Parliament had outlawed the slave trade in the Slave Trade Act of 1807, but that Act only served to stop the creation of new slaves. It did not address the issue of existing slaves who were already in the colonies.

It was these slaves that the new Slavery Abolition Act sought to address, and it received royal assent in 1833. The Act outlawed slavery throughout the British Empire although the impact took a long time to be felt. There were also some exceptions such as in areas controlled by the East India Company.

A key problem facing the government was what to do with the former slaves. The Act addressed this issue by stating that former slaves over the age of six became ‘apprentices’ and continued to work on the same plantations in largely the same conditions as before. Many of them were only fully emancipated six years later in 1840, although all slaves in Trinidad were fully emancipated ahead of schedule in 1838.

The position of the former slave owners themselves was also addressed in the Slavery Abolition Act. It’s important to remember that the Act effectively stripped slave-owners of their property. The Act therefore compensated the slave-owners for their loss of property. This was done by the Slave Compensation Commission that awarded the equivalent of £17bn in today’s money, funded by the taxpayer, to 46,000 slave owners.

A searchable online database of every slave-owner who was awarded compensation by the Commission is available to view at www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs.

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