Abolition in America.




The increasing number of African-born slaves worried the leaders of South Carolina who would impose a “special tax on foreign slaves to slow the trade” as legislature noted that their growing numbers “may prove of the most dangerous consequence”. Virginia also attempted to ban slave trading for purely economic reasons but was overruled as the RAC had powerful advocates in the government and the slave trade was crucial to the British economy.

The ban on slave trade by the colonists was their attempt at cutting economic ties with Britain and during the Revolution all of the new states either suspended or banned the slave trading. However, some of the northern colonies also banned the African slave trade for moral reasons as well. As opposition to slavery grew more and more states would ban the trade entirely such as Massachusetts and New Hampshire followed by a gradual ban in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. During and after the Revolution slave trading was deliberated and in some instances banned bringing freedom to slaves (where some remained free and others re-enslaved to the British Caribbean) based on economic and political reasons but not on moral reasons.

The Abolition Act of 1807 finally came into force and was exercised in 1808. However, many slave traders continued trafficking and selling human beings from Africa to parts of the Americas and especially the Caribbean by way of illegal smuggling and disguising their ships. It would take another 40 to 60 years to end the transatlantic slave trade.

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