One of the most dramatic ways in which the 19th century affected slavery was the abolishing of the slave trade from outside the United States in 1808 by an act of Congress. Despite this, slavery itself remained an institution until the end of the American Civil War in 1865. The last slave ship to arrive on American soil was the Clotilde, illegally smuggling African slaves into Mobile, Alabama in 1859. While the trading of slaves was abolished, the antebellum South still had more than its fair share of slaves to work the cotton fields and raise the South’s otherwise labor-intensive crops, such as rice, sugar and tobacco. It would take much longer to abolish slavery itself due to the deep-seated dependence the Southern economy had on slave labor for affordable cotton prices, and a confluence of social factors contributed to a certain white apathy towards the plight of the slave. This was particularly true among poor whites, who were able to take comfort in feeling biologically superior to black slaves.
Given America’s withdrawal from the formal slave trade in the 19th century, other countries remained involved in the practice of slave trading throughout the century. Admittedly, the British occupation of African countries in 1810 was affected by the 1807 prohibition of the slave trade by the British government; however, the French slave trade was relatively unaffected by events like the return of Bourbon to France in 1815, as well as England’s continued occupation of Mauritius. France eventually officially abolished the slave trade in 1817, but remained tolerant of some remaining slave traders, such as in Bourbon.
The effects of the slave trade on Africa was tremendous, and its effects were rightly felt by the time the 19th century ended. One of the most intriguing elements of the 19th-century slave trade in Africa was its continued prevalence in the eastern part of the African continent, including Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands. While the French Revolutionaries took action against the slave trade in other parts of Africa, this led to renewed interest from other “advocates of colonial organization” in taking from the eastern part of the continent. Although the slave trade was considered somewhat gauche by this time, countries like Mauritius worked to find arrangements for clandestine slave traffic under English rule.
These countries were harmed the most by these countries’ inability to fully enforce their abolition laws – even after those laws were enforced, de facto slave trade remained as derivations of the practice. Madagascar and the Comoros, for instance, continued official trade, while India trafficked in “free employees” who were effectively slaves spurred on by extreme poverty. By all indicators, the leaders of these countries and their neighbors conducted many different tactics and maneuvers to address how these slaves were ‘employed’ in a way that didn’t technically violate these provisions, while still effectively being slaves.
In essence, the nineteenth century saw major changes to slave policy, but a slower progression towards practice and enforcement of those policies. Countries like the aforementioned Bourbon and Mauritius, had greedy, hypocritical governors who would unofficially support the slave trade in those countries in order to aid their own economies. The most dramatic efforts to actively stop the slave trade in Africa were performed by the West Africa Squadron of the Royal Navy, a 25-vessel-strong armada that sailed the African coast and seized more than 1,500 ships performing slave trading. The result of these efforts were to free approximately 150,000 enslaved Africans on board those vessels.
Even in its death throes, the slave trade of the 19th century remained an inextricable part of the world economy. America’s withdrawal from the slave trade in 1808 did not prevent other countries from participating in transatlantic slave trading, nor did it stop America from relying on its own supply of domestic slaves that were the fruits of its previous purchase of slaves from Africa. As a result, Africa’s population was decimated by the 19th century, and its culture was irrevocably shaped by these developments. To that end, even the modest improvements in the fight against slavery in the 19th century do not diminish the injustices that were committed against slaves from developing areas of the world like Africa during that time period.
Works Cited
Gerbeau, Hubert. “The Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean.” In The African Slave Trade from the
Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century (UNESCO, 1979), pp. 184-207.
Pearson, Jim, and John Robertson. Slavery in the 19th Century (Los Angeles: Unviersity of
California), 1999.
