19th Century

  • 1801

    L'Ouverture is captured and brought to France where he is imprisoned and dies (Haiti successfully resists French and British troops and retains independence but under increasingly authoritarian rulers)

  • 1802

    Danes abolish the slave trade in their colonies

  • 1803

    Napoleon reinstates slavery in French Caribbean Slave conspiracy discovered in Kingston, Jamaica

  • 1807

    British Slave Trade is abolished by Act of Parliament Last slaving voyage out of Bristol: the Alert carries 240 enslaved Africans from the West Coast to Jamaica

  • 1808

    USA abolishes the slave trade (the buying and selling of enslaved people). 50 involuntary African recruits to the 2nd West India Regiment mutiny

  • 1815

    Slave rebellion in Jamaica

  • 1816

    Bussa's Rebellion in Barbados

  • 1822

    Campaign to set up international police force to stop illegal slave trade fails. In Britain, attention turns to the emancipation of the slaves in British colonies

  • 1823

    Slave rebellions in Jamaica and Demarara (now Guyana). Founding of the Anti-Slavery Committee in London

  • 1824

    Slave rebellion in Jamaica

  • 1831

    Slave rebellions in Antigua, Jamaica and Virginia

  • 1833

    Emancipation Act passed, becoming law in 1834, stipulating that slaves in the British empire would become formally free only after a four year period of 'apprenticeship'. Revolt against 'apprenticeship' on St Kitts

  • 1849

    Harriet Tubman escapes to North in America, and helps other slaves escape on the 'Underground Railroad'

  • 1861-1865

    American Civil War is fought largely over whether individual states have the right to determine whether or not they allowed slavery. Slavery is abolished in the USA in 1865 (trading in slaves was abolished in 1808, this law meant freedom for existing slaves)

  • 1869

    Portugal is the last European country to abolish slavery

  • 1870

    Brazil still has 1.5 million slaves

  • 1888

    Bill passes in Brazil to free 1.5 million slaves