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[citation needed] In the Somerset case of 1772, Lord Mansfield ruled that, as slavery was not recognised by English law, James Somerset, a slave who had been brought to England and then escaped, could not be forcibly sent to Jamaica for sale, and he was set free. In Scotland, colliery (coal mine) slaves were still in use until 1799, when an act ...
Somerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499 (also known as Sommersett v Steuart, Somersett's case, and the Mansfield Judgment) is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on English soil not to be forcibly removed from the country and sent to Jamaica for sale.
1787 Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion designed by Josiah Wedgwood for the British anti-slavery campaign. Abolitionism in the United Kingdom was the movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to end the practice of slavery, whether formal or informal, in the United Kingdom, the British Empire and the world, including ending the Atlantic slave trade.
In May 1772, Lord Mansfield's judgment in the Somerset case emancipated a slave who had been brought to England from Boston in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and thus helped launch the movement to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire.
Despite this, it was popularly taken to confirm that slavery was outlawed in England and Wales. [3] Somerset himself appears to have adopted this broader interpretation, and wrote to at least one enslaved person encouraging them to desert their master. [4] Nothing is known of Somerset after 1772. [2]
22 June – Somersett's Case: Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice delivers the decision that slavery is not supported by the common law of England. [4] 13 July – navigator James Cook sets out from Plymouth on HMS Resolution for a second Pacific voyage. [4] [5]
Slave trade banned by Mamia I of Imereti. 1712 Spain: Moros cortados expelled. [55] 1715: North Carolina South Carolina: Native American slave trade in the American Southeast reduces with the outbreak of the Yamasee War. 1723 Russia: Peter the Great converts all house slaves into house serfs, effectively making slavery illegal in Russia. 1723 ...
Within the British Empire, the Massachusetts courts began to follow England when, in 1772, England became the first country in the world to outlaw the slave trade within its borders (see Somerset v Stewart) followed by the Knight v. Wedderburn decision in Scotland in 1778.