Slavery in Britain His conversion to Evangelical Christianity in 1784 played a key role in interesting him in this social reform. William Wilberforce's Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished the slave trade in the British Empire. It was not until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 that the institution finally was abolished, but on a gradual basis. Since land owners in the British West Indies were losing their unpaid labourers, they received compensation totaling £20 million. The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron (or Preventative Squadron) at substantial expense in 1808 after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807. The squadron's task was
Slavery in Canada African slaves, native nations also enslaved their rivals, but most were purchased by colonial administrators and sold to native nations until 1833, when the British Parliament abolished slavery across the British Empire. (There is often confusion over the date at which this occurred; Britain had abolished the slave trade in 1807, but did not abolish slavery itself until 1833, in an act of Parliament that came into effect on 1 August 1834.) Prior to this, however, courts had, to varying degrees, rendered slavery unenforceable: for example, in Lower Canada after court decisions in the late 1790s, the "slave could not