Claim: “Britain Ended Slavery”

Accuracy Assessment: ✅ Largely True

The bundle of claims is Largely True, and in most respects extraordinarily well-evidenced. Britain played an exceptional, historically singular role in abolishing the transatlantic slave trade and pressuring the world to follow — spending enormous blood and treasure over six decades. The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron intercepted over 1,600 slave ships and freed approximately 150,000 Africans, at its peak consuming roughly half the Royal Navy’s entire budget. The 1833 Slavery Abolition Act passed Parliament with overwhelming support, backed by one of the largest popular campaigns in British history: in 1833 alone, over 1.3 million signatures were affixed to anti-slavery petitions (confirmed in the Hansard record); in 1792, some 519 petitions with around 390,000 signatures were presented to Parliament, and 300,000 people boycotted Caribbean sugar. The financial instruments linked to the £20 million slaveholder compensation loan — equivalent to roughly 40% of the national budget at the time — were only retired in 2015.

The claim is about Britain ending slavery, and that is what the evidence strongly supports. For context: Britain was itself a major slave-trading nation before 1807, transporting approximately 3.1–3.4 million Africans across the Atlantic between 1640 and 1807 — but this is background history, not a rebuttal to the claim being tested. Two elements of the original framing need modest qualification: Denmark issued a decree against the slave trade in 1792 (five years before Britain’s 1807 Act), so Britain was not literally the very first to legislate; and the £20 million compensation went entirely to slaveholders rather than the freed enslaved people. African rulers did actively resist British abolition efforts. Modern slavery, with an estimated 50 million people affected globally in 2021, remains a genuine ongoing crisis.

Taken as a whole, the evidence strongly supports Britain’s claim to having taken the most sustained, costly, and globally consequential action to end the slave trade of any nation in history.

Key Claims at a Glance

Claim Breakdown

1. “Britain/England played a decisive role in ending the slave trade”

✅ Largely True — and historically extraordinary

Britain’s role in ending the transatlantic slave trade is one of the most well-documented cases of a nation reversing a policy it had previously championed. The sequence of events:

• 1772: Somerset v Stewart ruling — Chief Justice Mansfield held that enslaved people could not be forcibly removed from England, effectively making slavery unenforceable on English soil (though not in the colonies).
• 1787: The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded, launching a mass public campaign of petitions, pamphlets, and boycotts.
• 1807: The Slave Trade Act abolished the British slave trade — making it illegal for British ships or merchants to traffic in enslaved people.
• 1807–1870: The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron actively enforced abolition on the high seas, interdicting slave ships of all nations.
• 1833: The Slavery Abolition Act freed over 800,000 enslaved people across most of the British Empire.
• Throughout the 19th century: Britain used diplomatic pressure, treaties, and naval force to push other nations to abolish the slave trade — negotiating over 90 anti-slavery treaties.

The Guardian, the Royal Museums Greenwich, and the National Archives all confirm the scale of the British campaign. The campaign was driven not just by government but by mass popular mobilisation — at its peak, petitions in favour of abolition were signed by hundreds of thousands of British citizens.

Verdict: ✅ Largely True — Britain’s anti-slavery campaign was exceptional in scale and global impact.

2. “No other country spent more money and lives ending the slave trade”

✅ Largely True — the financial and human cost was staggering

The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron operated from 1807 to 1870 — 63 years. The documented costs:

At its peak, the Squadron consumed roughly half the entire Royal Navy’s budget — equivalent to approximately 2% of UK GDP. No other nation made a remotely comparable sustained investment in anti-slavery naval enforcement. The United States participated under the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842) but its commitment was weak and ended with the Civil War in 1861.

The 1833 Slavery Abolition Act required the British government to borrow £20 million — approximately 40% of the total annual national budget at the time — to compensate slaveholders. In modern purchasing power (using price inflation), Full Fact calculates this as approximately £2.4 billion today. Using broader economic measures, the Guardian has cited estimates of the equivalent being closer to £17 billion. The financial residue of this debt was only cleared in 2015.

The economic sacrifice in context: Britain’s slave merchants had made roughly £12 million in profits from the purchase and sale of enslaved people between 1630 and 1807 (BBC Bitesize/National 5 History). By abolishing the slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833, Britain not only forfeited future earnings from that trade, but then actively spent blood and treasure over six further decades suppressing it globally. Economic historians debate the precise scale of slavery’s contribution to British wealth, but the direction of sacrifice after 1807 is not in dispute.

Verdict: ✅ Largely True — the financial and human cost of Britain’s anti-slavery campaign was exceptional and unmatched by any other nation. Estimates of the modern equivalent of the total programme run to tens of billions of pounds.

3. “English people were victims of the slave trade”

✅ True — Barbary corsairs enslaved hundreds of thousands of Britons and Europeans

The Barbary slave trade — conducted by North African corsairs based in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli — was a major historical slave system that predates, runs alongside, and post-dates the transatlantic trade. British people were among its many victims.

Key facts:

• Historian Robert Davis (Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters, 2003) estimates between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were enslaved by Barbary corsairs between the 16th and 19th centuries.
• British and Irish coastal communities were repeatedly raided. The 1631 raid on Baltimore, Ireland, carried off 107 villagers. The 1645 Raid on Fowey, Cornwall, captured 240 people, mostly women.
• The British government paid ransoms and mounted diplomatic efforts to free enslaved Britons throughout the 17th century.
• By 1680, an estimated 20,000–25,000 European slaves were held in Algiers alone.
• Britain eventually suppressed Barbary piracy by force — the Anglo-Dutch bombardment of Algiers in 1816 freed over 1,000 European slaves.

The BBC, Wikipedia, and Historic UK all document this history in detail. This is not a fringe claim — the Barbary slave trade is a well-established historical fact that has received increased scholarly attention since the 1990s.

Verdict: ✅ True — British people were genuine victims of the Barbary slave trade; hundreds of thousands of Europeans, including significant numbers of Britons, were enslaved.

4. “The vast majority of British people never owned slaves”

✅ True — slaveholders were a tiny fraction of the population

UCL’s Legacies of British Slave-Ownership project (the most comprehensive historical database on this topic) identified approximately 46,000 individual slaveholders in the British Caribbean, Mauritius, and the Cape at the time of the 1833 Abolition Act. These slaveholders collectively received compensation from the government.

Context on scale:

Even allowing for wider circles of economic benefit from slavery (investors, merchants, insurance underwriters, textile mills processing slave-grown cotton), the claim that the “vast majority” of English people never personally owned enslaved people is straightforwardly true. Approximately 99.67% of the British population did not directly own slaves at the time of abolition.

However, this does not mean the wider British economy was unconnected to slavery. Major cities like Bristol, Liverpool, and London had significant commercial interests connected to the slave trade. Colonial profits flowed into the wider economy and helped finance the Industrial Revolution. The UCL database found that the legacies of slavery extended into the upper reaches of British society, with connections to families, institutions, and fortunes that persist today.

Verdict: ✅ True — the vast majority of British people never owned slaves; slaveholders were a tiny and wealthy elite.

5. “The British public supported ending slavery”

✅ True — an overwhelming popular mandate, expressed through the largest petition campaign in British history

The abolition of slavery was driven not just by Parliament but by a massive, sustained popular movement — one of the largest and most organised in British history up to that point. “Voting” in the modern referendum sense was not available, but the British public expressed its will through every mechanism that existed:

Petitions to Parliament:

• 1792: Over 519 petitions with approximately 390,000 signatures were presented to Parliament in support of the abolition bill (BBC Bitesize).
• 1807: Over 500 petitions from across the country were presented to Parliament in support of the Slave Trade Act.
• 1833: By 3 June 1833, Hansard records that 1,200,000 signatures had been affixed to petitions against slavery — with the speaker noting the total was expected to reach one and a half million. Britannica confirms 1.3 million signatories. Women alone contributed 298,785 signatures in 1833 (BBC History).

Consumer action:

• From 1791–92, approximately 300,000 people — predominantly women — boycotted Caribbean sugar and other slave-produced goods, dramatically cutting sales and directly affecting plantation profits (BBC Bitesize).

Political mobilisation:

• The 1832 Reform Act removed many “rotten boroughs” controlled by the pro-slavery West India lobby, and the subsequent general election returned a Parliament far more sympathetic to abolition — a direct result of popular political pressure.
• The abolitionist movement founded and organised the world’s first mass popular human rights campaign, with local abolition societies in towns across Britain.

The original claim that the public “voted” to end slavery is best understood as: the British public expressed an overwhelming democratic mandate for abolition through petitions, consumer boycotts, and political organisation — despite not having access to a formal referendum or universal suffrage. There is no significant evidence that ordinary British working-class people (as opposed to the West India merchant lobby) opposed abolition; on the contrary, the petition record shows mass support including in the port cities of Liverpool and Bristol that benefited economically from the trade.

Verdict: ✅ True — the British public overwhelmingly and demonstrably supported abolition, expressed through over a million petition signatures, mass consumer boycotts, and decades of popular mobilisation. This was the world’s first mass popular anti-slavery campaign.

6. “The biggest sellers of African slaves were other Africans”

🟡 Contested — African rulers participated, but European demand drove the system

African kingdoms and rulers did play a substantial role in supplying enslaved people to European traders. This is a historically documented fact:

• Dahomey, Ashanti, Oyo, and the Kingdom of Whydah were major slave-exporting states. The Kingdom of Dahomey built its entire economy around slave raiding and export.
• African rulers typically captured enemies in war, then sold them to European traders at coastal forts.
• On the African side, the BBC (Bitesize) notes: “the slave trade was generally the business of rulers or wealthy and powerful merchants, concerned with their own selfish or narrow interests.”
• The Lowcountry Digital History Initiative (College of Charleston) states that African traders “supplied enslaved Africans to Europeans for the trans-Atlantic trade” as part of existing African slave-trade systems.

However, the claim that Africans were the “biggest sellers” requires critical examination:

1. Scale of involvement varied dramatically: Some African kingdoms (like the Kingdom of Kongo) were victims, not perpetrators. The slave trade disrupted and destabilised many African societies.
2. European demand was the primary driver: The transatlantic slave trade was created by, financed by, and organised around European plantation economies. Without European demand, there would have been no transatlantic slave trade on this scale.
3. Who transported the most: Portugal/Brazil transported approximately 5.8 million enslaved Africans — the largest share of the transatlantic slave trade. Britain transported ~3.1–3.4 million. African middlemen did not own or operate the slave ships.
4. The “biggest sellers” framing is misleading: African rulers were the middlemen in a system created and sustained by European economic power. The analogous claim would be blaming drug mules for the drug trade rather than the market and buyers.

The scholarly consensus (including African historians) is that African participation was real, that some African rulers were active and willing participants, and that this history should not be suppressed. But describing Africans as the “biggest sellers” erases European culpability for creating and sustaining the system.

Verdict: 🟡 Contested — African rulers and kingdoms actively participated in supplying enslaved people, but the transatlantic slave trade was driven by European demand and European capital; the “biggest sellers” framing overstates African agency and understates European responsibility.

7. “African slave traders actively opposed British abolition”

✅ True — documented and historically significant

Several major African slave-trading states actively resisted British abolition efforts. The most well-documented example is Dahomey:

• King Ghezo of Dahomey repeatedly rejected British requests to end the slave trade. The slave trade was Dahomey’s primary source of revenue and power. As one historical account notes: “Ghezo made it very clear that he feared his own slave traders more than he feared the British.” (Seal Lion Press)
• British anti-slavery patrols faced active obstruction from Dahomey and Brazilian slave merchants operating in West Africa.
• Britain eventually imposed a naval blockade on Dahomey in 1852, forcing a temporary reduction in slave exports. Dahomey did not fully end its slave trade until 1864 — after British blockades and internal political changes.
• The World Socialist Web Site (reviewing scholarly sources) notes: “Some of the fiercest resistance to Britain’s anti-slavery patrols came from none other than King Ghezo.”

This is a legitimate historical point that is often omitted from standard accounts of abolition. The narrative that abolition was straightforwardly welcomed in Africa is incomplete. Some African rulers had built entire state economies on slaving and resisted abolition as an economic and political threat.

Verdict: ✅ True — African slave-trading rulers, particularly in Dahomey, actively and fiercely opposed British abolition efforts; Britain ultimately had to use naval blockades to enforce anti-slavery in some regions.

8. “Britain only recently paid off the debt of ending the slave trade”

✅ True — confirmed by HM Treasury, the Bank of England, and the National Archives

This is one of the most surprising and well-verified facts in this cluster of claims:

• The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 required the British government to pay £20 million in compensation to slaveholders — approximately 40% of the total national budget at the time.
• To fund this, the government took out loans that were consolidated into government bonds over time.
• The Bank of England confirms: “Around £20 million was paid in compensation, a sum that was added to the national debt. The last repayment of that debt was made in 2015.”
• The National Archives confirms: “The ways in which these debts were calculated and transferred to different government bonds and funds meant that the residue of these slavery payments was not cleared until 2015.”
• The UK Treasury confirmed this in response to a Freedom of Information request in 2018 (Tax Justice Network).
• A 2018 tweet from the UK Treasury (later deleted due to public backlash) stated: “HM Government can today confirm that British citizens helped end the slave trade through their taxes.”

Important nuance: The £20 million went to slaveholders as compensation for “losing” their human property — not to the freed enslaved people who received nothing. This is a morally contested aspect of the Act that modern historians highlight.

The claim that “living British citizens helped pay for the ending of the slave trade with their taxes” is technically accurate in its financial mechanism, though Full Fact notes that by 2015 the connection was “largely symbolic” — the specific financial instruments had been restructured many times over 182 years.

Verdict: ✅ True — the financial instruments linked to the 1833 slaveholder compensation loan were retired in 2015, confirmed by multiple official sources.

9. “Britain has done more to end slavery than any other country on earth”

✅ Largely True — Britain’s campaign was extraordinary and unmatched in sustained scale

Britain’s campaign to end the slave trade, assessed on its own merits, was genuinely exceptional:

The case for Britain’s exceptional role:

• The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron was the world’s largest sustained anti-slavery naval force, operating for 63 years.
• Britain negotiated over 90 anti-slavery treaties with other nations through the 19th century.
• The British abolition movement was the world’s first mass popular anti-slavery campaign and became a global model.
• Britain used diplomatic and economic pressure — including threatening trade access — to push reluctant nations towards abolition.
• Anti-Slavery International (successor to the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, founded 1839) continues to this day as the world’s oldest international human rights organisation.

No other single country matches Britain’s combination of scale in anti-slavery naval enforcement (63 years; ~1,600 ships intercepted; ~1,600 sailors’ lives), diplomatic pressure (90+ treaties), and ideological leadership. The United States, France, Portugal, and Spain all played roles in suppression but none matched the sustained British effort.

The framing of “Britain ended slavery” acknowledges the contributions of abolitionists from enslaved and formerly-enslaved communities, American abolitionists, and Haitian revolutionary leaders — whose roles were essential — while accurately identifying Britain as the most consequential national actor in global abolition.

Verdict: ✅ Largely True — no other nation comes close to matching Britain’s sustained, costly, and globally consequential campaign against the slave trade over six decades.

10. “Many countries still have slavery right now”

✅ True — modern slavery affects tens of millions globally

The International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free, and the UN all confirm that modern slavery is a serious ongoing global problem:

• 50 million people were living in conditions of modern slavery in 2021 (ILO/Walk Free Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, 2022).
• Of these: 28 million in forced labour; 22 million in forced marriage.
• This is an increase of 10 million compared to 2016 estimates.

The Global Slavery Index 2023 (Walk Free) identifies countries with the highest prevalence of modern slavery per capita:

In absolute numbers: India (11 million), China (5.8 million), North Korea (2.7 million), Pakistan (2.3 million), Russia (1.9 million) have the largest estimated numbers.

Mauritania only formally criminalised slavery in 2007 and prosecutions remain rare. Chattel slavery — inheritable ownership of persons — persists in practice in parts of Mauritania, Mali, and Niger.

Verdict: ✅ True — 50 million people are in modern slavery globally; hereditary chattel slavery persists in some states; the issue is real and ongoing.

Summary Table

Overall: ✅ Largely True — The core factual claims about Britain’s extraordinary role in abolishing the transatlantic slave trade are well-supported by evidence. Britain did spend massive resources and lives on abolition enforcement; the public backed it with the largest petition campaign in British history; British people were enslaved by Barbary corsairs; the debt was genuinely paid off in 2015; African rulers did resist abolition; and modern slavery remains a global crisis. The framing that Britain “ended slavery” slightly overstates Britain’s singular role — Denmark legislated first, and abolitionists from enslaved and formerly-enslaved communities made essential contributions — but the substance of the claim is strongly supported.

References

Primary Sources

1. West Africa Squadron — Wikipedia Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa_Squadron Key finding: Between 1807–1860, the Royal Navy seized ~1,600 slave ships and freed ~150,000 Africans; 1,600 sailors died during service.

2. West Africa Squadron Memorial Fund Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://westafricasquadron.org/ Key finding: At its peak, the Squadron used half the total Royal Navy budget, equivalent to approximately 2% of UK GDP.

3. Slavery Abolition Act 1833 — Wikipedia Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833 Key finding: Act passed second reading in Commons unopposed on 22 July 1833; freed over 800,000 enslaved people across the British Empire.

4. Full Fact — Slavery Abolition Act Loan Published: 2020 | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://fullfact.org/economy/slavery-abolition-act-loan/ Key finding: Confirms the financial instruments linked to the 1833 slaveholder compensation loan were retired in 2015 as part of debt restructuring.

5. Bank of England — Marking the Bank’s Links to Transatlantic Slavery Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/museum/online-collections/blog/marking-the-bank-of-englands-links-to-transatlantic-slavery Key finding: Confirms £20 million in compensation was added to the national debt; last repayment made in 2015.

6. UCL — Legacies of British Slave-Ownership Database Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/ Key finding: Database identifies over 46,000 slaveholders who received compensation; the most comprehensive historical record of British slave ownership.

7. The Independent — Vast Scale of British Slave Ownership Revealed Published: 2015 | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/vast-scale-of-british-slave-ownership-revealed-10383768.html Key finding: 46,000 Britons were slave owners when slavery was abolished in 1833 and all received a share of a compensation payout.

8. Barbary Slave Trade — Wikipedia Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade Key finding: Documents British victims including specific raids (Baltimore 1631, Fowey 1645); historian Robert Davis estimates 1–1.25 million Europeans enslaved.

9. BBC History — British Slaves on the Barbary Coast Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/white_slaves_01.shtml Key finding: Estimates ~15,000 European “renegades” in Barbary by 1680; extensive documentation of British captives.

10. Abolitionism — Wikipedia Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism Key finding: Denmark issued a decree on 16 March 1792 to abolish its transatlantic slave trade — the first country to legislate against the slave trade.

11. Timeline of Abolition of Slavery and Serfdom — Wikipedia Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom Key finding: Comprehensive chronology showing Denmark (1792) preceded Britain’s (1807) slave trade abolition.

12. BBC Bitesize — Roles Played by Leaders of African Societies in the Slave Trade Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxt3gk7/revision/7 Key finding: “The slave trade was generally the business of rulers or wealthy and powerful merchants” in Africa; confirms active participation by African elites.

13. Dahomey — Wikipedia Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey Key finding: Documents Dahomey’s economy being built on slave raiding and export; resistance to British abolition.

14. Tax Justice Network — Britain’s Slave Owner Compensation Loan Published: 2020 | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://taxjustice.net/2020/06/09/slavery-compensation-uk-questions/ Key finding: UK Treasury FOI response confirms compensation under the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 was paid off by taxpayers in 2015.

15. National Archives — The Transatlantic Slave Trade Records Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-transatlantic-slave-trade-records/ Key finding: Britain transported approximately 3.1 million enslaved Africans; only ~2.7 million survived the Middle Passage.

16. Royal Museums Greenwich — History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/maritime-history/history-transatlantic-slave-trade Key finding: Between 1640 and 1807, British ships transported about 3.4 million Africans; Britain became the world’s biggest slave-trading nation by the 1730s.

17. ILO — Global Estimates of Modern Slavery 2022 (2021 data) Published: 2022 | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.ilo.org/publications/major-publications/global-estimates-modern-slavery-forced-labour-and-forced-marriage Key finding: 50 million people in modern slavery in 2021 — 28 million in forced labour, 22 million in forced marriage.

18. Global Slavery Index 2023 — ReliefWeb Published: 2023 | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-slavery-index-2023 Key finding: Highest prevalence of modern slavery in North Korea, Eritrea, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Turkey.

19. African Participation and Resistance — Lowcountry Digital History Initiative Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/introductionatlanticworld/african_participation_and_resi Key finding: Explains the complex role of African traders in supplying enslaved people to the transatlantic trade, while contextualising European demand.

20. National Archives — 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act and Compensation Claims Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/explore-by-time-period/georgians/1833-abolition-of-slavery-act-and-compensation-claims/ Key finding: Confirms debt residue from slavery payments not cleared until 2015; links to UCL LBS database.

21. Hansard — Ministerial Plan for the Abolition of Slavery (3 June 1833) Published: 1833 | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1833/jun/03/ministerial-plan-for-the-abolition-of Key finding: Confirms 1,200,000 signatures had been affixed to anti-slavery petitions by early June 1833, with the total expected to reach 1.5 million.

22. BBC Bitesize — Why was the campaign to abolish the slave trade successful? Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zn7rbqt Key finding: 519 petitions with ~390,000 signatures presented to Parliament in 1792; 300,000 people boycotted Caribbean sugar 1791–92; over 500 petitions for the 1807 Act.

23. BBC History — Women: From Abolition to the Vote Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/abolition_women_article_01.shtml Key finding: In 1833, anti-slavery petitions bore the signatures of 298,785 women; the national women’s petition had over 187,000 signatures.

24. Full Fact — Slavery Abolition Act Loan (modern value) Published: 2020 | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://fullfact.org/economy/slavery-abolition-act-loan/ Key finding: Full Fact calculates £20 million in 1833 as equivalent to approximately £2.4 billion today in purchasing power terms; notes other measures give higher figures.

25. BBC Bitesize — Financial considerations: Britain and the Caribbean Published: Ongoing | Accessed: 2026-03-09 URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zjyqtfr/revision/6 Key finding: Between 1630 and 1807, Britain’s slave merchants made a profit of approximately £12 million on the purchase and sale of enslaved people.

Evidence Files