New York adopts a gradual emancipation law

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...

A large uprising began in Barbados during Easter week, with Bussa among its leaders. Enslaved people resisted the plantation regime and the threat that rumors of emancipation would be denied or...

Britain and Spain signed a treaty aimed at abolishing the slave trade and suppressing illicit trafficking by their subjects. Spain agreed to end the trade north of the equator sooner than its trade to...

Parliament reviewed the treaty with Spain on suppressing the slave trade. The debate took place after the agreement was signed and reflected Britain’s effort to secure international enforcement...

The treaty authorized bilateral action against Dutch slave ships and established mixed commission courts in Freetown and Paramaribo. Such courts created an early international enforcement system,...

The compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and barred slavery north of a specified latitude in part of the Louisiana Purchase. It managed sectional power rather...

Congress classified the international slave trade as piracy, punishable by death under federal law. The statute strengthened the legal ban on importation but was rarely enforced to match its stated...