The Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade received royal assent on 25 March 1807. It prohibited the slave trade in the British Empire but did not abolish the practice of slavery. Slavery was abolished in most of the British Empire in 1833.
Slavery remained profitable in the British Empire up until 1807. Between 1791 and 1800, British ships made about 1,340 voyages across the Atlantic, landing nearly 400,000 slaves. Between 1801 and 1807, they took a further 266,000 individuals.[1]
The Act created fines for ship captains who continued with the trade. These fines could be up to £100 per enslaved person found on a ship. Captains would sometimes dump captives overboard when they saw Navy ships coming in order to avoid these fines.[2]
To learn more about how abolitionists in Belfast helped campaign for the act, book the ANTI SLAVERY BELFAST TOUR!
[1] Martin Meredith, The Fortunes of Africa (New York: PublicAffairs, 2014), pp.191–194.
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20120520055930/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Lslavery07.htm Accessed 3.1.23.
