*On this date, in 1807, the Slave Trade Act was passed. Officially, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was a bill of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire.
It did not abolish the practice of slavery; it encouraged British action to press other nation-states to abolish their slave trades. Many of the supporters thought the Act would lead to the end of slavery.
Slavery on English soil was unsupported in English law, which was confirmed in Somerset's case in 1772. Still, it remained legal in most of the British Empire until the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833.
