Istwa Nou

The Dutch dominated the northern half of the Atlantic slave trade until the end of the seventeenth century, and after that Britain did. British ships delivered captives to a wider spread of American territories than the vessels of any other nation, which is why British slaving turns up in the records of colonies Britain did not own. The business was run out of three cities. London, Bristol and Liverpool between them owned or fitted almost every voyage, with Liverpool eventually taking the largest share. The peak fell between 1799 and 1802, and that date is worth holding on to. The traffic was moving more people in those years than at any earlier point, and five years later Parliament passed the abolition act of 1807 and the British trade stopped. Abolition did not arrive as the natural end of a fading business. It was imposed on an industry at the top of its form by the same state that had spent a century and a half protecting it.