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Ever since the discovery of America, Britain had been involved in the cruel trade of slaves across the Atlantic. British ships would leave their home port with a cargo of brandy, guns or cloth. The port would most likely be Liverpool or Bristol. When they got to Africa they would sell these goods to tribal chiefs who would hand over some slaves they had captured, probably from a neighbouring tribe. There were also agents who collected these slaves from tribes inland and marched them, in chains to a local port. The slaves would be stored in the hold of the ship, that is the area below decks. There would be hundreds crowded into a small space. The ships would cross the Atlantic and the slaves be sold to plantation owners, sugar or tobacco, to work in the fields or to wealthy owners who wanted servants. The ships would then load up with a cargo of sugar, tobacco or rum and return to England.
A slave might cost about £3 in Africa and could be sold in America for about £20, so you could make a good profit. However, it was estimated that maybe 20% of all slaves died on the journey. There were some terrible stories. During a voyage from Africa to Jamaica, the captain of the slave ship 'Zong' ordered 133 slaves to be thrown overboard alive. The ship's owners then filed a fraudulent insurance claim for the value of the dead slaves. In March 1783 the case was heard in London as an insurance dispute rather than a murder trial. The case was widely publicised by outraged abolitionists. Abolitionists was the name given to the people who tried to put a stop to the slave trade.
The most famous of these was a man called William Wilberforce who was an MP. He introduced a bill in 1789 but it was not passed by the House of Lords. A committee for the abolition of the slave trade was set up. Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson were the main leaders of this committee and they provided Wilberforce with information to try to convince Parliament to stop things. The picture shows a famous quote from Wilberforce to the House of Commons in 1791. There was mass public support for the abolition of the slave trade. In 1788 alone, 103 pro-abolition petitions were sent to Parliament, signed by between 60,000 and 100,000 people.
In 1789, Olaudah Equiano, a former slave who had settled in London, wrote a book about his life callled 'The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano'. The public were fascinated by the story of a slave who converted to Christianity, learned to read and write and, by trading on the side, earned enough money to buy his freedom. The book became a bestseller.
Between 1792 and 1806 a number of further unsuccessful attempts were made to enact parliamentary legislation which would either control or abolish the slave trade. Finally, in 1807, the British government passed a law abolishing the slave trade. In 1833 Parliament passed a bill to abolish slavery in the whole British empire.
It had been a huge trade. It is estimated that British ships transported 2.6 million slaves. It was also estimated that, overall, about 12 million Africans were captured to be taken to the Americas as slaves. After Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, the British navy's 'West Africa Squadron' patrolled the Atlantic Ocean trying to stop the slave trade. The British also signed anti-slavery treaties with many African rulers. However, when Britain abolished this cruel trade in 1807, the King of Bonny in Nigeria wrote to Parliament to complain. It wasn't only the greedy, wealthy British merchants who made money from this trade.
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