Parliament and the British Slave Trade: Overview

The growth in the importance of the sugar trade to England's economy

By the end of the 17th century Parliament had supervised the development of English colonial possessions in the Americas

Although the British ended their slave trade in 1807, slavery itself continued in the British colonies until full emancipation in 1833

In 1788 the Prime Minister commissioned a report on the slave trade and the debates that followed led to legislation limiting the numbers of enslaved Africans carried from Africa to the West Indies

Trading with Africa soon became hugely lucrative at the heart of which was the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans