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Advocating Abolition Timeline Transatlantic Slave Trade

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A Timeline of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its Abolition
16th Century
1562

1564-65
1567

1607
1618

1619
1623
1625
1626
1649
1655
1655
1656
1657
1660s
1672
1675
1668
1683
1685-86
1690
1692
1698
1699
1702-13
1727

Sir John Hawkins, backed by Gonson and other London merchants, leaves Plymouth with three ships, making him the first English slave trader. He takes 300 Africans and trades them with the Spanish and Portuguese for sugar, hides, spices and pearls
Backed by Queen Elizabeth I, Hawkins makes his second slavery voyage trading 500 Africans for precious metals, pearls and jewels
Hawkins makes his third and final slavery voyage, again with the Queen’s investment, involving six ships, including one captained by his cousin Sir Francis …show more content…

Chief Justice Lord Mansfield rules that enslaved people in
England cannot be forced to return to the West Indies. This ruling does not entitle slaves in England their freedom
John Stedman joins a military expedition to suppress a slave rebellion in Surinam, South
America and is appalled by the inhumanity shown to Africans. In 1796 he publishes ‘The
Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam’, a full account of his experiences that becomes a classic of abolitionist literature
John Wesley, an early leader of the Methodist movement, publishes anti-slavery tract

Thoughts Upon Slavery
1775
1775-83
1778
1781

1783
1786
1787
1788

1788

Royal Commission is set up to take evidence on the slave trade
American War of Independence. France seizes Grenada, Tobago and St Kitts from Britain but retains only Tobago after the Peace of Versailles
The Knight vs Wedderburn legal case in Edinburgh rules that enslavement is incompatible with
Scots law
The Zong case causes outrage and strengthens the abolition campaign: 470 Africans are forced onto the slave ship Zong. The cramped conditions are so appalling that seven crew members and sixty Africans died from sickness; the remaining 133 sick

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