionally, economistsPeter H. Lindert andJeffrey 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 truein the early 21st century).[122][123] Reiterating an observation made byAlexis de Tocqueville inDemocracy in America,[124] Thomas Sowell also notes that like inBrazil, thestates whereslavery in the United States was concentrated ended up poorer and less populous at the end of the slavery than the states that hadabolished slavery in the United States.[118]
While some historians have suggested slavery was necessary for theIndustrial 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 byyeoman farmers rather than slave plantations if the latter had not existed (as their existence tended to force yeoman farmers intosubsistence 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.[125] Similar arguments have been made by other historians.[126] Additionally, Thomas Sowell has noted, citing historiansClement Eaton andEugene Genovese, that three-quarters of Southern white families owned no slaves at all.[127] Most slaveholders lived on farms rather than plantations,[128] and few plantations were as large as the fictional ones depicted inGone with the Wind.[129]
In 2006, the then British Prime Minister,Tony Blair, expressed his deep sorrow over the slave trade, which he described as "profoundly shameful".[130] Some campaigners had demanded reparations from the former slave trading nations.[131]
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 theChurch of England, theBank of England,Lloyd's of London andGreene King have all apologised for their historic links to slavery.[132][133][134][135][136]
University College London has developed a database examining the commercial, cultural, historical, imperial, physical and political legacies of slavery in Britain.[137]
The direct roles that individual members of thecountry's monarchy had in slave trading, particularly in terms of both controlling day-to-day business operations and also amassingpersonal profits, has resulted in specific criticism of the governing institution itself. The rulerCharles II, who reigned as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1660 to 1685, granted the charter of theRoyal African Company (RAC) in 1663. That "document provided a blueprint for how Britain's slave trade was to be conducted", according to analysis from theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation. The RAC transported nearly two hundred thousand enslaved people over a period of multiple decades. The thenDuke of York, Charles II's brotherJames, received the position of running the company in the text of the charter; James later became King himself.[138]
The presently rulingKing Charles III publicly expressed remorse for these actions in the context ofhis 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.[138]
A publication of theAustralian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) on 9 November 2023, athink tank based out ofthat country, analysed the King's widely reportedstate 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 againstKenya and other subjects ofcolonialism 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.[139]
Much modern slavery in the UK derives from thehuman trafficking of children and adults from parts of Africa, Asia,Eastern Europe and elsewhere for purposes such assexual slavery,forced labour, anddomestic servitude.[8][140] The number reported is increasing annually, with 17,004 potential victims recorded in 2023, the highest annual number of referrals since the National Referral Mechanism began.[141] People living in the UK are commonly[clarification needed] targeted.[8][141]British citizens accounted for 25% (4,299) of all recorded potential victims in 2023, when they represented the most frequently referred nationality.[141] Forced labour is a leading type of modern slavery in adults.[8][141]County lines drug trafficking has become a leading form of criminal child exploitation.[8] Males have been found to be affected more often, both among adults and children.[8][142]
As modern slavery is a hidden crime, its trueprevalence is difficult to measure.[142] In 2021 theGlobal Slavery Index estimated that there were about 122 thousand victims in the UK (a prevalence of 1.8 people per 1,000 population[143]) based on data extrapolated from other countries, a figure which theOffice for National Statistics said "cannot be regarded as accurate or reliable".[142] Research published in 2015, following the announcement of the government's'Modern Slavery Strategy',[144] estimated the number of potential victims of modern slavery in the UK to be around 10–13 thousand,[142] of whom roughly 7–10 thousand were currently unrecorded (given that 2,744 confirmed cases were known to theNational Crime Agency).[145]
Few people in Britain think about British ownership of hundreds of thousands of enslaved people, or the fact that some of those Britons brought some of these enslaved people back to Britain [...].
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Chatterjee20063 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).Kale19983 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).Vink20033 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).Allen201533 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).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
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.