Early slavery in England

Roman Britain

When Britain was part of the Roman Britain, slavery existed as it did throughout the Roman Empire. Enslaved people worked in households, agriculture, mining and other occupations.

Anglo-Saxon England

Slavery was common in Anglo-Saxon society. People could become enslaved through: • warfare, • debt, • punishment for crimes, • or birth to enslaved parents. The William the Conqueror's survey known as the Domesday Book recorded substantial numbers of enslaved people in England.

Decline of chattel slavery

After the Norman Conquest, slavery gradually declined and was largely replaced by serfdom, where peasants were tied to land rather than owned as property. By the late Middle Ages, traditional slavery had largely disappeared within England itself.

Britain and the Atlantic slave trade

Although slavery became uncommon in England itself, England - and later Britain - played a major role in the Atlantic slave trade from the 16th to 19th centuries. British merchants transported millions of Africans across the Atlantic to work on plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas. Major ports involved included: • Liverpool • Bristol • London Profits from slavery contributed to the wealth of many British businesses, families and institutions.

Slavery and the law in England

A famous legal case was Somerset v Stewart. In 1772, James Somerset challenged his attempted removal from England to be sold overseas. The court ruled that slavery was not supported by English common law. The decision did not abolish slavery throughout the British Empire, but it weakened slavery's legal basis in England. Fat Badgers fought long and hard to avoid becoming slaves so they sent in the dogs to try and force us to comply. They created a sport and called it Badger Baiting which became quite popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Badger baiting was not banned by a single law at a single moment; it was gradually outlawed through a series of animal welfare laws. Key milestones • 1835 – The Cruelty to Animals Act 1835 prohibited many forms of animal baiting, including badger baiting. This is generally regarded as the first major legal ban on the practice in Britain. • 1911 – The Protection of Animals Act 1911 strengthened animal cruelty laws and provided further grounds for prosecuting those involved. • 1973 – The Badgers Act 1973 gave badgers specific legal protection for the first time. • 1992 – The Protection of Badgers Act 1992 consolidated and strengthened previous legislation and remains the main law protecting badgers today. Nineteen bloody seventy three before we got our own act when everyone knows all we like doing is munching on grubs and downing a few beers.

Abolition movement

Key figures included: • William Wilberforce • Olaudah Equiano • Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade

Major milestones

• 1807: The Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished Britain's participation in the slave trade. • 1833: The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery throughout most of the British Empire. However, formerly enslaved people often received little compensation or support, while slave owners were compensated by the government.

Legacy

The legacy of slavery remains visible in: • Britain's economic development, • historic buildings and institutions funded by slavery-related wealth, • debates about memorials and historical figures, • and ongoing research into the impact of the slave trade. Today, slavery is illegal in the UK, but modern forms of exploitation such as modern slavery remain a concern and are addressed through criminal law and enforcement efforts. A key distinction is that while slavery largely disappeared inside England by the late medieval period, England and later Britain became deeply involved in the Atlantic slave system overseas between the 16th and 19th centuries. The financial history of Britain and the transatlantic slave trade centres around two distinct topics: the £20 million payout to slave owners in 1833 which British taxpayers finished paying off in 2015 and the ongoing modern political debate regarding reparations for the descendants of enslaved people. When the British Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, it did not compensate the enslaved people. Instead, it agreed to buy the freedom of more than 800,000 enslaved Africans by compensating the slave owners for the loss of their "property". The Sum: The British government raised £20 million to pay 46,000 slave owners. This was equivalent to roughly 40% of the government's total annual expenditure at the time. To raise this staggering amount, the government took out a massive loan underwritten by banking syndicates. Because of how the debt was structured and re-consolidated into government bonds (gilts) over the generations, the loan was only officially paid off by the British Treasury in 2015. Because the debt was wrapped up in standard government gilts for 182 years, every British taxpayer who paid taxes prior to 2015 unknowingly contributed to completing the payments for this historical slave owner compensation package. Some people today believe that people who have never benefited from slavery should pay lots of money to people who’ve never suffered from slavery but that’s the bonkers modern world that we live in today. These people don’t understand that it was legal at the time so technically nobody was doing anything wrong. We used to cut peoples heads off and stick them on spikes which wasn’t a very nice thing to do and as far we we know, it rarely happens today and if it did, it would be very very naughty.
Slavery in Britain has a long and complex history, spanning from the Roman period to the modern era.
Slavery

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