The Slavery Abolition Act ends slavery across the British Empire
- Date
- 28 August 1833 (in force 1 August 1834)
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- British Empire (Caribbean, Mauritius, Cape)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
Receiving royal assent on 28 August 1833 and taking effect on 1 August 1834, the Slavery Abolition Act abolished slavery throughout most of the British Empire, freeing some 800,000 enslaved people, chiefly in the Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape.
The Act followed the 1807 ban on the slave trade and was driven by a revived abolitionist movement, the influence of formerly enslaved campaigners, and large-scale resistance in the colonies, notably the 1831 Baptist War in Jamaica. Emancipation was neither immediate nor unconditional: enslaved people over the age of six were reclassified as unpaid 'apprentices' bound to their former owners, a system of forced labour that provoked further protest and was wound up early in 1838. Crucially, the British government paid £20 million in compensation, an enormous sum, to slaveholders for the loss of their human 'property', while the freed people received nothing. The Act nonetheless ended the legal status of slavery across a vast empire and became a model invoked by abolitionists worldwide, even as plantation economies adapted by importing indentured labourers from India and elsewhere.
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Empires active in 28 August 1833 (in force 1 August 1834)
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
Related politics & governance events
- The Revolutions of 1848 (the Springtime of Peoples)1848–1849
- Congress of Vienna and the Concert of EuropeSeptember 1814 – June 1815
- Commodore Perry forces the opening of Japan1853–1854 (Treaty of Kanagawa, 31 March 1854)
- Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the birth of the British Raj1857–1858 (rebellion); Government of India Act 2 August 1858
- Britain abolishes the transatlantic slave trade25 March 1807
- Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand and the Kingdom of ItalyMay–September 1860; Kingdom of Italy proclaimed 17 March 1861
Further reading
The wider story
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire
Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.
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