Introduction:
In the 18th century, Great Britain was and Empire and was open for trading and commerce. It was the same for the 19th century, with the utilization of the slaves. We are going to talk about the slave trade at the Docklands and the abolition of slavery in Great Britain.

Issues:
How was the Great Britain Empire working during the 18th century ?
What was the role of London in the trade and commerce during the 18th and 19th century ?
How was the slaves use in Great Britain ?
How did the slave trade end in Great Britain ?

Subjects:
The British Empire during the 18th century (Aymeric)
London’s role in the trade and commerce during the 18th (Paul)
London’s role in the trade and commerce during the 19th (Esther)

The slave trade at the Docklands (Freya)

London was at the heart of the ‘trade triangle’ that fuelled the slave trade. Traders left here with manufactured goods, such as guns, and exchanged them for slaves in Africa. The slaves were then taken across the Atlantic (the ‘middle passage’) and sold to plantation owners in America and the Caribbean for sugar, tobacco, rum, rice, cotton and tea, all of which were shipped back to London. It’s estimated that
11-12 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic for slavery. During the 1720s alone, nearly 200,000 Africans were transported in British ships. Packed into tight spaces with little food and water, thousands died en route. Built in 1803, Warehouse 1 was the first docklands warehouse built to hold the fruits of this trade: sugar, coffee and rum. The building, now the Museum in Docklands, has on display the table on which William Wilberforce and other abolitionists drafted the Abolition of Slavery bill. The whole of this dock area, which was built in the 1790s specifically for the West Indies sugar trade, was 30 acres long. It was the biggest engineering project in the world, an extraordinary thing. It was built with wealth coming into the country from the sugar trade and from selling slaves.

The abolition of slavery in Great Britain (Albane)
Officially, Great Britain abolished slavery in the 1920's
In fact, Britain abolished slavery in 1807. Actually, Britain only abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807. It was still legal to own and keep slaves until 1833.
The Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833 which emancipated all slaves in the British Empire.

Although it is true that the Slave Trade Act of 1807 legally abolished the slave trade, and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 legally abolished slavery in the country, there was no slave ownership or trade happening in Britain at the time of these Acts of Parliament. In terms of emancipation both acts were predated by a legal case brought in 1772.
James Somersett, a slave owned by an North American colonist from Boston, had been brought to England as a personal servant. But, as Mr Somersett had not been purchased or sold in England he ran away and sued for his own freedom. The subsequent judgment found that slavery did not exist in England, so Mr Somersett kept his freedom. The case emancipated thousands (10,000+) who had been brought into the country as domestic servants of traders.
The subsequent Acts of Parliament cleared any legal gray areas, but unlike much of the rest of Europe slavery had no legal standing in Britain since the middle-ages.