Here is a simple but breathtaking timeline site that lists initiatives
that made trade in slaves illegal, many years before our own Civil War
and Emancipation of slaves in the United States.
Fascinating re: the development of international and
national law–and of course the struggle for and against
slavery. Very modern in presaging today’s struggles among nations to address global wrongs.
Sample:
1794
The French National Convention emancipates all slaves in the French colonies.
March 22: U.S. Congress passes legislation prohibiting the manufacture,
fitting, equipping, loading or dispatching of any vessel to be employed
in the slave trade.
1795
Pinckney’s Treaty establishes commercial relations between U.S. and Spain.
1800
May 10: U.S. enacts stiff penalties for American citizens serving voluntarily on slavers trading between two foreign countries.
1804
January 1: The Republic of Haiti is proclaimed. The hemispere’s second
Republic is declared on January 1, 1804 by General Jean-Jacques
Dessalines. Haiti, or Ayiti in Creole, is the name given to the land by
the former Taino-Arawak peoples, meaning “mountainous country.”
1807
British Parliament bans the Atlantic slave trade.
Great Britain converts Sierra Leone into a crown colony.
1807
U.S. passes legislation banning slave trade, to take effect 1808.
1810
British negotiate an agreement with Portugal calling for gradual abolition of slave trade in the South Atlantic.
1815
At the Congress of Vienna, the British pressure Spain, Portugal, France
and the Netherlands to agree to abolish the slave trade (though Spain
and Portugal are permitted a few years of continued slaving to
replenish labor supplies).
1817
September 23: Great Britain and Spain sign a treaty prohibiting the
slave trade: Spain agrees to end the slave trade north of the equator
immediately, and south of the equator in 1820. British naval vessels
are given right to search suspected slavers. Still, loopholes in the
treaty undercut its goals. Slave trade flows strongly, 1815-1830. Slave
economies of Cuba and Brazil expand rapidly.
In the Le Louis case, British courts establish the principal that
British naval vessels cannot search foreign vessels suspected of
slaving unless permitted by their respective countries — a ruling that
hampers British efforts to suppress the slave trade.
1819
U.S. and Spain renew commercial agreements in the Adams-Onis Treaty.
U.S. Congress passes legislation stiffening provisions against American participation in the slave trade.
Britain stations a naval squadron on the West African coast to patrol against illegal slavers.
1820
May 15: U.S. law makes slave trading piracy, punishable by the death penalty.
The U.S. Navy dispatches four vessels to patrol the coast of West
Africa for slavers. This initial campaign lasts only four years before
the Americans recall the cruisers and break off cooperation with the
British.
1824
Great Britain and the U.S. negotiate a treaty recognizing the slave
trade as piracy and establishing procedures for joint suppression. But
the Senate undercuts the treaty’s force in a series of amendments, and
the British refuse to sign.