Treaty of Ghent addresses the slave trade after the War of 1812

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,...

The federal prohibition on importing enslaved people took effect. Slavery remained legal, and the internal trade forcibly moved hundreds of thousands of people from the Upper South to expanding cotton...

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 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...

The law provided that people enslaved in New York would gain freedom on a delayed timetable, with children born to enslaved mothers after July 4, 1799 already subject to long compulsory service. It...

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...