Editing Slavery (section)

=== Europe ===
France abolished slavery in 1794 during the Revolution,<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Dorigny |editor1-first=Marcel |title=The Abolitions of Slavery: From L. F. Sonthonax to Victor Schoelcher, 1793, 1794, 1848 |date=2003 |publisher=UNESCO Publishing |location=Paris |page=vi |isbn=978-1-57181-432-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cbNNFxiAMeAC |access-date=August 16, 2022 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> but it was restored in 1802 under Napoleon.<ref name="dwyer">{{cite journal |last=Dwyer |first=Philip |title=Remembering and Forgetting in Contemporary France: Napoleon, Slavery, and the French History Wars |journal=French Politics, Culture & Society |year=2008 |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=110–122 |publisher=[[Berghahn Books]] |doi=10.3167/fpcs.2008.260306|jstor=42843569}}</ref> It has been asserted that, before the Revolution, slavery was illegal in metropolitan France (as opposed to its colonies),<ref name="peabody">{{cite journal |last=Peabody |first=Sue |year=1984 |title=Race, Slavery, and the Law in Early Modern France |journal=The Historian |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=501–510 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |doi=10.1111/j.1540-6563.1994.tb01322.x |jstor=24448702}}</ref> but this has been refuted.<ref name="chatman">{{cite journal |last=Chatman |first=Samuel L. |year=2000 |title='There are no Slaves in France': A Re-Examination of Slave Laws in Eighteenth Century France |journal=The Journal of Negro History |volume=85 |issue=3 |pages=144–153 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] on behalf of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History |doi=10.2307/2649071 |jstor=2649071 |s2cid=141017958}}</ref>

One of the most significant milestones in the campaign to abolish slavery throughout the world occurred in England in 1772, with British Judge [[William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield|Lord Mansfield]], whose opinion in [[Somersett's Case]] was widely taken to have held that slavery was illegal in England. This judgement also laid down the principle that slavery contracted in other jurisdictions could not be enforced in England.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wise |first=Steven M. |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=A76TPwAACAAJ}} |title=Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial that Led to the End of Human Slavery |date=2006 |publisher=Pimlico |isbn=978-1-84413-430-4}}</ref> The last person to be deemed a slave in a British court was [[Bell (Belinda)]] who was transported to the Americas in 1772 as a "slave for life" by a [[Perth, Scotland|Perth]] court.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rothschild |first=Emma |title=The inner life of empires: an eighteenth-century history |date=2013 |publisher=Princeton Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-691-15612-5 |edition=1. paperback pr |location=Princeton, NJ}}</ref>

[[Sons of Africa]] was a late 18th-century British group that campaigned to end slavery. Its members were Africans in London, freed slaves who included [[Ottobah Cugoano]], [[Olaudah Equiano]] and other leading members of London's black community. It was closely connected to the [[Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade]], a non-denominational group founded in 1787, whose members included [[Thomas Clarkson]]. British Member of Parliament [[William Wilberforce]] led the anti-slavery movement in the United Kingdom, although the groundwork was an anti-slavery essay by Clarkson. Wilberforce was urged by his close friend, Prime Minister [[William Pitt the Younger]], to make the issue his own and was also given support by reformed Evangelical [[John Newton]]. The [[Slave Trade Act 1807|Slave Trade Act]] was passed by the British Parliament on March 25, 1807, making the slave trade illegal throughout the [[British Empire]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://royalnavy.mod.uk/history/battles/royal-navy-and-the-slave-trade/ |archive-url=http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128205546/royalnavy.mod.uk/history/battles/royal-navy-and-the-slave-trade/ |archive-date=January 28, 2009 |title=Royal Navy and the Slave Trade : Battles: History: Royal Navy |access-date=September 29, 2015}}</ref> Wilberforce also campaigned for abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which he lived to see in the [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833]].

After the 1807 act abolishing the slave trade was passed, these campaigners switched to [[Blockade of Africa|encouraging other countries]] to follow suit, notably France and the British colonies. Between 1808 and 1860, the British [[West Africa Squadron]] seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2007/03/20/abolition_navy_feature.shtml |title=Devon – Abolition – Sailing against slavery |publisher=[[BBC]] |date=February 28, 2007 |access-date=September 29, 2015}}</ref> Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pdavis.nl/Background.htm#WAS |title=The West African Squadron and slave trade |publisher=Pdavis.nl |access-date=August 29, 2010}}</ref>