Slavery to Freedom: Britain's Slave Trade and Abolition - Pitkin Guides

Synopsis

In 2007 we mark the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the slave trade. Some historians view the abolition Act of 1807 as one of the most important Parliament Act passed - an Act that brought to an end an era in which the British dominated the Atlantic slave trade. Britain was not alone in this trade, of course. Slavery was so commercially attractive that all the major maritime and colonial powers did their best to benefit from it. What has become clear in recent years is the degree to which the West benefited from the enslavement of Africans - and how hugely the slave trade damaged Africa. It is a complex story which links the history of three continents, Africa, the Americas and Europe, over a period of many centuries and this book conveys the outline, main features and dominant consequences of the British history of slavery, and of our role in ending the slave trade.