WAmazing Grace is a 2006 British-American biographical drama film directed by Michael Apted, about the campaign against the slave trade in the British Empire, led by William Wilberforce, who was responsible for steering anti-slave trade legislation through the British parliament. The title is a reference to the 1772 hymn "Amazing Grace". The film also recounts the experiences of John Newton as a crewman on a slave ship and subsequent religious conversion, which inspired his writing of the poem later used in the hymn. Newton is portrayed as a major influence on Wilberforce and the abolition movement.
WThe Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of various enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and West Africa, who had been sold by other West Africans, or by half-European "merchant princes" to Western European slave traders, who brought them to the Americas. Except for the Portuguese, European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade. The South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on labour for the production of sugarcane and other commodities. This was viewed as crucial by those Western European states that, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with each other to create overseas empires.
WThe Blockade of Africa began in 1808 after the United Kingdom outlawed the Atlantic slave trade, making it illegal for British ships to transport slaves. The Royal Navy immediately established a presence off Africa to enforce the ban, called the West Africa Squadron. Although the ban initially applied only to British ships, Britain negotiated treaties with other countries to give the Royal Navy the right to intercept and search their ships for slaves. The 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves abolished the intercontinental slave trade in the United States but the ban was not widely enforced.
WBristol, a port city in south-west England, was involved in the transatlantic slave trade. Bristol's part in the trade was prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries as the city's merchants used their position to gain involvement. It is estimated that over 500,000 enslaved African people were traded by Bristol merchants.
WThe Codrington Plantations were two historic sugarcane producing estates on the island of Barbados, established in the 17th Century by Christopher Codrington and his father of the same name. Sharing the characteristics of many plantations of the period in their exploitation of slavery, their particular significance was as a part of a charitable bequest in 1710, on the death of the third Christopher Codrington, to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG).
WSlavery in the colonial history of the United States, from 1526 to 1776, developed from complex factors, and researchers have proposed several theories to explain the development of the institution of slavery and of the slave trade. Slavery strongly correlated with Europe's American colonies' demand for labor, especially for the labor-intensive plantation economies of the sugar colonies in the Caribbean, operated by Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic. Slave-ships of the Atlantic slave trade transported captives for slavery from Africa to the Americas.
WThomas Daniel was a slave owner and sugar merchant in Bristol who was known as the 'King of Bristol' because of his omnipotence in corporate affairs for over 50 years.
WThe Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society was a leading abolitionist group based in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the nineteenth century. The women associated with the organisation are considered "heroines" and the impact of these abolitionist organisations for women are thought to have had a notional impact.
WThe Emancipation of the British West Indies with the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. A system of apprenticeship was implemented alongside emancipation in Britain's Caribbean possessions that required slaves to continue labouring for their former masters for a period of four to six years in exchange for provisions. Apprenticeship was abolished by each of the colonial assemblies in 1838, after pressure from the British public.
WSlavery in Maryland lasted around 200 years, from its beginnings in 1642 when the first Africans were brought as slaves to St. Mary's City, to its end after the Civil War. While Maryland developed similarly to neighboring Virginia, slavery declined here as an institution earlier, and it had the largest free black population by 1860 of any state. The early settlements and population centers of the province tended to cluster around the rivers and other waterways that empty into the Chesapeake Bay. Maryland planters cultivated tobacco as the chief commodity crop, as the market was strong in Europe. Tobacco was labor-intensive in both cultivation and processing, and planters struggled to manage workers as tobacco prices declined in the late 17th century, even as farms became larger and more efficient. At first, indentured servants from England supplied much of the necessary labor but, as their economy improved at home, fewer made passage to the colonies. Maryland colonists turned to importing indentured and enslaved Africans to satisfy the labor demand.
WPearling in Western Australia existed well before European settlement. Coastal dwelling Aboriginal people had collected and traded pearl shell as well as trepang and tortoise with fisherman from Sulawesi for possibly hundreds of years. After settlement, Aboriginal people were used as slave labour in the emerging commercial industry in a practice known as blackbirding. Pearling centred first around Nickol Bay and Exmouth Gulf and then around Broome to become the largest in the world by 1910.
WA scramble was an early form of slave auction that took place at the height of the Atlantic slave trade in the European colonies of the West Indies and the United States in the eighteenth century, so-called because buyers would literally "scramble" to gather as many slaves as they could get hold of.
WThe slave bible is an edition of the Bible specifically made for educating slaves. Its full title was: Select Parts of the Holy Bible for the use of the Negro Slaves in the British West-India Islands. It was produced in England in the early 19th century for use in the British West Indies. Such bibles had all "references to freedom and escape from slavery" excised, while passages encouraging obedience and submission were emphasized.
WThe slave codes were laws relating to slavery and enslaved people, specifically regarding the Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery in the Americas.
WThe Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery in parts of the British Empire. This Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807 and made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire, with the exception of "the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company", Ceylon, and Saint Helena. The Act was repealed in 1997 as a part of wider rationalisation of English statute law; however, later anti-slavery legislation remains in force.
WSlavery in Australia has existed in various forms from colonisation in 1788 to the present day. European settlement relied heavily on convicts, sent to Australia as punishment for crimes and forced into labour and often sold to free settlers. Many Indigenous Australians were also forced into various forms of slavery and unfree labour from colonisation and this persisted for some Indigenous Australians until the 1970s. Labourers were also imported from the Pacific Islands, Africa, India, Bangladesh, China and Japan; and employed in various degrees of slavery and unfree labour.
WSlavery in Great Britain existed prior to the Roman occupation and until the 12th century, when chattel slavery disappeared, at least for a time, following the Norman Conquest. Former indigenous slaves merged into the larger body of serfs in Britain and no longer were recognized separately in law or custom.
WSlavery in Canada includes both that practised by First Nations from earliest times and that under European colonization.
WSlavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.
WIn common with most Caribbean countries, slavery in the British Virgin Islands forms a major part of the history of the Territory. One commentator has gone so far as to say: "One of the most important aspects of the History of the British Virgin Islands is slavery."
WSlavery in the Madras Presidency during the British Raj affected close to 20% of the population. The landlords were predominantly higher caste individuals. When those from the lower castes borrowed money against their land and defaulted, they entered a life of debt bondage. The slaves formed 12.2% of the total population in 1930.
WVoyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database is a database run by researchers at Emory University which aims to present all documentary material pertaining to the transatlantic slave trade. It is a sister project to African Origins.
WThe Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron at substantial expense in 1808 after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807, an Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The squadron's task was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa. With a home base at Portsmouth, it began with two small ships, the 32-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Solebay and the Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Derwent. At the height of its operations, the squadron employed a sixth of the Royal Navy fleet and marines. In 1819 the Royal Navy established a West Coast of Africa Station and the West Africa Squadron became known as the Preventative Squadron. It remained an independent command until 1856 and then again 1866 to 1867.
WThe Yorke–Talbot slavery opinion was a legal opinion issued by two Crown law officers in 1729 relating to the legality of slavery under English law.