|
Date
|
Event
|
Topics
|
Details |
1791 |
Anna Letitia Barbauld, "Epistle To William Wilberforce, Esq. on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade." |
*Abolition |
Details |
Apr 1791 |
William Wilberforce's bill for Abolition is defeated 163 to 88. |
*Abolition |
Details |
Aug 1791 |
100,000 slaves and ex-slaves revolt against planters and the local government in French-controlled San Domingo, the wealthiest colony of the West Indies and main source of sugar and coffee in Europe. |
*Abolition |
Details |
1792 |
Mass petition compaign for abolition. Commons resolves on gradual abolition by 1796. Lords delay action in favor of preliminary hearings. Boycott of sugar begins. French Revolution begins to affect mass agitation. Sierra Leone settlement renewed. Denmark decrees gradual abolition by
1803. |
*Abolition
*French Revolution |
Details |
1792 |
Abolition: Coleridge, his Greek Sapphic Ode "Ode on the Slave Trade," written during freshman year at Cambridge. |
*Abolition |
Details |
1792 |
Abolition: Edmund Burke, Sketch of a Negro Code (proposes a plan
for orderly abolition and emancipation). |
*Abolition |
Details |
1792 |
William Blake, engravings for John Gabriel Stedman, Narrative, of a five years' expedition, against revolted Negroes of Surinam. |
*Abolition |
Details |
1793 |
William Wilberforce's second bill for abolition passed by Commons but defeated by Lords. Commons narrowly rejects motions to reintroduce general abolition and to abolish the British foreign slave trade. A compromise is forged by slavery advocate Sir William Dundas, at the behest of Prime Minister Pitt, providing for gradual abolition by January 1, 1796. It passes 230 to 85--but fails later. Decline of public agitation and abolition society activity. Britain begins campaign to capture the French slave islands. Tobago and Cape Nicolas-Mole on St. Domingue are occupied. |
*Abolition
*France |
Details |
1794 |
William Dundas recants, arguing against abolition, and the compromise is not enacted (see 1793). Commons passes a foreign abolition bill. Lords tables the bill in favor of continued hearings on general abolition. Britain temporarily conquers Guadeloupe, St. Lucia, and large sections of St. Domingue; this enterprise costs 4,500,000 pounds and 80,000 soldiers. Martinique permanently occupied. Sugar reaches its low price point before 1799. French ships raid the African coast, including Sierra Leone. |
*Abolition
*France |
Details |
1794 |
The French Convention abolishes slavery in the French colonies. France conquers Holland. |
*France
*Abolition
*French Revolution |
Details |
1795 |
Commons again defeats abolition. British slave islands are attacked by French revolutionary forces. |
*Abolition
*French Revolution |
Details |
1795 |
Coleridge's Bristol lectures, including "On the Slave Trade" (June 16). |
*Abolition |
Details |
1796 |
Commons narrowly defeats abolition. The Dolben act is not renewed because of oversight. British troops retake slave islands from French. |
*Abolition |
Details |
1797 |
Commons rejects abolition. The Dolben act is renewed. A West Indian-sponsored parliamentary resolution for colonial amelioration of slavery is passed. Trinidad is captured; the British withdraw troops from the West Indies (they are pushed from St. Domingue by Tousaint L'Ouverture). |
*Abolition |
Details |
1798 |
Commons rejects abolition. Other motions are introduced for stiffening restrictions on the slave carrying act and for abolishing the slave trade along much of the West African coast. Negroes are eliminated from the list of "goods" favored under the free port system. |
*Abolition |
Details |
1799 |
Commons rejects abolition. Commons passes an African slave coast restriction act. Lords narrowly rejects it. Commons passes a stricter slave-carrying act that narrowly clears the Lords. Sugar prices begin to decline. Britain conquers Surinam. |
*Abolition |
Details |
1800 |
No motion is made for abolition. Curacao is captured. |
*Abolition |
Details |
1801 |
Abolition: A struggle begins over the sale of St. Vincent and Trinidad crown lands. St. Bartholomew is captured, as are all Danish West Indies. |
*Abolition
*Colonialism |
Details |
1802 |
Wilberforce postpones a general abolition motion. Plantation expansion is blocked in Trinidad and St. Vincent. The Peace of Amiens between England and France restores slave colonies to prewar status except for Trinidad, San Domingo, and Louisiana. |
*Abolition
*France
*Colonialism |
Details |
1804 |
Commons passes a general abolition bill for the first time since 1792. Lords tables the bill on grounds of late reception. Abolitionists resolve to revive activity, but without mass petitioning. Surinam is recaptured by the British. Sugar prices good. |
*Abolition
*Colonialism |
Details |
1805 |
Commons narrowly defeats abolition. An order-in-council ends the African trade to conquered slave areas by 1807 and immediately reduces annual "imports" to 3 percent of the existing slave population. |
*Abolition
*Colonialism |
Details |
1806 |
The new Grenville-Fox ministry supplanting Pitt's aids the abolition. Sugar prices fall. |
*Abolition |
Details |
May 1806 - June 1806 |
Parliament passes a foreign abolition bill in May and a general abolition resolution in June. Parliament also prohibits new ships from entering the slave trade. |
*Abolition |
Details |
1807 |
William Wilberforce, A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade. |
*Abolition |
Details |
Mar 25, 1807 |
The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act: Parliament passes an act abolishing slave trading and the importation of slaves from 1808 but does not prohibit colonial slavery. |
*Abolition |