Talk:Slave Trade Act 1807

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If Stephen married wilberforce sister, isn't he his brother in law, not his son in law?

[1] The index/table of parliamentary acts referring to "Acts of Parliament of predecessor states to the United Kingdom" needs a bit of correction. The 'UK' didn't yet exist in 1707, it didn't come about till 1800/1801. The timetable was: England and Scotland (and Ireland) all had separate parliaments up to ?May 1707, and then the English and Scottish parliaments were succeeded by the 'parliament of Great Britain' from 1707 to 1800. This continued in parallel with a separate parliament of Ireland, until that too was united to form the parliament of the UK from 1801. (In practice the Scottish and Irish parliaments really disappeared in 1707 and 1800, and what had been the English parliament absorbed their functions but kept a kind of continuity of its own.)

[2] A significant attack from this page seems to be any reference to the history tendng to show that slavery and slave status were already unlawful and not recognised in Scotland. At least and at latest, after the decision of 1772 in James Somersett's case, it seems to have been widely understood that slaves were automatically freed by law in England -- from the moment they set foot on English soil.

The trouble was, the rule was only limited in its effect, and didn't cover what went on outside the country.

So the point of the 1807 Act was not to abolish slavery in England (because it was already unsupported by the law in England), it was to extend and export that law as widely as the UK parliament was able to do so, and to control the behaviour of British subjects and residents, both in the UK and in British-controlled places overseas, and prohibit them from either engaging in slave-trading or doing ancillary things that helped the slave trade, such as providing insurance for the transactions for it -- anywhere.

83.7.27.26 18:33, 21 March 2007 (ATC)

Regarding "after the decision of 1772 in James Somersett's case, it seems to have been widely understood that slaves were automatically freed by law in England", it should be noted that the judge in that case, Lord Mansfield, would appear to have taken exception to that "wide understanding" when he took the liberty of interrupting counsel during the case R v Inhabitants of Thames Ditton to specifically state: "The determinations [of Somerset] go no further than that the master cannot by force compel him to go out of the kingdom."

As can be read in that article, Lord Mansfield took a month to come to his decision against Stewart. The following sentence from his decision seems central to its reasoning. "A foreigner cannot be imprisoned here on the authority of any law existing in his own country: the power of a master over his servant is different in all countries, more or less limited or extensive; the exercise of it therefore must always be regulated by the laws of the place where exercised."

I read this as saying that whatever the law in the colonies had to say about ownership of slaves did not apply in England, and therefore on English soil Stewart could not claim ownership of Somerset on the ground that colonial law permitted it.

Many seem to prefer to read it as saying that it made Somerset a free man and also made slavery illegal in England. However courts cannot create law other than by precedent of rulings and there was no ruling here to create any law in Britain against slavery, nor to establish that Somerset was a free man in England.

So "widely understood" was appropriately said here. Vaughan Pratt (talk) 01:57, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Ending Slave Trade in United States

This referred to the importation of slaves. This posed no problem for most slaveholders in the United States as they could grow their own supply. 71.114.113.105 (talk)

Did British suppress non-British Atlantic slave trade? When? By what acts?

This article explicitly mentions that in 1807 they prohibited slave trade by British subjects. It also mentions that later on, in 1870s, the Royal Navy suppressed Arab slave trade, essentially violating the sovereignty of whatever Gulf Arab states that were doing this. Now, what about Atlantic slave trade by non-British vessels, like the Portuguese? Did the British act against those? If yes, starting from when and was there special legislature for this purpose?

I don't know the relevant Act of Parliament but if a foreign ship was found on the High Seas (i.e., in International Waters) to be carrying slaves, the Royal Navy was ordered to treat the offending ship's master and crews as pirates, which meant that they were liable to be hanged. Within another country's own territorial waters, this did not apply, as these waters were governed by the relevant country's own laws. So slavers were safe as long as they didn't enter international waters, but of course this greatly limited their scope for trade as this meant that it became effectively impossible to transport slaves internationally by ship.

As the British Empire controlled all the waters around its numerous worldwide colonies, this greatly increased the extent of the waters that came under British and hence Royal Navy jurisdiction, so if a slavers route took them anywhere within these waters they were liable for rough justice, as slave ships were invariably 'caught in the act' - it being effectively impossible to deny the carrying of slaves when the evidence was so obvious - which led some to throw their human cargoes overboard when sighting a British warship. Unfortunately for the slavers' crews, this was usually noticed and led to them being hanged anyway.

Carrying slaves by this time was regarded by the British as morally indefensible and inexcusable under any circumstances, and I doubt that they cared much whether other countries might object to this policy if these other countries either condoned slavery or were incapable or unwilling to police their own waters. So, as the British could not prevent the other countries from allowing slavery, or transporting slaves, they just did what they could by making the business unprofitable and downright dangerous for the slavers.

Whether this was an example of the British Empire's 'reprehensible' treatment of, and 'interference' in, 'other peoples affairs', I'll leave to the reader to decide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 12:45, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I think that this article could use more relationships with other pages. More information about the people involved in getting the act passed could also be added.Rvnuss (talk) 21:25, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

change to external links 27/5/10

the link parliament.uk/slavetrade was a nonexistant page —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.217.49 (talk) 16:14, 27 May 2010 (UTC)