The Slavery of the British West India Colonies Delineated: Volume 1, Being a Delineation of the State in Point of Law: As it Exists Both in Law and Practice, and Compared with the Slavery of Other Countries, Antient and Modern (Cambridge Library Collection - Slavery and Abolition, Volume 1)

by James Stephen

The lawyer and leading abolitionist James Stephen (1758-1832) published Volume 1 of The Slavery of the British West India Colonies Delineated in 1824. The volume is an exposure of the cruel and oppressive legal system of slavery in the British West Indies. The work explores the origin of nineteenth-century colonial slave laws, the legal status of individual slaves, the legal relations between slaves and their masters, and the policing and governance of slave populations. In each chapter Stephen exposes the cruelty and inhumanity behind the West Indian slave laws. Stephen had been the legal mastermind of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which abolished the slave trade in the British Empire but not slavery itself. This important work was influential in directing public opinion against slavery and helped lead towards the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act. It is a key text in the progression of the nineteenth-century abolitionist movement.

• ISBN13: 9780511756528
• Publish Date: 7 October 2011 (first published 30 September 2010)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Imprint: Cambridge University Press (Virtual Publishing)
• Format: eBook
• Language: English