Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Grey's Monument in Newcastle upon Tyne, in remembrance of Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, who abolished slavery in the British Empire. In May 1772, Lord Mansfield's judgment in the Somerset case emancipated a slave who had been brought to England from Boston in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and thus helped launch the movement to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire.
This figure was created to commemorate the 1833 Act of Parliament which ended slavery in the British Empire. Credit for ending British slavery was awarded to a small group of middle- and upper-class Christian humanitarians, led by William Wilberforce, and the active role played by many Africans in resisting slavery went largely unrecognised.
William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, and became an independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Yorkshire (1784–1812).
Prime Minister Grey notably enacted the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which abolished slavery in the British Empire via compensated emancipation, ordering the British government to purchase the freedom of all slaves in the British Empire. [1] Grey was a long-time leader of the reform movement.
Slavery was abolished in the directly governed colonies, like Canada or Mauritius, through buying out the owners from 1834, under the terms of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. [15] Most slaves were freed, with exceptions and delays provided for territories administered by East India Company , in India , Ceylon , and Saint Helena .
Religious, economic, and social factors contributed to the British abolition of slavery throughout their empire.Throughout European colonies in the Caribbean, enslaved people engaged in revolts, labour stoppages and more everyday forms of resistance which enticed colonial authorities, who were eager to create peace and maintain economic stability in the colonies, to consider legislating ...
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 comes into force, abolishing slavery throughout most of the British Empire but on a gradual basis over the next six years. [113] Legally frees 700,000 in the West Indies, 20,000 in Mauritius, and 40,000 in South Africa. The exceptions are the territories controlled by the East India Company and Ceylon. [114] France
3 January – Reassertion of British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands by British forces in the South Atlantic. 18 April – Over 300 delegates from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland travel to the office of the Prime Minister to call for the immediate abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. [1]