1807 — Britain Abolishes the Slave Trade

On March 25, 1807, Britain's Slave Trade Act received royal assent, prohibiting the Atlantic slave trade throughout the British Empire. The House of Commons had passed it by two hundred and eighty-three votes to sixteen. From May 1, British ships could no longer legally carry enslaved Africans across the ocean, and captains caught trading faced heavy fines.

The Act ended the trade, not slavery itself: people already enslaved in British colonies remained in bondage until the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. British vessels had carried some three million Africans across the Atlantic. Still, after a long abolition campaign, the law turned Britain toward pressing other nations to end their own slave trades.