The Transatlantic Slave Trade Abolished by Britain

On March 25, 1807, after decades of campaigning by abolitionists including William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and Olaudah Equiano (a formerly enslaved man whose autobiography became a bestseller), the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act, making the transatlantic slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire. The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron to enforce the ban, intercepting slave ships and freeing captives. Between 1807 and 1860, the squadron captured approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans. However, the 1807 act only banned the trade — not slavery itself. An estimated 800,000 people remained enslaved in British colonies. Full emancipation would not come until the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which took effect on August 1, 1834. Even then, formerly enslaved people were forced into "apprenticeships" until 1838, and the British government paid £20 million in compensation — not to the freed slaves, but to the slaveholders. That debt was not fully repaid until 2015.