ABSTRACT
In 1807 the British parliament passed an act which outlawed the African slave trade after almost three centuries of legal British commerce in African lives. Over the next decade other European countries and the United States followed the British action with similar legislation of their own. However, the passage of legislation did not automatically terminate the activity of slave traders. On the contrary, the sale and transport of African men, women and children continued at least until the 1860s and possibly even later. More so than any other nation, Great Britain acknowledged the problem of this illegal traffic and sought to interdict it. British naval squadrons in Africa and the West Indies became slave trade policemen, stopping and searching suspected slave ships and seizing those vessels found guilty of illegal activity. This naval campaign – known as slave trade suppression – created one of the most unique social problems of British, African and African diaspora history: what to do with the African people found on confiscated ships? When government authorities confiscated a cargo of weapons, rum or other material goods these products could be used or sold for profit. Obviously, human cargo could not be so disposed. Ideally, the would-be slaves might have returned to their respective home communities. However, in the eyes of British authorities both logistical problems and African local politics precluded any such repatriation. The British government thus became responsible for thousands of African refugees. Those captured in or near the slave ports of Havana and Rio de Janeiro became wards or apprentices to selected planters, merchants and tradesmen in these territories. Those Africans seized in the Caribbean Sea also became indentured servants and publicly supervised settlers in various British islands. Those seized along the African coast became similarly subsidized settlers in the colony of Sierra Leone or in some cases on the island of Saint Helena. 1 Beginning in 1841, some of the rescued Africans also travelled to Caribbean territories as voluntary labourers. Thus, between 1810 and 1869 the English-speaking West Indies received a sizeable new African migration, albeit much smaller than the slave migration of previous centuries.
