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Somerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499 (also known as Sommersett v Steuart, Somersett's case, and the Mansfield Judgment) is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on English soil not to be forcibly removed from the country and sent to Jamaica for sale.
Knowles, ex parte Somersett (1772) 20 State Tr 1 the law remained unsettled, although the decision was a significant advance for, at the least, preventing the forceable removal of anyone from England, whether or not a slave, against his will. A man named James Somersett was enslaved by a Boston customs officer.
Despite this, it was popularly taken to confirm that slavery was outlawed in England and Wales. [3] Somerset himself appears to have adopted this broader interpretation, and wrote to at least one enslaved person encouraging them to desert their master. [4] Nothing is known of Somerset after 1772. [2]
Poland banned slavery in the 14th century; in Lithuania, slavery was formally abolished in 1588; the institution was replaced by the second enserfment. Slavery remained a minor institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs ...
Some scholars assert slavery was not recognised as lawful, [3] often on the basis of pronouncements such as those attributed to Lord Mansfield, that "the air of England is too pure for any slave to breathe". [b] However the true legal position has been both complex and contested. In the 17th and 18th centuries, some African slaves were openly ...
Slave trade banned by Mamia I of Imereti. 1712 Spain: Moros cortados expelled. [55] 1715: North Carolina South Carolina: Native American slave trade in the American Southeast reduces with the outbreak of the Yamasee War. 1723 Russia: Peter the Great converts all house slaves into house serfs, effectively making slavery illegal in Russia. 1723 ...
1787 Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion designed by Josiah Wedgwood for the British anti-slavery campaign. Abolitionism in the United Kingdom was the movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to end the practice of slavery, whether formal or informal, in the United Kingdom, the British Empire and the world, including ending the Atlantic slave trade.
[1] [2] The case ruled that slavery had no legal status in England as it had no common law or statutory law basis, and as such someone could not legally be a slave in England. [ 3 ] After the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787, William Wilberforce led the cause of abolition through the parliamentary campaign.