|
1798 British expelled from St Domingue/Haiti in uprising led by Toussaint L’ Overture, inspired by the French Revolution slogan, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality.
1755 Quakers forbid their members to own slaves and establish The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
1772 Granville Sharp brings about Lord Mansfield’s high court ruling on the case of James Somerset, an abandoned slave, which results in slavery being declared illegal in England.
1787- 92 Branches of the Abolition Society founded in large towns. Widespread pamphleteering and campaigning against the atrocities of slavery. Hundreds of petitions sent to Parliament.
1804 - '05 William Wilberforce, MP for Yorkshire, has two abolition bills ejected by Parliament.
1807 Abolition Bill finally passed.
1808 Last English slave trading ship leaves Liverpool. Other nations continue to trade in slaves until the American Civil War. Slavery still exists in the Caribbean plantation societies.
1833 Emancipation Act passed. Slavery to be abolished in all British Colonies from 1st August 1834.
1834 The Apprenticeship System implemented to keep ex-slaves working on the estates. Domestic workers to be freed in 1838; field workers in 1840. Payment for work over 40 hours.
1838 Full Emancipation on 1st August 1838, two years early for field workers, due to the failure of the Apprenticeship System. Ex-slaves leave the plantations where possible and turn to small farming, running hostels and shops, working as skilled craftsmen and as jobbing workers.
1838-1917 A variety of attempts to find replacement labour particularly in Jamaica, Trinidad and British Guiana. This included free Africans and Europeans but especially Chinese and Indian labourers under organised government supported schemes
Source:
The Making of the West Indies : Augier, Gordon, Hall and Reckord. Longmans. London: 1960.
|
