EVENT INFORMATION

28
August
1833

The British Parliament passes the Slavery Abolition Act

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📅 28 August 1833 📍 Jamaica

The Slavery Abolition Act received royal assent, setting a legal timetable for emancipation across most British colonies. The act did not bring immediate full freedom for most Jamaican adults: it imposed an apprenticeship system, and it directed £20 million in compensation to enslavers rather than those whose labor had created the wealth. The law followed enslaved people's resistance, including the Jamaican Baptist War, alongside abolitionist organizing and political change in Britain.

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People in this event

enslaved Jamaicans

British abolitionists

slaveholders

Organizations in this Event

British Parliament

Treasury

Jamaican colonial government