Emancipation of the British West Indies

Emancipation of the British West Indies

The British were the first to attempt to abolish slavery in the Caribbean during the early 1800’s, but total emancipation took a lot of time and effort to achieve. Many people, primarily in England, began to view slavery as cruel and unjust as The Enlightenment swept across the nation. The global economic changes taking place during this time period created a decline in the need for slavery in the Caribbean as the industrial revolution and free trade began to take shape and products could be created more cheaply elsewhere. Religious efforts aided in this oppositional movement by taking a strong stance against slavery during the Methodist movement and New Protestant Evangelism. The Roman Catholic Church also played a crucial role in slave uprisings, mainly because it was the primary religion in the area that would recognize slaves as members of the church. Uprisings such as the Haitian Revolution and the Baptist War reinforced the British attempt to abolish slavery by forcing Europeans to focus their attention on Caribbean affairs.

A large group of Britons, the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, formed an anti-slavery movement and petitioned the government for slow emancipation in 1787. At first, they centralized their efforts on the slave trade, but later turned their focus to slavery itself. The first attempts by this group failed, but with each failure more and more people began to support the cause. Uprisings and revolts within the islands perpetuated the situation, and pamphlets were given out describing the horrible conditions in which slaves were being subjected to.

After years of petitions and demonstrations, slave trade was finally abolished in 1808. However, other European countries did not view slavery as negatively as Britain in the early 1800’s. Despite British naval support, and treaties with other nations, thousands of slaves were illegally imported into the region after 1808. Additional British intervention required registration of all slaves beginning in 1815, but this requirement did little to aid in the cause. With slave patience growing thin, and increased uprisings developing within the area, slave emancipation became inevitable. 25 years after the slave trade was abolished, slaves in the Caribbean were finally given their freedom through the Emancipation Act of 1834.

Despite having freedom from slavery, living conditions on the islands did not improve much over the next several decades. Without a cheap source of labor, sugar cane production declined and economies crumbled. With a growing population, and a decrease in export trade, poverty became widespread. Without much alternative, most of the islands would turn to drug trafficking and overseas banking as an easy source of income in the 1900’s.