Slavery in British America

Slavery in the British American colonies was an institution that was brought into existence by traders and operated from the cities of Bristol and Liverpool and was conducted within locations on the northern part of South America through the West Indies and on the North American mainland. Many colonies saw slavery from the colony of British Guiana, Barbados, Jamaica, the Thirteen Colonies, and also Canada. Slavery across every part of colonial America under British control was abolished in 1833.



Background


According to The National Archives (United Kingdom), slavery was conducted as unfree labour in the British Caribbean and North American colonies from the 16th to 19th century. It is believed that the first slave trader was Sir John Hawkins, having conducted voyages in the early 1560's.

These colonies, several of which were captured during the Western Design expedition between 1654-1660, provided an abundance of raw materials such as tobacco and cotton. However for many decades the top producing domestic item was sugar with Jamaica as Britain's largest sugar-producing colony according to the University of Glasgow. According to the United Nations, chattel slavery saw its most "extreme form" with the passage of the Black Code which was initially introduced in Barbados and quickly spread to other colonies within the Americas.

Historian Eric Williams wrote extensively on the role of sugar and slavery in the Caribbean. The plantations on these colonies produced raw materials, merchants brought in goods from Africa such as gold and ivory, and trade saw products brought back to Europe in the triangle trade. As the use of slaves increased for sugar production on the islands in the West Indies a powerful interest group called the West India Interest promoted its expansion and defended its ongoing use in Parliament. During this time period, Britannica notes, the Royal African Company was created and held a monopoly over the British Slave trade.

The University College London Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery provides maps of where plantations were built on the colonies of Grenada, Jamaica, and Barbados.

Slavery was also present in Guyana, though mostly under Dutch rule. When Britain established Guyana as a British colony in 1815, slavery continued as it had before. At one time, Guyana was one of the wealthiest of Britain's sugar colonies. Slavery was abolished in Guyana in 1833.

According to the Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, the British Empire was the second most involved country, only being surpassed by the Portuguese Empire. The estimated number of people transported across the Atlantic on ships according to the Voyages database is 3,259,443. One reason why the British Empire shipped such an enormous amount of slaves was because of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, where Britain secured the Asiento de Negros, a monopoly over the trading of slaves to plantations in Spanish America. This monopoly over slave trading led to tensions between Spain and Britain with their contract and the fees for providing slave transportation which led to the War of Jenkins' Ear. According to historian Peter Silver, the Asiento and the War of Jenkins' Ear had a profound impact on slavery in [British] America.

Legacy
As noted by the BBC, Britain's about-face from being involved with the slave trade and having colonies that engaged in the practice of slavery to campaigning aggressively to end it presents a glorious humanitarian crusade for the ages. However, any retrospective upon and congratulations on the subject must carry a sobering awareness not just of the event and what followed. Prior to abolishing of both the trade and then slavery itself within its many colonial possessions, Britain was "the pre-eminent slave trading nation during the 18th century."