On the 28th of August 1833, the British Parliament would pass the abolition of slavery act. The British empire had already stopped the trans Atlantic slave trade and would go on to stay it out globally
On the 28th of August 1833, the British Parliament would pass the abolition of slavery act. The British empire had already stopped the trans Atlantic slave trade and would go on to stay it out globally
23 comments
For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833
Slave owners would get billions in tax payer money for “reparations”. Most of those slave owner families are still benefiting from this today.
Didnt just stay out of it, we set up the west African squadrons to actively hunt down slave ships and free the slaves aboard,
This resulted in the price of slaves increasing In the americas and contributed to the American civil war and abolition of slavery in the americas and globally.
[And conveniently replaced them with Coolies.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolie)
I guess a worldwide trade in indentured labor is slightly better than a worldwide trade in slave labor Britain was practicing before. Try not to strain yourselves too hard patting yourself on the back.
To add to this: The Spanish enforced an abolition in (almost all of) their territories in 1542.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Laws
Edit: The law was about native indigenuous slavery, to be clear.
And today there are more people living in slavery than were shipped to america over the course of 300 years. 🤮
Fun fact they paid £400 million to free all slaves, which was only paid off in 2015 meaning people who paid taxes up until 2015 were paying to free slaves
In Italy we proudly have almost 200k people living in condition of modern slavery 🥳
You might think those are immigrants but no, as a modern country we treat all our citizen equally shit! Caporalato isn’t just for Ahmed, it’s also for Luigi!
Lmao this sub is trash never ending crying about the Soviet’s, but praising a brutal imperialist power for “ending slavery” only after it didn’t benefit them anymore
In the Russian Empire, the slave trade was partially abolished only in 1861. The freed slaves of Russia never received the right to vote. In Soviet Russia, state slavery actually existed until the early 70s of the 20th century. Currently, the slave trade in Russia is officially supported by a number of high-ranking officials and public figures.
Fun fact. Haiti abolished slavery almost 35 years earlier.
Read about the Haitian revolution it’s fascinating
Robespierre did it in 1794. Dessalines enforced it in 1804.
Lol, right, india is fine tho.
That’s all very nice, and it is a good thing they did. It means that out of the 375 years (1500-1875) of Transatlantic slave trade, Britain wasn’t trading slaves for the first 50 years, and the last 50 years of that period.
It also allows the British people in our modern age to brag on the internet on how proud and moral the British people are for banning slavery way before ‘the others’ did.
It almost makes one forget that after Portugal, who were really into the trans-atlantic slave thing (they were the inventors of it), **the Brits were the absolute number 2 in the rankings.** By a long shot btw, **number 3, 4 and 5 combined** (France, Spain, Netherlands) starts rivalling the absolutely astounding number of slaves Britain managed to slave away all by themselves.
Seems like being the only one of the European empires to actually lose their American colonies before the end of the colonial period really paid of for them in the long run, when it comes to being able to craft a positive narrative on slavery like what is happening in this thread.
[**Looking at the numbers**](https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates) it almost seems like they gave up because they knew they couldn’t beat Portugal at slavery anymore and were not in danger of losing their rank to the others, so they settled in nubmer 2.
I think British people bragging about ‘being the first to abolish slavery’ is in extremely bad taste. You don’t get to be number 2 slaver of all time yet brag about being the one about ending slavery ‘first,’ even if that is ‘technically correct.’
The dark side of it should also be recognized or at least mentioned, and as it is most British people don’t even realize they were the number 2 slavers, but they sure as hell know they were the ones to stop it.
It is basically propaganda when discussed without a big fucking * that explains the context.
EDit: Lol at the downvotes by Brits who can’t handle being rudely awoken to the reality of Britsh slavery.
An then about 3 decades later they create Indentured Servitude, which was roughly the same thing but using poor britons as slaves.
Interestingly other nations that abolished slavery did not replace it with Indentured Servitude.
If it was happening today the rich would just move their slaves to offshore plantation havens.
slavery to indentured labour…. sweet
Yes the Brits have always been the guiding light for emancipation.
💧 SARCASM 💧
Always surprised when I hear how adamant the Americans are when they say the way the British was turning away from slavery, not had anything to do with their revolution. I mean, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_v_Stewart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_v_Stewart) was just a year before their Tea Party.
William Wilberforce helped lead to the Abolition of Slavery. He died a couple of months before the Act was passed in parliament. In Kingston Upon Hull, his statue is currently outside of Hull College. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce
Just two years later Serbia (while being under Ottoman rule) said that every slave that steps on Serbian land is a free man.
It’s crazy how this was less than 200 years ago.
Slavery was abolished in England in the 11th century and, although Parliment permitted private companies to conduct in slave labour throughout the wider Empire, it was scorned by the public and numerous abolisionist movements led to an outright ban across the Empire in 1833.
Parliment bought the slaves freedom from their masters, putting Britain in such massive debt that the taxpayers didn’t finish paying it off until 2015.
My own taxes paid for the liberation of the slaves and I am proud to have contributed to it.
The liberation of the slaves was one of the greatest feats of the Empire.
Rule Brittania.