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[citation needed] In the case Somerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499, Lord Mansfield ruled that, as slavery was not recognised by English law, James Somerset, a slave who had been brought to England and then escaped, could not be forcibly sent to Jamaica for sale, and was set free. In Scotland, colliery (coal mine) slaves were still in use until ...
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.
The case, Somerset v Stewart, saw powerful interests arguing on both sides, as it challenged the legal basis of slavery in England and Wales. On 22 June 1772, the judge, Lord Mansfield, found in favour of Somerset. [3] Mansfield had meant for the ruling to be narrowly construed around the legality of forcible deportation, only conceding by a ...
1772, Somerset v Stewart, a freedom suit ruled on by Lord Mansfield in England, who found that slavery had no basis in common law, and no "positive law" had been passed to establish it. His ruling was narrow, saying only that the master could not remove Somerset against his will from England, in order to send him to Jamaica for sale.
The British abolitionist movement began in the late 18th century, and the 1772 Somersett case established that slavery did not exist in English law. In 1807, the slave trade was made illegal throughout the British Empire, though existing slaves in British colonies were not liberated until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
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 ...
The history of slavery in Tennessee began when it was the old Southwest Territory and thus the law regulating slavery in Tennessee was broadly derived from North Carolina law, and was initially comparatively "liberal." However, after statehood, as the fear of slave rebellion and the threat to slavery posed by abolitionism increased, the laws ...
In 1807 Britain (which already held a small coastal territory, intended for the resettlement of former slaves, in Freetown, Sierra Leone) made the slave trade within its empire illegal with the Slave Trade Act 1807, and worked to extend the prohibition to other territory, [26]: 42 as did the United States in 1808. [27]