Documents
Archive Item
British Government Document
2006.003.0003
1861
Copy of an order of His Majesty in council, dated the 15th of August 1805: made for prohibiting the importation of slave in to any of the Settlements, Islands, Colonies, or Plantations on the Continent of America or in the West Indies, which have been surrendered to His Majesty during the present war. A very important early order to the eventual end of the African slave trade. Both William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson work tirelessly during the last decade of the eighteenth century to this end. With this order, the British forbade the import of any more slaves to Frances old colonies in the Americas. A year later, the act to abolish the trade entirely was proposed and passed. It went in to effect in 1807.