Was the slave trade banned between British colonies in 1807?

A quick question: was the selling of slaves between different British colonies with the 1807 Act? I know the "international" trade was banned, but wasn't sure if this applied to e.g. between Jamaica and the Bahamas. It occurred to me such a distinction would have major implications for a British America and settlement of the Deep South.
 
A quick question: was the selling of slaves between different British colonies with the 1807 Act? I know the "international" trade was banned, but wasn't sure if this applied to e.g. between Jamaica and the Bahamas. It occurred to me such a distinction would have major implications for a British America and settlement of the Deep South.

It was an Empire-wide affair. Though if the South had remained part of the Empire, I can imagine that they might have put the Act off for a decade or two.

I can imagine it if it was only forbidding the international trade though... the Southern American slave owners becoming veritable slave breeders to supply the cane fields of the Indies. Taking 'sold down South' to its logical extreme. So damned macabre.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
It was an Empire-wide affair. Though if the South had remained part of the Empire, I can imagine that they might have put the Act off for a decade or two.

I don't really see why. IOTL, the United States banned the international slave trade at about the same time. Thomas Jefferson signed the act banning the slave trade on March 2, 1807.
 
I don't really see why. IOTL, the United States banned the international slave trade at about the same time. Thomas Jefferson signed the act banning the slave trade on March 2, 1807.

I was just considering the amount of money the sugar planters in Barbados pumped into Parliament to prevent an end to the trade. If slavery can hold on until the cotton gin is invented, there will be even more of an incentive for Britain to keep it limping along a little longer.
 
What is the question here? Perhaps I'm thick today, but I can't perceive an interrogative clause.

The 1807 act banned the "international" slave trade, but I don't understand whether Jamaica and Bahamas (and other British colonies) count as different "nations". So a Jamaican planter selling to a Jamaican planter was definitely still legal. A Jamaican planter selling to an American planter was definitely illegal. But what about a Jamaican planter selling to a Bahamaian planter? Did that count as an internal trade (and therefore legal) or an international trade (and therefore illegal)?
 

TFSmith121

Banned
You can read it yourself:

A quick question: was the selling of slaves between different British colonies with the 1807 Act? I know the "international" trade was banned, but wasn't sure if this applied to e.g. between Jamaica and the Bahamas. It occurred to me such a distinction would have major implications for a British America and settlement of the Deep South.

You can read it yourself:

http://www.pdavis.nl/Legis_06.htm

Note the emphasis on "African" throughout.

Article III is is phrased to apparently prohibit slave trading from outside of the Empire, but not from within the Empire, as as follows:

III. And be it further enacted, That from and after the said First Day of May, One thousand eight hundred and seven, it shall be unlawful for any of His Majesty's Subjects, or any Person or persons, resident in this United Kingdom, or in any of the Colonies, Territories, or Dominions thereunto belonging or in His Majesty's Possession or Occupation, to carry away or remove, or knowingly and willfully to procure, aid, or assist in the carrying away or removing, as Slaves, or for the purpose of being sold, transferred, used, or dealt with as Slaves, any of the Subjects or Inhabitants of Africa, or any Island, Country, Territory, or Place in the West Indies, or any part of America whatsoever, not being in the Dominion, Possession, or Occupation of his Majesty, either immediately or by Transshipment at Sea or otherwise, directly or indirectly from Africa or from any such Island, Country, territory, or Place as aforesaid, to any other Island, Country, Territory, or Place whatever,

Given that slavery remained legal in the BWI until 1833 (and even longer in India and other parts of the Empire), the reality is presumably anyone who wanted to move their "property" from Jamaica to Trinidad, for example, could have done so, and it would have been an attempt at precedent setting to dispute it.

Presumably there are studies of the inter-colonial movement of the enslaved in the BWI between 1807 and 1833; there are of almost every aspect of the slave trade and slavery.

I'd look here:

http://iibp.chadwyck.com/infopage/publ/jch.htm

Even in 1833, when Parliament passed the act to abolish slavery in the British West Indies, Canada and the Cape of Good Hope (southern Africa), meaning that it was now illegal to buy or own a person, "apprenticeships" kept the "free" in bondage for at least four years, and six years for field hands. However, slavery continued in other areas of the British Empire including the territories run by the East India Company, Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka) and St Helena until the 1840s.

Illicit slaving, through indentured servitude (which lasted until 1920) or outright slaving like "blackbirding" in Australia and the Pacific continued well into the Twentieth Century, and various parts of the Empire - especially in Africa and Southwest Asia - remained slave states until independence.

Best,
 

TFSmith121

Banned
YAQW

Thanks TFSmith. This is very helpful. I am finding conflicting sources elsewhere though.

This link suggests there was a legal trade between colonies in 1823:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...es/british-transatlantic-slave-trade-records/

This one says it was illicit from 1807:

http://makingfreedom.co.uk/?page_id=236

Do you think the latter is simply wrong?

YAQW; without a specific source, I'd be reluctant to say one way or the other, but it certainly seems it remained a practice for as long as it was practical. Given the details in the NA link, I'd infer it was legal, if perhaps disapproved of in some colonies...

The 1807 act certainly left the door open, and the reality that even when slavery was "officially" prohibited in the West Indies in 1833, it lasted as apprenticeship and indenture elsewhere, legally, suggests there were as many holes in the laws as there were protections.

Morant Bay occurred as late as 1865, after all.

If you're serious, reach out to the chair of the H&P department at UWI; it's Easter break, but academics generally are pleased to get thoughtful inquiries:

https://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/histphil/staff/dr-elaine-rocha.aspx

Best,
 
Last edited:
Top