BỘ NGOẠI GIAO

HỌC VIỆN NGOẠI GIAO

NGÔN NGỮ ANH
______________

TIỂU LUẬN GIỮA KÌ

TỪ VỰNG VỀ CẢM XÚC

Môn học: Ngôn ngữ học đối chiếu

Giảng viên hướng dẫn: Phạm Văn Lam

Nhóm thực hiện: Lớp TA45B:

Hoàng Thị Phương Anh
Nguyễn Phương Thảo (TA45B-057-1822)
Nguyễn Lan Phương
Ngô Thanh Dung
Ngô Việt Phương
Đinh Ngọc Ngân
Nguyễn Thị Xuân Lộc

Hà Nội, tháng 9, 2019

Content:
Introduction.............................................................................................................2
1. Early British slave trade....................................................................................3
2. The development and abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain........................4

1
 2.1. The development of the Slave Trade in Britain...........................................4
a. Royal African Company.............................................................................4
b. Church of England and Slavery.................................................................5
2.2. The abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain................................................5
a. Slave emancipation by Britain....................................................................5
b. The Emancipation Acts...............................................................................6
3. The influence of the Transatlantic slave trade on Britain..............................7
3.1. In terms of economy...................................................................................7
3.2. In terms of social life..................................................................................8
4. Conclusion..........................................................................................................8
References................................................................................................................9

Introduction
Transatlantic slave trade was a severe slave trade occurring in the late 15 th to the mid
19th century in three continents, which are the Africa and the Americas. It transported
between 10 million and 12 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the
2
 Americas. According to Suzanne Schwarz, the author of Slave Captain: The Career of
James Irving in the Liverpool Slave Trade (1995) "This sophisticated trade in human
cargo was global and international, involving all the maritime powers in Europe, from
Spain and Portugal to France, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and even
Brandenburg. Some 37,000 slaving voyages cleared from ports of the Atlantic littoral
between the early sixteenth and the mid-nineteenth century and, collectively, they
transported an estimated eleven million individuals from Africa."

It was the second of three stages of the so-called triangular trade, in which arms,
textiles, and wine were shipped from Europe to Africa, slaves from Africa to the
Americas, and sugar and coffee from the Americas to Europe. Its impact left not only on
the slaves and their descendants but also the economies and histories of large parts of the
world.

British involvement in slavery is over 2,000 years old, but not in what is now the
accepted perspective. The enslavement of the people of this outpost of the Roman Empire
continued for hundreds of years as we know that Pope Gregory spoke with some British
slaves in the slave market in Rome in the seventh century AD. Due to the increasing
demand for labor, it is no surprise when Britain get involved in the transatlantic slave
trade in the 1500s.

With a view to understand more deeply about Britain’s history and development, I
chose this topic to do research on. Within the subject’s scope, I will focus on following
main key points:

1. Early British slave trade

2. The development and abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain
3. The influence of the Transatlantic slave trade on Britain
4. Conclusion
It is inevitable that my report would still contain several mistakes, even though I did
my best. Thus, I hope you will give comments to help me complete my work.

Sincerely thanks.

1. Early British slave trade

For over 300 years, European nations forced Africans onto slave ships and
transported them across the Atlantic Ocean.

3
 The first European nation to engage in the Transatlantic Slave Trade was
Portugal in the mid to late 1400's.

Britain followed footsteps of the Portuguese in voyaging to the west coast of

Africa and enslaving Africans. John Hawkins is considered to be the first English
slave trader. In 1562, with the support and investment of Elizabeth I to begin the
“nefarious trade”, he left England to Africa on the first of his three slaving voyages
in six years. In 1563, he sold slaves in St Domingo, his second voyage was in 1564
and his final - a disastrous one was in 1567. Over 1200 Africans were captured and
sold as goods in the Spanish colonies in the Americas.

British involvement expanded rapidly in response to the demand for labor to

cultivate sugar in Barbados and other British West Indian islands. In the 1660s, the
number of slaves taken from Africa in British ships averaged 6,700 per year. Of
the 80,000 Africans chained and shackled and transported across to the Americas
each year, 42,000 were carried by British slave ships. Britain became the premier
trader in the enslaved from the 17th century onwards, and retained this position till
1807. Britain provided African women, men and children to all European colonies
in the Americas.

2. The development and abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain

2.1. The development of the Slave Trade

Portugal and Britain were the two most “successful” slave-trading countries
accounting for about 70% of all Africans transported to the Americas. Britain
was the most dominant between 1640 and 1807 when the British slave trade
was abolished. It is estimated that Britain transported 3.1 million Africans (of
whom 2.7 million arrived) to the British colonies in the Caribbean, North and
South America and to other countries.

a. Royal African company

As the British American colonies demanded African slaves, the role of the
African companies changed to supply them. From 1660, the British Crown passed
various acts and granted charters to enable companies to settle, administer and
4
exploit British interests on the West Coast of Africa and to supply slaves to the
American colonies.

Royal African company (RAC) is a London-based trading company with a

monopoly on the early trade with Africa. The establishment of the Royal African
Company in 1672 by Charles II formalized the Slave Trade under a royal charter,
which was supplying slaves to the British colonies for the next 1,000 years. The
British built coastal forts in Africa where they kept the captured Africans until the
arrival of the slave-ships. The merchants obtained the slaves from African chiefs
by giving them goods from Europe. At first, these slaves were often the captured
soldiers from tribal wars. However, the demand for slaves become so great that
raiding parties were organized to obtain young Africans.

Throughout the next 20 years, the company sent out over 90,000 slaves to the
Americas. After a great deal of petitions from merchants and manufacturers, the
RAC lost its monopoly to provide slaves to the British Empire in 1698. They
opened up the business to independent companies but had to pay high taxes to the
British government. This gave them rights to the infrastructure of the RAC.

It was estimated in 1796 that "every year about 72,000 slaves are carried from
Africa to the West Indies... the Danes carry away about 3,0000, the Dutch 7,000,
the French 18,000, the Portuguese 8,000, the English have all the rest." Over 85%
of the Africans exported were carried in British ships. Most of these were based in
Liverpool. It was reported in 1790 that the goods used to buy slaves from this area
included guns, gunpowder, textiles, iron bars and brandy. Other popular items
traded included copper, brass and pewter goods.

b. Church of England and Slavery

The Church of England gave its full support to the British slave trade.
According to Augustine, "by preserving the institution of slavery mankind
could be disciplined and his self-aggrandizement corrected; and because no
man was innocent, it was God's will alone who should be master and who
should be a slave".
In 1778, the Reverend Raymond Harris produced a wealth of scriptural
evidence to support his contention that slavery, and particularly slavery of
5
 blacks, was in accordance with the word of God. He used several passages
from the Old Testament that suggested God approved of slavery. He also used
the New Testament to support his view of slavery.
The Church of England also owned a large number of slaves. Its missionary
arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, were active in those areas
where there were slave populations. Some wealthy slave owners, left them to
the church when they died.
In February 1766, William Warburton, the Bishop of Gloucester, made the
first denunciation of the slave trade by a member of the Established Church
when he complained that these bequeaths resulted in the Church becoming
"innocent partakers of the fruits of this iniquitous traffic".

2.2. The abolition of the Slave Trade

The abolition of the British slave trade did not only affect the trade in
British and colonial based vessels, but also the supplying and fitting of vessels
by British workers for the slave trade, the manning of slaving ships by British
sailors, and the insuring of slaving vessels.

a. Slave emancipation by Britain

A few Britons – including the British Africans – were not content with
abolition and campaigned for the emancipation of slaves. This was another
long struggle. Among the most forceful were the women abolitionists, who,
being denied a voice by the men, formed their own organizations and went
door-knocking, asking people to stop using slave-grown products such as sugar
and tobacco. The most outspoken was probably Elizabeth Heyrick who
believed in immediate emancipation, as opposed to the men who supported
gradual freedom.
This Act only freed the enslaved in the West Indies, Cape Town, Mauritius
and Canada. Slavery continued in the rest of the British Empire. Even the
importation of slaves into a British colony continued – into Mauritius, obtained
from the French after the Napoleonic Wars, where importation was not stopped
until about 1820.
Africans have lived in Britain since they arrived as troops within the Roman
armies. How many came here in more modern times, i.e., since the fifteenth
6
 century, has not been researched. They begin to appear in parish records of
births and deaths from the sixteenth century. Again, what proportion was free
and how many were slaves is not yet known. The famous decision by Chief
Justice Lord Mansfield in 1772 in the case of James Somerset, taken to court
by activist Granville Sharp, merely stated that Africans could not be exported
from the UK to the West Indies as slaves. There was no consistency in the
many court judgments on the legality of slavery in Great Britain.

b. The Emancipation Act

The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, along with subsequent Acts
tightening up the provisions for monitoring and suppressing the trade and
international treaties with European and American countries, gave Britain the
role of international policeman.
It was not until 1807, when the evils of the trade were generally accepted,
that the law was able to pass both Houses. The first breakthrough was in 1806,
when James Stephen wrote a bill that was passed, banning involvement in the
Slave Trade with France. Other events also played a part. The Act of Union
allowed 100 Irish MPs into Parliament, most of whom supported abolition. The
chances of abolition became even more favorable when William Grenville,
who was extremely sympathetic to the views of the anti-slavery committee,
became Prime Minister after the death of William Pitt.
The effect of Stephen's 1806 act was to reduce the trade by two-thirds,
paving the way for the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in February 1807.
The act abolished the Slave Trade in the British colonies. It became illegal to
carry slaves in British ships (although many ships tried to evade the ban). The
ultimate aim, however, had always been the abolition of slavery itself.
Following the passing of the Act, British naval squadrons were set up to
patrol the coast of West Africa and the Caribbean looking out for illegal
slavers. The Navy also encouraged exploration of the coastal rivers and
waterways, bombarded slaving settlements, made treaties with friendly African
groups and encouraged other forms of trade such as in palm oil. Britain's
diplomatic role led to treaties with slave owning and slave trading countries
(such as Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal) if not to stop the
slave trade at least to manage it better.
7
3. The influence of the Transatlantic slave trade on Britain

In the Transatlantic Slave Trade, triangle ships never sailed empty and some
people made enormous profits. This slave trade was the richest part of Britain's
trade in the 18th century.

3.1. In terms of economy

Between 1750 and 1780, about 70% of the government's total income came
from taxes on goods from its colonies. The money made on the Transatlantic
Slave Trade triangle was vast and poured into Britain and other European
countries involved in slavery, changing their landscapes forever.
British slave ship owners - some voyages made 20-50% profit.
The slave trade stimulated British manufacturing and industry through the
demand for goods such as plantation utensils and clothing needed for slaves
and estates.
Plantation owners - who used slave labor to grow their crops. Vast profits
could be made by using unpaid workers. Some planters used the money they
had made to become MPs. Others invested their profits in new factories and
inventions, helping to finance the Industrial Revolution.
After 1791, the British Caribbean islands produced the most sugar and the
British people quickly became the largest consumers. West Indian sugar
became commonplace as an additive to tea. The profits of slavery were
ploughed back into the economy and helped to develop industry in Britain and
its colonies.
Banks and finance houses grew rich from the fees and interest they earned
from merchants who borrowed money for their long voyages.

3.2. In terms of social life

Slavery created jobs for British people including shipbuilders and sailors on
the slave ships. Other British went to the Caribbean for work, including doctors
and lawyers.

8
 Britain’s population changed and grew thanks to the availability of jobs.
Cities such as Liverpool saw a hug population increase to work in the city’s
shipyards.
Britain’s military also became stronger thanks to the slavery. The large
number of ships built to transport slaves and goods led to improvements in ship
design. This led to better navy ships being built.

4. Conclusion

Through what I research on, Britain clearly had an important part in the
transatlantic slave trade. Without Britain, the process of transporting slaves may
have faced a lot of difficulties and even worse, the Americas may have done
something more brutal to import captives to their nations.

From its early stage to the development process and the abolition, the slave
trade is believed to help a lot to form the Britain’s history and boost its economy at
that time.

Therefore, although the transatlantic slave trade was extremely inhumane, it

was inevitable in the history of Britain and all parties involved.

 The End 

9
 References:
1. Britain and the slave trade: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/slavery/pdf/britain-
and-the-trade.pdf
2. British involvement in the slave trade: http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_45.html

3. Britain, slavery and the trade: https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-

focus/Slavery/articles/sherwood.html#25
4. The British empire and slavery: https://spartacus-educational.com/USASafrica.htm

5. Economic profits from the slave trade:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zjyqtfr/revision/3
6. The development of an abolition movement:
http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_56.html
7. The 1807 Act and its effect: http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_113.html

10