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The 1807 Law Banned Trade, Not Slavery

Britain's 1807 law banned the slave trade — not slavery itself.

Parliament stopped British ships and subjects from carrying enslaved people for sale across the empire. But it did not free the people already enslaved in British colonies; that freedom came decades later.

Enforcement was its own long fight: the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron kept seizing slave ships for years.

So 1807 marks the end of the trade, not the end of ownership.

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