UNESCO International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.

Hi All,

I thought I would just remind you that August 23^rd [Today]is UNESCO International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. Also for those of you who missed it, August 17^th is the birth date of the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. I believe that August is a very important month to the human family in general and people of African decent in particular. It's my belief that there should be a public holiday to mark these two significant periods in human history. What's your thoughts?

Below I have included a small time-line of the Transatlantic enslavement period of African peoples. If you want more details and a copy of the time line I may make it available in an e-book format soon. Just let me know.

A great book available now that I would encouraged you to get, is John Agard's Equiano's Epigrams. Mr Agard gives an insight of what this period was like, he presents how this African [Olaudah Equiano] was made into a slave shipped from West Africa to the Caribbean then to England, and he once again became a free human being. Agards' book shows how Equiano wrote his autobiography and self published his book. How it went on to become a best-seller and was sold throughout the British Empire, USA and Europe. Please see Equiano's Epigrams in our catalogue section.

 

A Basic Time Line of The Transatlantic Enslavement Trade of Africans

- 1562 First English slaving expedition by Sir John Hawkins

- 1672 Royal Africa Company granted charter to carry Africans to the Americas

- 1772 The Somerset case held that no enslaved could be forcibly removed from - Britain. The case led to the widespread belief that slavery itself

was illegal in England, Wales and Ireland

- 1781 - 132 African enslaved people thrown overboard from the slave ship ‘Zong’

- 1787 Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded

- 1791 23rd August – St Domingue (Haiti) enslaved African people revolt

- 1807 25th March – Slave Trade Abolition Bill passed in the British Parliament

- 1819 British West Africa Squadron (Royal Navy) established to suppress slave trading. By 1865, nearly 150,000 people freed by anti-slavery operations

- 1838 1st August – All enslaved men, women and children in the Caribbean finally become free after a period of forced apprenticeship, following the passage

of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833

- 1865 Slavery finally abolished in the United States territories

- 1888 Slavery abolished in Brazil