1555John Lok of London Brought Five Kidnapped Africans from Guinea to Britain

16th century

1555John Lok of London brought five kidnapped Africans from Guinea to Britain.

1562John Hawkins sailed to Sierra Leone in three ships, captured a Portuguese ship, and sold approximately 300 enslaved Africans at Santo Domingo in the Caribbean.

1564Hawkins second slaving voyage made a 60% profit by enslaving and selling 400 Africans, and threatening the Spanish colonial town of Rio de la Hacha with destruction if he was taxed.

1567Hawkins third voyage was intercepted by Spanish vessels and only two ships returned. He wrote a book,An Alliance to Raid for Slaves, which describes how African leaders helped him enslave others, how the trade was brutal and cruel, and highly profitable.

17th century

1607Jamestown founded as the first English permanent settlement in North America, modernVirginia.

1610-1660110-135,000 white indentured labourers were sent to the Caribbean to act as forced labour in the plantations; many were from the South West of England.

1618Guinea Company founded with the permission of the British Government to seek gold in Africa, but soon became interested in profiting from slaving and slave-grown goods.

1619First transfer of enslaved people to British North America to grow tobacco in Virginia.

1620Mayflower Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers sailed for, and settled in,America.

1625British captured Barbados.

1626First shipment of enslaved people to British-controlled St Kitts, three years after the founding of the settlement.

1631Charles I granted the Guinea Company a monopoly to trade in Africa.

1640sFirst successful large-scale sugar crop in Barbados is harvested by a team of black and white labourers.

1649Large revolt in Barbados.

1652First coffee house established in London.

1655Jamaica successfully captured under the orders of Oliver Cromwell. Escaped slaves form Maroon settlement of ‘free’ blacks in the remote areas and mountains.

1670-1690sRepeated ‘slave’ uprising and resistance against mistreatment across the Caribbean and American colonies.

1672Creation of the Royal African Company with a legal monopoly on British slave trading.

1698Legalisation on the African Trade ends the monopoly enjoyed by the Royal African Company- in part as a result of Bristol merchants illegal trading and their lobbying to be allowed to profit from the trade.

18th century

1713Britain gains the contract to supply slaves to Spanish colonies in the Americas.

1720Death and burial in Henbury Churchyard of Scipio Africanus, black servant to the Earl of Brandon.

1730Britain became the largest trader in enslaved peoples.

1730-1739First Maroon War in Jamaica sees people of African-Caribbean origin unbeaten by British forces. A treaty was signed with the Maroon leader Cudjoe, now seen as a national hero in Jamaica.

1744European conflict during the War of the Austrian Succession results in the Bristol Corporation petitioning the king to protect the African slave trade.

1747Liverpool becomes Britain’s main slaving port- sending out more ships per year.

1750Enslaved people aboard the Bristol ship, King David, rose up and revolted at sea.

1750The Company of Merchants Trading to Africa takes over the Royal African Company's role in slave trading. Members included 237 Bristol, 157 London and 89 Liverpool merchants.

Grave of Scipio Africanus (died 1720), servant to the earl of Suffolk in Henbury churchyard.
© Images of England (Mr Cyril N. Chapman LRPS).

1759Records show the son of a West African merchant was sent to Bristol by his slave-trading Bristol partners to learn English, book-keeping, and shipping.

1760Tacky's Rebellion in Jamaica results in the execution of 400 rebels.

1761The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) decides members cannot own slaves.

1763The Seven Years War ends with the Treaty of Paris, which transfers Dominica, Grenada, St Vincent and Tobago to British control.

1765Jamaican colony faces revolts across 17 estates.

1767Jonathan Strong case establishes that people brought to England as slaves cannot be transported abroad unless guilty of a crime.

1772James Somerset case ruling by Lord Justice Mansfield states that people held as slaves cannot be forced to leave for the colonies.

1774Documents show that two relatives of the Ifik slave trader, Ephraim Robin John of Old Calabar (modern Nigeria), arrived as stowaways to Bristol in a daring escape from enslavement and life in Virginia. They were detained until the slave trader Thomas Jones, one of Ephraim’s Bristol trading partners, intervened. They were then given hospitality and religious instruction from Charles and John Wesley, and other local Methodists, before returning to Calabar.

1774John Wesley publishes his anti-slavery tract,Thoughts Upon Slavery,based on Quaker writings.

1775-1777American War of Independence disrupted trade with the Americas - some losses and hardship in Bristol.

1778House of Commons Committee begins to investigate the Slave Trade.

1778Black Ned, a child of 12, died and is recorded as being buried in the Quaker Burial Ground in Bristol.

1780During the annual StJames’s Fair in Bristol, locals were able to pay to see ‘A savage Ethiopian’ as one of the attractions.

1782Brother Franks, 'a negro', was recorded as a member of the freemasons in Bristol’s Royal Sussex Lodge. Lodge rules stated that mentioning his colour would result in a fine for the member breaking the rule.

1783An attempted insurance swindle on board the slave ship, the Zong, took place. Living Africans were thrown overboard; it was claimed that there was inadequate food and water and that this was the only way to save the ship. A public outcry followed.

1786Publication of Thomas Clarkson’s An Essay on Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species.

1787Committee for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded in London by 11 Quakers and another.

1788The Privy Council heard evidence on the slave trade.

1789The Dolben Act was passed by Parliament restricting how many enslaved people could be carried on ships, to protect the safety of the ship and its crew.

The French Revolution began- initially widely supported; it led to a fear of foreigners and disruption to trade.

1791Rejection of William Wilberforce’s Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. In Bristol, merchants arranged celebrations on Brandon Hill and the ringing of church bells.

1792The Colony of Sierra Leone was established, under a private company protected by the British Crown, for free Africans. To begin with many of them were former American slaves who had fought on behalf of the British against the American Independence forces.

1794-1796Second Maroon war in Jamaica.

19th century

1807An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire.

1811As part of a travelling circus of curiosities, Saarjite Baartman (a South African Khosian woman - ‘the Hottentot Venus’) could be viewed at Horsefair in Bristol on the payment of one shilling.

1816The end of the Napoleonic Wars led to the demobilisation (or ending of military service) of thousands of men from the army and navy. In Bristol, the Mayor complained about the ‘foreign seamen, blackmen and men of colour’ looking for work.

1818Death of ‘Peros’ (1740-1818) from Nevis; the personal servant of Bristol merchant John Pinney. In 1999, the BristolCity Council named a footbridge in Pero’s honour - to recognise the city’s debt to people of colour during the period of the Slave Trade.

1831Rioting took place across England and Wales when it seemed electoral reform would not take place. In Bristol, pro-slavery Captain Christopher Claxton’s home in Queen Square was ransacked by rioters, and his black servant threw one of the rioters out of a window of the house.

1831In Jamaica a slave rebellion, later called the Baptist Wars, began when rumours were spread that freedom was promised but was being refused locally.

1833Slavery Abolition Act abolished slavery in British colonies, followed by a period of ‘indenture’ (low paid labour).