What role did Britain play in the slave trade?

From 1660, the British Crown passed various acts and granted charters to enable companies to settle, administer and exploit British interests on the West Coast of Africa and to supply slaves to the American colonies. The African companies were granted a monopoly to trade in slaves.

What happened to Caribbean slaves?

Once they arrived in the Caribbean islands, the Africans were prepared for sale. They were washed and their skin was oiled. Finally they were sold to local buyers. Often parents were separated from children, and husbands from wives.

What did slaves in the Caribbean do?

At its peak production between 1740 and 1807 Jamaica received 33% of the total enslaved people who were trafficked in order to keep up its production. Other crops besides sugar were also cultivated on the plantations. Tobacco, coffee, and livestock were all produced as well using slave labor.

What was the impact of slavery in Britain?

Some merchants became bankers and many new businesses were financed by profits made from slave-trading. The slave trade played an important role in providing British industry with access to raw materials. This contributed to the increased production of manufactured goods.

Why did the British end slavery?

Impact of the Act The Slavery Abolition Act did not explicitly refer to British North America. Its aim was rather to dismantle the large-scale plantation slavery that existed in Britain’s tropical colonies, where the enslaved population was usually larger than that of the white colonists.

Which country ended slavery first?

Haiti (then Saint-Domingue) formally declared independence from France in 1804 and became the first sovereign nation in the Western Hemisphere to unconditionally abolish slavery in the modern era.

Why was the Caribbean important to the British Empire?

Along with a number of colonies in North America, the Caribbean formed the heart of England’s first overseas empire. The region was also known as the ‘West Indies’ because when the explorer Christopher Columbus first arrived there in 1492, he believed that he had sailed to the ‘Indies’, as Asia was then known.

Which Caribbean islands were British?

The British West Indies (BWI) were the British territories in the West Indies: Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

When did the British came to the Caribbean?

In 1492 he made a first landing on Hispaniola and claimed it for the Spanish crown as he did on Cuba. This meant that the major islands of the Caribbean – the Greater Antilles – were already Spanish possessions when the British began their involvement with the Caribbean in the early 17th century.

Which country banned slavery first?

When was slavery abolished in the Caribbean?

1 August 1834
It was not until 1 August 1834 that slavery ended in the British Caribbean following legislation passed the previous year. This was followed by a period of apprenticeship with freedom coming in 1838. Even after the end of slavery and apprenticeship the Caribbean was not totally free.

How did slavery end in England?

Slavery Abolition Act, (1833), in British history, act of Parliament that abolished slavery in most British colonies, freeing more than 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and South Africa as well as a small number in Canada. It received Royal Assent on August 28, 1833, and took effect on August 1, 1834.