The Abolition of Slavery
The slave trade was an important part of the British and European economy. It would have affected and influenced the lives of every class of individual.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, an increasing number of individuals and organisations campaigned against the slave trade and its miseries. These included slaves themselves, slaves who had gained their freedom, individuals who opposed slavery, and some church societies. These people became abolitionists.
Slavery remained a contentious and controversial issue across the country and raised strong feelings on both sides of the argument. Even after the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Act was passed in 1807 campaigning continued as slavery went on for much longer and, in many ways, has still to be abolished completely throughout the world.
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