Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues

by Jonathan Kennedy

It isn’t a coincidence that Britain banned the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, three years after Haiti declared independence. At the time, this move wasn’t seen as a first step toward the abolition of slavery; rather it was an attempt to preserve the institution.[81] The British hoped that banning the trade in human beings would cut off the cheap supply of African labor and force plantation owners to take better care of “their property,” therefore reducing the risk of rebellions spreading from Haiti to other colonies in the region. This strategy failed. There were uprisings in Barbados in 1816, Demerara (today’s Guyana) in 1823, and then Jamaica in 1831–32. Even though the Caribbean slave plantations remained hugely profitable, and an increasingly important part of the British Empire’s economy, the government in London decided to abolish slavery altogether in 1833.