Slave Trade Act 1807

Slave Trade Act 1807
Dates
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
Citation	47 Geo. 3 Sess. 1. c. 36
Introduced by	William Grenville (Lords)
Territorial extent	British Empire
Royal assent	25 March 1807
Commencement	1 May 1807^[a]
Repealed	6 August 1861
Other legislation
Repealed by	Statute Law Revision Act 1861
Relates to	Slave Trade Felony Act 1811
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

Forced labour and slavery
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The Slave Trade Act 1807 (47 Geo. 3 Sess. 1. c. 36), or the Abolition of Slave Trade Act 1807,^[1] was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the Atlantic slave trade in the British Empire. Although it did not automatically emancipate those enslaved at the time, it encouraged British action to press other nation states to abolish their own slave trades. It took effect on 1 May 1807, after 18 years of trying to pass an abolition bill.^[2]

Many of the supporters thought the act would lead to the end of slavery.^[3] Slavery on English soil was unsupported in English law and that position was confirmed in Somerset's case in 1772, but it remained legal in most of the British Empire until the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 73).

However it was not until 1937 that the trade of slaves was made illegal throughout the British Empire, with Nigeria and Bahrain being the last British territories to abolish slavery.^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

^ Cite error: The named reference Hansard was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ "Parliament abolishes the slave trade". UK Parliament. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
^ "Mar 2, 1807: Congress abolishes the African slave trade", This Day in History.
^ Nwaubani, Adaobi Tricia (15 July 2018). "My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave-Trader". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
^ "The abolition of the slave trade in southeastern Nigeria, 1885-1950 | WorldCat.org". search.worldcat.org. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
^ Northrup, David (September 2007). "A. E. Afigbo. The Abolition of the Slave Trade in Southeastern Nigeria. 1885-1950. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2006. Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora. xv + 210 pp. Maps. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. $75.00. Cloth". African Studies Review. 50 (2): 228–229. doi:10.1353/arw.2007.0116. ISSN 0002-0206.
^ Miers, Suzanne (2003). Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem. Rowman Altamira. pp. 265–67. ISBN 978-0-7591-0340-5.

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