25 March 2007 marked 200 years to the day that a Parliamentary Bill was passed to abolish the slave trade in the then British Empire.
1807 was the beginning of the long road to the eventual abolition of slavery itself within the empire via the Act of 1833. Even then, slaves did not gain their final freedom until 1838.
Events listings can be found via the Abolition 200 website link on the right.
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Barbados Slave Registers
The 1807 Act made the trade in slaves from Africa to the British colonies illegal. To combat illicit transportation following this act many of the British Colonies began keeping registers of black slaves who had been so-called “lawfully enslaved”. In 1819 the Office for the Registry of Colonial Slaves was established in London and copies of the slave registers kept by the colonies were sent to this office. Registration generally occurred once every three years. The registers continue through to 1834 when slavery was officially abolished.
These are now being published on Ancestry.co.uk. This is available free to use in all Lewisham libraries. The database currently contains the slave registers from Barbados for 1834.