US ban on international importation of enslaved people takes effect

Haiti declared independence, following a revolution in which formerly enslaved people defeated French efforts to restore colonial rule. It became the first independent state born from a successful...

Haiti’s constitution established a postrevolutionary state after independence and prohibited slavery. It asserted sovereignty in a world where slaveholding powers sought to isolate the new republic...

Congress passed legislation in advance of the constitutional deadline, setting penalties for importing enslaved people from abroad beginning in 1808. The law prohibited legal importation but did not...

Congress enacted a ban on importing enslaved people into the United States, effective 1 January 1808. The law did not abolish slavery, the domestic slave trade, or the forced movement of people within...

The Slave Trade Act received royal assent, prohibiting British subjects from participating in the transatlantic slave trade from 1808. The law followed decades of Black and white organizing,...

Enslaved people began a coordinated march along the Mississippi River north of New Orleans, attacking plantations and seeking to overthrow slavery. Authorities killed many insurgents and executed...

The treaty ending the War of the Sixth Coalition included a French commitment to abolish the slave trade within five years. The delay and weak enforcement allowed trafficking to continue. European...

The convention restored colonial possessions after the Napoleonic Wars and included Dutch commitments to prohibit participation in the African slave trade. It joined anti-trade diplomacy to the...

The treaty committed the United States and Britain to use their best efforts to end the trade, but it created no immediate enforcement mechanism. The language reflected diplomatic pressure and the...

The major European powers signed a declaration describing the slave trade as repugnant and expressing a goal of suppressing it. The declaration did not create immediate emancipation or a universal...